Ruthie's Table 4: Nigella Lawson

met my sister or my cousin. For Nigella is family together. We've been through sadness and happiness and celebrations of both. Nigella and I might go for months without seeing each other, but I know for a fact that she would be the first person on my bed and I would be the first person on hers. In a crisis. We would lay in each other's arms, and then we would go in the kitchen and eat. Quite simply, she's close to my heart, and quite simply I love her. I love

you so moving, Ruthie. Right, and now I'm going to read the Summer Minister name. So two garlic cloves one small head of celery chopped, three small red onions chopped, four tablespoons olive oil, one kilo of thin asparagus, six hundred grams of fresh peas, six hundred grams of fresh young broad beans, four hundred and fifty grams of young

green beans trimmed and chopped. One liter of chicken stock, half a bunch of fresh basil leaves, finely chopped, three hundred mills of double cream in a saucepan for the garlic, celery, and onions. Gently in the olive oil until soft. Divide the asparagus, peas, broad beans, and green beans between two bowls. Add one bowl full to the onion mixture and cook, stirring to coat with oil for five minutes. Season Cover with the chicken stock and bring to the boils. Simmer

for fifteen minutes. Add the remaining vegetables and cook for a further ten minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the basil and cream. Cool to room temperature. Then serve with parmesan and pesto. M hmm, thank you so so yeah so of all the recipes, you say it reminds you of the River Cafe. Well I feel choosing any recipe is a source of anguish because there's so many I could choose, and I think I remember having

this god. I don't know when it would have been the eighties, yep, late eighties, might have even been on our first menu. I think it was really one of the first and it was like it was both like nothing else I'd ever eatn and yet so familiar. There's something as well, I think it says so many interesting things about food and eating that the eating at room temperature. I think so many people eat food too hot and too cold, and room temperature which is something the Italians

really get. It allows you to taste flavors so vibrantly. Maybe it's maybe there's something about it that reminds me of child and not that I ate this, but the that although it's Italian, those the sweet starchiness of the peas somehow reminds me of an English summer as well. And I think that a lot of our favorite food does go back to, very often the food that we did have as a child that has a memory, And did you grow up with it as your mother cooked?

She was a good thing about your mother. My mother was a rather fascinating but I want saying difficulties is not a very compassionate way of describing it. She married very young, she was nineteen and had her first child at twenties, my older brother. She felt things very deeply but didn't always express it, so would erupt quite a bit.

And you know, she was fantastically impatient. And I one of the jobs we had to do, my sister Thomasina, we used to have to make mayonnaise together and one of us would whisk and one would pour the oil. And whoever was whisking, you know, you weren't whisking fast enough.

And whoever was pooring, you weren't slowly. And the tension, you know, So it's so difficult because I remember what I learned, and I remember being in the kitchen with with fondness and gratitude, and yet it would be so unfaithful to the truth if I didn't say it was also a source of great tension. I mean, it was frightening, but but I think that. But I think I did learn a lot. And she was a very spontaneous cook. But imagine being nineteen and twenty and having to embrace

motherhood and domestic life and cook. Do you think she liked cooking. Did she like it? Didn't I associate my mother with food, and yet she had a very troubled relationship and had eating disorders, which I didn't really I think I didn't really take on board until I was in my teens, I think, and I don't know when it started. And it was difficult because it it was

really a repudiation of something that gave her pleasure. And that the heartbreaking thing is, you know, she she died when she was forty eight, and she hit pretty quickly because she got diagnosed. She didn't get diagnosed. I was told by the doctor three weeks before she died. I didn't tell learn until two weeks because I was waiting a bit just to get it, you know, more tests and things um. And she said it was the first time being terminally ill was the first time she could

eat with our anxiety or guilt. I mean, that's that's and I think that. So on the one hand, you know, I've learned everything about what cooking is from her, not everything I've learned from you. I've learned from Annadele can't ever learned from Claudia Rodan. But I also learned what pat I didn't want to go down, and it wasn't that one was your father? Didn't you ever cook? He didn't occasionally lay you're on. He would make his own breakfast breakfast, which I think is quite an old fashioned

male thing to do. That somehow they don't feel, you know, cooking eggs is too much of a dent to their dignity because he you know, we talk a lot about, you know, the generational men in the kitchen, men coming in the kitchen men. Very often Americans will say their father never cooked, but did the barbecue, yes, or that that somehow grilling need. But but even so, I think he would only make his breakfast. Really, I don't know.

But you know, what about your brother? Did your mother concentrate on teaching him or no, he didn't get taught, although I did teach him how to make you know, home days. She loves. But he's a wonderful eater. And I sometimes think, you know, not everyone can be a cook, but good eaters are are valuable. The other night you were here with Bruno, And I've seen you here with children and family and little kids and big kids and and students come here and have just one pasta or whatever.

