Though Joanna Callo and I have very different professions. She's a writer, producer, director, most recently of The Bear. Am a cook and founder of a restaurant, The River Cafe. We have a lot in common, and most of it involves drama. Hers is creatively working with actors. Mine is creatively working with chefs. People always ask me, how does a restaurant work? I'm the Bear. Joanna and her colleagues
brilliantly answer these questions. A friend of mine just told me today that Joanna makes the hardest thing funny with likeness and sensitivity, and that she is a great woman. So here we are, here in la and I'm in London, which is the first mistake of this moment. I wish you were here. Are you sitting in your office?
I am in my office in West LA But I I wish I was there more than anything. I think I might just get on a plane right now, right now.
We could go to the River Cafe. Have you ever eaten in the River Cafe?
I haven't. I haven't had the pleasure.
You've never been. Okay, well we'll do that.
Well we'll go.
Maybe you could bring your children. How old are your children?
Oh? God? Don't let not yet. They're five and two. She's ready. She the older one is ready, is ready for restaurants. But you don't want the boy anywhere near you.
I would. The other day I was flying back from Milan and I saw this woman with a baby and I said, oh, I hope I sit next to you. And she said, you're the first person who's ever said that. Why would you want to sit next to a baby? So I think what we could do is start with the recipe, which you've chose. It's Formata d spinachi, and perhaps you could read the recipe and then we can carry on with our conversation.
So now you will see that I am the least Italian Italian person. Smato d spinachi Serve six one point three kilogram spinach stocks removed, two eggs, four hundred milligrams double cream. Nope, millileaters, it's very British. One hundred grams fresher, grated half teaspoon, grated nutmeg. Preheat the oven two three hundred and seventy five fahrenheit. Beat the eggs and cream together for a minute in a large bowl. Add the parmesan,
nutmeg and season. Blanch the spinach for one minute and drain well, chop roughly and mix the egg and cream mixture. Pour into a medium sized baking dish, and then place in the preheated oven for thirty minutes until the top is crisp and the spinach is still slightly creamy.
So tell me about growing up in your household with food. Tell me what life was like in your family food wise.
Well, that's honestly why I chose this recipe. I had an interesting childhood, which is that my parents bought a house in northern California that we shared with their best friends, so we had a little mini commune.
They shared a house. That's interesting.
I think we lived upstairs and they lived downstairs. It was a duplex in Alameda, and it was really wonderful. It was it made me one of six instead of one of three, yea. And it means I had four parents. And it also meant that my parents and you know, my parents' best friends, they were all working, so all you needed is one parent to watch all the children. But I think that sort of a theme in my
life is that both my parents worked. My dad was a journalist, my mom was a nurse who became a librarian. It's like when she was in nursing school, I think there was less cooking than when she was working full time as a nurse. She still was getting dinner on the table, but it was very regulated. It was sort of like there are the four dinners that you always make, and then you kind of cycle through that, and there's something so charming about that, and so like, these meals
are completely ingrained in our lives. And it was like boiled zucchini with melted cheese on it. That was one of the things. We ate, Hamburger patties with Campbell's mushroom soup poured over it. That's like, I think, very Midwestern, you know. And then she is Spanish. She comes from Mexican parents, and so she would also make enchiladas that were amazing. And my dad is Italian and on the weekend when he was home, he would make his sauce that cooked all day, and so you know, it definitely
got to have that. And the family that we lived with they were Hispanic also and sort of had a closer connection to that Hispanic culture, and so we would make Tamali's at Christmas and some of that. And so this big spinach made me think about how we used to get the frozen spinach, but it was like the Stofer's frozen spinach, and it was exactly not exactly this, not as good, but the same idea, and you would just put it in the oven. And that was how
they gave us vegetables some nights. And my dad called it princess food because it was like a spinach soux fle. It was such a good memory. When I was looking through the book, I was thinking about that and about how you know that is so the act of a parent that is trying to do their best, loves their children, but also has to put a frozen, yeah, frozen meal in the oven because they're because they're working, because they're busy.
And some of those you know, influences came from my other my other family as well, and it brought me a lot of joy to see this recipe.
I'm interested still in the commune, did you have one kitchen for the two families? So did you each have your separate kitchens?
