Laura Dern

You are listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair thinking about.

Laura Dern coming here to day. I found myself scrolling through three years of text messages. It's kind of a story about making plans to meet our excitement at the thought of seeing each other in La or London, choosing restaurants to go to, and even sending photographs of a fundraiser I gave for Nancy Pelosi. As usual, most of ideas were aspirational, adapting around our close families, movies, cooking, travel.

First of all, just being in the kitchen here was incredible, and I was thinking about tracking my memories over the last probably seven years of making movies here in London, My memories with my collaborators, my great memories are here at the River Cafe.

This is where we plot.

And create an vent and over the course of a meal that's always remembered. So then I was on set with Noah bound back this week, and we'd had dinner here together, the two of us, talking about what it's feeling like and how it feels different for him than the last movies in his life. And as we're describing it, we're describing like, my God, wasn't that wine incredible? Can you believe that salad was?

What was the art of show? How did she make that art to show?

And we're just you know, it becomes this organic part of memory, food and art, and you've created this sustainable, inventive place for art and artists that is forever seeped in my memory so already.

It's such a gift and it means so much.

And now our friendship which is growing and evolving, and we're getting finally getting time together, but also being in the kitchen and watching a great chef's kitchen and it feels rigorous and stressful. I walk away from it saying, that's such a terrifying space, and there's something even.

Cold about it.

And the minute you walk in, first of all, the warmth of the kitchen as part of the room, that the chef is not separate from the client, that we're all eating and creating and inventing this day together. That's what's so beautiful about the space you've created. And then Sean's energy is so beautiful, and that she wants to teach as much as she loves to cook is so amazing. And my son we were sharing ellery has really, through

But now he cooks. And I was sharing with Sean.

He said, you know, the only thing that I've ever experienced that feels like making music is making a meal.

And to make a.

Meal alongside other people is like when you're collaborating in the studio. You don't know what's going to happen or how we're going to invent together to create this same goal, this piece of art. But everyone has their unique rhythm.

Hi, I'm John and I'm making a potatoes alborno with sage with lord. The potatoes are done in the wood open, but you don't need to have a wood open in.

Your house time. Okay, good, you might have one. No, I don't, I will don't.

Oh yeah, So this is your recipe that you've chosen.

Yeah, And so.

It's just thinly sliced waxy potatoes and then they've been tossed with garlic and sage and covered and cooked for about forty five minutes, and then the group in another it's really.

A traditional oven. What would you do? You just put it in forty five minutes.

Yeah, So when you read the recipe you'll see to slice of potatoes, scarlet sage cover it and then you uncover it and brown it and it will turn out like that, I promise you.

And you'd only use the fresh sage leaves, right.

Yeah, well you can use anything is fine. Roastry. Yeah, it's really nice with fish or meat, anything another beautiful.

This is my son's obsession also with there's a beauty to the irregularity, and there's a beauty to the shaving.

And like he was like, when you have a true cratata in Spain.

Yeah, when he's like America, try to make it and it's you never get the texture of it, right, there's still like a density like aldento and pasta, yes, exactly.

And I wonder whether it's something to do with the potato because it's actually like a waxy potato. By the end of today, you'll know how to make that. You can impress your son and you know what you're where you're going with it?

Now, Okay, great, I'm going to attempt it.

I think like when you get really good at cooking, I think you don't need to cook with your eyes. You cook it with other senses. I reckon you can cook with your ears because you can hear how it's cooking, aren't you, and then you can obviously smell and she just got it like somewhere in your intuition. Yeah, I wonder what your son thinks. I love it.

I have to ask them.

Need your eyes.

You know, when you're like frying garlic or something, and when it goes into oil, it's sort of making alloise. But as it browns, it starts to change in the sound. I reckon you can tell when when it's brown.

Just buying the sound.

Oh that's so.

Yeah, I'm really into I'm really without your eyes.

Yes, all right, again, that's amazing.

I'm not got that.

Well, if he wants to come and have a look, I have a kitchen any time.

Oh my god, I have to bring in it a day with those Are you kidding?

Yeah? No, oh my god, that would be We talk about him. Should we read the recipe first? Why don't you read the recipe?

Okay?

So the recipe is potato alfoo, four tablespoons of olive oil, four garlic cloves, peeled and finely sliced, twenty sage leaves. We spoke a lot about the sage because the sage is beautiful now that spring is here. Eight hundred and fifty gram's Rosevale or similar yellow waxy potatoes, peeled sea salt, and freshly ground pepper. You preheat the oven to one ninety degrees. You heat the oil and a frying pan.

I can't answer that, But we can find them. You can find great potatoes. I mean, the stream for potatoes is when I went to perof you just see all these you know, different different different potatoes. But I bet if we went to a market in La we can find the potatoes so that they'll give you a Rosevelt potato. Show it to the amazing, amazing potatoes.

