Karen Drijanski & Eduardo Plaschinski

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1:17In 2018, I found myself living in Mexico City for four months. My regular world of London, work, family and friends, became irregular as I was unexpectedly thrust into a city with new people, new language and definitely new food. Then one day someone suggested we meet at Nido, a small restaurant recently opened by Karen Dujanski and her son, Eduardo Plashinski. From that morning, everything changed. I went to Nido almost every day, always to be greeted with a strong embrace from Karen, who would then go back to her kitchen and cook me the best Mexican food. Eggs Mexicana, rancheros, tortillas, fresh breads, oatmeal, cheese omelets, avocado.

2:10Months later, when it was finally time for me to return to London, it had switched around. Karen and Nito had become my regular world, and it was painful to leave them. We emailed and sometimes phoned, but it was only two days ago that I returned to Nito and Karen for breakfast in four years. So here we are today in a studio, two good friends, back in the most beautiful city I know. Ruthie, thank you so much. Would you like to read the recipe? Yes. And isn't it good to be together? It is beautiful. You always bring tears to my eyes. Never. So you've chosen the recipe. I've chosen the taglalini with asparagus.

2:55So all we need is 500 grams of chopped asparagus, four garlic cloves peeled, four tablespoons chopped mixed fresh herbs, 100 milliliters of double cream, 500 grams of unsalted butter 200 grams of tagliarini 120 grams of parmesan Please grate it And this is how you're going to do it Trim and finely chop the asparagus Bring the cream to a boil in a saucepan With the garlic and simmer Until the cloves are soft Heat the olive oil and butter In the saucepan and fry half of the chopped asparagus. Add the rest of the cream. Bring to the boil. Then reduce the heat and simmer until the cream begins to thicken.

3:49Cook the pasta. Add the sauce. Half of the parmesan and toss together. Serve with remaining parmesan. And a lot of love. And a lot of love. A good recipe. And why did you choose it? Of all the recipes in all our books that I asked you to choose, why did you choose this one, Karen? I love asparagus. Do you? I love herbs. I like when pastas are treated simply, and I adore cream and butter. So I thought anyone can do it because you can find the ingredients everywhere. And it's something that I do very often from your book. In England, we have a very short asparagus season. It goes from probably mid-May till end of July.

4:31Is there a season in Mexico for asparagus? We can find asparagus throughout the year, yes. Usually, sometimes they come from here, and sometimes they come from California. So we find, you know, it's easy because I can find asparagus all the year. And also fresh herbs in the farmer's market that I go every Sunday. They're amazing. They come from Valle de Bravo. So let's start at the very beginning, perhaps, which would go back to how did your family come to Mexico? because I know it's a very compelling story. Was it your grandmother or your great-grandmother that came? My grandmother. Tell me about your grandmother.

5:12So my Austrian grandmother came from Austria, escaping the Second World War, and my other grandmother came from Poland way before the Second World War. So I had two very different upbringings, two very different kitchens, and two very different environments for cooking. The Viennese one, the Austrian one, was super sophisticated because she could purchase and she knew about a lot of ingredients. So there was duck. But something very interesting, Ruthie, the cook at my grandma's was an amazing Mexican cook. So when I was five and six, as soon as I went into her house, I ran into the kitchen. I didn't go to the garden.

5:57I didn't want to go play with the dogs in the garden or with the dolls. I wanted to cook my own eggs. At six years old? At six. So they had a little wooden stool for me to go up, and they would say, can I cook for you the eggs? I said, no, no, no, I'll make my own. And since then, I do scrambled eggs like I did for you. Like that every day. When you talk about your grandmother who escaped to come to Mexico, what was her story? It was a very hard and painful story. She lived in a very close town to Vienna, who was taken, you know, they came to get them and kill them all. They were a Jewish family?

6:43Yeah, I'm Jewish and my family is Jewish. And I'm very proud of our traditions, like anybody else with their own traditions. So we are a Jewish family, and her mom saw a diamond inside a hut. And she explained to my grandma, when they come to get us and if they kill us all, wear the hut and run away. They came, they killed everyone except my grandma and my grandma's sister. In fact, my grandma saved the sister from a camp. So it was an amazing story because my grandma was very hardworking and I take the hardworking part from her. Since I was very young, she said, you need to work, you need to learn how to make a living because that's the experience that she learned and she wanted to pass it to me.

7:36Go back to the story of the diamond in the hat. She saw her family being killed. She was spared. Quickly went and got the hat. She got the hat. She wore. And she was how old? She was 15. She ran away into the woods. With the hat and the diamond. Because with the diamond she could save her life and get a ticket to go to America. So she was coming not to Mexico but to America. She went to New York. Yeah. A family member took her while she was trying to make a living and she lived in a garbage bin. In New York. In New York, in a garbage bin for more than six months until she could make it, waitering, doing housework, anything that would give her a living, while finding her sister.