Each had separate kitchens, and I think that there were sort of different rules in each kitchen so you could always have fun.
What were they What was the difference if it's.
Not your mother. You're always going to get away with a little more, right, So it's like, you know, their kids would come to us and we would go up there, and you know, we would swap around and try to take advantage of the system.
Is this all your childhood?
No, not my entire childhood. Maybe when I was five or six, we moved to another house. Oh, I see in Oakland. And then when I was eight, we moved to New Jersey and that was a sort of another chunk of life.
What was that like? New Jersey from California.
I loved it. I absolutely loved it. It felt like I was in a movie with fall in spring and snow days, and I definitely romanticize all of it.
Did you eat differently?
Yes? I had all the foods that I was supposed to have. I ate pizza constantly, bagels constantly.
Yes. Something I said to me that there was a big deal about you eating in a bagel place. Is that right? Yes?
My senior year of high school.
I don't know. Sometimes I do research for this. What was it called begel Chateau? Okay, so this is Willem, and I don't know what bagel chateau is.
It's just the place in my little town. I grew up in a small town called Maplewood, but every single day for my senior year of high school, I ate at the bagel Chateau Good for You. Oh my god.
Every day, same bagel, are different bagels. You see the detail we get into on this, you know, we asked the questions that I really bring back the memories.
Oh my god. Okay, So here here were the things I would get. I love a sesame bagel. Love. So I mainly get sesame bagel toasted with tuna, and then they always put pickles and chips on the side, and it was just a really good deal. Pickle and the chips. I mean they were probably just from a crappy bag but they were spectacular, like little ruffled chips. And I dream about those chips still. And then I would also sometimes get sesame toasted with cream, cheese and tomato. I
guess it's the garden state. They were getting good produce, you know. The tomatoes were great. They were good, and the lettuce was great. You could get like my friends would get something called a nothing sandwich, which they stupidly invented. It was like a vegetarian sandwich. Just no one to call it that basically, but it was just bagel, mustard, tomato, lettuce, and then you know, that was it.
It's like a bet without thecon yeah.
Without the bacon. But it was like crisp and tasty and fresh. And I think some of those things that we didn't entirely know we were craving.
Yet you think it's still there, are still there? It's still there. So your parents still live in New Jersey.
No, my parents actually left when I graduated high school. They moved back to Oakland. My mother was I think tired of the pizza and the bags. She wanted to go back to the Bay Area.
Food was important growing up. I mean the way you described the chips, it sounds like it's important.
Oh, food was so important. I just loved it. I mean, I I think coming from an Italian family a Mexican family, that's part of the culture. But when we were living in New Jersey, we were very close to where my dad grew up. He's from Queen's and so we would spend time with our Italian family, and so that's all food. It's just about food.
Did your grandparents were they involved?
They died when I was younger, but yes, my Italian grandma. The favorite thing that she made for me was the egg creams, which is just very like New York. We would go to her house and she would make egg creams for us, and you know, we would eat pasta the whole the whole cartoon.
And what about Mexican food, You know.
My grandpa would cook for us and he would make churiso and eggs, but they were you know, you also just sort of go and you get, you get Wendy's.
Did you go back to Mexico or Italy?
I have only been to Mexico City and then I've been to I've been to Italy, but we kind of there's a pilgrimage coming. I think for sure.
We grew up in this house, surrounded by food, and when you left the comfort of this and also a community, the idea that you had a house with other people, which I actually we always go to Italy in the summer and the house is full of families, different families, and we're all together and we meet up for breakfast, or we meet up for lunch or swim. We do all this and then everybody's so happy. This is what
we love about the summer. And then we all go back to our own houses and you think, hmm, you know, maybe this is another way of actually living, which we reject, you know, from September to June, but then we embrace in the summer. You went to college or did you start working where.
I went to UC Santa Barbara, and I was planning to study marine biology, and then when I got there, there was also a film major. And I don't know, I don't know why I hadn't thought about it, because I was obsessed with movies always, and I liked to sit very close to the television so that I could try to go inside. And I didn't think about it as a job as a kid. I just thought about
it as something I loved more than anything. And then I realized that my fantasy of being a marine biologist, of being on a boat and you know, riding dolphins, was really completely a fantasy, and many years in the future, whereas I could study film and be lost in film immediately.