But I also was so touched, especially because I said, I want to make it for ellery by not only the lengthways, but the beauty of irregularity that ellery doesn't like precise, the precise look of things. It's even like in filmmaking something being off center.

You know that.

There's something so beautiful about the way it looks. And I was really touched by that. And he always comments on that, like when we've been in Spain and you have a frittata and the potatoes the density, like he was comparing it to al dente and pasta, like you have it.

There's a little bite to them, and.

They can be very potatoes can be very mushy.

Well that's why I think there when she said waxy, they're not flowering. You know, you have a baked potato with sour cream or whatever you have with it, you want it to be quite flowery. And we have mashed potatoes.

You want them not to be waxy.

But these hold their shape and they kind of a defined and always sounds better and better. What where is he?

I know, we got to get him over here.

If he's concerned about the way that potatoes just lie and I want him here tomorrow. He's a musician.

He's a musician, yes he did, guitarist, singer, songwriter, and now he's just started producing his first record for an amazing artist, a female singer songwriter. And so I think sound and instinct is everything. You know, it's really Yeah, it's beautiful.

But over food, talking over food, food and sharing a meal and creating also really happens together, doesn't it so much?

I was just saying to a girlfriend.

She was like, what is the thing that makes you know? And I said, if anyone mistreated a waiter, I deal, Oh yeah, yeah, million percent.

Yeah, you know, we're pretty lucky in the restaurant that people are really nice.

And also being raised between Los Angeles and New York. I was raised by actor parents, and most waiters are often actors in Los Angeles and New York or musicians, and so their respect at the presentation of the specials.

I was taught that.

You know, you not only the focus and regard, but actually honoring their performance of the specials as high art. And so the performance of specials was given deep.

In high regard for.

A long time. The friend of mine had their two children who were like eight and ten. We were all having their journalists. We were all having lunch in a restaurant, and the little daughter turned him and said blue, daddy, and then the sun later on said brown. And I said, what are they doing? He said, oh, we've taught them to learn the color of the eyes the person who's waiting on their table, so that they look at them. And I thought that was really a nice way of

She is like me, We love food and we appreciate food. And she is a fierce young activist. So she definitely cares deeply about sustainability and the.

Politics of food, particularly.

In the US, and so we have a lot of conversations about where the food is coming from, carbon emissions, how to support it, regenerative farming, the soil itself.

And she was a.

Really beautiful supporter of a series of films, and I've been a producer on the most recent, which has Kissed the Ground, and now a film made Common Ground.

Which is sort of the sequel to that.

About regenerative farming. And so she's learned a lot about the question of over tilling and pesticides and big food the industry of it, and obviously the laws in the UK and EU are very different than in the US, in which chemicals are somehow god in the US, which is tragic and hopefully changing more and more with independent farmers, and so she is deeply interested in it, which is really beautiful.

Did you know The River Cafe has a shop. It's full of our favorite foods and designs. We have cookbooks, Linden Napkins, kitchen ware, toadbags with our signatures, glasses from Venice,

My mom being a single parent when my parents divorced and a working actress because of travel, my grandmother raised me when she was gone working, so a majority of my time was with my grandmother Mary, who's from Alabama, and she gave birth to my mom in Mississippi. And so the roots of my family are so tied to food and tradition in the South.

Southern cooking is the region, isn't it. When we think about France in Italy and Britain having you know, the north of France has a very different cuisine from the south of France, and Piermonte has a very different cuisine from Sicily. And then you think about American food and you think, well, there's a food of Vermont really different from the food of Ohio or but the food actually of the South has such a strong identity.

So strong, and you what's beautiful is you watch the DNA of those traditions and where they came from, just like in the Great Lakes, you know, a very Scandinavian focused American cuisine and the South, I mean, particularly in New Orleans obviously, there's so much French influence, but there's also the influence of the American farmer. And what was incredible was in lower income families, the food was simpler

So did she move to la to take care of you, Yeah, oh she didn't. Yeah.

So it was very based in broad beans, kidney beans, okra, collared greens, rice, and you know, that.

Was sort of the staple of your meal.

But when she was in the South, especially when they were on the farm, the major meal of the day was breakfast, which was so wild. They would have like really like an early morning breakfast and then go out and work in the fields and then come back and have this huge breakfast at like ten in the morning

A coconut cake. The cake or a cake for breakfast with your coffee.

You know. Would this be weekdays as well?

Every day for them, every day, you know.

But the Los Angeles version is like Sunday breakfast was like a big.

Did you was your father in the kitchen or never?

