Rashida Jones

0:00This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human. I'm investigative journalist Melissa Jeltsin. My new podcast, What Happened in Nashville, tells the story of an IVF clinic's catastrophic collapse and the patients who banded together in the chaos that followed. It doesn't matter how much I fight. It doesn't matter how much I cry over all of this. It doesn't matter how much justice we get. None of it's going to get me pregnant. Listen to What Happened in Nashville on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Dr. Laurie Santos from The Happiness Lab here. It's the season of giving, and this year my podcast, The Happiness Lab, is partnering with GiveDirectly, a nonprofit that provides people in extreme poverty with the cash they need as part of the Pods Fight Poverty campaign.

0:49Our goal this year is to raise$1 million, which will bring over 700 families out of extreme poverty. Your donation will put cash directly in the hands of these families in need, And they'll get to decide how to use it, whether that's school transportation, purchasing livestock, or starting a business. Plus, if you're a first-time donor, your gift will be matched by giving multiplier, which means more money for those in need. Visit givedirectly.org slash happinesslab to learn more and to donate. That's givedirectly.org slash happinesslab. Ruthie's Table 4 is now on YouTube. To watch this episode and others, just visit ruthiestable4.com forward slash YouTube.

1:29You're listening to Ruthie's Table 4 in collaboration with me and Em, intelligent style for busy women.

1:39A few weeks ago, I received a letter. Ruthie, my great friend Rashida Jones is having dinner at the River Cafe tonight. You really should meet her. I know you'll love her and you will take care of her. Rashida treats life like an adventure. She makes everyone feel cool, even though we all know she's the coolest. I'm so happy she's here to talk about family and food, creativity, and all she does. Afterwards, we'll have lunch together with her friends James and Catherine. I haven't had to take care of Rashida, but like them and everyone else, I love her. Aww, Ruthie. So here we are, and you've chosen a recipe.

2:20I was so excited about the recipe that you've chosen to read, which is... Puntarelli. Puntarelli. from Rome particularly. When did you first have it? Do you remember or is it just something you love to eat? I think, oh, when did I first have it ever? Yeah. To be honest, I think here. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Okay, that's nice. Because sometimes, or maybe I had it before and I didn't know that I had it because it wasn't a remarkable recipe. Here's where I had it and I remembered and I thought I could eat this every single day. What do you like about it? I love the texture. Yeah. The crunchy, I love how acidic it is.

3:00Salty. Salty. It's the perfect thing to have when you're about to have meat and pasta or whatever because it like cuts through everything. It's so fresh. Yeah. It feels like a perfect kind of way to set the scene for any palate, any meal, you know? I love it. You feel like you got it done first. Like it's healthy and tasty. And now we can go into it. And now we can get involved in the cream. I think it's a great way to start a meal. I always say that when I have it. And also, it's quite seasonal. So you know when it arrives, you know, sometimes it carries on until January, February, maybe March.

3:41But generally, we know that at one point, it's going to go. It starts in the fall, right? Yeah, starting right now. Yeah, right now. Right this minute. So would you like to read the recipe? And then we have lights. And then like Pointero, we will get into the rich things afterwards. You can read it any way you want. Okay. I always say that Wes Anderson, you know, he did it with his daughter Freya, and she kept correcting him. And Luca told me that his, Guernino told me I was doing it all wrong. So that was one, which it turned out I wasn't. But you can read it any way you want, or you can read it just the way it is.

4:18Okay. I have wanted to know for so long, because I know I have Italian friends who they drop the E on things. Yeah. I think it's what is that? no that's really funny I think that's Tony Soprano maybe they're just copying Tony Soprano I think it's puntarella and I think it's mozzarella but the one that I never get is the risotto because here we call it risotto and then in the United States where I come from it's risotto we love a hard long O can we have a risotto So we go, okay. So you can call it anything you want. Scones, too. We say scone. Yeah, scones. Different. And we say cookies. You know, they say that we say cookies instead of biscuits.

