Frida Escobedo

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1:26When I'm asked why I love Mexico and why we return every year for nearly 30 years, The answer is the culture, cities, food, the seas, the mountains, the history. But what I really love most are the people, and Frida Escobedo is one of those people. We met in 2018. She had just won the international competition to design the Serpentine Gallery's annual summer pavilion. Richard was on the jury. Her building brought the refined spirit of Mexico to Hyde Park. Richard and I gave a fabulous party celebrating this bright and beautiful young architect. Not long after living in Mexico for four months, in a difficult time, Frida made the impossible possible with her care and concern for us both.

2:18In the years since, Frida has become one of the world's great architects. Along with other projects, she's reimagining the contemporary and modern galleries at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, the first woman architect to be appointed. Today, in the River Cafe, we're making deep-fried zucchini flowers. Their stunning colors remind me of our beautiful Mexico, and when she's not with me, these zucchini flowers remind me of Frida. Hi, Frida. It's so nice to be with you again. So nice to have you here. We have lots to talk about, but the first thing, why don't we read the recipe so people listening to you can learn how to make zucchini flowers.

2:59Okay, deep-fried zucchini flowers. So for six people, one recipe quantity of butter, 24 zucchini flowers, 750 milliliters sunflower oil, and sea salt. And the recipes make the batter and let it rest for 30 minutes. And to prepare the flowers, remove the stamens from the center and the green sepals from the base of each flower. Keep the stalks attached. Heat the oil until hot, about 180 centigrees, in a deep pan and dip the flowers, holding them by the stalks into the batter. Tap off any excess batter on the side of the bowl and place them, one at a time, into the hot oil. Turn the flowers over in the oil as they become golden.

3:45Remove the flowers when crisp and drain on the kitchen paper. Scatter with sea salt and eat immediately. Do you like them? I love them. And I had to, would you, if you ever cooked them, would you ever have a recipe like this? And here they are. And here they are. Here's the zucchini flowers. And Archie has just brought them in. Chef at the River Cafe. Would you like to talk about the zucchini flowers that you just made? Yeah. So these are zucchini flowers. They're part of the fritto misto dish today. So they're being served alongside scallops, cuttlefish, zucchini batons and sage and lemon. These are, I think, so special because it's something you can only get the summer.

4:25And to each one zucchini is one flour. So you have to take real care when you're prepping them to keep the shape when you're cooking them as well. Ours are quite delicate. When you make the batter as light as this, I like to always be able to see the zucchini through it. We always have them in Tuscany when we're there in the summer. And one of the things I really like about them is everybody can make them. Once they're picked away from the zucchini itself, they don't last very long. So they're always going to be really, really fresh. And is there a Mexican version? Yes. Actually, it's one of my favorite foods in Mexico.

5:01And we have them in quesadillas. That's right. Or you can have them with eggs or in soups. And what I like is that it's also very fragile. So you only have them for a day. So you have to be eating them right away. And the color is so pretty. Yeah. Good. Thank you. My pleasure. Enjoy. So let's talk about your early days. Tell me more about your family. I have two sisters, and I grew up in Mexico City. I was living there for my first five years, and then the earthquake happened, and my parents got divorced at the same time. Another earthquake. Two earthquakes in my life, and then they moved to very close neighborhoods to each other, so they could still see me all the time, both of them.

5:47And both your parents worked. Your father was a doctor. My dad is a doctor. A doctor is a doctor. Yes. And your mother? My mom is a sociologist. So tell me about food in your household. Would you sit down to dinner altogether? Did you have a cook? Tell me about what life was like food-wise in your house. We did have a cook and someone who was helping in the house all of the time. But my dad was also very much into cooking. and he makes like these simple but really delicious recipes. He's especially good with Mexican food. He's great with soups and stews, so mole de olla. What is that? It's a kind of lighter version of mole.

6:30It's more like a soup and it has vegetables and meat in it, slightly spicy. Can you describe what a mole is to people who don't know? Mole is this very intricate, very elaborate paste that is made out of chiles, spices, chocolate, banana. And it changes with every family and the type of region that you have it in Mexico. So it can be a darker chocolate or it can be made out of squash seeds. So it can be green or yellow, depending on the nuts or the spices that you use. So it's sort of like a version of curry. And you always have mole in the fridge? Yes, I think it's a very typical staple in Mexican homes.