Never, although my mom just told me that when they were first together in New York, he would cook on Sundays for all the unemployed actors, you know, and do like a big pasta spaghetti and meatballs or lamb chops or some kind of Sunday meal to help feed the other actors, and whoever was working would feed everybody. My father was raised in Chicago with a very influential and wealthy family of aristocratic family.

See the husband of your grandmother who came to look after or a different no.

Side, Yeah, yeah, the Durn McLeish side, and it was Secretary of War under FDR.

Poet Laureate of the US.

That Archibald Yeah no, yeah, Now how are you related to Archibal?

That's my dad's uncle.

Archibald McLeish was the Poet Laureate under FDR. While his grandfather on his father's side, George Dern, was Secretary of War under FDR.

So Warnora Roosevelt.

His godmother Eleanor I mean I've lost an that one, my dad's godmother.

Brewster's godmother was Eleanor Roosevelt.

But in that family, no one go you have someone cooking, and so he didn't grow up with it at all, but he loved it.

I was thinking, if you don't have any money, then probably you have to learn to cook if you want to eat well exact But if you do, then you know, there are probably quite a lot of men and women who never went into a kitchen.

And also, my mom tells so many stories of like literally hungry actors in New York City. My mom came to New York with twenty two dollars in her pocket and a little cardboard suitcase to become an actress from a tiny town in Mississippi, knowing no one. And she said, you know, you used to go in and if you ordered a beer, they would suggest, you know, order a beer because it'll fill your stomach, and the bartender would give them bread and butter.

But coming out of this family where your grandmother cooked for you, where your mother cared about food, your father came from a food culture, was there a time when you went off on your own and suddenly there was not that comfort food or a.

Million percent I mean I started acting at eleven and I was on location by myself at sixteen on and working on movies meant eating on the run and eating poorly and eating in small towns everywhere, and so it became what is provided to small town America, which was fast food, eating tragic.

This isn't what you're starting in.

The late seventies and I only discovered the gift of the connection between eating beautifully and food becoming a part of my artistic experience in the last decade because of heroes like you.

But do you think that you could work or act or do what you do better if you actually had healthy food on a film set, or do you think it doesn't matter?

Well, there are heroes in this movement, and I mean in music, I am so impressed thanks to Maggie Billie Eilish's mom, who is working so hard in terms of how to feed crew on music productions and touring. And there is a new model that a lot of incredible companies that are looking at zero waste are looking at sustainable models for catering. It's shifting and so we're trying to figure out on film production how to do that more and more. Kate Blanchette care so deeply about this

I know that Wes Anderson, you know, when he did a podcast and his dream and there are a few directors who would say, would not stop at all, you know that sitting down to a meal, Let's do that at the end, we'll all go out to dinner. We'll do this. But he tried it. He tried giving everyone soup, and of course there was a rebellion, especially months of crew saying we can't do the lighting of this or that out of bowl of soup.

And it's deeply possible. I've seen it done here and I've seen it done in Italy. When I've worked and you're you're not taking a lunch so as people are free, you're feeding that group of people when cameras taking a break, when the actors are taking a break, so that you have a shorter day, so that everybody has the.

Time to be with their family.

Yeah, and then you have time for a meal with your family or your collaborators, which I think works beautifully. I mean I've worked on a couple of productions now where there's.

A certain amount of meat and it's on order.

So the day before, if you're someone who wants meet a meal that involves meat, you're pre ordering so you're not wasting that day of food. And then also working with local communities so that you're taking the food and giving it to the community and there's no waste, because the waste is shocking.

If you like listening to Ruthie's Table four, would you please make sure to and review the podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, o wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. What was it like with David Lynch? Because you talk about him a lot and you've worked with him a lot. What was foodise? What was David's is what matters?

Yeah, it matters to him and sharing a meal matters to him. And from the first time I worked with him, which was on Blue Velvet, I was seventeen, and those meals are some of my favorite memories, which was you know at night we go and we eat together. You know, we go to we find a couple of chefs in that town that become friends. They know what we love and we learn what they make and at the end of the day, we'd always have a meal together.

What about food and movies when you do a food scene, their food scenes that you remember.

Yeah, the one I remember the most was on this experimental film Inland Empire that we made some of that movie literally just the two of us, and we shot several days.

In Paris, you and David Lynch.

Yeah, Inland Empire is this radical journey movie. I think it's more of a meditation than a linear film, and it was an amazing experience. We shot over almost three years. Yeah, and he wanted to make a film so that everyone could be inspired to make a movie. He's like, if you're seventeen years old and you're in Phoenix, Arizona, and you've got your grandparents sony camcorder, you pick that up and you make a movie, and now you can do

But attempt.

And then we'd go to the hotel room and he would do my makeup or I would do my makeup, or we'd work on it together, and then he would set up the shot and we'd shoot the scene. And we shot this monologue and he was happy with it, and I was so exciting.