8:32She did find Ruth, you know. It's very interesting, Ruthie, because my grandma's name was Carlotta, Charlotte, and her sister was Annie. And Annie and my grandma taught me how to cook. So once they went to New York, they saw an opportunity to come to Mexico. And Mexico has been always, always an amazing place of opportunities. If you work hard and you're passionate, there's always opportunities in Mexico. So they came to Mexico. How old were they then? Okay, so my grandma was 19 or 20. She was trying to find her sister. She didn't save her from the camp, from the Holocaust camp. And they came to Mexico, and the sisters started to cook and started to have a little restaurant in Acapulco.

9:23And my dad had a jewelry store, and my grandma had a jewelry store in Acapulco, in the coastline of the beach. So I worked in the jewelry and in the restaurants since I was 12. And your own, so that was your grandmother. Your parents then were born in Mexico. The first generation born in Mexico, I'm the second, and my children are the third. Yes. So, yeah, it's an amazing story because on the other side, the Polish side, they didn't suffer the Holocaust. They just came before to find... They decided to come. Why did they choose Mexico, do you think? There was a good Jewish community and a lot of opportunities.

10:08So from Poland to Mexico, it was a great opportunity. So they came to Mexico, the Polish and the Austrian. And then mom and dad, they met here. They were born here. And my mom Susana and my dad Moises, they met here. They married here. And eating. What did they do? Mom, an amazing art dealer. Oh, yes. Amazing art dealer. You know, I was very lucky to get to know Mérida, Enzúñiga and Toledo. So they sat at a table always. So there was always cooking and art, cooking and culture, cooking and music, cooking and love. And where were your grandmothers? Did they live near your house? Very close. Polanco.

10:55In Polanco. Both in Polanco. And I could walk. And the Viennese grandma, when I was very little, I put a little food store outside their house with little sopesitos. and the sopesitos were one cent. So since very young I was cooking and feeding people. Were you ever trained or did you just... No, I'm a supernatural. When I was very young I could smell and know what I wanted to put into the dishes. I love spices and herbs and products and markets and the people who do it, you know, and very passionate about it. And who taught, was it your grandparents and the Mexican chef that you had cooking for you, the Mexican cook that you had in the kitchen?

11:45Who actually? Connie. Who was Connie? Connie was a very important figure in my life because my grandma taught her cook. While she worked, she was a silversmith. So while she worked a lot, the cook cooked a lot. And she was taught by my grandma. She was very tough, and Connie was very soft, and she was very sweet, and she was an amazing cook. So she was very patient with me because she took care of my mom when she was pregnant and me when I was born. When I interviewed Alfonso Cuaron, the other Mexican that I had on the podcast, he talked very much, and of course he made a movie, Roma, about the role of the domestic help in Mexican families.

12:36And it's a very unique role, I think, that you had. He said a very interesting thing. He said when Americans made money and had greater wealth, they would buy bigger things. They would have a bigger kitchen. They would have a bigger car. They would have a bigger house. They would have maybe two cars. And in Mexico, and also I think perhaps in Italy, maybe in Spain, his opinion was that when people had greater wealth, they kept the house the same, the kitchen the same, it was very simple, but they had more domestic staff. They had more people to work for them. And those people became very, very important in the family.

13:15Do you agree? They become your family. They become your chosen family. In fact, I have somebody that helps me at home and my children for over 30 years, Ruthie. So the same with Connie. So Connie became my mom's mom because my mom's mom was always working. And Connie was the one feeding the kids and taking care of their colds and their temperature. And she became almost like my grandma. So I was always in Connie's kitchen. And then on my bobe's kitchen, my Jewish, Jewish. You know, very interesting. Jewish, but very different. And so you had the Mexican food? When you're family, tell me about life in your household.

14:01Your mother was working, your father was working, and you had one sister, what's the family? So we're four girls. Four girls. Okay, so you had four. And so what would, you'd go to school, and what was life like at home? So mom worked and grandma worked. So at home you would wake up in the morning, go to school, come back and have an amazing Mexican meal. Dinner. Or lunchtime. It was 2.30 to 3. Right. So dinner in Mexico is light, lunch is heavy. When I lived here, that was one of the things I learned really was that we had big breakfast in Nido. Then I would be in the hospital with my husband and then we would meet for lunch at about 4 or possibly 5, have a delicious whatever it was called, lunch or early dinner, and then that was it.