Do you remember you ate in college?
Oh my gosh. Well, my favorite food story from college is that, for whatever reason, I guess, I didn't have cottage cheese as a child, or that just wasn't like common. And then in the dining hall, you could just get cottage cheese whenever you wanted, and so I had cottage cheese for every meal. And then eventually I was like, what am I doing?
And I could.
I didn't eat it for probably like ten years after that, because I would have it with my eggs, I would have it with lunch. I was just so obsessed with it, like an insane person. And I also I worked at the at the dining hall, which was a very strange and interesting experience where I worked in the kitchen. I have such a strong memory of how much fun we had back there in our hair nets, but also how terrible the rubber mats would smell at nights, you know,
and you would have to hose them down. And I was never a waitress because my brain doesn't work that way. I can't. I can't handle that responsibility. But I think I think waiters have all really hard jobs.
Don't you do too. I couldn't be a waiter.
But then I also in high school I worked in an ice cream store, this wonderful ice cream store, and I have such a I have another really strong memory of I would hold the bowl and the person I would look at the person and they would tell me their order, and by the time I turned around to the ice cream machine behind me, I had forgotten. Yeah, I just I don't. I wasn't cut out for that life.
Did you know? The River Cafe has a shop. It's full of our favorite foods and designs. We have cookbooks and then a Napkins kitchen where 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 k. Talking about food, talking about being a waiter, talking about the ice cream, talking about the chips, leads us into this idea that you made with Chris, about food, about restaurants, about the drama of a restaurant and the drama of people who work in them, the bear.
It is interesting how it does feel like all these things were leading up to he and I meeting in order to make the show. But I'll say that one of the huge things that happened to me that has to do with food was that when I moved to la in order to pursue a career in television in some form, I started listening to the radio when I would drive because I moved to la in nineteen ninety nine. Gosh,
is that true? That's true. And if there was KCRW, there was Morning Becomes Eclectic, and there was Jonathan Gold, and listening to him talk about food in the city and how food created a city was just life changing for me. It just became a real passion for me. The idea of the way that a restaurant defines a city has like completely stayed with me. His thing about eating all the way down Pico and just being invested
in your town and your city really inspired me. And I think similarly, I think Jonathan Gold led me to read Ruth Rachel and I'm just so I just adored her books. You know, I just love them. I love food in books. I just I love it. The idea of describing something beautifully and being able to share that idea my sister and I both have, like the idea of food is sometimes even better than actual food, you know. And I think I just loved Ruth Rachel's writing, but also her passion I haven't I had.
That we'll do something. She's a great and you know, as you said, beautiful writer. So tell me about how did you meet Chris?
Yes, Chris Doorer is the person who created The Bear, and it was really came out of his experiences in your world. His sister, Coco was a chef, but I think, yeah, he also had his own love of not just all food, but I think particularly he had a point of view on the world of fine dining, what was positive about it, what was negative, but also that it was just amazing that it was this secret world. And he had written a movie that was sort of The Bear and then
decided to turn it into a TV show. And I had been writing for many years. And we met in the most boring way, which is literally my manager was like, do you want to meet this guy? And I was like, oh, I guess. And we zoomed during the pandemic and I had read some of his scripts. I just thought, not only did I love the way he wrote, but I mainly was like, I love this world, you know, for all the reasons that we're talking about, And it was really exciting to me. We didn't know each other, we'd
never met. We just met on a computer and then we got on the phone and talked because I wanted to make sure I connected with him personally and before we sort of launched into this whole thing's some kind of working relationship, and it just felt like I had known him my whole life. I think it has to feel that way. I've felt. I mean, I've experienced different kinds of partnerships, and I think you either have this
like partner chemistry or you don't. And I think I just had this instinct that we had something in common.
How did you work together, how did you work how did you write together?
You know, it's changed. In the beginning, we were just sort of trying to see if we could get FX to let us make the pilot, so that meant that I just gave him feedback and I was like, what if we try this, or this is great, or let's move this up or you know, I think not too surprisingly. He had created the character of Sydney and she was very much based on Cocoa, but when I first read the scripts, she didn't appear until episode three, and I said,
I really like that girl character. Can we move her up?
Hi? Hello, Hi, I'm Sydney. I called about the suposition, and.
The fact that he was like, yeah, let's do it, I think was sort of the beginning of just us being able to push each other and change things, but always with keeping what's special about his voice?
What's you ps? That's in Chicago or United Parcel Service?
The one's the male?
Yeah, you would you do for them?
Sometimes I'm just helping him with his scripts. Sometimes we're writing together, sometimes all outline and then he'll write. Sometimes we'll share. Sometimes he'll write scenes, all write scenes. Sometimes I'll just write a script on myself.
That's the thing.
It's completely fluid and there is no one way, which makes it really thrilling.
Okay, so you know the drill. We uh, you're gonna make family. Just meet plus three and we weat around two.
Yeah, heard, dope.
Cool.
There are so many parallels between writing and cooking and teaching a chef to make a sauce or working with an actor to create a scene. And I think that restaurants are quite dramatic places. There's the drama between the chef and the other chefs. There's a drama between the chefs and the waiters and the waiters and the customers and the customers and each other. You know, you see
people crying in restaurants. We've seen it in your series We've seen the intimacy between people who are doing repetitive work. You emote, it's very emotional and it's very personal. Do you think, Oh, I couldn't agree more.
I don't think it had occurred to me how many similarities there are into my business and to being a chef. But they're so similar, and I think at the core of that is just passionate people, feeling people, and also just the humanity. Right, It's like, that's what I love about the Bear, you know, especially season one, is like they're all jammed into this tiny space, and so you
have really different kinds of people. Some are leaders, some are followers, some are aggressive, some are soft, Some are doing the repetitive stuff and that's where they feel best. Some want to create, you know, and they're all within two inches of each other. I mean, that's insane.
I have a conversation for a second. Whoa is this?
This is Sydney. I'm starving today.
You're wading today, Sydney. She's helping us out today. Cousin, you ordered different mannais bro banana? Oh you shof?
Oh you shift this bif He was using them to make a giant knuckle.
It's a play on a panatonia would have been beautiful if you let me finish something. Colusene Richie Jeremovich, pleasure to meet you, sweetheart, say sweetheart, farm you're so woof.
I mean nothing by it, Sydney sat Sweetheart's just part of our Italian hair.
Okay, listen, I'm trying to talk to you. Okay, don't be rude and start doing a million things like the smartest we have in the River Cafe an open kitchen. There's no wool between the person who's eating and ourselves. And when we first opened, a friend of mine who's the theater director, came and I said, doesn't it look like theater and he said, no, actually looks like ballet. Because everybody is moving, nobody can shout. We all go next to each other. We you know, we move around
the kitchen and speak very softly. But I think that it was also interesting for me to see in your kitchens a kind of way of growing forward. You know that how we move this profession of being a chef into being like a lawyer, like a journalist, And that's kind of what you want to achieve. You want that energy and that drama, but you also want it to be fair and you want it to be hope rather than fear.
Yeah, I mean, yes, of course we do. And also I am really interested in this idea that I think we're always circling on the show, which is where do the heart edges fit in our lives? Do we need that? Do we need anger? Do we need release? Are we? Are we all trying a little too hard to push away the part of us that's saying that there's a darkness too? How does the darkness benefit us? You know, does it? You know? I just I think I don't know. I'm interested in that for sure.
Tell me about one of the episodes that you directed that you'd like to talk about.
Oh, my gosh, I mean, I'll talk about in season two, I directed the episode where Sydney is going out and eating everywhere. Yeah, because that seems the most relevant. But I will say it was so hard. I mean, it was so challenging. We shot in so many locations all over the city, interrupting these restaurants that were just trying to do business, but they opened their doors to us.
You know. It was such a special look into how those kitchens work because it was kind of like half documentary half, you know, fiction, and so that was such a challenge to try to really tell honest stories about the people that worked there and to use real chefs. But also they have to act and they have to say lines, and I had to figure out how to direct non actors. And then you had Io eating every single food, every single thing. And I was so proud
of her. I was so proud because it's hard. Yeah, it's hard to just eat and like you know that moment when you're eating and then it's like you take one too many bites and it's no longer food, it's just like matter in your mouth. I'm always delighted by that experience, and I pushed beyond that and really put a beautiful performance on the screen.
We wanted to talk about the pasta, but why don't you ask?
Well?
I love the episode because there are two scenes that stand out to me. One is the beautiful way you show the montage the pasta's on the plate, which is so beautiful. It really crosses, like you say, in the line of art and documentary and fiction in the episode. But I also love where Carme and Sider in the kitchen testing this past the recipe together over his kitchen table, And I like the idea of when there are scenes like that, does it is it the food that influences
the scene or is it the other way around? What food would involve both of them?
That's such a good question. I love that scene too, because I think, are you talking about the one where they taste it and it's bad?
Yes?
Yeah, yeah, Oh, oh my god, chef, that's way too much as oh my god, oh did I fuck up your recipe? Or no? I must have just given you the wrong account. It's fine.
Wait do you need rule it or something? Did I give you heartburn?
Because I've no, no, no, no, no, no, it's I'm sorry. I'm sign.
Yes.
I loved that.
I was like, oh, it's so funny to be like, yeah, sometimes it's bad, right, Like we I realized we hadn't seen that, you know what I mean, we hadn't seen the mistake and that that's obviously such a such a character moment too. But but I just liked the idea that we often see in movies when they take the bite and it's delicious, but I hadn't seen the other thing. But I think for us it's really it's all connected. Like sometimes we'll write in a script a certain food
right for that scene, a certain dish. But then when you get into pre production, you actually sit down with Mattie Matheson and Courtney Store, who you know are our food consultants, and we create a whole menu, not just for the restaurant but for the show. So we worked backwards because we were like, Okay, at the end of the season, she's going to have this version of this dish. So then working backwards, what do we need that to be?
And we really we had this idea of doing this ravioli thing you guys are talking about in sort of the visual connections of ravioli and revoli, connection to dumplings and to Parogi's, and sort of just this idea of just like stuffed pasta, right, So we wanted it all to be connected. So it could have honestly been anything, but we sort of tried to make it cohesive so that you could follow her thinking and her creative path through the whole season.
Do you think differently about food? Do you think that working in this way where food has become a performance, it's become visual, it's so many people involved, has that intimacy that you had Chateau bagel or living with your mother. How does that translate? That's an interesting question.
I mean, I think for the most part, I still feel like the small moments at home are the best food moments. You know, when I cook for my kids, my daughter wants pesto pasta, they want pretzels, they want good pretzels, they want tasty honey pretzels. Like it's just it's the simple things that actually make your life go around. I do feel really lucky to have been able to go to some really good restaurants because of the show,
and it's still so magical and so special. Thinking about it so much, I do feel worried about food waste and all the unpleasantries of the business of food, and how I'm so privileged to get to go to some of the places that I get to go, and so, you know, I think I worry about that sometimes, but for the most part, I still think food is spectacular and makes world go round.
Tell me about the women chefs that you met. Let's talk about women.
I love talking about women. I mean, I'll start with Courtney with Coco, what a force, but also what a beautiful connector of people she was with me when we were shooting that episode with Sydney out in the city and we were in this parogi place that's been there forever in Chicago, and she said, come here, come with me, and we walked into the back and she was like, it's all women. Also, that idea that you could just walk into the back of a restaurant, it's so crazy,
you know, that's so cool, But she just was. She took my hand and we walked in the back and it was all Polish women and it was this very beautiful thing, and she was like, do you see. And I think she completely opened my eyes to this thing where there is such a tradition of male chefs, right, and we are dealing with that in our show, and obviously so many of our famous chefs are male. That
is just the world. But her showing me that these kitchens are full of women and talking to me about how does a woman communicate versus how a man communicates the kitchen has been just so inspirational and such an important part of the show. And so, I mean, cop is my number one woman in food And.
Do you feel is there a parallel in television?
Oh? Yes, oh yes, oh yes, I mean I think that idea of trying to figure out what tone of voice to use, Like my voice is kind of low, and then thinking about, well do I use that low voice or do I use my little voice? You know, those kinds of questions are things that I have had to navigate as a director. You know, as a writer, it's easier. You kind of just sit and you press your little buttons, and for me, I find that really easy.