He was like, we got it. And so then I went and I sat next to the bed.

There was this little chair and the side table and there were two perfect ladree maqueron which that hotel would have, and there was a pistachio one. It was so the green was so beautiful and he bit into it. It was so fresh. And then he said, okay, now we'll do the close up and he set up the shine and he goes, where's the macaron?

I'm like, what do you mean? I ate it? He goes, you ate my props.

So that's my biggest memory of food and working with David in a movie.

I ate the prop and he was like, you have to go now to Landerie.

And get a pistachio macaron I was.

I was once in Mexico and I sat down and I was late for lunch, and there was the mayor of Mexico City, and I was so starving that I ate the crudyte that was in the middle of the table. And the waiter came up and said, you just ate our floral arrangement, and I'd eaten some.

He said, I need the floral arrangement.

I think.

Then guess what happened my whole mouth Vietnam. It was part of that floral arrangement was some weird plant, and I thought, okay.

I'm gonna die.

I'm going to die in this lunch with the mayor in Mexico because I ate the flower flower plant, but they've got no called flowers something. Do you think about food a lot? Do you think what you're going to eat the next day? Or do you go to bed thinking, well, well I have when I wake up, or do you wake up and think what am I going to see?

My son started cooking.

We've started having conversations that we never had before, and challenging ourselves, you know, like how do we really make truly a great Cajun style red beans and rice? Because we talk about my grandmother and how i'd have red beans.

Didn't you know as a baby only? Yeah?

Did she ever leave you any of her recipes?

Yes? And in fact, my mother and I did a book together of conversations and it's called Honey, Baby Mine and the book it's a book.

Did you publish it?

Yeah?

And and in the sort of subtitle we reference banana pudding and there are a few of her recipes for chicken and dumplings and for banana pudding and cobbler and chicken and dumplings is such an interesting thing because it's what is ch It's fascinating because it's like the main stay meal that can be made no matter what family you come from and where you are in life. And

And so but the dumplings are.

Radically different, and it's interesting like in the UK, like a chicken pie, the idea of flour and in a way a dumpling or a potato being used within it. There's a similarity in it, just like cobblers.

I think.

So in California, being in LA, you have such a fast availability of great produce, would you say, what do you think we do?

But tragically there is probably the most pesticide use in California. So California has a massive trend toward organic and regenerative farming. And you can find through farmers' markets and organic markets, health food stores some gorgeous produce. And we have not illegalized the use of glycasates and roundup in California, which is illegal in many farming states throughout the US now, which I find tragedy.

There are so many small.

Farms and there are some amazing companies and corporations, even like general mills that are starting to you put money into supporting regenerative farming as their source of soy and wheat. That's what we need, I mean, we need the corporations.

What about what about the wellness industry? Because I know that you've also done a lot of investigation into what is wellness? What is you.

Know it starts with food and my mom and I's book seemingly is two actresses talking her mother and daughter

Five years and ended up with a lung disease. And so Hi.

She's struggling still but doing amazing, And the only protocol that was given was eating healthfully and to get her walking. And so our book is me getting her walking on oxygen a few steps and every day we walked, and I knew to get her walking, I had to get her telling stories, and then I recorded the stories.

So it unfolded.

But it also gave us an opportunity to do press, to talk about pesticides, and to talk about healthy eating and wellness and breathing fresh air and exercise and storytelling stories.

Well that's what we're doing today, you know the story of food, of memory and.

Passing down recipes and stories of our grandparents and great grandparents and not children.

Do you go out to eat lunch? I go to where do you What kind of restaurants do you look for when you go?

Well, hero restaurants like yours that provide local and healthy food that put art and love into it is my favorite. But I think I tend when I'm traveling on movies, I tend to find Italian restaurants often because they're the food is simpler and the produce is fresh, and so I'll, you know, unless I'm in London and I get, you know, a home like River Cafe, but you know, but it's

You just smother everything with every possible.

Spice and yeah, it's just crazy that you can't taste the food anymore. And now that the hobby, I think thanks to my son, has been getting to understand the food differently and want to understand how to cook well.

We want to have him here. We want to definitely have more of you and this has been such an incredible time and just to talk about food is love, and food is sharing, and food is teaching, and food is a legacy. It's also comfort, yea. And one of the questions that we do ask is there food that you would go to for comfort.

It always was cobbler growing up.

As certain fruit or just any cobbler.

Maybe peaches pieces.

That would be, you know, because of remembering my grandmother's love of it and her taste, the taste of peaches and like that idea of summer and the scent of them. And but I think for me now, comfort is.

Community.

Let's go eat, eat all right, Thank you, thank you, Oh my god, that's so beautiful.

Thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair