From The Archive: Nigella Lawson

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2:11We have good news. Ruthie's Table 4 is launching on YouTube, where you'll find full episodes, clips, and some of my favorite moments from the series. Guests like Cate Blanchett, Francis Ford Coppola, Sienna Miller, Zoe Saldana, and many, many more. To watch, go to youtube.com slash at symbol Ruthie's Table 4 pod. I can't wait to see you there. Welcome to River Cafe Table 4, a production of iHeartRadio and Atomize Studios. I'm going to read a recipe of yours, the summer minestrone. and it serves 10, well it might serve 10 of some eaters. Anyway, you and I can probably finish it off.

3:05My guests all love food, but Nigella Lawson does more than love food. Apart from her extraordinary children with John Diamond, Bruno and Cosima, Food is the true focus of her life. I cannot remember the day I met Nigella because that would be like remembering the day I met my sister or my cousin, for Nigella is family. Together, we've been through sadness and happiness and celebrations of both. Nigella and I might go for months without seeing each other, but I know for a fact that she would be the first person on my bed and I would be the first person on hers in a crisis. We would lay in each other's arms and then we would go in the kitchen and eat.

3:55Quite simply, she's close to my heart and quite simply, I love her. I love you. Oh, that's so moving, Ruthie. Right, and now I'm going to read the summer minestrone. So, two garlic cloves, one small head of celery, chopped, three small red onions, chopped, four tablespoons olive oil, one kilo of thin asparagus, 600 grams of fresh peas, 600 grams of fresh young broad beans, 450 grams of young green beans, trimmed and chopped, one litre of chicken stock, half a bunch of fresh basil leaves, finely chopped, 300 ml of double cream In a saucepan, fry the garlic, celery and onions gently in the olive oil until soft.

4:49Divide the asparagus, peas, broad beans and green beans between two bowls. Add one bowlful to the onion mixture and cook, stirring to coat with oil, for five minutes. Season Cover with the chicken stock and bring to the boil. Simmer for 15 minutes. Add the remaining vegetables and cook for a further 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the basil and cream. Cool to room temperature, then serve with parmesan and pesto. Thank you. So of all the recipes, you say it reminds you of the River Cafe. Well, it does. What does it remind you of? I feel choosing any recipe is a source of anguish because there are so many I could choose.

5:37and I think I remember having this, I don't know when it would have been, the 80s. Yeah. Yep, late 80s. Might have even been on our first menu. Yes. I think it was really one of the first things we did. And it was like, it was both like nothing else I'd ever eaten and yet so familiar. Yeah. There's something as well, I think, it says so many interesting things about food and eating, that the eating at room temperature. I think so many people eat food too hot and too cold, and room temperature, which is something the Italians really get, allows you to taste flavours so vibrantly. Maybe there's something about it that reminds me of childhood, not that I ate this, but although it's Italian, the sweet starchiness of the peas somehow reminds me of an English summer.

6:33Yeah. As well. And I think that a lot of our favorite food does go back to very often the food that we did have as a child or that has a memory. And did you grow up with, did you, because your mother cooked for you, didn't she? Yes, she was a good cook. Tell me about your mother. My mother was a rather fascinating, but I wouldn't say difficult is not a very compassionate way of describing it. She married very young. She was 19. 19. And had her first child at 20, my older brother. She felt things very deeply, but didn't always express it, so would erupt quite a bit. and um you know she was fantastically impatient and i one of the jobs we had to do my sister thomasina we used to have to make mayonnaise together and one of us would whisk and one would pour the oil and whoever was whisking you know you weren't whisking fast enough and whoever was pouring you weren't too fast slowly you wasn't saying and the tension you know so it's so difficult because I remember what I learned.