14:53You'd have a piece of fruit at 10 o 'clock or a glass of mezcal or tequila and then go to bed. So I thought it was a beautiful way to eat if you could do that and work. I like it because you go to bed very light. You have a slice of papaya or watermelon or melon. It's very light, but since we have a Mexican food, you know, you know, Ruthie. You know, the rice and the fideo and the mole and the enchiladas. And that's what we ate at home. And then a little bit of baking, which was Austrian or Polish. And so you'd sit down to dinner. Everybody ate together. Yeah. So they would come from work. And at three, everybody was sitting at the table.

15:36We had an amazing Mexican during the week. And then Sunday was a little bit more sophisticated. And for Shabbat dinner was always at my Polish grandma. And Shabbat dinner was very Jewish. Gefiltte fish, matzo balls, you know, roasted chicken, all that. And on Sunday we had a very delicious, amazing lunch at my Viennese grandma, which was duck. and then potato dumplings filled with apricot and sager torte and linzer torte and butter cookies. It was all about butter. Butter easy to get in Mexico? Amazing butter. Yeah. Interesting. Amazing butter. Sometimes I buy it from a special, very small ranch or sometimes I get it from where it comes the best, which is France or Denmark.

16:30Yeah. But produce in Mexico, if you know where, we're very lucky. I think that there's such an incredible food awareness in Mexico City and I think it can be anything from your own restaurants to what you're doing to Contra Mar which we went to today which has probably 250 people in one room and having wonderful fish brought to you by waiters who just say yes to everything. There's just a wonderful atmosphere to a bar that I went to the first night I got here and you had to open what looked like a kind of refrigerator door to get downstairs to have a drink. It was like prohibition. But it feels on fire, the Mexican food scene, without being, you know, not being fashionable.

17:19There's a culture of food here that I'm so amazed by and moved by. It is so important for us. It is so important as family together, as friends together, as couples together. So food is a huge part. Where are you going for breakfast? What are you doing for lunch? Where are you having dinner? It's part of our life. You know, it's big. Because I find that you stop your day for those moments. And you connect with people in those moments. And did you go to restaurants with your family? Tons. You did. So you'd have those meals and everything, and then you'd go Friday night Shabbat. And then when would you go to restaurants?

18:00Saturday, when we were young. Have you been to Danubio? No. It's a very typical fish Spanish restaurant in the city center. You have to go. It's a classic. Okay. So from lobster to big shrimp to little clams. And it's a very old, beautiful dining room. I'll take you next time you come. Danubio. We went to Danubio. We went to La Lanterna. We went to Champs -Élysées, which was like an amazing restaurant. The food was, and it is a huge part of our lives. I have four sisters, so we're four. We cook big time. And is it regional? I know it is regional, so I know the answer to that question. So if you're in the Yucatan, you'll be eating something very different than you would have perhaps on the Pacific coast.

18:49And if you're on the Pacific coast, you'll have something that's quite different from Mexico City or the Oaxaca, California, Oaxaca. So the regionality of food is very important in Mexico, isn't it? It is. It's such a big country. It is, because who is from Oaxaca is very proud from their produce and the way they cook their chiles. If you go to Puebla, you have a certain kind of mole, but if you go to Oaxaca, you have another mole. Tell me about the two moles. You know, they're so different. So listen, in Puebla it's sweeter. In Oaxaca, it's hotter, spicier. And I was just in Mérida, in Casa Escuela, doing an amazing pop-up.

19:29And I went to these amazing markets. Ruthie, I cannot even tell you what I found. Like la mazorca. What's that? The corn, cob. It's burned inside the ground. And it's burned. And it's brown. And it's smoky. and I did pico de gallo with it and tamales with it and you can do pastry with it and it's very original. Can you just tell everyone what mole is? Yes, mole is a very thick sauce made with chile, nuts, tons of spices from cinnamon to chocolate. Does all mole have chocolate in it? No. In Oaxaca, yes, a ton. In Puebla, less. In Puebla, more sugar. In Oaxaca, more chocolate. And then in Oaxaca, you can find more than 20, 30, 40 kinds of mole, like coloradito, amarillito, negro, for pork, for chicken, for guajolote.

20:37Mole, it's a huge thing. Yeah. I love it. You love it. And do you cook a certain type? Do you make all different types? Puebla. Yeah. I like el mole poblano. It's sweeter. And I went to Puebla like two, three months ago, and I got some beautiful pastes from it. And I just season it, and I do it with chicken and white rice and tortillas for my kids with an amazing avocado and tomato salad with a cilantro dressing, and it's beautiful. It's so interesting because as an American, my vision of what Mexican food was, it was so different from the reality. It's so refined. It's so subtle and light and about the ingredients, the markets.

