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Ruthie's Table 4: Sam Taylor-Johnson

Published Oct 11, 2022, 6:00 AM

Sam Taylor-Johnson is an artist, photographer, and film-director - and she has been a friend of Ruthie’s since the day they met at the Tate gallery in 1998 when Sam was awarded the Turner Prize.

Listen to their memories of children, food, music and art as part of Ruthie's Table 4's artist series.

For more than 30 years The River Cafe in London, has been the home-from-home of artists, architects, designers, actors, collectors, writers, activists, and politicians. Michael Caine, Glenn Close, JJ Abrams, Steve McQueen, Victoria and David Beckham, and Lily Allen, are just some of the people who love to call The River Cafe home.

On Ruthie’s Table 4, Rogers sits down with her customers—who have become friends—to talk about food memories. Table 4 explores how food impacts every aspect of our lives. “Foods is politics, food is cultural, food is how you express love, food is about your heritage, it defines who you and who you want to be,” says Rogers.

Each week, Rogers invites her guest to reminisce about family suppers and first dates, what they cook, how they eat when performing, the restaurants they choose, and what food they seek when they need comfort. And to punctuate each episode of Table 4, guests such as Ralph Fiennes, Emily Blunt and Alfonso Cuarón, read their favourite recipe from one of the best-selling River Cafe cookbooks. 

Table 4 itself, is situated near The River Cafe’s open kitchen, close to the bright pink wood-fired oven and next to the glossy yellow pass, where Ruthie oversees the restaurant. You are invited to take a seat at this intimate table and join the conversation.

For more information, recipes, and ingredients, go to https://shoptherivercafe.co.uk/

Web: https://rivercafe.co.uk/

Instagram: www.instagram.com/therivercafelondon/

Facebook: https://en-gb.facebook.com/therivercafelondon/

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Welcome to Ruthie's Table for a production of I Heart Radio and Adami's Studios. I would like to remember exactly when I met Sam Taylor Johnson. Was it at the Tate in ninety eight when she was awarded the Turner Prize, Or the day she entered the River Cafe a beautiful young woman with her first baby, Angelica in her arms. Was it when she came to see Richard with a book of her astonishing photographs. Were we just invited to a wild and glamorous party in her home that was part of, as Sam says, the blur of what London was in the late nineties. And when was the last time I sat with Sam? Was it in a bar with the love of her life, Aaron, or recently when they missed a flight to Sicily and joined a lunch. And how often have I asked where is Sam in London? Preparing to director Amy Winehouse, vi chekking in Nepal, in the south of France with Elton, or looking for a school in Somerset for her young daughters. The one thing I can always know is that wherever she is, whatever she is creating, Sam is an extraordinary woman. I love her Oh, how do I get into that without tears streaming? Well, we go into it with food. We can start off with a recipe that you chose, which is risotto with puccini and jarrolds. One kilogram of mixed fresh puccini and jarols, cleaned and chopped, extra virgin olive oil, one garlic cloth, peeled and finally chopped, one teaspoon of fresh time, one liter of chicken stock, one grams of unsalted butter, one medium red onion, finally chopped, three grams of risotto rice, two hundred and fifty million liters of extra driver mooth. Now that's the thing that sends me running around the house when I'm about ten minutes into cooking it, just like, do we have the move? Do we haven't read a recipe? Twice? Two of parmesan freshly grated um. I actually cooked this last night, it though I practiced just to remind myself what happened about five minutes in aeron Erin's here, What did happened? We haven't. I can't make this without the move. I'm going to Everyone was running around trying to find um. But it's what makes it. In a frying pan, heat three tablespoons of olive oil. Add the mushrooms with the chopped garlican thyme, season and fry for a couple of minutes until any liquid has evaporated. In a saucepan. Heat the butter with the remaining olive oil. Add the chopped onion, and cook until the onion is soft. Add the rice and stuff. Now, what's so great about this recipe is it's really good if you want to have people around for dinner, but not necessarily engaged with them the entire time you have had the latest movie. I'm stirring a resulto exactly, I'm stirring a result of It sort of also gives you something to do, so you're you know, you're active if you're not sure what to talk about. But it's sort of a perfectly sociable, unsociable meal to cook. Pour in the vermouth and cook until it's been absorbed, stirring all the while, then adding the hot stock ladle by ladle. Continue to cook until the rice is our dente. Add the wild mushrooms, the remaining butter, the parmesan, and the chopped parsley, and the best rosutto Ever, it's comforting resulto but this was the first thing I ever cooked from your cookboo, which is why I think it was in one of the earlier ones. I'm going to be brave and attempt a risotto. Did you cook when you were a kid? Did you were you know, not at all. I didn't grow up in an environment where cooking was celebrated. Food was made to eat, to live, Um, frozen pizzas, margarine, you know that was that was to put in when you come home from school, make for yourself and and eat just a make for yourself. So would you sit down to a family meal or is everybody taking care of that? I almost can't remember family meals. So I think that's again why I feel so excited about a kitchen very alive, with food being cooked and bread being baked, and aromas and activity, because I was definitely not not that environment. Sometimes I talked to people who grew up with the romantic idea of the family sitting down to a family suffer and sitting and talking about the day. And some some people described having a mother that worked the night shift, or mother or father who came home from work and were exhausted, or they came home from work and they would prefer to do homework with you then cook. I mean, there are many reasons why the image of the family IL perhaps is somewhat romanticized, but it is important something that, as you say, we try to create for our kids. But you didn't have a role model for that, so you had the reverse, but you changed it for your own family. I did have the reverse. And and you know, sometimes, especially doing something like this, you've you sort of look back and try and find that memory. Now, I definitely remember my mom made a dish that she would be proud of, which was a rabbit dish with mustard, I think. But that was something that was there would come out, I don't know it would be a big thing, um. But the rest of the time it was moral survival. What was she doing or your father doing? Was your father there? It was my stepfather? Really who I can who? My sort of that part of my life is more of a memory. And so do you think they were doing other things rather than Kirk or did they just not? It's a complicated history and it's hard to go into not because is not because it is sort of full of sort of trauma and pain. But it's more that I actually have this sort of almost blackout of I don't actually have that much memory from that time in my life. And also if I do go into it or I talk about it, I sort of feel, I hope that I've evolved to a place where I don't I don't want to sort of talk about with malice. It's not that they were working. I think it was more struggle survival and mental health, to be honest, and a lot of a lot of just um, difficult scenarios did you have? But they died when I was quite young, so I don't really have a memory of them in terms of, you know, I had sort of I had a great Auntie Gladys, and a great uncle Les, who I felt very close to, who lived in Shepherd's Bush. There was a lot of time around their house in Shepherd's Bush, and they were very much the sort of meat and two veg and I remember going home one day and saying to my Auntie Gladys, I'd say, I've won't I can't have roast chicken. I'm a vegetarian. And she said, well, chickens not really an animal, really an animal, of course you can eat it. I can't. But but that was a sort of stability. For me, they were the you know, the stable hold, the home where I would go to as a student to know that I could be fed. Did you struggle with food? Did you enjoy it? Did you? Yeah? And I didn't have school lunch anyway, I did, But I was a free school dinners kid, so I was in the opposite que to my friends where they had different cues. I had different cues disgusting. It was the queue on the left, which was the regular cue out of Dickens, and then there was the free school Dinners line. And and I wasn't always in the free school Dinners line. There were moments where I was in it, and then moments where I could bounce over to the other side. And I just always remember the dread of today I have to go in the free school Dinners line, and and that fear link of just like you know, feeling separate from all your friends and and just that sort of feeling a little bit of shame that comes with or maybe a lot. So you had school lunches and then lunches and then home mostly yeah, Frisen pizzas. Where did you go out? Firstly in London until I was eleven in stratum and then after that we moved to the countryside to Sussex. But that was a big shock. I'm terrified of trees. It was so funny because I was such an urban girl until then, and then the idea that I had to walk down these country lanes with trees. It's quite funny because a lot of the people that I've talked to think about the way they struggled in their youth, whether they were from another country, whether their parents were uncomfortable in being in England, whether they or in the United States, wherever they were. People struggled with money, with divorce, and and all this is to do, you know, with food and how those memories um evolve. And also I don't know if you feel, but they measure and I don't know if you do measure there unless their success by being able to order something delicious on the menu, Paul McCartney, they able to order a good glass of wine was something away that they measured their their own success totally. I mean, we never ate out, so eating out really came to me in adult life. And I think that the first time I realized food was for pleasure was actually are a college trip to Rome or post college. I can't really remember, but we went to a small little restaurant and I ordered something because I had absolutely no idea what to expect, tackleton with lemon lemon pasta. I remember eating it and just having this sort of total, you know, explosion of flavor and thoughts and feelings about is this what food can can be? And that feeling of tasting something which just kind of completely opens your your mind too potential, I guess, and that and that you know it wasn't expensive, it was affordable, and that I could eat this amazing food and not frozen pizzas revelation and probably in my sort of probably when I was about nineteen, I think then I went to art school and Hastings, which was like a massive turning point of excitement in my life, and then after that into London for art school. I always think it's another conversation about artists that creating art is very solitary activity, that you are in your studio and your paint and everybody sort of had this kind of wild nights of eating and drinking together because there was so solitary during the day. Did you find that or was it was? I think I think art school for me was like a huge door had opened into a world of so much possibility and excitement. And I feel like for the first two years when I was at Hastings, I was just sort of wide eyed and in sort of slight shock that I was in this environment and just kept very quiet. And then I went to Northeast London Polytechnic, which was a very robust sort of shipbuilding yard feeling because I was in the sculpture department. And then I I left there after the first year and went to Goldsmith's, which by comparison felt like a sort of Swiss finishing school because people were very elegant and they were talking about ideas and I and I again I felt very like I was sort of sitting on the outside, watching and feeling this environment being so alien. Was that the days of Michael Craig Martin and Damien and Tracy it was, And and that freeze had just happened. There was a lot of debate around this huge exhibition that had sort of thrown all these young artists that were still an art school onto the map, and there was a sort of freeze and an anti freeze, and and I just sort of sat again and sort of listened and felt the debate between everything and everyone, but sort of also knew I was in the eye of a storm. And I have a of a very exciting transitional moment in the art world because these artists like Damien had a studio outside of art school and was already you know, functioning as an artist and selling and having exhibitions, and Gary Human, Sarah Lucas, you know, it all was just this sort of bubbling energy that I felt but didn't quite know how to access because I was still sort of feeling a bit quiet on the outside. It really took going to tracymin and Sarah Lucas had a little shop in the East End, just off of Brick Lane, and it really took going to that little shop to feel that anything was possible, that anything they made was art, and they