Welcome to River Cafe, Table four, a production of iHeartRadio and Adamized Studios.
Everyone knows Tracy Ullman as a brilliant woman who acts, sings, makes us laugh, produces and directs work which makes us think differently about the world we live in. I'm lucky enough to know Tracy is all of the above, but also as a friend, a mother, and quite simply the sweetest person ever in a time of doubt and in decision. One of the best yesses I've ever had was when Tracy agreed to sing our love is here to Stay at the River Cafe thirtieth birthday party.
Our love is here to stay together.
Weird going along long way in time.
I think I'm Rose mclooney.
The Rockies may crumble, just brought to may tumble. They're only made of clay. But I sang, I love is here to stay.
I love the River calthy.
Have you ever seen one thy five hundred people cry? As my guest, Tracy and I will talk about food and memories, life, work, family and friendship. Two women, two friends whose love is for sure definitely here to stay. Ruth seeing likewise, very very nice to be with you and you're going to read your favorite recipe, which is so interesting that you chose that recipe because not everybody knows it, many people haven't had it, and you chose
it as yours. So would you like to read the recipe for a garetti with tomato and pan grattato.
Okay, so I tell you why I chose it? Shall I read recipe? I really love this and I've only ever had a gretty at your restaurant. And then when I said I was going to read this, and I didn't know where a gretti was from, and I wish I could find it as I was talking to you. Literally, I walked into a shot and found So it's like samphire a little bit, isn't it.
It's like a asparagus a river its it has that grassy and you always you know you have it.
So it's very simple. But I like vegetables and I like Italian vegetables, and this is just a very very simple thing. But it's just so you and I love it. Agretti with tomato and pan grettato Serve six to eight or if I'm around, serves me six hundred grams of agretti. One stale chibbata loaf, olive oil, slow cooked tomato sauce. Snap off the bottom stalks from the agrette just below the long leafy tops. Pulse chop the bread into bread crumbs. Heat some olive oil in a frying pan and shallow
fry the bread crumbs until they are golden. Lift out with a slotted spoon, and drain well on kitchen paper. Warm the tomato sauce. Blanch the aggrette in a pan of rapidly boiling salted water for three minutes or until tender. Drain and dry on kitchen paper to remove all the excess water. Put the aggrette on a plate and spoon over the tomato sauce. Sprinkle with the bread crumbs, and serve while warm.
Delicious, delicious. Interesting that you tell this, and you said you found it in your local sharp you know, and there it was, And how food has changed? But did you grow up with Italian food?
My father, who sadly died when I was six, was Polish, and so he liked lots of pickled things and soured creams, and he was always putting things under the sink, and you know, fermenting things and goose at Christmas and very complex sort of chocolate coffee nut trts at Christmas. There was that sort of food he liked. And my mother was a South London lady who was very simple food. Always grew her own vegetables, and I grew my own vegetables and I wasn't allowed sugar or fast food and
I didn't like it. And I would just run home from school and pick the spinach that we planted, and radishes, and I like greens. And she was a simple cook, but very good because she was like, you know, wartime kid and dig for victory, you know, sort of worked on the land. And she just really liked good, simple food, my mother.
But your father died when you were six, which is very young, but you have a strong memory of him, as you say, pickles, and he's had a strong association for you of your father with food.
And he's cooking, yes, because it was unusual food, and when you're fermenting things under the kitchen sink, it's kind of strange when your friends come home, you know. And he liked you know, cucumber and dill and lemon, and I always remember big goose. He would make big goose and a kind of polish sausage dish. It took ages to make. Everything in Poland takes days to make. It's very complex. Slow cooked stuff was skis, plat skis, you know, all sorts of He was born in Poland. He came
over during the war. He was at Dunkirk with the Free Polish Army and the soldiers that was rescued and brought to England and he never went back. And then he was a lawyer and an interpreter and he had a business in Slough in in England and near London, and he was very successful and worked too hard and sadly died very early. But yeah, he was quite a guy.
And it's interesting how I think people who have immigrated from other cultures, from countries, they remember those smells and the food of their family, bringing their culture to this country. And how much richer we are because of it. Rye bread and of course caveats. It was cheaper back then, you could yeah wow.
And when I first had a bit of money just spent, I would buy caviar and I never did drugs or drink girls. I was a caviart. I had had like a five hundred dollars a week addiction. And now it's so expensive. Back in the eighties, you could still get Iranian caviar, and I love cavia caviar.
Yeah, And did your mother would she cook with you? Did you cook with her?
She was just as I say, she wasn't fancy cooked, just very simple, very pleas we would like for her and me, I'm still like this today. A meal for me is I'll buy mushrooms, watercress, radishes, a piece of mozzarella and some strawberries, and that's a meal to me.
Did you go to restaurants whatever?
No, I couldn't afford it. You know, we'ld have nice picnics in the park and just fresh things and growing our vegetables. And no, we never ate out.
And then do you remember your first when that kind of changed for you?
Yeah, I was sixteen. I left school at sixteen and I went to Berlin as a dancer with a big group of wonderful fun people, and we used to eat out because we lived in I lived in a room with to other girls, and for some reason we used to go to an Italian restaurant in Berlin. And I remember that you have pizza Funghi a spaghetti cabinaras it was very very good, and that was glamorous to me. And have always have a bottle of leave for a
milch with Italian food. But I remember that starting to eat out that way.
And as a dancer, did you find there's a discipline that you had to have to eating? Did you find that you could perform if you'd had a night out the night before or that you know, no.
Could We didn't eat till like two in the morning. This was crazy. We were like we used to go out after the show and come get inter ten in the morning. Oh yeah, we were pretty wild. But we had a wonderful girl with us, a dancer called Sarah Brown who went on to become a professional chef. I think she wrote books and had her own television programs here and she used to cook for us. So we had this amazing woman cooking for us.
How did you live there?
About four months?
Five months? And was that your first real trip away?
Yeah?
From how Yeah?
I loved it. Yeah, did you Berlin in the seventies. It was so sexy and fun and crazy and decadent, and I loved it.
Leaving home. Do you remember your routine of sort of how you would work and then eat and cook.
Or I never really lived on my own. I met somebody I was engaged when I was quite young. But if I did eat on my own, which I did because I liked this strange stuff as I keep going back to watercress, almonds, blueberries even then, just really simple sliced mushrooms, avocados, and it was hard getting avocados even I see to say with my friend in the East End, and you'd say to the green grows, so they're hello, do you have an avocado?
Not walk it?
When I was a Christmas love, not much call from some nice leaks. I was looking for an avocado. Really, no leaks, no avocados. Why one weakness that everybody always sold in England and they still do. It's bird's eyed chicken pie. I think they're about a pound ruthie and they're just it's something about the short cross pastry people. I know, famous chefs, English chefs talk about these bird's
eyed chicken pies and they're delicious. There's nothing like one of those with some gravy on it and some Brussels sprouts. When you're cold in November and you come and I still like a bird's eye chicken pie and that's the sort of gosh, that's the craziest thing I eat normally simple organic. I guess my life started when I met my husband Alan, who you knew, and he really took me to fantastic He's took me to the Royal Crescent and bath, you know, and we had lobsters and we
still have the caprice. That room was wonderful. There's photographs, some great food, interesting food places like the Horn of Plenty in Devon. There was always like people that had rest yeah, yes, yeah, And you'd go there and there'd be this wonderful old country house and a cat having kittens in the in the sort of front hallway who come in and they'd say that would find places where they'd say things like death needs a little nervous of
her custards. You know, Yes, she's been terrible nervous about custards today. And you'd say the custard's marvelous, daf and you should say, oh, is it really? Yes, it is. And then I went to live in La with Alan. I really had lived in America for thirty years and Los Angeles was terrible for food. It was terrible. It's iceberg lettuce and burghers, and you know, just now it's wonderful. There's all sorts of organic markets and you know, farmers' markets.
But in the ages it was terrible. It was like Vegas food and New York too. Yeah, it was like they'd have Italian ford, you wine red, you want white sauce, you want clams, you like egg plant? Why do you want darland? You want an egg plant?
Poor?
I'm a john. But now, of course, yeah, you know that food is wonderful. But yeah, it was all very like, you know, heavy sauces.
But when you went to La were you working? What were you doing?
Oh?
Yes, I was pregnant and I had my daughter Mabel in eighty six, and then I did a television shows for a long time, and I would always spend the summers here and couldn't wait to get to We's got a sudy here a lot when the kids were small, because the Italians just love children.
What about when you go to a restaurant with somebody, What do you look for in a restaurant? What do you like about a restaurant?
I don't eat out a lot. Really. My daughter is a wonderful cook, and her and her husband Harry make wonderful things. They're all sorts. He'll make the best dispatcho in the world. It'll take him hours and there'll only be two cups, and you go, Harry, I could just eat this forever. My daughter's neighbor is Simon Hopkinson. And to have Simon Hoppey knock on your door and give you some salmon pattae and some gaspacho and some rhubarb crumble, we get very spoilt by him.
You are very loved in the River Cafe because your foreign relationships. I've seen you. I've seen the way you are, you know, with the way to the way you have. You don't need to be their friend, but you are respectful on your kind.
But there's some You've got some wonderful stuff that I've known over the years. And I like Bassam. I like teasing him about his trousers because he wears pink trousers. He wears yellow trousers, and I always say, you wear raspberry trousers. Pon, you know, Gilae start jumping around to Coldplay records and get a slap, you know, and we just do silly things. And you know, you know, I
knew Rose a wonderful late great partner. I met Rose Gray in New York in the eighties and I remember going to Nell's Campbell, who's friend of mine, Australian knock at her nightclub and about three in the morning, she said, Darling, Litsky Row, are you hungry? And you think three in the morning, but yes, of course I am. Now, litzkit this is wonderful. Lady's going to make us something to eat. And Rose was so quiet, and she started bringing out
these little samples of things that were so divine. I'm like, wow, Rose, amazing, and we just all sat and talked and you know, were saying those things like you should have your own restaurant here. You're brilliant.
Think that's how it all started. She was with nellan it Nelts in New York, and then when Roe's decided to come back, that's when we started the River Cafe. I called her up and said, I think there's this little site in the middle of nowhere. She would go have a look, and we did, and the rest is kind of history. So we did that. She was just brilliant.
There's been a lot of egos in the food business.
I think that when I came into this profession, people warned me that it would be competitive, that people would be other chefs would be resentful that we were two women who didn't know very much, that we started from scratch, as it were, and I found it so kind and inclusive. And the people, I think the people who were starting then, the Jeremy Kings, the Sally Clark's, the Earlie Lee's, that Simon Hopkinson's were of a different We wanted to say we can do great food, we can do great atmosphere,
and we can be respectful. You know. The idea of the old fashioned chef was something we did not want to be. And then when Rose died in two thousand and ten, it was staggering to see the support that I had. You know that suddenly a chef would arrive and you know, I say do you have time for a coffee, or a manager would come and say let's sit outside of a drink and somebody's accounts managers say do you need some help? Or Georgia looker, Telly, Jeremy King say do you need a recipe? I mean, it
was very very supportive. So I think it hasn't been my experience of ego, you know, I'm sure it's there. But if you surround yourself, I'm sure it's the same thing in the theater. It's who you become friends with. Tell me about what you're working on, what is your.
Well.
I've had some nice things to do the last few years. I did Missus and mar A Come with Cape Blanchette that was on FX. Since that was all about I played Betty for a Dan, which is a wonderful person to get to be as sort of iconic American feminist, and I loved doing that. I was in Canada for like ten months. Doing that was a long shoot, so I spent a long time there and then well then this whole lockdown thing happened. I've done not doing my shows at the moment. I'm sixty one now, you know.
I just not that I'm old or anything. I just want to do stuff that I want to do. I always see what comes up, you know. I love being in London, more near my daughter and my grandchildren. And I had a long marriage. I was married thirty years. My husband died seven years ago now, and that was really hard to become someone I'm you know, I didn't want to become really, I mean, I like the version
I could be of myself with him. You saw him many times, Alan, and we had a wonderful life together, and we were together, and I've had to really adjust to being another version of myself. But I'm doing good. You're doing good, and I'm happy, and he'd be happy. He loved his food, Alan, I remember, I remember.
I can close my eyes and see him right now.
Yes, he loved it here. And we you know, we came here with the children when they were tiny, and they used to roll around while we were eating our food. It was always so great to bring the kids here. Maybeor had her thirtieth birthday here, you.
Know, I think back to that birthday when you sang. And there are two things we can do. I would love you to tell me about your comfort food when you think of Alan, or you feel somehow less than hungry when sometimes just knew that bit of comfort. Is there a food that you would turn.
To, well, I do like my chicken pie, my bird's eye chicken. I haven't had one of those in a while.
What's my comfort food?
I love chocolate. I love really good percent chocolate, but it has to be in the freezer. I put my chocolate in the freezer, and I break off one square every day, and I think it's very good for female brains. And I can eat a piece of dark chocolate and then I can write and write.
Okay, well that's it.
That's beautiful answer Why I love chocolate Nemesis.
The chocolate Nemesis, so you can get the word is so funny.
Maybe always goes Nemesis Nemesis, and everything goes like Marston's Gorse film, you know, when they're taking drugs and goodfellas Nemesis.
It's ridiculous, Thank you, Jasey. The other thing we could do before we say goodbye and go have a piece of chocolate Nemesis is to sing a song. And would you like to sing your song?
I think our listeners should now. I had a very very brief career as a pop singer in the early eighties. I had a wonderful song called they Don't Know About Us, written by the late great Kirsty McColl. So I sing sort of like Mini Mouse, You've taken Helius. I know you were so sweet and you rang me on and you said for your thirtieth And I said, would I sing? I thought, why would Ruth ask me to sing? I was so flattered, and I said, watched I sing, and
you went, do you know the song I liked? You were on the phone, you went, It's very clear our love is here to stay, not for you.
Whatever, and the day, the radio and the telephone and the movies that we know may just be passing fancies, and in time may go. But oh, my dear, our love is here to stay together.
Weird going a.
Long long way in time.
Hi, rockies may crumble.
You brought him tumble. They're only made of clay.
But oh is here to stay.
I love the River cathe and we love you. Tersay allman, thank you.
Very much, so lovey to do this in path.
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 play us your order, visit shop Therivercafe dot co dot Ukka.
River Cafe Table four is a production of iHeartRadio and Adamized Studios. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.