Ruthie Rogers

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1:35Hello and welcome to Table Mothers. I'm Jessie Ware and I'm here with Lenny looking very gorgeous. I'm not looking gorgeous. You are and it's like you knew that I had olives in the recipe today because you are dressed as a green... Green goddess. Green olive, I was going to say. Green goddess, let's go with that. So I'm on cooking duty today and I'm not nervous. I wasn't nervous until I thought about it and I thought, oh my God, I'm such an idiot for doing a pesto when we have probably the queen of British Italian restaurants. We have Ruth Rogers coming over. I don't know whether I should be calling her Ruthie or Ruth.

2:14You were like, why are you calling her Ruthie? I think that's the name of her podcast, but I always have known her as Ruth Rogers. So Ruth Rogers, Baroness Ruth Rogers of the Riverside, I think that's her title. That's an amazing title. Do you get that, like, because you're... Well, she's an honorary peer. She must be an honorary peer. But the Riverside bit is like, you know, she has the River Cafe. They didn't like just for good measure. I don't know, darling. We'll ask her how you get your name. So like if you became the right honourable or whatever, the Baroness of Manners. I'll be the Baroness of Clapham South.

2:48Well, you wouldn't take the title though, would you? No, I wouldn't. Anyway, we have Ruth Rogers coming over to eat with us, to chat, and to talk everything River Cafe. I'm really excited to meet her. It's like many other people. one of my favourite restaurants in London. Took my husband there for his 40th this year, last year. Did you have a white peach bellini? Of course. Well, it depends what's seasonal, yeah. I remember we went there for Hannah's graduation. It was gorgeous. It's one of those places where you go. For something special. But what I love about it is that it isn't stuffy. So it's got like really great energy and just lovely people.

3:29Ruthie is bringing the pudding. I wonder if it is the chocolate nemesis. That's the River Cafe, isn't it? I've got all her cookbooks. They're gorgeous and they're simple recipes, but just with delicious ingredients. Well, I have made... Hannah, I think my sister was like, why have you done this for Ruthie Rogers? I've done Marbella chicken. Why are you... But why? Well, first, Marbella's in Spain. Yeah, but I wasn't going to go to Italy, Mum. Her whole association is Italy. But I wasn't going to go there. It's a bit ersatz, isn't it? What's ersatz? It means it's contrived. It's not kind of a pure recipe.

4:11Like pesto rice. Do you think this is a really bad idea? I'm not saying a thing. Well, you know what? I love Marbella chicken. And I love our little pesto rice that we do it. And I made fresh pesto. Don't let it go dry. I'm not going to let it go dry. I've got a timer on because last time I made it with Emma and Richard, it was dry. Yes, I'm aware of that, Mum. Thank you. No pressure. look at you sitting there anyway I'm making Marbella chicken which I really like and now I feel like you whatever maybe I won't call it Marbella chicken fuck it I'm proud of Marbella chicken I love it it's delicious haven't made it for a few years and it's tasty do you agree that you still enjoy the taste of Marbella chicken I don't know because I haven't made it for so long well I'm thrilled that I'm about to give it to somebody who has retained a Michelin star since 1998.

4:58It ain't Michelin star, darling. No, but why would she want Michelin? Like, why? No. Jesus. Oh, whatever. My husband will enjoy it later. I'm sure it'll be delicious, darling. Yeah, I'm sure it will too, then. It's been marinated for 24 hours. I've made homemade pesto to go in our rice. Good. Oregano. Yes, from the garden. Thank you very much. Have you got oregano in your garden? Yes. You're kidding. Anyway, Ruthie Rogers coming on to talk about our podcast, to talk about food, and I'm going to be feeding her my bear chicken with pasta rice.

5:42Now, Ruthie, are we calling you Ruthie or Ruth? I think Ruthie. Does that mean we're on, like, friendly turn? Is that because you're always in Ruth Rogers down as, like, NBA, Ruth Rogers. Did they say that? That sounds so serious. I mean, it's powerful. Ruth is a kind of biblical, serious name. So I think what's quite nice is to put the IE at the end of it. And I think Richard always called me Ruthie. And so now I just try and when they, even when, you know, on a legal document, I try and say, Ruthie, it's just a nice way. Oh, really? I try, but then they send it back and say, you have to change it back to Ruthie.