were artists and they were allowing themselves to be that. And it was that moment for me that was quite pivotal in understanding I could allow myself to be an artist, that I could actually sort of say it out loud and actually be creative. And I think up until then, you know, you sort of feel like you're in the wrong place at the wrong time, and you're not meant to be there feeling. Were you as adventurous in your I guess development as an artist as maybe in food? Did you go to Chinese restaurants or Indian restaurants? Did you Indian restaurants drink whiskey? Indian restaurants was absolutely where we all went because once I, once I, you know, became friends with Tracy, we all would you know, sort of be in that neighborhood and we'd all know going in and out of all the different Indian restaurants around that area and find our favorites, and and that's where we would gather. I felt like, um, exactly how you said earlier about McCartney, saying it was a measure of success. I'm growing into my own person because I understand food. I'm growing into my own person because I can take myself to a restaurant and I can actually order something that's completely different to anything I've ever tried before. And I think it is it's a feeling of one, you're sort of stepping into being an adult, but also you're stepping into um, sort of a feeling of new success. Not necessarily you know, a huge financially success, but beginning to be able to take yourself places. My first job as a waiter world have been when I was at school. I worked in a local beefy to steakhouse and used to have to wear a beefy to use a little apron. And then vick Naela's and Clark will remember vick Naela's and Clark Well, it was a great staurant and I I mean it was just fun, fun, fun, but it was also terrible because I used to we all used to get absolutely trashed. And I remember going to a table and someone said do you have any bread? And I said yes, let me go and get it. And then it was just up the road from Saint John and I said, quick, where's the bread. They're like, oh, we don't have any. Can you run to get some from St. John? Absolutely I ran to St John and then my then manager was sat at the bar. Con never drink with me, so I sat down and had a drink which turned into two and that was the bread. Quickly got the bread from St John and ran back. I was like, I've got you some bread ago, this place is terrible. Let me see the manager. Let me go and get him. Run down to St John pulled him out the bar, and the whole story is that he then went up and said, you asked to see me, Yes, the service is terrible. Said yes, I agree, Now you should leave what ye was that? That was right after I left art school. So maybe now times have changed, I think, do you think maybe there's still those places, but they've all become much more. Do you know the story about Damien and which one? Which one? The one at the grad Show club where he he and asolutely trashed and I had just I banned somebody from the River Cafe for being rude to one of my wingers, and I was telling the story I was telling out and he said, well, Damian and I went and we got completely trashed, and we were They closed the doors and we were kicked out, and we went on the street and then we found a ladder and we climbed up and we broke a window. We came in and then we got sick over the pool table, and then we went and got some alcohol out of the out of the fridge and we drank that. Then we you know, we took something and we crashed out on the self. As Marianne, the manager came in the next stage, said, you know, I could call the police. You broke a new enter, you damage my property, and you stole stuff, you know, but instead of calling the police, I am going to ban you for twenty four hours. Twenty four hours does for the days. And I had a customer which just was slightly rude to somebody, and I said, you could never come back again. That's a difference. Well, that's why it's good too. I think people date people in restaurants, you know, you go on a date and see how they are to the waiter, or you interview lots of people. Have you ever interviewed anybody for a job in a restaurant? Totally? Yeah? Yeah, I had on this, did you before I came here? Someone was to hire for the movie? Actually? Yeah, perfect, perfect, brilliant, good, good good. And so from from being an art school and then being an artist, what was it in the once you were all working and I hate to use the word successful, but successful when you and Jay lived in that house and parties? Was food? Did you care about food then? Did you think that you'll wanted or was it was hard? It's hard to sort of cast my mind to that era because it's that thing I think Coko Chanel said it it's you know, I'm six people away from the person I once was. I think, ye, I sometimes feel like that. And so when I think back to those times, I think of myself as a very different person um and and so so much sort of shift and change within myself happened during that period. I was suddenly sort of living in this very sort of grand house and living a very different life, and and it was all sort of fast rolling and high octane, and fast rolling and high octane is fun. And then you can't it's so hard to maintain and and I couldn't maintain it. And I definitely sort of felt like, you know, throw these parties and then I would disappear off at about ten o'clock. Remember remember the part that you didn't talk about. What we haven't talked about in terms of food and being an artist, and in that lifetime was when you were ill. Yeah, and and the diet that you then and I remember very well your your rigor in dealing with your illness, in in the way you ate, and I think it was really before a lot of us thought about food and health, and you were unhealthy, and you use food to think about health. And um, you also took you know, you went the scientific roots, so you