7:11So you come home, you can decide what to put it with. Yes, and you can make with chicken, and you can have it with rice. You can have it with eggs. You can have it with quesadillas or enfrijoladas, which is basically just tortilla with beans inside. Would your father cook during the week, or would it be something special he would do on the weekends? It would be mostly on the weekends, but he would also like to make breakfast or dinner sometimes. And one of my favorite dishes from him, it's torrijas. What's that? Which is like the leftover bread that you have from the week that is a little bit hard.

7:48You would put it on an egg butter with vanilla and cinnamon. That was a bit like French toast? Like French toast. I think it's like a Spanish version of that. And then instead of using powdered sugar, you would use this raw sugar that comes in like these cones. We call it piloncillo. I don't know the exact translation in English, but you will melt the piloncillo with a little bit of like lemon juice and the lemon, how do you call it? Zest. The lemon zest, yes. And then you just create the syrup. So on the weekends, if cooking was something your father loved to do, Would he engage you and your sisters in the cooking?

8:31Yes, he would love to have me in the kitchen, and he would just tell me these recipes, actually very simple ones, most of them coming from my grandmother. I remember you talked about a pestle and mortar that you have. Yes. A stone one that was from your grandmother to your father to you. Tell me about that. Yes, that was a very special gift I received, and I had to fight for it a little bit with my dad because it's like in every Mexican house, you have this volcanic rock mortar. It's called a molcajete. And you make everything in that from salsas to grinding spices or just grinding garlic for some other recipes.

9:14And it's passed on from generation to generation. And I think this is a very old one. It's very smooth on the inside. and my father had it when my grandmother passed away. So when I moved into my first apartment, I was asking my dad to give it to me and he would say like, not yet. And by the time I returned from my master's degree, I think I was ready to receive the mocajete and he finally gave it to me. Would your parents take you to restaurants? Yes, not too often. It was not as common as nowadays where people eat out all the time. I remember it being like once a week at most. But what I remember is my mother used to enjoy a lot having desserts outside.

10:00Oh, did she? Yes, yes. And she's really good at making desserts. So one of my favorite things was on a rainy day, she would just tell me like, would you like to go get some cake and tea? And we would drive to Polanco, which was actually very far away from where we lived. I think she just enjoyed like the time in the car and just talking to me. and being able to be on one single space. What did your mother do? She was starting to work at UN Women at the time. And we would go to this place in Polanco, which is in a little passage, one of these pedestrian streets inside one of the older buildings.

10:39And we would have tart or cake or some chocolate and tea. And I thought it was such a treat to have this in the middle of the week and then just go back. And, you know, like it seemed like a little celebration and it was a very intimate time between her and me because it was just like something she and I would do. Like no one else was in that bubble. So it felt really special. Sounds like food was important in your home. It was important to your parents. And then when you went to university, how did you cope with not having those meals? Did you go home a lot? Did you eat out with other students?

11:19Did you cook by yourself? I have to say that when I was a small child, I ate everything. Like everything that was presented to me, I would eat. But then I had like this short period as a teenager where I wasn't even liking food too much. And I think it was more like building my personality because it didn't last too long. And as soon as I moved out of my parents' house, I needed to start cooking by myself. So at the beginning, I was like, I don't know how to cook anything. And it was almost like a statement. Like, I'm against that. Because, of course, my dad was good at that. My mom was good at that.

11:58And I was like, I'm not going to be doing this. But then it was really silly because, of course, I enjoyed food so much. So I just started cooking with my boyfriend at the time or with friends. They would come over. And we started making small, simple dishes. and then slowly we became like more elaborate and just enjoyed having time spending on the kitchen.

12:30The River Cafe Cafe, steps away from our restaurant, is now open in the morning in Italian breakfast with Cornetti, Ciambela and Crostata from our pastry kitchen In the afternoon, ice cream coupes and River Cafe classic desserts. Come in the evening for cocktails with our resident pianist in the bar. No need to book. See you here.

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14:17You went to the University of Mexico. That's when you decided to study architecture? Yes. Because you didn't go thinking you were going to be an architect? No, I was very indecisive as a teenager. And I knew that I wanted to do something with art or design. something with my hands. But it was just like until a few days before they closed the exams that I made up my mind. You were no longer in a domestic situation with your family. And so you lived in an apartment? It was actually until I graduated that I moved to my own apartment. When you're studying architecture, that's a blessing because it's like very long hours.