6:13Well, Ruthie, it's a pleasure to have you. You've come in with your dear family friend, Sophia, from Oregon, who's sitting here. and listens to your podcast in Oregon in Oregon hello Oregon how was your weekend? I came back from New York I was working on a book in New York and I got back on Friday and it was coming back January in London sometimes can be a bit grim and grey but I had a great weekend and got back into the River Cafe it was wonderful. Buzzing. It was buzzing. Well, not always. You know, like every other restaurant, you have your quiet times and your not quiet times. And so I went, I got back on Friday morning and had dinner with friends on Friday night there.

7:07And yeah, it's all my children. New York, it's interesting. I have to say, I do love when I go to New York to have the kind of food you don't have in here. So I don't go for the Italian or the French so much, though they're really good Italian restaurants. I go to Minetta Tavern, which is owned by Keith McNally or Balthazar. Keith McNally. I follow him on Instagram. And I'm terrified if I ever offended one of his waiters, he would come for me. He would come for you. But I wouldn't offend one of his waiters. And he wouldn't do that. So what's the food? He really loves the people who work for him.

7:44So he has Minetta Tavern, which is basically very American. steaks and um you know roasted chicken and great uh oysters and he's he's a really he really cares about food and it's also a great atmosphere and i like balthazar which is you know a great kind of event place and um for breakfast i go to saint ambrose because i sent it's a it's a milanese you know cafe which opened in and it's on the upper east side but it's um it's like being in the land you know you walk in and there are all the cakes and the pastries and then you go in the back and you can have a risotto I don't usually go there except for breakfast so um I don't know about the food I like going to the Carlisle when I'm uptown again when I that bar oh my god I want to sing in the Carlisle one day why don't you I would love to yeah what I love about the Carlisle is you go down there and you see somebody who's even older than me kind of come downstairs You're not old.

8:47I'm very old. Dark glasses on. Yeah. And they live in the Carlisle or something. And they come down, they say, what would you like? And then he'll say, I'll have my regular. Yeah. And they all know what you're drinking. And the snacks are really great there. And the cocktails are the best. Yeah, really good. And that bar is great. And also the murals on the wall, you know, by Bemelmans. And the floor, that black and white template. I love it. Where else do we eat? But then mostly, you know, when I travel either to New York or to L.A., I eat a lot in people's homes, you know. Yeah, it's nice. So it's nice just to eat, even in New York.

9:25People don't cook a lot, though. Yeah, really, you find that. People aren't big cooks. People have a lot more takeaway. Yeah. And, yeah, I find it quite astonishing. People aren't big cooks, though. We went to, have you been to Bar Pity? Yes, I love it, New York. It's my favorite. Yeah, it's great, isn't it? I love it, love it, love it, yeah. And also the Waverly Inn I really like. Graydon Carter, who was the editor of Vanity Fair, he bought the Waverly Inn and I think it's really good. Because that's the kind of, you know, I like having the kind of food that you have in the States. So it's kind of fun to eat that kind of food.

10:06Ruthie, do you fancy having a bit of food? Very little. It's fine because I had a late breakfast. I don't have to have any food. Well, I'd love for you to have a little bit. I would love to have some. But I'm also very aware that you are you, and I have done my bear chicken. Great. Okay, fine. Fantastic. Fine, because it's hard to know what to cook for you. Do you know what I mean? I was just asked if, you know, and I'm sure you get to say, oh, I couldn't, you know, what do you feel? People say, I couldn't cook for you, or I'm scared to cook for you, or whatever. And I say, I'm the easiest person to cook for, because I'm so appreciative of somebody actually cooking for me.

10:44If you were at home, though, making just an easy Sunday lunch, would it be like the river? Yeah, it would. It's my language. So I don't go home and then make something. I make French food. So we have an onion soup. I love Ile Flottant. I love Ile Flottant. It's a dessert where you whip the egg whites and then you poach them in milk and then use the milk to make the custard. And then you make custard. Oh, it's a floating island. Yeah, okay, got it, got it. Yeah, so I use the French. Floating island or it's called Ophala Neige. And so we do... And that's what you're going to do, like, when you get...

11:26No, that's for when... No, no, no. You said for a Sunday lunch, if I was cooking, you know, at home. But I cook Italian food. We have a lot of pasta. We have, you know, our go-to pasta, we just say, is, you know, pasta with tomato sauce, you know, with all the various pastas you can have. I always go back to the simple ones. And what would be your pasta of choice? I do a tagliarini pasta. I do a kind of thin. I really like the Cipriani brand of pasta. I don't know if you use them. They're horrendously expensive, but they're really well done. And they come in boxes. And so the tagliarini is really good.

12:02And you're not just going to ask one of the chefs, you're just not going to do that, you know what? I'm just going to take some of the pasta from River Cafe. No, I don't take, I really try not. I end up taking food. If I know I'm doing something and I want the River Cafe to cook the food there, then I will. But I don't really take food home from there that's been cooked. Sometimes on a Saturday or Sunday if I'm home, I'll say if there's any vegetables or cooked beans, something that I might not do. But generally, I don't take food home. I think I've got all your cookbooks. Do you? The blue one is one of my favorites.

12:40That was our very first. That was our first baby. And I love the silver one as well. What do you love about it? I like the simplicity of it, that it's good ingredients, but not so complicated that you can't manage it. Although we were talking about chocolate nemesis and whether that was everybody's nemesis trying to make it. Julian Barnes wrote a piece, and it was really funny. You should Google it. He wrote a piece about the nemesis, and it was something like, there was a time in the 90s when you walked into any house and any dinner party that was being given and you saw this splodge of chocolate because it was like nobody could make it work and I say to people now I say you know give me a break it was our first cookbook which is very professional but it did work but it's very big and then in all the following books I think the Easy Book has one, Easy Nemesis, and certainly the 30 has it.

13:40Oh, there's an Easy Nemesis. Yeah. Yeah. But also, it is an easy cake to make, but I think we just did it in such a big tin, and it does work. You can make the Nemesis from that recipe. I think all of your recipes, the simplicity of them is the attraction for me. Oh, thank you. And I think it's just delicious ingredients, like you mentioned using a special pasta, and it's worth buying it. I think that, you know, they don't have to be expensive ingredients. I mean, ingredients now, like good or bad, everything is expensive. Yeah. But I think that if you are making something very simple, like a pasta with tomato, and we would say, you know, use the best pasta you can find, use the best tomato and olive oil, and then you're there.

14:25You know, it can be very simple. Sorry, I've added that. Wow, this is exciting. Is this too much? No, that is perfect. Okay, fine, Mom, is that it? Delicious. Thank you. Tell me about what this is. my my mum thought it was quite funny that i chose to do this because basically i used to do this loads when i was younger for dinner parties basically so i could prep it the night before you know what it's like when you're having people over and otolenghi or taught us that like you prep so anyway and i it's been so miserable the weather now at least there's like kind of blue skies i it's actually more of a summery dish but you've probably you've had an arbea chicken before tell me about but I just like it I like the sour oh god I just bunged everything in in a mixer all right eight cloves ten cloves of garlic oregano that had so much frost on it from outside bay leaves olives capers apricots prunes wine wine goes today I actually I don't know if I've put enough brown sugar on but whatever because I thought I had so much sweetness anyway capers vinegar olive oil delicious easy and mixture of thighs and breast because last time I made it, it was quite dry with the breast because I overcooked it.

15:36Anyway, I think I put more sauce in. And then I realised, because we always serve it with pesto rice. It's just been a thing that we've done as a family. But I realised, why am I doing pesto when I've got Ruthie Rogers here? Anyway, so I made some pesto yesterday and I've shoved it in with basmati. It's not a risotto. I'm so excited to do this. And then with just a herb salad. But I just quite like it because it's quite peppy and it kind of gets to the back of your throat. It's kind of also comforting. Yeah, it is. This is what we want to eat. It is. It's delicious. So can we start at the beginning, Rieke?

16:09Yeah, sure. You were born in New York. Upstate New York. I was born in a town called Woodstock. Oh, yes. I know. I used to say I just come from a small town in upstate New York and then I could say Woodstock. And I went to the local school, and then my last two years of high school, 11th and 12th grade, I went to school on a ranch in Colorado. It was like a very progressive school. Wow. We all had to kind of clean out the stables and cook in the morning. Were your parents progressive? Very. Yeah, my parents were very... I mean, not in that way at all. No, I have to correct that. They were, my father was a doctor, my mother was a teacher and librarian.

16:51You know, it was kind of that. But they, politically they were. My father, they were pretty far to the left, especially in America. And who was around the dinner table when you were younger? Well, in Woodstock, it was just my family. I have an older brother who's a writer and a sister who's an artist. And so the family meals were very geared around family stories. I came from a kind of family. My grandparents were immigrants who arrived from Russia and Hungary. And so. Are you Jewish? A hundred percent. Yeah. So are we. Yeah. And so I think that there was a lot of talk. No, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk.

17:34That was the food. Yeah. That was the food. and my grandma was my grandmother on my father's side was apparently I didn't really know if I was a really great cook and a kind of force and she used to come with her own rolling pin but my mother had her only male grandson my mother she came up to visit and my mother said do you want to come and see the baby and she said no let's eat first so there you go I'm going to get this up. Food was... Let's eat, sir. But, and then I grew up in Woodstock. I went to school in Colorado. And then I went to college in Vermont. And then I came here. What did you study?

18:20I studied, you know, liberal arts education, you know, in America. So with a major in English. So what was a memorable dish from your childhood? well funnily enough i would say that a memorable for me when i think about growing up in woodstock in the country it would be corn on the cob because we lived in a rural area and there were a lot of corn fields a lot of corn fields and they had markets yeah right where the where the farms were it wasn't like now you have these kind of farm to table it wasn't as sophisticated that It's just simply that you could go and buy the corn. And so I still have a memory when I bite into an ear of corn of growing up in the summer and having that.

19:04I also remember picking blueberries. I remember my mother's pot roast, you know, and I remember cheesecake. But I think mostly it's the memories of food and community and talk and family and occasions was more than... There were a lot of artists. When my parents moved to Woodstock, it was an artist community. And so there were a lot of artists. And then Bob Dylan came there, you know what I'm saying? Did you see him? Yeah, I used to see him around. And I would say that my friend Libby and I were, after school, we used to go to this place called The Bear, which is a cafe. We were doing our homework.

19:49We had a test the next day and Bob Dylan sent over a note saying, would you two like to come and see the band rehearse? We're going from here to there. And we wrote him back a note saying, no, we have a test tomorrow. I don't know. Not, not, not. Biggest regret of your life? Probably. Did you pass the test with flying colours? I don't think so. Ruthie, you, the River Cafe is beloved, like by everybody. when you get a whiff of the guest list or the reservations have you sometimes been like you know what I'm gonna pop in they're on the list I'm quite interested to see what they order yeah of course you know it's nice when you see the list it could be a writer whose novel you read or you know somebody who worked on the covid vaccine it can be any you know that's not necessarily just Of course.

20:41I get very excited by, I think we all get excited when a chef comes in. You know, we all love seeing the movie stars or the actors and the directors, film people. We all love that. The musicians, artists. But when you see somebody who actually works in the same field you do, who is a cook, then you, especially if you really admire them, that means something. How are you finding doing a podcast? well I love it you know it's um it was great with I mean I understand why you've started it's um it just is something that happened I always thought there's a restaurant in Brooklyn called Roberto's have you ever been there I remember going there 20 years ago or maybe less but 10-15 years ago maybe a long time ago and they had a radio station I thought oh it's so cool maybe we should do River Cafe radio and just when people are coming through they could be here to and then of course we didn't do anything and then who would have thought podcasts would happen and um when COVID we were all going through that we closed the River Cafe for a long time longer than we well there are no guidelines but we just wanted everybody to be safe you know and so we closed it then we thought well what should we do and I thought why don't we just read a recipe every day just for 365 days a year we'll just read a recipe and it was a way of sort of getting to communicate with people who we ate in the restaurant we didn't see because we really missed them and um and then when i told this to a friend of mine in new york he said that's like not enough ruth you've got a segue from you know recipe to a story and then we did three we did um we tried it and luckily there were three great people who were the three people that you went through your black book well they're just people that were close to me so i i just really good friends so We asked Jake Chilinor, who's a friend.

22:32No big deal, sure. And we asked, I know this is going to sound obnoxious. No, I love it. No, it's great. And we asked Michael Caine. Sure. Because he eats in the restaurant every Thursday. You know, we were all at home. Nobody was doing anything. And we asked Wes Anderson, who's a really good friend of mine. And all we asked him to do was to read a recipe. And then we did the interviews. But on that basis, we sold them right away to iHeartMedia, Paul Pittman, and then the rest. And then we just started, and we did those three. Well, Wes actually, we did his later. I think we did, it was a kind of obnoxious list because we did those three, and then we did Paul McCartney.

23:15And then once we had Wes and Paul and Jake, then we did Emily Blunt was in town, so we did it with her. and then David Beckham, Victoria, did one. They're hard to get, Ruthie. Well, those days, again, it was just nobody was doing anything. No, it's because you're loved and they like your food. No, I don't know. I always say that it's a bit like when you ask, if I were to say to Beckham, let's talk about football or Paul McCartney, let's talk about the Beatles. But if you say, what was the last recipe your mother cooked for you before she died or they bring it up Beckham tells you that his actually his father or grandpa was Jewish, did you know that?

23:53Yeah. And they had in the East End they had you know kind of that whelks and eels and whatever. So that whole story brings up memories of Nancy Pelosi I'm a huge fan of it now. A friend had chocolate. She never ate a meal without it. She was Italian. First generation Italian. and father was mayor of Baltimore. She'd never had a meal without a tablecloth. So things like that, you know. And she has obsessed by it. I'll show you a picture of her. She came over because we're big supporters of Biden, and I gave her dinner, and she came over to speak. And she's just awesome. It's amazing. She came Sunday night.

24:40She did a thing about her book on Monday lunchtime, did the dinner at our house on Monday night and flew back Tuesday morning to San Francisco, and she's 82. She's incredible, and such values, and, you know, we need those people. So you came from a Jewish family. It's interesting because having Nancy Silverton on too, Jewish family, both going to Italian food. Well, my parents, I have to say, going back to my parents' politics, although they came from and always would identify as Jews, they were not, I grew up with no, very little from my parents. I had the cultural identity, but, you know, we didn't have, you know.

25:20Did you go to a synagogue, temple? No, no. Do you go now? No, no, I don't. I feel, you know, that's another story, but I go to, you know, I really enjoy knowing about the holidays or, you know, my friends celebrating Passover, going to a Seder. And you were saying about your mom and the food. So was there an Italian influence then? No. It was only when I came to England and I met Richard's mother. Because the Italian. Because I grew, oh yeah, sorry, Richard Rogers' mother, who died of Guiringo, which was born, who, Richard was born in Florence, although his name is Rogers. Oh, he was Italian. Oh yeah, 100%.

26:01I didn't know. His father and his mother. The Rogers family was his great-great-grandfather, but who came from the north, and then they all went on that kind of, you know, tour, the English, the European tour, lived in Nice, and then subsequently everybody was married to an Italian, and so he was Italian, Richard's mother was born in Trieste, and they met in Trieste, and then they moved to Florence, and Richard was born in Florence, and then during the war, they came to London, because he'd always kept his British passport, my father-in-law, and so when they had to get out, because the Mussolini, they came here.

26:40And she came, she'd come from a kind of aristocratic Italian family in Trieste, and probably had never been in the kitchen. But when she came here during the war, that was what she learned to do. And she learned to cook. And she was a phenomenal cook. She taught both me, and because Rose Gray knew Richard before I knew him, they'd been to school together. She taught Rose, she taught Wendy Foster, she was the kind of Italian cook at Wimbledon, and Chim and so a generation of so she really taught me she taught me Italian food and then Rose went to live in Italy so we met over to our love for Italian food.

27:19Do you spend time in Italy? A lot yeah. Have you got a house there? We have more family in Italy in a way than we have here um no we don't have a house but we go to the same house for the last 25 years. Where do you go? We called the val d 'orcia and it's an area between um it's an hour and a half north of rome and an hour and a half south of florence so it's between pienza montepulciano and montalcino that area it's an incredible almost a desert landscape there's no wine really well very little wine multiple well yeah when you get to montepulciano you get to sieno you get to montalcino has great great wine but this area between them has very little trees, very little vegetation.

28:06It has a beautiful mountain called Mount Amiata. So there is green, but it has a big sky, which I love. And so we've been going there since 1993.

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29:31whilst you two carry on talking i'm just going to get out some of the delicious puddings that we did well we we basically said if rufy rogers is coming i'm getting i'm being cheeky but i'm getting a river cafe put i didn't even know you asked for them oh it was i called up this morning and said can we bring some cakes oh my god i love you thank you thank you i said to them would you make a polenta cake you know either make a polenta cake because i didn't think of it until quite late and so I'm sorry that you, well we had the same thing in our mind Please, no, it was me being audacious and then I never knew and then I said well you know what instead of making a polenta cake why don't you bring two lemon tart, two nemesis and I hope two almond tart so I don't know, we'll see what they pack up Thank you, I'm just going to get a few on the plate and just kind of cut them off So if you were going to go to a desert island not death row because I can't bear the thought of it No I agree with you, when people ask me my death row recipe I always say why would I eat why do I want to think about so if you were going to a desert island for six months and you had to choose a meal that you'd like to remember what would it be?

30:36what time of year is it? whenever you want to be should we choose the autumn or should we choose the summer what would you rather have? I love how specific no one has gone seasonal and thought about that how many years have we been doing this for? seven years I love it. You do. You do. You can do any season. So why would you choose autumn? Well, I think autumn, you know, we all love, I love every season. I do think that there is a quality to every season. But I think for being a cook, the autumn is an incredible season to have. In the summer, you have the joy of the peaches. You have the joy of the tomatoes.

31:15Actually, as I'm describing summer, I'm really liking summer. You have peas. You have asparagus. so maybe we should talk about summer food but I think in the autumn when you have you know the boolotti beans you still have the boolotti, you have artichokes you have pumpkins, you have game which I love you have grouse, you have partridge you have pheasant you have chestnuts, you have walnuts you know fresh walnuts, fresh chestnuts and so I think most of all in November you have the olive oil you know, the great olive oil There's something about cooking in those seasons when you really have time to slow cook ingredients.

31:53You can make cavallonero and we do cavallonero pasta with a cavallonero puree. That might be one of my meals I'd love to have. Cavallonero puree. So it's, you know, the exciting thing about autumn is that in November you have the olive oil coming out at the same time as a cavallonero. Where do you get your olive oil from? Well, we have gone to the five estates or six estates that we work with wine in Chianti. So there's Selva Piano, there's Felsen, there's Capanzana, there's Fontodi. And we go to them because these wine producers also make olive oil. And we go there. It's actually an interesting thing about the River Cafe is that from the very beginning, we wanted to expose the people who worked for us the real ingredients of cooking of Italy.

32:48So in the early days we would take three or four people to Italy on a trip when Rose and I went to taste the new wine and also to choose the olive oil. We would take two or three or four chefs. Now we take almost 30. So what we have to do is we take 10 or 12, maybe 12 to Tuscany and then the next year you get to go to Piemonte. And so those are the two trips. And the idea is that you will have worked in the River Cafe for two years or a year and a half. And it is a kind of... It's a reward. It's something everybody really wants to do. It's very, you know, it costs quite a lot. It's intense because we work quite hard.

33:31We get up quite early in the morning. You get in a little van and you drive to the wine estates It's a capanzana. And then we go in and they talk to us all about the wine. And then you see the process. You see the olive trees. You see the olives. You see the press. You see the oil. You taste the oil. And then we go in and they always cook us lunch. And then you go to another one. So it's quite just when you finish lunch, you get back in the van and then you go again to another estate. And you do the same. And then you have dinner. and then you get up the next morning. It takes two days, two and a half days.

34:10But they come back so inspired and when you pick up a bottle of olive oil and you've seen it go through the process, you treat it differently. You realize why it is kind of so special. It's special. So you're going to have cavallonero pasta with cavallonero. Yeah, we could do that. We could have the cavallonero. And we might do it. We do it with a pasta, a fresh pappadelli or a fresh tagatelli. I've made a meal of your almond. I'm sorry. No, it's perfect. It's so beautiful, but it did kind of fall apart. I'm sorry. This is an almond tart that I learned to make when I lived in Paris. And there was a restaurant called Benoit.

34:51And we make it all year round, not with pears, but we make, it's the almond filling. It's like a frangipan. It is a frangipan. It's ground almonds, it's butter, sugar, ground almonds, and eggs. And that's kind of it, a bit of vanilla. And then we, in the season, I like it most with pears because I think the pears cut the sweetness of the almond. But we make it in the summer with raspberries or strawberries on the top. We do it with apricots sometimes. But the pear is in season right now. These are delicious. I've just dug into the almond cake, which is the most moist, delicious, beautiful thing.

35:29I do have cream, but I don't feel like... No, you don't. Okay, fine. I didn't want to be blasphemous having cream. This one we always serve with creme fraiche I've got creme fraiche as well I'll put a dollop of creme fraiche on the side Only if you want to I'm not going to have nemesis Are you having a starter Or are you starting with the pasta I start with the pasta I love starting a meal with the pasta And then I might just do a lot of vegetables I love following a pasta When I have people over Very often I'll start with the pasta And then have, well, sometimes I do langoustine, which I love langoustine.

36:12How do you like to cook them? I'm not too keen sometimes on the kind of first course, main course, and dessert thing. So I like starting with the pasta and then bringing to the table copious amounts of roasted pumpkin, fresh, you know, cannellini beans, and always a green braised spinach or braised. How do you get fresh cannellini beans? You can buy them. Notorious. You can. Yeah, yeah. And boolati. So if it was in the autumn, we'd have a cavalo-nero pasta. And then because they're really, we'd have langoustine, which would be split. We split them live. And then we roast them. So we put a bit of oregano and dried chili on them.

36:53And you put them in the oven. They come out and they're just very clean. How long do you roast them for? Well, not very long, about 10 minutes, you know, in a hot oven. And then you'd have those on the table. and then we'd have probably, I'd like to have vegetables cooked in different ways, so I'd probably roast pumpkin or violetta squash, and then we would have, there are really nice winter tomatoes you can get from Sicily, and we have those very hard tomatoes that you only get in the winter, because we don't do tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes, except in the summer, but these are really interesting, and then we might have slow-cooked fennel, which is in season right now.

37:31I love that. And then olive oil, maybe just do spinach. So with the langoustine, you would just have these vegetables. And then for dessert, my favorite dessert would definitely be ice cream. I love ice cream. I just love to end a meal with ice cream. And actually my favorite ice cream is probably pistachio. Pistachio or vanilla. I love vanilla ice cream. Pistachio is the best. Yeah, we do a very good pistachio. And do you bring the olive oil on the top? No, I don't do things like that. No. I mean, I think it's probably really good. but very well you know recently a chef I thought maybe it was in New York and they said try this Ruthie it was vanilla ice cream with olive oil but I'm a bit old school so I don't do that pistachio ice cream and vanilla ice cream probably the best of my two favourite we do a very dark caramel as well but I love ending a meal with ice cream do you eat ice cream every day?

38:19probably yeah I love it too and they don't even ask me when I go as you know to the River Cafe they just you just need a little don't you Yeah, we do. Just a tiny bit. It's a little tiny bit and it's great. What are you drinking with? A friend of mine, son, actually she won't mind if I meant it, but you know, Greta Gerwig, who directed Barney, she's a really good friend of mine, and Noah, have a son, Noah Brumbach, have a son called Harold. And I said, Harold, do you like ice cream? Have some ice cream. He said, I don't like ice cream with you. It's too cold. I said, well, what's all we can do about that?

38:52What's ice cream? So, yeah. What are you drinking with that? Well, with the ice cream or with the whole meal? With the whole meal. Oh, you're going to have to. What do you start with? Do you like an aperitif? I love an aperitif. Or a cocktail. I was saying that I would have probably five years ago said I'd love a Negroni, I'd love a dry martini, I'd love a cosmopolitan. But I really, since I lived, I had to live in Mexico. I didn't have to, but I did have to because my husband had an accident there. and so I lived in Mexico City for four months. And I was just blown away by tequila, you know. And I had tequila.

39:31The great thing about tequila in Mexico is that you drink it with the meal. And so you don't have a tequila and then go on to wine. To drink it neat. Yeah, so you just get a little shot of tequila. And I can drink tequila through even an Italian meal. It doesn't go down well with my wine department in the River Cafe. So I don't, but I really love starting a meal with just a glass. What, with ice? Just on ice? No, I just have a shot. I used to say margarita. I guess in the summer I'd have margarita, but I just love tequila. Are you friends with Alison Roman? No, I don't know her. She was going to go to your restaurant.

40:11Yeah, what's she? She came to, don't you remember? I can't even know her. I think she's really good. Yeah, but she says, and I think it's great, if you have a dinner party make a big jug of margaritas and give people margaritas and I tried it once everyone wouldn't have cared what I'd made for dinner they loved every minute they were happy, they enjoyed life the dinner was great Kathleen Tynan, she was a great woman and writer her husband was a playwright and critic Ken Tynan died and I said that I would do the party after the funeral at our house and Joan Buck, who's then the editor of French Vogue and other friends, she had a lot of really sort of great friends.

40:54And she said, well, what are you going to have, Ruthie? And I said, well, we'll have, you know, red wine, white wine, champagne, whatever. And she looked at me. She said, Ruthie, I'm going to tell you something. And this was in 19, maybe 92. Never give a party without margaritas. She has everyone else. Okay. Whether it's a funeral, a wedding, a birthday. I love that. And so since 1992, I've never given a party without margaritas. So there you go. That's what I'm going to do. I love that. I like that kind of advice, don't you? I love that. And can I ask you, when you married your late husband, what was on the menu?

41:32Oh, of our wedding? Yeah. Well, we were married in my parents' later house in Long Island. So they were on the water on the Long Island Sound. and we went it was like one of those old you know 1940 movies where they get in the car and they go to the the justice of the peace in their house and you know we sort of like we weren't eloping but with my parents it was very small and my sister and brother and a few friends and we went into this kind of little one-story little house and the man came out and he and his wife married us around their fireplace it was very sweet it was really sweet and then we went back home and we had lobsters you know because where you know the long island sound and the atlantic ocean has very good obsters how would you cook them just grill them boil them boil yeah boil and split and then uh what do we have we had just a lot of greens we had oysters to start with oh no we didn't have oysters we had clams and it was in uh we got married in november so i think we probably had i can't really remember the greens but we probably had you know spinach and lobsters are so they're so big there that you know you really get this huge lobster doing here in america and um and then philip johnson who's an architect who taught it was the head of the yale school of architecture and built you know the miss b's van der roe the seagram building and the um museum modern art he's a great um kind of father of architecture would always take us to a restaurant called the four seasons in the seagram building not the hotel but it's called the four seasons and it was the kind of most chic place you could go to in New York and so he sent us a chocolate cake from the Four Seasons for dessert which is really amazing and and it was it was beautiful it's nice it was in 1973 so quite a long time ago yeah Ruthie before we let you go um it's a pleasure to have you over and listen to your stories you are such a good storyteller and and this you may have already answered this with the corn and the cob but is there a nostalgic taste that can transport you back somewhere well I would say that for Italy and for Florence I think when I have the new olive oil and I have it on a piece of bruschetta and it's the best piece of bread with grilled it's the right you know way and have you know sea salt on it um mold and salt on it oh and then the new oil I'm transported to the first time I had it which was with Richard when we arrived the first time I went to Italy with him and we went to this little place in Florence and we were served that and I kept saying there's something else on this because the olive oil was so peppery and it was only three ingredients it was just the bread, the olive oil and a bit of a hint of garlic so I think when I ever ate that I'm transported to that moment with Richard You've met the most amazing people through the River Cafe and probably through Richard as well.

44:31Who would you have at a dinner party, alive or dead now? If you could have your best dinner party. Dead or dead. I'd have dinner with Richard. Yeah. Two of us. That'd be my dinner party. Just you two. Somebody said to me the other day that he'd met somebody and she was living in Hong Kong. He said, Ruthie, it's kind of a long-distance relationship. And I said, that's what I have. he's still there he's around, we're just long distance how long is it since he passed away? two years, yeah we're good, we're good I have an amazing family of 13 grandchildren and I have my family and I have my friends and I have the River Cafe and I have you and I have you and I have Sophia and you it's a life, we're good thank you so much for coming on this good luck with the new album series do you know you're so calming we've not even argued I know, you've actually been like conflict resolution we're all peaceful and serene now it's beautiful to be here it really was thank you for asking me oh my god such a fan and I can't wait to let you know next time I'm in with a cafe and eat a bowl of ice cream with you I'd love to come yeah just let me know yeah I'd love to you can come every day

45:55Ruthie Rogers. What a ledge. A ledge. Absolutely a legend. She is fabulous. She is generous. She is cool, warm. Just a very good storyteller. She knows so much about food, but all the people she's met who've crossed that threshold at River Cafe, it's fantastic. She was a treasure chest of food information and stories. I loved hearing her stories. I could have had her for, well, a full season, to be honest. Yeah. She has a lovely voice. Oh, heaven. Yeah, a really nice voice. And so warm, gave me lots of cuddles. Yeah, really lovely woman. And lovely, beautiful Sophia, who she came with, who's a fan.

46:41Yeah. And I got to eat chocolate nemesis on a Monday afternoon, so that is great news for me. Ruthie's podcast Ruthie's Table 4 is out now for a new season and she does have fantastic guests because she knows everyone she loved my Marbella chicken I know it was delicious it was very good darling it was really really good you know what never underestimate the power of the Marbs Marbella and then thanks to Ruthie for bringing delicious delicious puds and shout out to River Cafe and the gorgeous chefs that will be listening and that I can't remember your names and I feel very bad about that that's really shit of me um i apologize but you're gorgeous and i'll see you soon and then you can spit in my food because i forgot your name um all right we'll see you next week

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