7:50I remember being in the kitchen with fondness and gratitude, and yet it would be so unfaithful to the truth if I didn't say. It was also a source of great tension. I mean, it was frightening. But I think I did learn a lot, and she was a very spontaneous cook. Yeah, but imagine being 19 or 20 and having to embrace motherhood and domestic life and cook. Do you think she liked cooking? Did she like it? She did and didn't. I associate my mother with food and yet she had a very troubled relationship and had eating disorders, which I didn't really think, I didn't really take on board until I was in my teens, I think.

8:32And I don't know when it started. And it was difficult because it, it was really a repudiation of something that gave her pleasure and the heartbreaking thing is you know she she died when she was 48 and she hit pretty quickly because she got diagnosed well she didn't get diagnosed I was told by the doctor three weeks before she died I didn't tell her until two weeks because I was waiting a bit um just to get it you know more tests and things and she said it was the first time being terminally ill was the first time she could eat without anxiety or guilt I mean that's that's and I think that so on the one hand you know I've learned everything about what cooking is from her not everything I've learned from you I've learned from Anna Del Conte I've learned from Claudia Roden but I also learned what path I didn't want to go down and it wasn't that one.

9:35Was your father, did he ever cook? No, never went in the kitchen. He didn't occasionally later on, he would make his own breakfast. Breakfast, yeah. Which I think is quite an old-fashioned male thing to do that somehow they don't feel, you know, cooking eggs is too much of a dent to their dignity. Yeah, because he, you know, we talk a lot about, you know, the generational men in the kitchen, men coming in the kitchen, And men, very often Americans will say their father never cooked but did the barbecue. Yes. That somehow grilling mead. But even so, I think he would only make his breakfast. Yeah, really.

10:10I don't know. What about your brother? Did your mother concentrate on teaching him? No, he didn't get taught. Although I did teach him how to make, you know, hondes, which he loves. But he's a wonderful eater. And I sometimes think, you know, not everyone can be a cook. But good eaters are valuable. The other night you were here with Bruno and I've seen you here with children and family and little kids and big kids and students come here and have just one pasta or whatever. But was it more of a special occasion for your family to go out? Birthdays. Birthdays. Or occasionally for a treat, there was a Chinese restaurant in King's Row called Choy's.

10:52Oh, Choy's. Yeah. You know, and I remember that. But it was, I was, I found meals difficult. It's an odd thing. Or family meals. You know, I was clumsy and I'd always knock something over and I found myself slightly inhibited within a family group. I came into my own later. And I think as well, I didn't really enjoy eating. Well, I didn't enjoy meals a lot until I had a bit more control. So I could decide what I wanted to eat. And for that reason, you know, a tasting menu is my idea of hell. I know.

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12:33Also, you went to Italy, didn't you? I didn't. It made such an impression on me. More than that, it really altered my life in so many ways. Was it after university? No, before. So what had happened was, I did the, in the olden days, you did an entrance exam to go to Oxford. I thought I would like to do German and Italian. So I thought, I pretended at the interview that I was going to go to school there. But I didn't. School there being Italy. In Italy, you know, in the year between the gap year. But I didn't. And I just turned up with a school friend. And I got a job. we had a job share. So we had one room in a pension in Florence and we were chambermaids.

13:17And all I would say is if anyone ever stays in a hotel and wonders whether people try on your clothes and put your scent on, yes, we do. Fair game, because you don't leave your clothes on the floor either, do you? So you were, what, 17, 18? No, by then I was 19, I think, just about 18, 19. I couldn't say anything. I could say, you know, Mrs. Green has a brown hat or something. And... Signora Berry. Oh, I don't know. It was just terrible. And I was meant to be the one getting us somewhere. I had no idea. And I couldn't understand when they answered. So there was a pensione run by a married couple who came from Arezzo.

14:00And they had a son called Leonardo. And they had his mother, la nonna, living there. and every now and then they'd go to their farm and she would be left there and we weren't allowed in the kitchen but the minute they'd gone you know i'd be allowed in the kitchen because she wanted company yeah you know and she was she wanted to chat and so so i watched her cook and there was so many she used to do that the thing i remember most is that wonderful italian way of roast beef which is almost sort of pot roasted you know and i would see a bit of the oil put the garlic in remove the garlic when it was brown you know the in the north of italy the idea of leaving lots of garlic was sort of odd and very small amount of meat which then you know what is it called rosolare when you you brown something sit around that and you know rosemary teeny bit of wine like that and sort of cook it so it was not quite not fried but not poached really and there's something so enormously different again served at room temperature and she made purée mashed potatoes with i always feel like saying whenever people go italians don't use butter i felt like you should have seen her mashed potatoes yeah and i think but again when you were mentioning about the um beef being room temperature i often think that the only thing that italians really like at temperature is ice cream very cold and um pasta very hot i mean i think that's the otherwise Whereas, as you were saying, roast beef, fish, potatoes, there's nothing.

15:35Although I do semi-fredi. Yeah, and semi-fredi, of course. I always let my ice cream stay out. Yeah, and I love that. But I think that being in Italy, you've taught me a lot. So we didn't have an awful lot of money to spend. And there was a bar I went to. And you could sit at the bar and have a Campari soda. And you could have a selection of, I suppose it was, I suppose they were still crostini, not bruschetta, but you could choose different soft cheeses, whether it was mozzarella, burrata, and I'm trying to think which the other one was now. It will come to me. There's another one. No, it was creamier.

16:18And you had it with a stripe of anchovy on top. Yeah. It's also wonderful. And that could keep you going. Do you know, that would really keep... And again, you could go to a bar and have a compartment. You know, that's the difference, isn't it, that you can sit at a bar and have a drink and have something to eat. Was going back to Oxford a rude awakening then, when you could only go to a pub and have a beer? Well, I didn't really want to. I didn't want to. But what I was going to say about Italy is that I'd been very shy. And, I mean, not at home, more in the adult world a bit. And when I had to speak Italian, because I was speaking a different language, I had to be a different person.

16:58I was more voluble. I was less shy. And so I found my voice. And that doesn't matter where you find it. I felt that I felt both in the food and a way of being and being with other people. Because I think one of the things that's quite difficult when you're adolescent is that people on the whole, this is different now. I know there's Facebook and Instagram. But then people knew you just in the context of your family. and I'm not talking about having a well-known father. No, no, no. I'm talking about everyone. So they know you're so-and-so's sister. Oh, I know your cousin or didn't I see you there?

17:37And that's fine. But somehow to go into a place and not have all those connections is freeing. Being completely independent, earning your own living, fending for yourself. I can imagine they loved you. I can see you in Italy. I can close my eyes and see you. It was as if I had decided at a young age I wanted to be Italian and then I sort of proceeded. And then did you bring that food back with you? I did. It made me shop differently. But, you know, it's so difficult because I think it's hard not to love Italy without being romantic about it. And one shouldn't be because, like any country, it has its issues.

18:20And it's a bit of... Nevertheless, I think one is allowed to have places which in reality and symbolically mean a lot in your life. Yeah.

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19:36I have such strong memories. I mean, I have memories. As I said, you know, I don't remember when we met, because I just remember just you being in my life, and this magnificent woman who, you know, combined all the food and energy and writing and restaurants and love and love for John. Yes. And, you know, I think I might have met John the first time maybe in the Ivy and he was so funny, you know, he was just so funny and so attractive. No, he was absolutely gorgeous. Not a great eater. And I don't mean... I always think about him eating that. He was, but do you know... Tell me, what was it like to marry a man who was not a great eater?

20:18No, he was a great eater, but he just didn't like an awful lot. He was picky. And I remember the first time I cooked for him. Where was that? Tell me the details. It was in my flat in Chesterton Road. Was it part of your seduction? No, it wasn't really. And I think we were just friends at that stage, but I thought I would cook something. And I think it was based on a Claudia Rodin recipe. and there was a sort of courgettes with saffron and some sort of sauce and then you made the sauce and you put the, you know, chopped zucchini around the chicken and I don't know. And John took one look at it and he said, no gravy for me, please.