14:59And otherwise, you just don't take care of yourself at all. not like it's just like working. But then the big change must have been when you went to Harvard. And so what was that like to go from Mexico to, in food terms, to Cambridge? It was quite a shock because, of course, like there was, again, this culture of spending very, very long hours working on your theses or whatever you were supposed to be doing at the time because I had a very generous scholarship to have a small apartment for myself. I didn't have to share, which was a blessing for me because I could really manage my time. And I had a small kitchen and a group of friends who liked to cook.

15:39And we would have the Martes de Mezcal. What is that? Which is a mezcal Tuesday. Ah, okay. Tuesday at night. Tuesday at night. Tuesday. And we were supposed to cook for each other. So we would go around each other's houses. And we would bring ingredients sometimes from our trips to Mexico. and we would either, you know, like smuggle tortillas or mole or we would be doing like these small dishes and then we would invite other friends that were not Mexican also. And that kind of started a nice tradition of being able to think of yourself and what you needed, how to bring people that were close to you as a support system because it's really heavy when you're studying, like you spend all of this time and there's a lot of pressure.

16:26It's very competitive. so it's a good reminder that you also have a support system and people that are just there to be with you and become friends for a lifetime. Did you go to restaurants there when you were in Boston? Did you go out? Yes, sometimes. We usually did like Chinese or the less expensive versions of eating out. It was also nice to try new things and that was actually one of the few ways which you could start getting to know Boston and not just Cambridge. Otherwise, you just stay on campus. And you basically never leave school. So for me, it was like a little window to what the city of Boston was, like having oysters or a lobster roll.

17:08That was a treat. Very big portions. Did you ever go to a Mexican restaurant when you were in Boston? I tried once and it was terrible. That was such a revelation for us when we went to Mexico that you realized that the food that you had, I didn't even go near it in Europe, But even in the United States, we thought it was heavy. You get these big plates of six different ingredients, different ways of cooking them, and it just was so heavy. And then we went to Mexico, and as I said, it was a revelation. It was a piece of beautiful fish with, as you described, a salsa made of tomato and onion and garlic.

17:50Would you use quite a lot of cilantro? Yes. Yeah, and we haven't talked about guacamole. And it was so delicate and refined. And I wonder why, well, Mexican food didn't travel well, you know, and whether it became as simple. I think now it's better. There are more really good restaurants in New York, and there's a great restaurant here in London doing Mexican food. And, again, the focus on ingredients, you know. But it is a very different version of what, you know, Mexican, do you think? It is. And also because Mexican food is so different from region to region. Yeah. And it's hard to tell, like, what is Mexican food.

18:35No, overall, you have the food from the coast, which is like these grilled fish and just oysters, but also shrimp. And it's very simple, like very few ingredients, very simple recipes. And then you have the more elaborate cuisine of Puebla and El Bajillo with these moles and salsas that are almost baroque in its making. And then Yucatan where you have like the pulled pork. Is there a region that you particularly like? I love Yucatan. Yucatan-wise? I think it's just like so tasty and it feels like a comfort food. Sopa de Lima, which is like this chicken broth with lima, which is like this sweet lime.

19:21I just feel like that is like food for the soul. Every time you have something bad happen to you, you go and have Sopa de Lima and it makes better everything. And you started very quickly, didn't you, with your own office? You didn't work for anyone else? No. I've never worked for anyone else. I have no idea how a restaurant runs because I've only done it our way. Did you ever bring food into your work life? Yes. Sometimes we would go to my place and we would do like these cooking parties and we would cook together. But it was when we were like just five or four. Now it's a little bit more difficult, but it's a nice tradition.

19:56I think it brings the team together and then you really see the personalities and actually you see how they collaborate also in the studio. Okay, so as an architect, when you're designing, do you think about public space and food, where people will eat, what they'll look at while they're eating? Will they have a view? Will the kitchen be visible? Have you ever designed a restaurant? Yes, I am. I am right now. Are you? Where is it? It's going to be in the U.S., and it's going to be for a dear friend, Gabriela Camara. I'm very happy working with her. Tell us about her. She has like a very strong personality.

20:35She's very charming and she just like walks into the room and everyone turns around because she's there. And I think she has a very magnetic personality. And her restaurant? Her restaurant is Contramar. Well, one of them. She has many, but that's probably the most famous one. And I think it has become like this icon in Mexico City. Everyone knows Contramar. And part of the success is not just the food, which is amazing, but also how it became like a gathering space. It's an epicenter for culture and people watching, and everyone wants to go there to see and be seen. We had this routine in Mexico when Richard was in the hospital, and I would have kind of breakfast with my friends or family.