But being a director has really been in experience in trying to figure out how to be a female on set.
Do you find it a lonely place? Yes?
I think directing is lonely in general, and Chris and I have talked about that. Obviously, I'm still learning. Maybe when I'm better at it, I'll feel differently. But I think directors are also siloed from each other too, you know. So it's because you don't direct together. You all have these different ways of doing it. There isn't really an easy way to compare and contrast. So even though you're collaborating with each person on the set, ultimately you are
in your own lay and it's definitely lonely. Is being a chef lonely?
Yeah? I was going to say that's a coco. When I spoke to her today, she said, I love being a chef and being in a restaurant is that it's very very collaborative. You know that if someone doesn't chop the PARSI then you can't make the sauce. If someone is late. I would say it's a very good place for young people to work because if you're late, you don't get in trouble with your boss, You get in trouble with you know, the people who are depending you
on you, and so it teaches you that collaboration. But I think that what we're all trying to learn is how you give feedback, how you give criticism, how you take criticism. All that. And I started the restaurant with another woman, with Rose Gray, and we have had a very strong percentage of women in every role. I don't necessarily think women cook differently than men. I don't go for that. You know, we cook with more gentleness or
more love or more attention. But the dynamic in the kitchen when you have women and men together as opposed to men or just women, is really apparent.
Yes, I think you're right, and I'm excited to explore that more. What is it like to be on a set with more women. What is it like to be on a set that's fifty to fifty? You know, I just don't know.
Ye know.
I think those are things that I want to experience.
And so what are you working on now?
We are writing season three of The Bear. That's really fun. That's the easy part.
You're not on zoom calls with Chris? Are you together in an office?
No? We do zoom unfortunately. But I think we're going to try to have dinner in a couple of weeks.
Where would the two of you go? Do you have the same taste in food?
We want to go to New York. We want to meet up in New York and go eat some good food. That's our plan.
Do you read out much? Do you go? Can you take the children?
Or do I ditch the children and I go out?
Yeah?
That's I mean. I love my kids so much, but I think eating out is such a luxury and it needs to be not about telling them to be quiet, because they deserve to be loud.
Yeah. Okay. If you like listening to Ruthie's Table for would you please make sure to rate and review the podcast on the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. We're talking about drama, we're talking about food. We're talking about the brilliant, beautiful series you've given us. You know that I think you've made people want to know about restaurants. You people wanted
to know about cooking. You've had empathy for people who are either behind the kitchen or in front of you, or who are grilling. Who are the curtain goes up and everyone sits down, and I think on the path of everyone, we thank you. It's very interesting how I talk to the chefs about it. You know that everybody in the River Cafe is watching it, and we talk about it, and we relate to it, and we say what's different about our environment to the environment we see.
But there is a real representation I think that you've created for us.
That's so wonderful. I mean, we are so grateful that people are watching like truly. I mean, I had no idea that people would respond to it this way, but I'm so glad and so grateful, and I also just it's really nice to have something to connect over. I do think that's something I miss about television when I was younger was because there were less shows, you could kind of really connect. Everyone sort of had a moment to say, well, what does this make you feel? What
do you like about it? You know whatever, even just saying your little catchphrases or whatever. It's like, that's a way for us to have a community. And so it's so lovely that people are feeling connected.
We are we are connected. Food is connection, dramas connection. People are connection. And my last question to you is comfort. You've described the joyousness of eating, and the joyousness of feeding your children, and the joyousness of your parents' kitchens. But sometimes we do need comfort in food. And I was wondering if for my last question, the channa is what is the food you might turn to if you need comfort? Ruthie, I think you know what it is.
It's bagel, bag old cream cheese, and I want potato chips on the side.
Well, we will find that when I see you in New York or in London. We'll just go and we'll eat at the River Cafe and I'll take you in the kitchen. But most of all, thank you, thank you, Thanks bye bye.
Ruthie's Table Floor is produced by Atami Studios for iHeartRadio is hosted by Ruthie Rodgers. It's produced by William Lensky for Executive producers are Zad Rogers and facetew Our production manager is Caitlin Parafle. Our production coordinator is Bella Celina. Special thanks to every
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