20:59I remember that. That's so John. I know. And, you know, I still think of him that, you know, his idea, He adored tinned potatoes. Oh, I've never seen a bit of tinned potatoes. I know. What is a tinned potato? They're new potatoes in tins. Oh, so they're whole little potatoes. They're cooked, yes. Oh, cooked, yeah. And his idea of a real treat, too, was tinned fruit salad with evaporated milk, evap. Oh, okay. I mean, but he did eat cooking. He had a sweet tooth. I think he, I guess when I say that I loved sitting, I guess he loved talking and conversing around a table, because I do remember endless meals.

21:36Remember that big table you had downstairs? Yes, the big oval table. There was a big table overflowing. Yes, and there was always people in and out. People and eating. And I don't do children's food and non-children's food, but obviously there are certain things that I'd make that were easier and people liked. And also that thing of sometimes it would just be like an indoor picnic. You know, you can get bread, cheese, ham, salami, tomatoes, and it just really depends. You know, there's so many pleasures around food. And what about the kids eating? Did they cook with you? Did you cook with them?

22:10Yes, I always did. Because I was there. I was also seeing them in the kitchen, always the baby on your hip and a spoon in the left hand side. And I remember once going to save my brother when Bruno was very little, when I was cooking. And he put his hand, I said, be careful. And he put his hand, a saucepan and burnt himself. Yes, and I felt like the most awful person. But actually, coming to lunch was a child psychologist, I think. And he went, nonsense. The best way to learn about danger is in a safe environment. Oh, OK. So I felt much better after that. He said he went for his hand in the saucepan again.

22:44I wanted to ask you also about restaurants. Do you love restaurants? I love some. I love some. Because you were a critic for a while. Yeah, I was. What was that like? Well, I didn't do lots like people do now. I did one a fortnight. And I always felt I was representing the reader. So I really wanted to, in a way, evoke, and just when I write a recipe, I'm trying to evoke the feeling of cooking something. I wanted to evoke the experience of being in the restaurant. It's not about how chummy you are with the chefs or what you know about a place. It's, are you going to have a wonderful time? And the theatre of the room and the space and that wonderful noise of a clink of glasses.

23:30and I feel I have less of a restaurant-going life than I used to and that's partly sometimes I don't want to be looked at and stared at and I feel like I'm a bit on show. Not always, but sometimes. It depends on how vulnerable or otherwise I might be feeling at any time. I love going to places I feel at home in and I love seeing people who work there and that make, because it's about exchange, human connection. As we've said over and over that food is a connection to our history, to our children now, to our lives, to our friends. It also is a comfort. And so I guess my last question to you as I ask everyone is if food is a comfort, is there a food that you go to if you need, not if you're hungry, not if you want to impress, but if you need comfort?

24:24it's so difficult because i feel like for me all food is yeah that's a good answer so i do feel that you don't have to single one child out well i don't know i guess you know my mother's way of cooking chicken which is a bit like a chicken soup you know so anything chickeny and brothy is a comfort rice in some it's i think that generally i guess like a lot of people i think of comfort food as being something sort of carby yeah i mean bread always but i think in different moods all food is a comfort and I think it just there is such beauty in just the ingredients and sometimes when you've peeled an onion the way the skin looks on the chopping board you it's just wonderful or I think smell as you great lemon zest and that changes the air so I feel it reminds you you know you're alive and you're taking pleasure and to be grateful for that

25:27Well, I'm grateful for you, and we're going to go and take comfort and have some lunch in the River Cafe. Comfort and connection and love. I love you, Nigel. I love you, darling. Thank you. River Cafe Table 4 is a production of iHeartRadio and Atomize Studios. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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