But was it more of a special occasion for your fidays, birthday, birthdays, occasionally for a treat. There was a Chinese restaurant King's Road called Choice Choice. Yeah, you know, and I remember that, But it was I was. I found meals difficult. It's an odd thing, or family meals. You know. I was clumsy and I'd always knocked something over, and I found myself slightly inhibited within a family group. I came into my own later, and I think as well, I didn't

really enjoy eating. Well, I didn't enjoy meals a lot until I had a bit more control so I could decide what I wanted to eat. And for that reason, you know, a tasting menu is my idea of hell. Also, you went totally didn't. I didn't. It made it such an impression on me, or more than that, it really altered my life in so many ways. Is it after university four? So what happened was I did the in the olden days, you did an entrance exam to go

to Oxford. I thought I would like to do German and Italian, so I thought I pretended at the interview that I was going to go to school there, but I didn't. Initially in the year between the gap here, but I didn't, and I just turned up with a school friend and I got a job. We got we had a job share, so we had one woman in

Florence and we were chamber maids. And all I would say is, if anyone ever stays in a hotel and wonders whether people try on your clothes and put your center on, yes we do because they you don't leave your clothes on the floor. So you went seventeen, Now I was by then, I was nineteen, I think, just on the car, just about eighteen nineteen. I couldn't say anything. I could say, you know, Mrs Ean has a brown

hat or something, and oh, I don't know. It was just terrible, and I was meant to be the one getting us somewhere and I had no idea and I couldn't understand when they answered. So there it was Appenci only run by a married couple who came from Alexo, and they had a song called Leonardo, and they had his mother Lana, living there, and every now and then they go to their farm and she would be left

there and we weren't allowed in the kitchen. But the minute they gone, you know, I'd be allowed in the kitchen because she wanted a company, you know, and she was wanted chat and so so I watched her cook and there was something she used to do that. The thing I remember most is that wonderful Italian with a rospief which is almost sort of pop roasted, and I would see a bit the oil, put the garlic in, remove the garlic when it was brown, and the in the north of Italy the idea of leaving lots of

garlic was sort of odd. A very small amount of meat which then you know it was called roy when you brown something, sit around that and you know rosmary teeny bit of wine like that and sort of cook it so it was not quite not fried, but not poached really and there's something so enormously different. Again served at room temperature, and she made prey mashed potatoes with I always feel like saying, whenever people go Italians don't use butter. I felt like you should have seen her

mashed potatoes. And I think, but again, when you were mentioning about the beef being room temperature, I often think that the only thing that Italians really like temperature is ice cream very cold and pasta very heart I mean I think that's so the otherwise, as you're saying, roastby fish and semi frazy, and they always let my ice

foods stay out and I love that. But I think that being in Italy, we didn't have an awful lot of money to spend, and there was a bar I went to, and you could sit at the bar and have a campari soda and you could have a selection of I suppose it was. I suppose they were still Crostini, not blue togeter, but with you could choose different soft cheeses, whether it was it was mozzarella burata, and I'm trying to think which is the other one was? Now it

will come to me. There's another one. No, it was creamier um and you had it with stripe of anchovy on top, so wonderful, And I could keep you going, do you know? That would really keep And again I could go to a bar and have a compart. You know that's the difference, isn't it That you considered a bar and have a drink and something to eat. Was going back to Oxford a rude awakening then, when you could only go to a pub, and well I didn't

really want to. I didn't what I was going to say about Italy is that I've been very shy, and I mean not at home, more at home or in the adult world a bit. And when I had to speak Italian, because I was speaking a different language, I had to be a different person. I was more valuable, I was less shy, and so I found my voice

and that doesn't matter where you find it. I felt that I felt both in the food and a way of being and being with other people, because I think one of the things that's quite difficult when you're adolescent is that people on the whole. This is different. Now I know this Facebook and Instagram, but then people knew you just in the context of your family. And I'm not talking about having a well known father. I'm talking

about everyone. So they know your so and so, sister, Oh I know your cousin or didn't I see you there? And that's fine. But somehow to go in to a place and not be, not have all those connections is free, being completely independent, earn your own living, ending for yourself. I can imagine they loved you. I mean I can see you in Italy. I can close my eyes and see you. It was it was if as if I had decided at a young age I wanted to be Italian, and then I sort of proceeded and then did you

bring that food back with I did? It may be shocked differently, but you know, it's so difficult because I think it's hard not to love Italy without without being romantic about it. And one shouldn't be because like any country, it has its issues and it's a bit of Nevertheless, I think one is allowed to have places which in reality and symbolically mean a lot in your life. I

have such strong memories. I may have memories, I said, you know, I don't remember when we met, because I just remember just being in my life and this magnificent woman who you know, combined all of the food and energy and writing and restaurants and and love and love for John, and you know, and I think I might have met John the first time, maybe in the ivy, and he was so funny, you know, he was just so funny and so attractive, gorgeous, not so great and