5:04I think George Bernard Shaw said that, you know, America and Britain were separated by a common language. 100%. The most thing is when you have a baby. That's the real one because diapers or nappies and dummies or pacifiers and prams or strollers. And like there's no word in baby language that, you know, kind of that I was going in. And then, of course, the one I always like is when I went in and asked for an eggplant when I first came here. And he brought out a dozen eggs. And then I said, no, I said an eggplant. And he brought out a plant. And I went, no, you know, an eggplant. So it's a... And then he thought, oh, lady, eggs don't grow on plants.

5:46Yeah, exactly. What are you doing in a green roser? Okay, so we're going to read. Okay. Okay, here's the recipe. You can pronounce it any way you want. This is my, this is truly, this is not just my favorite River Cafe recipe. This is one of my favorite things to eat, and I'm not being hyperbolic just because I'm on your podcast. I promise you I dream about this, and then I rue the moment it's not in season. Like if I come here and it's not in season, I'm sad because you can't be off menu. But today we're happy because we're going to go and have some. We're happy because we're going to have this.

6:17Have you actually made it yourself? No, because I know it's awesome. Okay, we're going to show you. I would love to because it's very hard to do that tool. Well, no, we just use a knife. Okay. Yeah, we're going to show you. Okay. Can't wait. You can show us. Cannot wait. Okay. Here we go. Punta Rele alla Romana. How's my pronunciation? Okay. Okay. Punta Rele heads, two. Salted anchovy fillets, the Brits say fillets, five. Yeah. Yeah. Red wine vinegar, two tablespoons. Dried chilies, two. black pepper, one tablespoon. No, teaspoon. One teaspoon. Don't get that wrong. That would be bad. That'd be brutal.

6:56Actually, you don't even have to put it in a teaspoon. You can just make sure that it has enough pepper on top that you want. And extra virgin olive oil, which... That is important. The amount is left open. I feel like that's to taste, to desire. Trust the cook. Yeah, trust the cook. Trust the cook. To prepare the puntarelli, fill a large bowl with ice water and pull the buds from the puntarelle heads. Use a small knife. Slice them very thinly, lengthways. Place in the water to crisp and curl up. Cut the anchovy fillets into small pieces and place in a bowl. Cover with vinegar and stir to allow the anchovy to dissolve them.

7:36Add the crumbled chili, pepper, and four tablespoons olive oil. Spin dry the puntarelle as you would for salad leaves. place in a bowl and spoon over the anchovy sauce. Yum. I'm so excited. I'm hungry now. Okay, should I go get some? No, no, let's do this. No, this is good. It's like a delayed gratification. When you finish this podcast, you will get some puntarelli. Okay? It's an incentive to keep going. So you probably did not have puntarelli when you were growing up in Los Angeles. No. So what did you eat? What was food like? Tell me about your family. Tell me about the kitchen. Tell me about the house?

8:17My parents loved food. My dad especially loved food. And he loved food from kind of every culture. Anytime I travel with my dad, it was like a sojourn to get something amazing. Like, you know, he loves like Chez, Lamy, Louis. Yeah, does he? Loved, love, love, love. He's the first person who exposed me to Saul Meunier or, you know, he just loved food. Because that probably, that again was not part of his background. No. You know? No. So he grew up quite poor. He did. And he traveled a lot in his 20s to Europe and to the Middle East. He worked for the State Department. He was in the State Department band with Dizzy Gillespie.

8:59And so he... What years would that band? 1950s, early 1950s. Isn't it great there was a State Department band? I wonder if that exists anymore. I doubt it. I doubt it. I don't know for sure, but I doubt it. But he traveled everywhere and he, for him, it was language, food, and the kind of beauty of being out of the United States. Do you think your grandparents fed him? Were they interested? Do you remember your grandparents? I do. I didn't know my grandfather. I knew my grandmother. And no, it wasn't like, I think his relationship with food probably came from an absence of food in his own childhood.

9:38um he was my dad was such a lover of life and culture and food and you know he just loved beautiful delicious things so i think that came from not having that very much from not having that and so he had traveled and and then encouraged you to know yes i believe very firmly that when you get to a city you go you know to the market or you see how people sell food you see how people buy food. And then you, you know, the greatest, for me, I think the greatest honor in this new city is to be able to eat in someone's house, you know. It's the best. And you get a sense of a city way quicker that way than anything on a tourist list, you know, like it is really like, I remember I spent a little bit of time in India when I was a teenager.

10:24And I remember going to, I lived in a little tiny village that was like two hours from Mumbai. And we went to a family's house and ate there. And it was like the coolest thing that's ever happened to me because, and also the food was insane. It was so good. What do you remember about it? It was like a doll and a rice and a vegetable and chapatis. And they had this like cool little snack called chuta, which is just like a bunch of like dried like nuts and rice and spices. And I've just like, you know, gobbled it. It was just delicious. It was totally delicious and so different from anything I'd ever experienced as a kid.

11:03So, you know, in that way, I think I'm, I'm definitely my father's child. But what was food like at home? So, you know. Because your parents, your mother was Jewish and your father. My mom was Jewish and my dad loved soul food. He also loved their, his favorite dish, which is so weird because it's like German, I think, was chicken, potatoes, and sauerkraut. So we had that at least once a week. Did you? Yeah. And who cooked that? My dad would sometimes cook it and sometimes like, you know, we had somebody who lived with us, Anna, who was amazing. She would cook it. She was also from El Salvador.

11:39So there was a lot of pupusas, which I love. What's that? Pupusas, like it's made of masa, corn masa. And it's like, it's kind of like somewhere between a quesadilla and like an empanada. So it's like a flat thing. It's enclosed and then it's filled with whatever you want to fill it with, whether it's like cheese or. green peppers or meat or whatever. You know, it's just like it's the facilitating of the thing inside. So many cultures have that, don't they? I mean, even, you know, in India with the samosas and the dumplings and Taiwanese cooking. And in this country, you know, in Cornwall, they're called pasties.

12:23Pasties, yeah. I love Cornish pasties. It's like you don't need a plate. You would put everything in. It was for minors very often. They'd put everything in it and then you'd eat it. Cripp, similar thing. And so she cooked for you. She cooked for us, Anna. How many do you have sisters and brothers? I have six sisters and brothers, but we have a very large age range. So we kind of grew up in a house with four of us. Okay. I was one of four. Meals were really important to us. We did. We ate all of our dinners together as a family. we had my parents would often have people over like a lot of friends over Sunday night and my dad had this would have this chef come she was a Brazilian chef her name was Remy and she would just make the most delicious like greens and beans with like you know bacon and I don't sorry I don't remember any of the Brazilian names and I do not want to butcher it but like delicious.

13:22And everybody would come over and we'd sit outside. We'd have all like lots of little tables. And that was like a really, it's a very strong memory about the coziness of my childhood or those Sunday night dinners. When you, when you were born or when you were growing up, was you, had your father known success then? Was he, was he past this struggling stage? He did. Yes. He did know success. He's had, he had so many lives and so many careers. so by the time I was born you know 1976 he had had plenty of success as a jazz musician and he worked with Frank Sinatra and he had worked at Mercury Records and produced Leslie Gore so when you say he produced them what would that mean?

14:05that would mean that he would it's a long story production but you know I'm sure there's an analog in the kitchen it's basically like being a chef it's like being a chef I know producers of film and I know producers. Different than producers of film. It's more like a director of a film, I would say. Where you kind of take every single element you have your eye on, the biggest, biggest picture, the end result. And within that, you work on the orchestrations. You work on the vocals specifically. You work on the background vocals. You work on, you know, basically building a track so that it sounds exactly the way you want it to sound.

14:45and sometimes you take things away and sometimes you mix it differently and sometimes you have to edit and sometimes you have to bring on, you know, and then you also, you're casting the characters, all of the musicians. And you're mentoring. You're bringing the best out of your, you know, main singer or your, you know, vocalist or your instrumentalist. It's like, you know, you're the maestro. And so is your house full of people? Filled with musicians. Yeah, filled with musicians. Really awesome. And what was that like for you? So great. I feel like my sister and I talk about this all the time.

15:16We feel so lucky that our house was filled with music and artists and people who value that, obviously. But also, for our assessment, and I think empirically, the best music. I feel like my dad's taste, my dad's sophistication, even though he made Thriller, which is the biggest album that ever sold ever in the world when he was 50. And so he didn't, like he was, he was, you know, successful, but he wasn't famous. He wasn't world renowned in the same way that he was by the time I was eight. So that kind of happened when I was a kid that that was like happening, which is, you know, changes things.

16:05But, but the point is that he brought all of the richness and sophistication of his early jazz days into his like pop world or into our pop world, which is like a real gift for the world. A gift, a huge gift. And with being a child in that atmosphere, were you, so you weren't shy, you weren't waiting on the stairs, you know, for them to go home. You were, would you be involved? Yeah, I was there. Everybody was engaged. Totally social and relaxed because my parents were very relaxed. Everybody felt invited. and warm. I was actually talking to a family friend the other day who was like a little younger than my parents.

16:43And he was just saying how much he loved coming to their house because it was like, oh, this is what you can have as a family. You can invite all your friends and it's not stiff. It's not formal. You just come, you relax and you laugh a lot. And the kids are welcome and all the different generations are welcome. And yeah, I've always loved that, which is by the way, why I love what you do because that's the mandate is everybody come and feel relaxed and at home and welcome all the time. At the dinner you came to, there was two 17-year-olds and there was someone who was hardly able to walk up the stairs.

17:24And then there was, this is Noah and Greta's film, Dinner. And I just thought that mix of people and people staying late, people coming late, and it's just you want to have a home where you have that and you also you made people sing which i thought was honestly one of the most beautiful things ever because i like you would never do that naturally anymore but it is sort of like our right to sing and it's to sing with other people is is one of the most um uh it's not just bonding it's like good for our nervous system you know it's like it's something that actually creates community and it's an unforgettable moment and it's not something that you're going to just do naturally so anymore you know like i think people used to do that but we don't anymore so it's so nice that you had us do that really it was very warm very special moment and was it with with the musicians play or were they mostly sometimes yeah like we would go and like you know just do a little thing on the piano or sing it wasn't like performative though.

18:26It was very relaxed and it was kind of conversational. But, you know, my dad did have a studio at her house and so we would go in there and spend a lot of time. What about your mother? Because she brought a lot to the table. She did. And I don't mean food to the table. But I read about her and I've thought about her and I think that she must have been a remarkable woman. She was. She just was the most loving yeah, sorry. she was just a very she was a very warm person she was a deep warm sensitive person and so she was the kind of person like you're at a party and you meet my mom you're like oh I love Peggy I had the best conversation we got in so deep so fast like my parents like both of them did not suffer fools they like they wanted to get in the deep end quickly and everybody has a story to tell everybody has a depth to them and I don't know they just wanted to get there fast I love that everybody has a story to tell.

19:25I say that about the River Cafe. When you walk in and you see all these tables.

19:35I'm investigative journalist Melissa Jeltsin. My new podcast, What Happened in Nashville, tells the story of an IVF clinic's catastrophic collapse and the patients who banded together in the chaos that followed. We have some breaking news to tell you about. Tennessee's attorney general is suing a Nashville doctor. In April 2024, a fertility clinic in Nashville shut down overnight and trapped behind locked doors were more than a thousand frozen embryos. I was terrified. Out of all of our journey, that was the worst moment ever. At that point, it didn't occur to me what fight was going to come to follow.

20:13But this story isn't just about a few families' futures. It's about whether the promise of modern fertility care can be trusted at all. It doesn't matter how much I fight. Doesn't matter how much I cry over all of this. It doesn't matter how much justice we get. None of it's going to get me pregnant. Listen to What Happened in Nashville on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Dr. Priyanka Wally. And I'm Hari Kondabolu. On our new podcast, Health Stuff, we demystify your burning health questions. You'll hear us being completely honest about our own health.

20:49I'm talking about very serious stuff right now, and you're laughing at me. And you'll hear candid advice and personal stories from experts who want to make healthcare more human. Sometimes you're there to listen, to understand, to empathize, maybe to give them an understanding or a name for what's going on. That helps people a lot, understanding that it's not just in their head. We are breaking down the science, talking with experts, and sharing practical health tips you can actually use in your day-to-day life. From when to utilize and avoid artificial light to how to sleep better. Everything you need to know about fiber and how to poop better.

21:26How to minimize the effects of jet lag and how to stay hopeful in times of distress. We human beings, all we want is connection. We just want to connect with each other. We want to make health less confusing and maybe even a little fun. Find Health Stuff on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I feel lucky too that like, you know, I grew up with people who encouraged me to just kind of be present. Yeah. You know, that it wasn't about errors. It wasn't about trying to make somebody feel any way about you. And my dad would talk to everybody. He would be in the deepest conversation for four hours with somebody he didn't meet.

22:06And people come up to me still and say, I had the best night with your dad. He just saw me. And he gave me so much time and he was so patient and he listened. And it's true. He just treated everybody the same. And he really, really believed in the kind of the fundamental beauty of being alive. And your mother being Jewish, and I wouldn't necessarily mark on somebody's religion, but it comes up. Did she bring a certain kind of food as well? Yes. liver liver she loved liver she loved chicken liver and matzo ball soup yeah my favorite gefilte fish love i know that's i know that's a controversial stance but i love it yeah um yeah and we had you know we we were observant like yeah were you yeah we were like casual you know but we were observant we spent you know did passover seder and both her parents were jewish Yeah.

23:03And she was like, you know, grew up in Long Island. So at the time, I think like she was confirmed she didn't have a bat mitzvah. I wasn't bat mitzvah, but I did go to Sunday school. I spent a little time in Hebrew school. And yeah, the cultural part of it, like the getting together and the sitting and, you know, the reading of the Haggadah and like, you know, the tradition part of it, the hiding the matzah. We love the hiding the matzah and finding the matzah, that kind of stuff. But yeah, the food. I had a great aunt, Pearl, who was born in Ireland and grew up in Scotland because they had immigrated from Latvia, her family.

23:43And they got off the boat there. They got off the boat there. And then she came to America when she was like 14 because people used to send their kids, you know, with relatives. She came by herself. She came by herself. Wow. And then her sister came later, but they, you know, were Scottish and they kind of spoke Yiddish and a little bit with like a brogue. And like, you know, they just had a really cool, they had a cool relationship. But they always, you know, she would make the best matzo ball soup. Do you have any of her recipes? Any recipes from your mother or anything? I have recipes. I have my dad's recipes for them.

24:17Oh, really? Yeah, I do for his chicken and sauerkraut and potatoes. Do you remember how he made them? I have to look. I have to look. Because I have yet to, I think I've been like sentimental. I haven't gone to make it yet, but I have it sitting there waiting for me to make it. And then we used to have a stuffing recipe that was like an old recipe from like Adam Clayton Powell. Oh, really? His family recipe for gravy and stuffing was the one we used forever. And it's the best. It's so good. Adam Clayton Powell. Wow. He was a congressman, wasn't he? I mean, I'd have to remember that too. But so it sounds like you grew up in this incredible house and family meals and people coming in and, you know, getting them to know what it meant like to open your house and to be also protected and to feel safe there.

25:12What was it like when you left? Because then you went to university in Boston, Harvard. Yeah. Was that a big step? Had you gone to summer camps or any separation? No, I really hadn't. Yeah. I really wanted to. I was desperate to go and experience something new. I was like an adult in training. I always wanted to get out. I remember I applied to boarding school by myself without my parents knowing. That's so funny. I did too. Did you? Yeah. I did exactly that. I went for the summer. Oh, and you actually got in and went. I went to a summer camp they sent me to in Colorado, which was a kind of a camp during the summer of the school.

25:51And I loved it so much that I went to the head of it. I said, can I come back in September? And they said, well, you know, and then it was so kind of, I don't even know why they accepted me, but they did. And then I, you know, I said, okay, I'm coming. And then my father always say, Ruthie went to, you know, she applied to boarding school. She got accepted. She told them she was coming. And then she came home and asked us, you know. I was the first kid of my family ever to go to any private school. But that's funny. Did you go? Did you end up going? Yeah, they said, sure, go back. And it was the happiest two years ever.

26:24Oh, that's great. Because I didn't learn much. I was on a ranch and, you know, I was very liberal. It was very, yeah. No, and I did learn. Yeah, and I was good school. How great. I didn't go. So you applied or you didn't apply? I didn't go. And then you didn't go. I think my mom was very protective of me. My sister was like kind of wild and doing her thing. And so I think I was the one who was not doing that. But it's fine because, you know, by the time I went to college when I was 17. So it wasn't like I. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, food was not a, it was not great. It was, it was cool. I mean, I think I, I had a little culture shock.