21:21They were always late. You know, I'd love the Mexican breakfast at about 10 maybe in the morning, 10.30, and then a really delicious breakfast at Nido with Karen, and then I would go to the hospital, and then we would meet at about 4 in the afternoon, very often at Contramar, because everybody who came to visit me wanted to go to Contramar, and I loved going. It's a very dramatic space, dramatic and democratic as well. You know, it just feels like you're all in, there's no good table. You're all in one big space. You see the kitchen. And then you'd have a very late lunch. And then I'd go back to the hospital.

21:59And then a piece of fruit or something very simple for dinner. That was it. And I just thought it was a great way of eating, you know, to have that, you know, not big, heavy dinner before you go to bed. And you're right, like the idea of this democratic space. It's just like a field condition of tables. And I think I've only seen Orb like that at Contramar, but also at the Met Café, the staff café at the Met. Oh, at the Met. It was a big surprise, and I love that because it's like this canteen for all the employees, and everyone goes to have lunch there, and it's really special. Max Hollein, the director, would go there.

22:40Yes, so you could see the curators, the people for maintenance. We spent a year at the Met with our offices there. So we would go down and have lunch there. And you would see this mix of people. Some of them would bring their own food. Some people would buy food there. And it was just like a place where you can encounter everyone. And actually, like, really interesting conversations happened there. So it was a working lunch, but in a very informal setting, which I feel like it's very unusual for Americans. You know, like usually they're very hardworking and they're like very pragmatic. So having these moments of just like casual conversations about work were really special and spontaneous.

23:27If you like listening to Ruthie's Table 4, would you please make sure to rate and review the podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you.

23:51Life's messy. We're talking spills, stains, pets, and kids. But with Anabay, you never have to stress about messes again. At washablesofas.com, discover Anabay sofas, the only fully machine washable sofas inside and out, starting at just$699. Made with liquid and stain-resistant fabrics, that means fewer stains and more peace of mind. Designed for real life, our sofas feature changeable fabric covers, allowing you to refresh your style anytime. Need flexibility? Our modular design lets you rearrange your sofa effortlessly. Perfect for cozy apartments or spacious homes. Plus, they're earth-friendly and built to last.

24:33That's why over 200 ,000 happy customers have made the switch. Upgrade your space today. Visit washablesofas.com now and bring home a sofa made for life. That's washablesofas.com. Offers are subject to change, and certain restrictions may apply. Parking shouldn't slow you down. ParkWiz gives every driver a shortcut. Book ahead, save up to 50%, and skip the hassle of circling the block. Park smarter, park faster. ParkWiz. Download the ParkWiz app today and save every time you park. How do you find New York for food? It's amazing. What do you like about it? I like that it's so diverse and you can have food from every country, really authentic.

25:18So you can have great Mexican, great Indian food, Chinese, Japanese, everything. Are you there much? Are you in New York quite often? I'm there every month. yes and are you cooking there or do you not have time to cook no I also cook like I find like that's my way of relaxing when I come back from work because lunch is so short in America then I'm able to come back home and then just do something simple and I feel like I'm taking care of myself again and it feels like I live in Chelsea yeah nice so there's good markets there yes yes yeah my son used to live in Chelsea and we used the Chelsea market and then the wonderful one is the Union Square.

25:59Exactly. That's my favorite one. Is it a great market? It is. I love that. I thought it was very beautiful what you said about a book that I also loved and also a writer that I admire, Joan Didion's Blue Nights. And you said there's a quote from you saying that it's a book about loss, but also being a woman, being a mother, or not being able to be a mother, about aging and all things that fascinate and terrify me at the moment. And it's a book about utter acceptance. And then you talk about your sister's book. And so do you think we could just talk for a moment about women and writing and women and architecture?

26:42A few months later after I finished reading for the second time, Blue Nights, my sister finished her first book. And it's a series of poems, and it's talking about the female body and the female body rhythm. and it has to do with all of the things that happen, no in cycles. And I think it's really special because, of course, as women we know that we're always changing, but there are like these constant flows. So we go back and forth and we understand each other in such rhythms. But some of these rhythms I think are longer. And for me to see someone who's younger than me explaining all of these processes, like the idea of becoming a woman, of becoming of fertile age or becoming a woman in menopause or aging.