Governor Phil Murphy & First Lady Tammy Murphy

You're listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair. If you're in politics, being outgoing, engaging and caring is part of the job. And these the words often used to describe the Governor of New Jersey, Phil Murphy and first Lady Tammy Murphy. But having been close to Phil and Tammy for as long as I have, I know

If I read the ingredients, the best part. That's why we pick.

That's why I picked.

Chocolatesis importantly you love chocolate Nemesis, the best chocolate cake ever?

Yes? Do you agree?

Liked percent?

Are your chocolate lover?

Not as much as missus, she's insane. So it serves ten to twelve Is that a pound and a half? Yes, it is a bitter chocolate in small pieces.

Ten eggs and eggs that's a big cake.

If it's a big cake, one pound of sugar and one pound of unsalted butter over the tammy, simple and all.

The ingredients that I love to eat.

Okay, So preheat the oven to three hundred and twenty five degrees fahrenheit. Line a twelve by two inch cake tin with wax paper, then grease and flour it.

Beat the eggs with of the sugar.

Until the volume quadruples. This will take at least ten minutes. Heat the remaining sugar in a small pan with eight fluid ounces of water until the sugar has dissolved to a syrup. Add the chocolate and butter.

Stir.

Then pour the syrup to the eggs and continue to beat until combined. Pour into the cake tin and place in a band marie of hot water. Bake in thirty minutes or until set. Test by placing the flat of your hand gently on the surface. Delicious, served with crem fresh.

That's so good.

All the things we can't eat, well you can so tell me about the Nemesis. Why did you choose it?

Just because it has almost all of the taboo items. I love a pound of butter, you know, ten eggs, a pound of sugar, and of course chocolate.

Okay, so I have to inject. When Tammy was a child, yes before we met, would sneak into her refrigerate, her parents refrigerator, pull out bars of butter and eat the butter.

There were teeth barks in all the butter, and it was always me. I love butter, particularly salty butter.

Oh you like it salted like salty? Good butter? In New Jersey, do they make butter here.

We actually we are the garden State, so we actually do have some incredible farms here. We have some regenerative farming that goes on and in fact, we always try and find a gift that's typical New Jersey to send all of our friends for the holidays.

Also, this is in a different lane, but we we've just we've got an exploding winery, distillery, breweries industry here.

What is the wine? Like?

Wine is good?

Surprisingly good when you first hear wine from New Jersey people, so say, wait a minute, that doesn't sound right, but very very good. Stands up well, good value for money.

There's one wine that there was a blind taste test in Chicago before, something called the Governor's Cup where you give out these awards for wine.

What is a Governor's Cup.

It's where the governor.

Basically best wine through blind testing and we do it at the Governor's mansion.

It's very cool. We do it for wine and beer, right.

Craft beer, Yeah, the Governor's Yes, Governor's.

Cup is wine. I figure what we call the craft beer.

It's also for not spirits but liqueurs like the curse. But in a blind taste testing in Chicago, one of the wines in New Jersey beat out every other wine, French wines, Californian wines, So that was a big deal.

Yeah, there is there a part of the state where the grapes grow. Is there one? Is it like Napo or you know where you have a region.

Yeah, it is interesting. We are the fourth smallest state in the country. Geographically we're the eleventh largest population, so we are far and away the most densely populated state. So space is a challenge in New Jersey. It turns out the wineries are located largely in rural areas, but really up and down the state. When we first got into office, at least I thought they were all in the southern southern part of the state. It turns out there up and down, but obviously in rural settings.

Not a great state, someone told me yesterday. Because I've been studying New Jersey. I love that. And to talk of densely populated and also the most it has the most diversity, it does, and that's in term. Well we could start talking about food right there, because if you have a diverse population, you have diverse food. Tell me about you know, the different people who live here, from different cultures, from and how that it's expressed in their food and restaurants.

How about if I start with the cultures and you give me the un and the restaurants. We are, by many measures, the most diverse American state. We have one of the top South Asian populations, Indian, Pakistani in particular, the Latino populations. We're in the top three of any of the sub categories Colombia, Ecuadorian, Mexican, et cetera, booming Korean population and Asian population generally.

And then you've got the.

Populations that have been here for a long time, the Irish, the Germans, the Poles, Italians, the Italians without question, without question, and then to your very fair point, big Arab community, so one of the largest Arab communities in the in the United States, one of the biggest and most consequential African Americamerican populations, and that all of that has huge impact on the state in so many respects. But certainly per our discussion food, how would you in well food?

I think one of the things about all of the different cultures being here is that because we're so small, you can go to pockets and find incredible restaurants and.

Cantenas and.

The very typical food of a different culture.

So you go. We talk all the time about the fact that we have some.

Of the deepest benches where people are living right on top of each other, where you have no choice but to experience someone else's culture and cuisine. In New Jersey though, the corn, the tomatoes, the blueberries, the raspberries, the cranberry bogs. I mean, we have the best food you can find. And the summers here are amazing with everything that's available really exciting.

And so you have these farms, you have people different cultures of eating. Is food a important part of would you say? The diversity as well?

Lots of diners. We're going to a diner later on.

What do we eat in the diner?

What are we going to We're gonna go to the Tops diner.

Yeah, lunch is usually for me a Greek salad, minestadions.

But they have everything. I mean, it depends if you're having a nail or ham.

Or depends on what part of the state. That's a good question. But they have diners are like almost a unique Jersey thing.

This is a feature.

Tell me yesterday I was with you know, we have a new ambassador Jane Hardley and Ralph. So I was with Ralph last night and he was saying that the best pizzas from Jersey City. Do you know this place?

Well, we know, we know that New Jersey has the best pizzas anywhere and the best bagels.

Oh I didn't.

And we compete aggressively against New York City and Connecticut for both of those titles.

I like this being a food competition.

Bill has this Twitter account for the state, and the state competes in like lobs comments out there, like you know, talking about where certain food groups were created and who has the best pizza, and it's a constant battle going on.

Yeah, no, it's fo Last.

Night they were really into the they have a pizza club, you know. Ralph and for people who were at this dinner was talking about they go out every once a month to find the best pizza. So they were very impressed by Jersey City. So going back to the beginning and talking about you rating your parents' fridge for the butter, what was it like growing We'll talk about both of you, but what was growing up in your house food wise?

Well, first of all, you may or may not remember, my mother was British.

She was an excellent cook when she chose to be.

She also had an incredible sweet tooth, so we always had lots of sweets around for sure. But you know, I think back about those days. I'm the youngest of five and when everyone used to go away. You know, when I be the youngest, people were gone, they were gone to college wherever they were. And so a major period of my life I spent having the highlight of the week being to go to the grocery store with my mother and go to the frozen food section and pick out my TV dinner TV dinners for each night.

So it would be the week for the week we would.

Go and pick out the TV dinners because we were You said she was a good cook.

She was an excellent cook, but she chose to But it was so easy, you know.

And also when we go from cooking for seven to cooking for two or three, it kind of takes a little bit.

Of the joiney out of it.

Can we ask it?

I don't want to take baton here, but can you tell us your favorite TV dinner that animates all of us? No?

No, no, So I would come home from school and sit down and eat. No, this is no joke, probably a box of pop tarts, a box a box of pop tarts, and then after I finished my box of pop Tarts several hours later, we would I would tuck into my TV.

Dinner and then you tuck into the butter, right, the arazy, healthy person having.

So we hadn't thought about this, even though we've known each other for thirty seven years and when we're going out for thirty we hadn't had this conversation untill earlier today because we said, what are we going to say to Ruthie about food? We had a remarkably similar upbringing on the food front. I was the youngest of four dinners, not TV dinners but chef boy r D and a cane.

How many were you?

I'm youngest of four and similar to Tam, older siblings were significantly older. So for most of my formative years it was me and my mom and.

Dad and uh.

But on the flip side of that, I don't know if you agree with this, It made as we grew up and grew older our appreciation for really good food River Cafe, the great Italians.

I think of you as great eaters.

Yeah we are, but I think it.

The other way. But also did both did either or both of your mother's work. Did they have jobs to do during the day.

My mom helped my father in his business, but she was a a in the garden all day long.

Yes, vegetables or flowers.

Mostly flowers, mostly flowers. But she would work in the garden. By the way, I don't want to to misstate my mother was an excellent cook, but she just when she had to decide that she wanted to do it fair enough.

What did she cook when she cooked?

She used to cook literally a crown roast, she'd cook, she'd cook burgers, she'd cook chili, she'd cook you know, white fit I mean anything, anything and everything, sweets, lots of sweets, lots of cheesecakes, lots of lots of pastries.

She used to make a lot of cookies.

And a lot of her recipes have been handed down, so we all still have that little book.

I do so many people, you know, I've interviewed now something like I think we're on we're on a hundred episode. We've probably this is one hundred and four. But so many people do talk about the handed down recipe book that they haven't And the other thing that I've noticed a lot is that people very often talk about their grandmothers almost more than their mothers. Interesting, and did you well before we go to grandmother's, what was your family like cooking?

Similar to Tammy's, Similar to Tammy's And again I think you started to say this, and I think you're absolutely right, and they're unlike Tammy's mom, there wasn't a really outstanding cook in our family. My dad actually is probably the closest, and he was more of a shortness.

He called himself a short order cook.

This is his career. What did this job?

Oh, he did a whole bunch of things. He didn't get out of high school, so he did a whole He was a paid Paul bearer, He worked in a warehouse, He ran a liquor store where Murphy's. After all, we have to drop the liquor in there. So he did a bunch of things over the years. But I think when you have that sort of relationship to food, this is one guy's opinion, growing up you go one of two ways. When you grow up, you sort of stay in that lane, or you start tasting really good food

I was so flattered because I came in and this is audio, so it's not visual. But if it was visual, I would show the cookbook that you brought in with the recipe for the nemesis for little tabs through the book, which a well worn cookbook is a treasure. Really, it's it's very nice for me to see that meant a lot.

I need to bring up the show it to you coveted, very very nice.

But when you were growing up, did you have meals as a family together? Would you down?

And we have very few because I was so young relative to my siblings, and my dad and mom worked different schedules, so I more often than not had dinner A friend would come over and my mom would cook something, or one of my closest friends was an Italian first generation dad and an Italian American wife, and they were really good cooks. So I would try to get to Sammy Chicaloni's as often as I could, because I knew I did remember, Yeah, mostly pasta, homemade pasta and homemade sauces.

They were first generation Italian.

The dad was and the mom was Italian American, really really good.

Do you remember the pastas?

I remember Bolanese was the one sauce that jumps out in my memory really good, and I think it was largely spaghetti. How you this was through high school, So this is middle school in high school, so seventeen or eighteen, from probably nine or ten up through there.

When you had all your when your siblings came home, was that then that would be an occasion for doing peas? Okay, so what would you what would your mom mate?

She would make, she would there would be for Joe to be filled, so there would be you know, everybody had kind of their own options as to what they what they could go for. But she used to make whatever the favorite food is for whoever was going to appear.

So, but conversation a big part of the meal was was there a lot of talk? Yes, yeah, yes, and.

You've got at least your sister. Robin continues to be an outstanding.

Cook, right, Susan was a great cook, and your.

Late sister Susan.

And so when I got involved in Tammy's family, so this is now thirty years ago, in nineteen ninety four. We met in eighty seven. Didn't go out in a date till ninety four. I still don't understand that, but for another podcast. But when I got in the family, your siblings really were picking up the mantle.

Of hosting Thanksgiving, our.

Christmas holidays, religious holidays. Did you have religious holidays? We were both your parents.

My father was Jewish and my mother was Church of England, so we used to celebrate some of each. We were kind of the Hodgepodge, so we would go over and spend Friday night dinners with my father's family, grandmother. And I was thinking about when you just said this, and I remember going in. All you could smell was was parsley partially partially should be making MutS of all soup

I mean it was we were all we were all by the way.

As governor since day one, and as ambassador before that, from day one. We host a passover sata. Every year we do, and so we that's especially knew. We have iftar dinners for Ramadan, we have Christmas related and there's food and all of them. We have got Hispanic Heritage Month, We'll have a huge Hispanic Latino food spread.

It's fun and we invite and because we are in this state and because we want to bring people together all the time, we will not just invite Jewish people to the satar. We will not just invite you know, Hispanic people if we're celebrating.

You know, Spanish history or Spanish Heritage Month. So we always try and mix it up and invite everyone in.

And it's fun because people have never tasted different foods in many instances, so it's great.

The Sadar is the one that sticks out because we actually sit around a table the other ones a big receptions. Probably thirty six to thirty eight of us at one table. Yeah, it's a big, kind of a grand table. Reminds us of the table that we had when we were in Berlin as ambassador, and we deliberately to Tammy's points, that table will be filled with obviously Jews, Christians, Muslims will have Hindu representation, will sick.

I mean, we'll have a.

And invariably the reaction is, hey, we do something similar in our religion, or we eat something similar, or it's remarkable how people walk away saying, you know it, we're actually a lot more like each other after all.

Well, that's also that that night, it's very special because we always have someone who leads the satyr and you start explaining what the meaning is of the different foods that are on the table.

So it's all centered around food. With you, you should come to one and.

I would love to food and religion, food and tradition. I was in Mexico recently and the night before I left, I went to some friend's house and they have I'm embarrassed to say, I don't know the Mexican holiday, but there is a holiday after Christmas in which it is rather like the French pitivier where you find the little crown and then you are the queen. But in this one, if you find the crown, then you have to host

Where's the crown? Is it in the food?

It's in the cake circular? Yes?

Okay, Hm.

Did you know the River Cafe has a shop. It's full of our favorite foods and designs. We have cookbooks, linen, napkins, kitchen were toad 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 shop Therivercafe dot co dot uk. What about your father's You said.

That my dad would do more than my mom. Brother? How about you? Did your dad ever cook barbecue?

Barbecue?

It's interesting, isn't it? How the male thing barbecue and you cook? Government tell them about the barbecue, tell us about your barber. We could just stop, that's okay.

When we were engaged, I had a in the backyard. Was asked by Tammy to go out and get the get the We had a weber grill and to get the webber. The charcoal fire going and it wasn't going to my satisfaction. So I picked up the liquid and started spraying it into the embers, and Tammy ran out and reminded me that the fire could have come right back up.

And so that was I think that might have been the last.

Time I heard you know what.

I've actually determined that it was actually very intentionally deliberate.

Because that's a good way, that's a good But when you left your homes when you left to go to college, so was that a big change for you in terms of exposure to different foods or was it mostly living in the dorm and eating and the for me it wasn't.

The real game changer for me was moving to New York.

Okay told me about that.

After getting a master's degree, getting hired to on Wall Street.

Living in New York was the game changer?

That was it?

Like, oh, it was just it was like a someone opened a door to a beautiful, new, different reality as it relates to food, and it got really into some really special foods.

But that was the that was the line for me. I don't know.

Did people take you out for sort of fine dining? Was it was it?

And ethnically I'd say both, you'd take you'd go out to fine dining, typically with a client. Yeah, that was as opposed to necessary on my own. But the whole waterfront and that was the game changer. For me, and then we went over international on that further. What about wine, same New York again for me, that's forty odd years ago, I guess forty two years ago.

Up until then, I.

Was did you have wine in the house very little with me?

Very little beer? Yeah, occasionally a drink.

So you didn't know that wine was such a yeah?

Good.

When did you kind of become aware of food? Yeah? Well, far from the butter.

I actually think it was more I was more switched on when I moved overseas, so.

Going to London and really focusing.

I moved to London in ND eighty nine beginning of ninety so you were so yeah, and so just you know, the pub fair, I mean, just just being able to go and experience different things.

And then living in Germany.

We lived in Frankfurt the first time, and Frankfort being such an international airport, they have an entire cottage industry of warehouses where food was coming in from every corner of the world. You could get Durian, you could get tomatoes when you couldn't get them anywhere else, and they were always Remember I used to go to that place.

I loved it.

What was it called?

It was an incredible. To say it was a market would be an understatement. Was a massive because Frankfurt is the busiest international airport in the world and all this cargo comes in and then it goes back out to different directions, but they clip a fair amount of it off the top and it stays there.

I was going to say that I do know that you met over dinner. Well you met, you had you. It's often remarked about your first date being over dinner. It was possibly remember where it was and what you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, so dinner was at a restaurant. The first date was at a restaurant called Manschans in Frankfurt.

Oh you met, you went out to dinner and.

Frank But then our first that was a Sunday, and then we went out again on Wednesday in London at a restaurant called I'm not I'm sure it's out there, Hilaire, Oh.

Hilaire, I remember.

It was. It was that we always We also liked was the Star of India.

Star of India, a great restaurant on the Fulham Road. Yeah. Yeah, we got engaged.

We got the first date to engagement was eighteen days. So we got engaged over dinner. In an Italian restaurant in Frankfurt.

Do you remember what you ate? Yes?

So we we sat it at Table nine, which is our table. And they actually created Pizza Murphy Pizza, Pizza dea Murphy Pizza and it's it's basically pizza dough with rugola, cherry tomatoes, olive oil and really.

Good main course.

I can't recall it would have been fish fish because they were really good. They did a really good They're South Italy guys there, Colbrian, Colabrians.

They're not you, they're not River Cafe, but they're well.

I think Southern Italian food is really good.

It's really it was really good.

It's an interesting thing though that when we think about how I was introduced to Italian food was very much in America the meatballs of spaghetti, that's modest, sauce, the cheese, and then you go to Italy and actually no, it's grilled fish and great herbs and there is I mean, both are good, you know.

But we have that experience in New Jersey all the time, contrasting to Italy. We have that conversation a.

Lot yea yeah, going from getting meeting and have being engaged, getting married, having four children, How did they grow up in the Murphy family with two parents like yourselves? And what was meal time like for you?

We'll start and you come in.

So unlike it your experience in my experience when most of our siblings were gone. Our kids are two years apart, so they're twenty six twenty four, for better or for worse. We do a lot of meals together and which we on the margin really enjoy. And I think our kids, I don't think I know this. They are so far more advanced in their understanding of food and cuisine at their ages than I know I was, probably you, because they've lived Our oldest guy has lived both in Asia

Don't really have much that we eat, we eat. We eat a lot of meals together purposefully, intentionally, and we schedule our time fill and I schedule our time such that we are able to ensure we have as many meals together as possible.

And we still try to go out to restaurants.

But that's a little bit harder in the political environment and whatnot, but we still try to go out and enjoy a whole range of different types of food.

If you like listening to Ruthie's Table four, would you please make sure to rate and review the podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, o, wherever you get

You framed it very well, the gap between those that have and those that have not as wide as it's ever been. It's been a big agenda for us in New Jersey, and in my time as Governor, Tammy's running for Senate it's a big piece of her agenda as well. Just this week to give you. Having said all that, I think New Jersey's probably done more than any other state in America to battle food and security generally and

Tim.

Yeah, No, I go back to the pandemic.

I think because I started something called the New Jersey Pandemic Relief Fund during the pandemic to help people on the ground precisely the topics we're talking about, and food security, supporting the food banks, supporting the pantries, with refrigeration, with ppe, with all the things that you know, these mom and pop organizations had normally just bumbled along and the need went, as you know, went through the stratosphere.

So I think that we learned a lot of lessons.

I mean, I'm always trying to focus on the silver line, and I think out of the pandemic, I think that we learned a lot that we're able to now put into law, which is what fills.

Two other quickies. One is we got criticized because we waited a couple of days to shut schools down in March of twenty twenty, at the beginning of the pandemic. The reason why we waited we needed to get a plan from every school that they had a plan in place to get hot meals to kids even if they weren't showing up. And the second thing is more recent. We just got a report that in New Jersey had

Could you ever have a policy which gave which it wasn't, means tested for every child university?

Yeah, if we can find the money. The other day I was asked that very question. That's something that we if we have the money, that's something we want to do, probably takes us a while to get there. We are pursuing a similar, different topic, but similar trajectory for universal pre K, meaning three year olds and four year olds to have full day. We've made a lot of progress, but we're on a journey. Same with food and security. We made progress, but we have ways to.

Go in universal nurse home visitation now.

And universal nurse home visitation thanks to this one.

That is, there's big challenges in the United States with maternal deaths. We're fifty six in the world for maternal mortality rates. And one of the most dangerous time is not when a child is born, but after the child is born, because moms are not seen for the first six weeks. And of course children babies are seen frequently and so and you never know when the mom is seen. Is she wearing her Sunday finest, did she take five

Violence and sadly on the list.

You know, there's so much we could talk about and carry and we'll do part two another time. But in London, by the way Inn London, and you were talk about food just you know, as a way of communicating, of expressing love as being something delicious to eat, to share, to take care of people. It's also comfort. And so I always end every interview with the question that if you think of food as comfort, the food that you might reach for, apart from butter, you're never going to get that butter.

But what, Tommy, would your spe I would have to say if it's if it's not gonna be a sweet, then it's probably cheese.

Cheese.

I love a specific cut or any depends what's in my refrigerator.

Okay, Ruthie.

I would go, particularly in cold weather stew, a nice beef stew with vegetables. We had some the other night we did, and it was really on a cold winter night in particular.

That gives me a.

Can I tell you one other thing to entice you back to New Jersey, so hopefully we can get you back while Phil is still the governor, because one thing we do with the Governor's Mansion is we serve as many dishes as possible that have Jersey sourced food, and we then we then put asterisks on the menu to say this is local. This is this is from New Jersey and wines and.

Only Jersey Wines, only Jersey Booze, only Jersey Beer, and to the extent we can only Jersey ingredients.

Well, if I started out by saying that you know you're committed, that you're kind, and that you're interested in the people who live and work in the state, I think that this conversation has shown that. And also if I say that I love you, you can see why. Thank you, we love you. Thanks Ruthy, thank you, thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table for in partnership with Montclair.

Ruthie's Table four is produced by Atami Studios for iHeartRadio. It's hosted by Ruthie Rogers and it's produced by William Lensky. This episode was edited by Julia Johnson and mixed by Nigel Appleton. Our executive producers are Faye Stewart and Zad Rogers. Our production manager is Caitlin Paramore, and our production coordinator is Bella Selini. Thank you to everyone at the River Cafe for your help in making this episode.

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