went for the medicine and the but it was an alternative. You did it, but you did do a diet. I remember you very clearly talking no dairy. Yeah. I mean I have sort of almost step out side of himself to talk about it. But ye, six months after I had Angelico is my oldest of four daughters, UM, I got diagnosed with colon cancer. And of course it was you know, a shock, but there was such an urgency in my mind to be well and to get back home and be a mother and be present that I just sort of you know, almost jumped out of the hospital bed and I'm back, I'm fine. And and then three years later I got diagnosed with breast cancer, and uh, and then I didn't leap out of bed, and I didn't say I'm back, I'm fine. I got sort of quietly retreated into myself, I think, and I went to a very sort of almost a totally different personality to somebody I knew myself as in a way in order to figure out our way to get through it. And it's it's a trauma, and in that trauma, you have to sort of figure are out, what are my options? What are my options of survival? And obviously when you're in it, you're not thinking clearly in that way. But you know, it was very much the first time I didn't take it seriously. Almost the second time, I'm going to take this very seriously. You know, I want to live. I want to be a mom and be around and that was my you know, that was the thing I had Angelica as my purpose and goal to survive for. You know, it was chemotherapy, massed ectomy and everything medical that I could. But at the same time, I knew that I had to support that for myself with I had acupuncture. I gave up I gave up drinking and the party life, and I gave up anything that I felt was detrimental to my health. Sugar. I gave up dairy pretty much. That still do you still have? Yeah, okay, that's not be too purity, I sugar. Yes, there's every so often, but it's unconscious about eating and unconscious about if things have you know, very strict about milk, very strict about cheese, butter, I'll allow it, and then you know, and I'm not going to be too because there's also a point where you just have to you know, you have to function in the world. And you know, there was probably at least five years where I was absolutely I would read every ingredient and nothing could be because I was frightened, you know, and fear is a very good reason to make sacrifices and changes in your life. I just shifted into a completely different person in a way. Would you tell somebody who came to see that if they had cancer in any form, would you would you say to them to try to do this because you don't. It's difficult because also you know there's varying. You know, your case is different to the next person's, the next person to what level you have it or you know, it's hard to advise people in that way. We talked about end to people who are in it. I try to be you know, get up in the morning, put on a great song, move around cool people. When you're feeling down. I try to sort of keep it, you know, let's keep it in a in a place where we're gonna get through this. It's a job. It's a job, and you know it's also you can't people say, well, you're so brave to have gone through it, but it's not bravery that gets you through it, because it doesn't mean that people who haven't survived aren't brave. It's getting through it is you know, an amount of medical intervention, amount of luck in terms of diagnosis and what you can then do to support all of that. But when you talk about the energy of the you know, the getting up and doing that has shown that actually a kind of activity with any illness, with grief. You know, you say that, having been through grief in my life that I sort of know the drill, you know, which is you get out of bed or you I mean, you can stay there and cry all day too, that's fine, But the from you know, the activity, and as in the support of friendships when I was when I would have chemo, I'd have like Gary Hume and Georgie and Johnny Shankid and friends. Would you know, they bring the food and sit around and sort of laugh and sit with me for a few hours, and you know, you you sort of feel, you know, the chema going through your veins. But on the other hand, you could be eating some strawberries and chatting with friends, watching watching everyone just you know support you in that way, And I think and yeah, and that's also you know, that was definitely sort of food related in the sense that you know, chemo can taste bad in your mouth. It's sort of Metallurchy and my friends had researched that a little bit. And I've heard if you have you know, some boiled sweets, or if you have this, or and then another friend mango mangoes really good mango. Yeah, because Rose Gray and we started the cafe with and and had breast cancer. Just found that. I always say that she ate her way through chemo, you know, just ate everything. But she she was careful and as she was before she got sick, but she loved having mangoes serotonin, I think. But I think it's also I mean still now really education around nutrition and what's you know, what's good for you to live, like I said, as a keep the machine at optimum level, you know, and and maintenance. We maintain our cars sometimes better than our bodies. And Hi there, My name is Hamish. I am one of the chef's here at the River Cafe. One of the sources or dishes that I think is very special to us and is coming back onto the venue a bit more often is our banner calder M. We make this source by reducing down a bottle of Italian red wine or champagne or prosecco, and then we melt in about twelve to fifteen cloves of garlic anchovies and this creates a really in hen salty, amazing base to a sauce. Then copious amounts of butter to make it extremely smooth, silky and just rich and delicious. It's my favorite anthes on sourad o bread. This is a a saltiness of the but but I think growing up what it equates to see that would be my I'm successful and knowledgeable and I can eat anchovies on toast. It comes from growing up with Mama on toast. It's one of those and Mama altoast for me has been a constant constant from child all the way through my student life. Artists life. So I was talking about the solitary noness of being an artist, But what about as I go back to the to the cinema, when you directed Noah Boy, or when you do directed fifties Shades of Grade, do you do you think about how you feed the people on the set. Is that important to you? The way you start for food, break wass andres. He hates a lunch hour because it makes everybody stop, and then you have to get tired, and then but you know, he tried to give everybody soup. Then the crew wanted meals. How do you deal with It's interesting. I feel absolutely with West in that way that I don't like when everyone starts for lunch. But at the same time, I do like the communal break of everyone's sitting and sort of literally digesting what we've done and talking around food. And I always try to make sure we have reasonably good caterers so that everyone's just sort of enjoying that time rather than just complaining it. This is disgusting. Was there a difference in doing nowhere By in fifty Shades of Gray from I'm sure there was. I can't remember member shade its own trauma. But but we we aer and I've made a movie in twin one day is We didn't. We made a million little pieces and it was the smallest, smallest, smallest budget, but we had the best, best food. There's a flood touch of feel very different from Los Angeles. We've moved from l A to English, the English country side. I mean, what about food? I mean, is that feel different. It's particle shift. Not in our house because we cook the same things, but definitely a different culture of um. Well, the difference avocados, there's there's con certain things that grow differently, so you know when you're West coast, so if you had anything Californian or from Mexico, the avocado is a difference to guacamole is like amazing. Have avocados here. They're sort of imported from Spain and they're hard and they're there. There's just no point. There's no point. There's no point in avocado in terms that. I really respect that you said, because it is is to do with the ingredients. Absolutely. What about you go to fewer restaurants here? Did you eat out more? No? We did, probably, I think, but we are in the middle of it. Yeah, and there was I don't know, it was a different I had a sort of different routine I think there for food, you know, I was really into and I'll have a shake and yes, but could you put some ratio mushroom and a little bit of this and a little bit of that and there. Everyone seems so knowledgeable about what about what each ingredient of this certain mushroom is going to give you, you know, this one's for the brain and cognitive function, and this one's for memory, and this one's for your liver, and this one's for you know. So I was getting quite good at all of that and understanding how it was going to benefit me, and then you know, I got here. I was like, where am I going to get my charger? Do you drink coffee? To coffee? Very new to coffee, like the American coffee. It was just the sort of the diner coffee, yea, the all day filtered coffee where it's just sort of yeah, tell me about food in your house, but well to how many children are for I mean for this weekend, they're all four at home. I mean my specialty is the pancakes. I'd like to say I'm the pancakes persontanesca. I have my dishes, but the pancakes are in the mornings. I can make creps, I can make big fluffy pancakes as they're cord or I can do the green pancakes, which are roomy. My youngest one absolutely loves. She's very m What is how are they It's they're basically one egg, one banana, gluten free flour, handful of spinach and cinnamon and vanilla, and and and a cup of almond milk blitzed. And then and then Friday coking up oil and they puff up and then absolutely puff up. They puff up with a little bit of baking powder in there, and and then with something on the type. Yeah, Aaron's good at cooking, literally sort of seven seven many dishes are on the table when he cooks, like, I'm just like, that's so nice. I can't bake. When Aaron ever goes into the kitchen to bake, we all are literally waiting for a blood splattering because all wants to get off with the blender in the cherry pie. What was the blender thing that you blender put his finger in it? Well, I was trying to take what was left over dough off around the fingers, but my hand was obviously gripping the top of the button, so it went, it went blitz the top of my din't have much of a nail on that one finger. So what do you do for desserts? Do you have dessert? And Roy are youngest is a bit of a baker actually, so we recently we got a really eat for rumble. Yeah, a gorgeous apple orchard in Somerset and with a mixture of cooking apples and cider apples and everywhere. Right now at the moment there's tons of blackberries, so recently it was a BlackBerry and an apple crumble. My last questions to you Aaron and you Sam would be if you need food for comfort, is there a food that you would reach for it? Marmite and a jacket potato is probably actually coud trump the ante on tost but marmite butter jacket potato. That is my comfort food. I know I'm looking at you. Thank you well be We're my comfort. Thank you so thank you, thank you, thank you so much. The River Cafe look Book is on sale. A hundred pages of beautiful photographs that will inspire you to cook. It's a look book, a cookbook. Order one now. Ruthie's Table for is a production of I Heart Radio Anatomy Studios. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Ruthie's Table 4

Welcome to Ruthie's Table 4 hosted by Ruthie Rogers, co-founder and chef of The River Cafe in London 
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