21:21Have the markets changed since in the last many years? The real ones? No. You know, if I go to El Mercado en Oaxaca, El Mercado Central en Oaxaca, La Central de Abastos, Ruthie, it's the same. It's beautiful because it has, we make sure we keep it the same. So if we go to the old markets and the original markets, yes. If you go to the neighborhoods, maybe they come and they want to paint a little bit and they take the charm of it. But I was in Merida and I went to three markets and I went to the original market. And this one market was, it took me back 150 years ago. In what way? And the way that people dress, the way that people talk, the ingredients they had, the way they display it, the freshness, it was the same as 100 years ago.

22:18So we keep them. We want to keep the tradition. We want to keep it that way.

22:35Did you know the River Cafe has a shop? It's full of our favorite foods and designs. We have cookbooks, linen napkins, kitchenware, tote bags with our signatures, glasses from Venice, chocolates from Turin. You can find us right next door to the River Cafe in London or online at shoptherivercafe.co.uk.

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24:51Visit washablesofas.com today and save. That's washablesofas.com. Offers are subject to change, and certain restrictions may apply. We grew up in this family that loved food, loved to eat together, loved art, loved culture, obviously loved you. What age were you when you actually left home, this beautiful home life? 20 to get married. You were married at age 20. Very young. Super young. I was very in love with love. Yeah. So I married super young and I cooked at home, but I never thought I was going to have a restaurant. And did you have children very soon? Yes. At 25, I had Michelle, then Carlos, and then Eduardo.

25:34And you cooked for them? Every single day. Did you have help at home doing that? I got in Mexico. And again, you cooked Italian and? Mexican. Mexican food and the food of the Jewish culture. A lot. A lot. Did you have a job? Did you work as a graphic designer? I studied graphic design and I always wanted to work. All the time I was like a career woman, a professional woman. So I said, I have three kids. I'm not going to have a restaurant. I want to be a full-time mom. So I had a very big kitchen with a big range and a big oven. And I said I can have supper clubs. So on Tuesdays, I gave classes in the morning for 20 people.

26:19And they were always very liked because it was about comfort food with a twist. And then at night, I had supper clubs. We moved to Vancouver. How did you? I lived in Vancouver for 12 years. With three children. With three children. And it was huge to work from 6 o 'clock in the morning to 3 when I picked them up and then prepare for supper clubs on Thursdays. So you came back from Vancouver to Mexico City. I came back with Eduardo, and I started to work for a guy that had 12 restaurants, and he needed somebody that he can really rely on. And then one day my kid sat with me and I said, Mom, enough.

27:00I think you need to do your restaurant. And I said, what? And he said, Mom, do your dream. You're going to die without your dream? And I said, no. So you started with, did you have an investment? How did you start? I started by partnering with Eduardo, my son, because we share the same passion in a very deep, deep, deep level. And then from day one, I put my intention. I found that beautiful old building, that bottom part of the street, tree-lined street, off Reforma, between El Ángel and La Diana. I was, this is precious. and then Carlos invested my son and then we saved a lot of money and then I started coming in at 3.30 in the morning to prep because I thought it was going to be a big supper club, Ruthie.

27:50It's a very hard business to start because when we started, you asked about the River Cafe, and when we began, we had accountants from my husband's office. We had, Rose had worked in a restaurant in New York and I had never worked in a restaurant. And you can fail so easily. You know, the dream of having a small restaurant. We've seen them, you know, come and go because, you know, you don't charge for that cup of coffee. You throw away a box of fennel. You forget to turn the fridge on. There's so many ways. You treat your friends to dinners. And so it takes a lot of rigor and a lot of business.

28:32And did you have doubts whether times when in the beginning you thought it might not work? No, never. That was a very interesting thing. I knew from the start it was going to be amazing. I knew it was going to be successful. But successful because what I was offering, nobody else did in Mexico. They brought chains, only chains from the States. They never did their own thing. And I was doing my own thing with my son, and the story was beautiful. It was a mom with a son cooking, but I never thought it was going to be as hard as when the veggies are going to arrive and they don't arrive. When the gas is off because you didn't think about it was one day going to be off.

29:15When the water doesn't come in, when the weather doesn't come in, when your health gets sick. I remember for the first two years, I went in at four o 'clock in the morning. But I woke up so sure that I wanted to do my dream come true. I never saw that hour or the time. I just went to bed, went to take a shower, put on my apron, and went to Nidos. And it was really hard, but at the same time really rewarding because I was doing what I loved in a more professional way. I really want to tell people to never, ever leave their dreams on the back burner and that sometimes it's hard, but it pays off in the realization of your passion and just keep on doing it.