I don't think about it he was, but you know, he tell me what was what was it like? To know? He was a great eater, but he just didn't like an awful lot. He was picky and he remember the first time I cooked for him? Where was that? I think it was in my flat interest to row as part of you. No, it wasn't really, And I think I think we were just friends at that stage. But I thought I would cook something and I think it

was based on a Claudia rod And recipe. There was a sort of courgettes with saffron and some sort of sauce and um, and then you made the sauce and you put the the chops auchini around the chicken and don't took one look at it. And he said, no gravy for me, please, And that's I know, and you know he I still think of him that, you know. He his idea. He adored tinned potatoes. I've never seen, I know what new potatoes and tins so their whole

little they could. Yes. And his idea of a real treat too was tinned fruit salad with evaporated milk evapp. I mean, but he did. He he had a sweet I guess. I guess he loved talking. He loved talking because I do really endless meals. And remember that big table. You have a big table, And there was a yes, and there was always people, people and eating and I

don't do children's food and non children's food. But obviously there is certain things that I would I make that were easier and people liked, and also that thing of sometimes it would just be like an indoor picnic. You know, you can get you know, bread, cheese, ham, salami, tomatoes, and it just really depends. You know, there's so many pleasures around food. And what about the kids eating where they did they cook with you? Did you cook with them? Yes?

I always did because I was Yeah, so the kitchen completely. And I remember once going to save my brother when Bruno was very little, when I was cooking and he put his hand. I said careful and he put his hand himself. Yes, and I felt like the most awful person. But actually coming to lunch was a child psychologist, I think. And he went nonsense, The best way to learn about danger is in a safe environment. Much better, he said, he went with his hand in a saucepan. Again, I

wanted to ask you also about restaurants. Do you love restaurants or do I love some? I love some zero critic for yeah, it was and well I didn't do lots like people do now. I didn't want a fortnight, and I always felt I was representing the reader, so I really wanted to in a way of voke. And this is when I read a recipe, I'm trying to evoke the feeling of cooking something. I wanted to evoke the experience of being in the restaurant. Not it's not about how chummy you are with the chefs or what

you know about a place. It's are you going to have a wonderful time? And the theater of the room and the space and the wonderful ways of a clink of glasses. And I feel like I have less of a less of a restaurant going life than I used to, and that's partly. Sometimes I don't I don't want to be looked at instead of and I feel like I'm a bit on show. Not always, but sometimes it depends on how vulnerable or otherwise I might be feeling at

any time. But I love going to places I feel at home in and I love seeing you know, people who work there and people that makes because it's about exchange, human connection. As we've said over and over that food is a connection to our history, to our children now, to our lives, to our friends, it also has a comfort. And so I guess my last question to you, as I ask everyone, is a food is a comfort? Is there a food that you go to if you need that if you're hungry, not if you want to impress,

but if you need comfort. It's so difficult because I feel like for me, all food is coming, that's a good. So I do feel that you have to single. Well, I don't know. I guess you know my mother's way of cooking chicken, which is a bit like chicken soup, you know, So anything chi can, even brough, is a comfort rice in some moods, I think that generally, I guess I like a lot of people, I think of comfort food as being something sort of carbi. Yeah, I

mean bread always. But I think in different moods, all food is a comfort, and I think it's it's just there is such beauty in just the ingredients. And sometimes when you've peeled an onion, the way the skin looks on the shopping board, it's just wonderful. Or I think smell as your great lemon zest and that changes the air. So I feel it reminds you you know you're alive,

and you're taking pleasure and to be grateful for that. Well, I'm grateful for you, and we're going to go and take comfort and have some lunch in the River Cafe. Comfort and connection and love and lovely nature. I love you, Darlie. Thank you. This holiday season. If you can't come to the River Cafe, the River Cafe will come to you. Our beautiful gift boxes are full of ingredients we cook

with and design objects we have in our homes. River Cafe olive oil, Tuscan chocolates, Venetian glasses of Florentine, Christmas cake made in our pastry kitchen, and more. We ship them everywhere. To find out more or to place your order, visit shop the River Cafe dot co dot uk. River Cafe Table for is a production of I Heart Radio and Atomize Studios. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows