February 28, 2025 • 38 mins
The Oscars are only a few days away and Ruthie’s Table 4 is excited. Ralph Fiennes, Zoe Saldaña and Elton John - three Ruthie’s Table 4 guests - are nominated for Academy Awards, and we’re revisiting their interviews in this episode.
Ralph is nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his brilliant performance in Conclave. Elton for Best Original Song for ‘Never Too Late’ from the documentary about his life of the same name. Zoe Saldaña is nominated for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her magnetic performance in the musical Emilia Pérez.
Ruthie's Table 4, made in partnership with Moncler.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You were listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
The Oscars are only a few days away, and Ruthie's
Table four is excited. Rave finds Zoe Saldana and Elton John.
Three Ruthy Table four guests are nominated for Academy Awards.
The reason we're revisiting their interviews today. Rave is nominated
for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his brilliant
and moving performance in Conclave. Tell me about eating and acting?
(00:28):
What's the deal that do you eat?
Speaker 3 (00:30):
That's a good question.
Speaker 4 (00:31):
I think you need a bit of food for energy.
So to have starved yourself or not have eaten within
three hours before a performance, you can, I think your
sugar level would drop. Mean, but I know I can't
eat a big meal.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
What do you eat? Not? What about on a film set?
When we touched first breakfast Breakfast, breakfastival?
Speaker 4 (00:53):
Really they have now found ways to shorten the day,
and they had what I called a running lunch. A
lot of films won't. You can maybe twenty minutes to
have a sandwich, and they'll have a running lunch from
twelve to two. Maybe if they do stop, it's half
an hour.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Only and so, as I said, you were in Rome, I.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Was filming around twice this year.
Speaker 4 (01:11):
I was filming this Conclave which you mentioned about, a
film recreating the conclave when the cardinals, when the Pope
has died and all the cardinals get into the Sistine
Chapel and they are sequestered away from the world. They
have no contact with the outside world at all while
they vote for the new pope, and they have to
(01:33):
keep voting until the required majority is achieved.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Does somebody put them? Can I can one of them
say I want to be pope and campaigned?
Speaker 4 (01:41):
There's a bit of that in it. There is the
oh yes, no, that's a bit. It's based on a
great book by Robert Harris. Yeah, and it was written
maybe nine years ago. And it's been directed by Edward Berger,
who directed All Quite on the Western Front, which got
a lot of acclaim the last season.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
He was wonderful director, very very very good, very.
Speaker 4 (02:02):
Lovely man, very detailed and very and the best sets,
attentive to the actors and the nuances that he wants
them to bring out. I love working with him, and
wonderful Stanley Tucci. He loves playing my two We're two
We're two cardinals who are friends and we hit we
hit a few bumpy patches in our friendship in.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
The film, do you both want to put yourselves up
for being pope?
Speaker 4 (02:24):
In different ways? He's a bit more. We're both reluctant
to admit it that we do. And he's brilliant in
the film.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
I have to say, did the Vatican were they involved?
Speaker 4 (02:36):
They they just rise above it. They just know they're
not really involved. But nor they just they just and.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
They let you film in the Vatican.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
No, no, no, no, no, There is a whole The key
voting scenes are in the Sistine Chapel in real life,
and there exists Assistine Chapel set made I believe for
the mini series The Young Pope, which I think so
that set of the Sistine Chapel was was mothballed and
then our production brought it out, cleaned it out, repainted it,
(03:06):
and it's the whole of the first twenty feet of
the Sistine Chapel with the Day of Judgment at one
end as a copy and they add the rest with CGI.
But I've seen bits of the footage with the added
siagi and it looks it looks like we're in the
real place.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
And then for me what i'd last like that was
where did you eat in realm?
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Don't ask me the names I've gone.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Okay, just tell me about the food. How did it
feel to be eating the food around? For as long as.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
I'm in there, Stanley, I hope you don't may bring
you up again in this podcast with you, but Stanley,
teach you brought a chunk of us towards the end,
a group of us who were filming, including Edward.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
It's wonderful restaurant.
Speaker 4 (03:46):
Called not pomer Doughty but Pomme Dory, I believe, and
it's an old family restaurant that was beloved of Pasolini,
the director, and he organized this wonderful meal there late,
very late after a day's filming, and that I think
was the best meal I had. They had put on
the special meal because it was Stanley and they were charming.
(04:09):
And I went back there to that restaurant again when
I returned to Rome later this year in the summer
to make the return, and it's just very and you
don't really they kind of give you food you didn't
really order. I mean, you can't order, but they just
sort of present you with what they feel is the
best pastor of the evening.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
And it was very easy.
Speaker 4 (04:27):
And I definitely preferred the more threat or ear style
than the restaurants, the high flying restaurants.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
I'm not drawn to it so much.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Did you read out a lot? Would you filming.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
On Conclaive? I ate out quite a bit, but.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
We're filming day. The filming hours are so long. In
the end, I would go back to my flat and
I cook something. But in the weekends really.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
And what about in Greece?
Speaker 3 (04:54):
I love, oh when Greece and Corse.
Speaker 4 (04:56):
We were in Corforu for most of it, and we
came across a wonderful restaurant which served the most exquisite
lamb that was on the spit.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Oh god, the lamb.
Speaker 4 (05:06):
Was was just extraordinary, just so circular and tasty, and
Spiros's restaurant it was. It was quite a simple restaurant,
catering for mostly tourists. But got the lamb was?
Speaker 2 (05:20):
What month was that? Spring?
Speaker 4 (05:22):
May?
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (05:26):
We just kept in Morocco? Was that also? Don't you think?
I agree?
Speaker 4 (05:33):
I think Moroccan food that was heaven. Tagine cooking is
one of the best cooking ways of cooking. I think
I've had come across.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
When the lamb. Yeah, that was I was going to
ask you about the menu. Yeah, because you know, here
we are a chef. Chef Shan is a chef for
going into a restaurant. And I remember you calling me
up from there and saying that you were, you know,
learning the skill. A woman from San Francisco came, didn't
She a.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
Chef, Dominique Krenn, who I think has a restaurant in
San Francisco called Atlier kren And there's a wonderful chef's
table on her. She's from Brittany originally, she's fantastic and
she came and she designed all the food for the film,
and then she oversaw the initial first few days of shooting,
(06:24):
and then she left a couple of her chefs with
us who oversaw not just the food and the preparation
of the food, but they were looking at the kitchen
staff in our film to make sure that they behaved
in their demeanor and their just their rhythm of movement,
just so anyone looking at it would believe it was
a working kitchen.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
What was it like playing it was a working kitchen?
I thought I believed it was a working kitchen. No
I did. I definitely did. I mean, we were just
such a fantastic character and that type of food and
the hidden humor, saying to Will that Richard and I
went to El Bulli in the early days, you know,
that restaurant in Spain, and it was very much one
(07:05):
little tiny piece of food after another, one olive that
exploded in your mouth, and one, you know, piece of
crab that you know, you had to pick, and then
that was it. And we said, they said to us,
after twelve courses, he said, now we're going to finish
with ravioli with parmesan and butter and sage. And I thought,
at last we're getting something to eat. And a plate
(07:26):
came and it was just a plate, and so we
just waited and waited and waited, and we said, where
is the ravioli And they said that basically, it was
a spray. It was a spray that they'd sprayed on
the plate and it had the essence of ravioli with
butter and parmesan. And we had to take our finger
and kind of wiped the plate and that was a dish,
you know, And I thought, that's okay, exactly. Yeah, that kind.
(07:51):
So what was it like being a chef in that?
Speaker 1 (07:53):
And that's well as you.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
Saw from the film. I mean, i'm I'm I run
the restaurant side. He doesn't do much cooking at all.
He's seeing it until the very end when he's challenged
to make a good old fashioned cheeseburger, which he does
make and I had to cook that.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Did you learn skills? Chog? Yeah, you make a good cheeseburger.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
It was good?
Speaker 5 (08:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Is there something that you love about a restaurant or
going I would say that people do very private things
in a public space. Have you used restaurants as a
sort of safety net? Do you think to do something
that's difficult or not.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
If you meet someone in I mean I usually eat
either with one other or on my own, or maybe
after a show with whoever it might have been coming.
I like, I love going on my own to restaurant
with a book and it's a privilege. But to have
a glass of wine and simple food, I love that.
But going with I have been in situations where this
(08:53):
is the meal where you tell son so that you're
not going to do the film, or you tell them
that you can't see them anymore.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
Or you know, and that's heavy.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
That's I mean that that in that sense, when it's
a tricky thing, then the restaurant is a sort of padding,
as you say, safety note, but it means you don't
enjoy it's all. Then then the food and the service,
then that's all a kind of pathway to get through
the difficult thing you've told yourself you've got to do.
(09:22):
So I like, I like to be in a relaxed
context where it's just the enjoyment of sharing food with people,
and of course drink a good you know. I mean,
let's talk about alcohol.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
I love a drink.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Let's have a drink.
Speaker 6 (09:38):
You know.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
I love martini, I love a Negroni. And why I mean,
I am not in excess, but I just love that
that little drop in the kind of anxiety as that.
And I hate getting really off my face. I don't.
I hate the after effect, but I just love that
little with the first do you have a cocktail?
Speaker 2 (10:01):
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(10:24):
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Our wonderful conversation with Elton John and his husband David
(10:47):
Furnish took place around the wooden dining table at their
beautiful home in Berkshire. Elton is nominated for Best Original
Song for Never Too Late from the documentary of the
same name about his life. It was directed by David
and RJ.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
Cutler.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
This episode was particularly moving. Elton shared with us his
memories of growing up cooking with his mother and his grandmother.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
I grew up after the war, so everything.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Was about early life.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (11:18):
I was born in the council house. I lived with
my mother, my grandmother, because my father was away in
the Air Force.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Was it your mother's mother, Yes.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
My grandmother. She was fantastic.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
What was she like?
Speaker 6 (11:29):
She was wonderful. She could cook anything and make it
taste incredible. I mean, basic ingredients were hard to get.
After all, we were russianed and bacon was partly a nono.
But she made I never remember a bad meal or
going hungry, and everything that was left over she made
into something else the next day.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
And what I loved about her because I have the
biggest sweet tooth.
Speaker 6 (11:51):
Her bread puddings and her apple pies, and her scones
or scones, and her victorious sponges.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Very simple. The kitchen was again, the coal cellar was
in the kitchen. It was you believe it.
Speaker 6 (12:06):
The laundry was done on the stove in a boiler,
and we had a mangle to It was a very
basic upbringing, but I can never remember the smell of
cooking was always wonderful, and she could cook anything. I
fell in love with very basic, simple English food at
that point.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
I think that a simple English food as you talk
about bread pudding and apple pie, those are very They're
not easy to make, you know, And it's to do
with the ingredients and the method and the way you cook.
Speaker 6 (12:34):
Yeah, and things like Spotty Didnking cast It. I walk
into a restaurant, say in Yorkshire or something like that,
and sometimes they have things like that on the menu
to go oh my God, which.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
For me is just a sheer delight.
Speaker 6 (12:51):
I always sometimes think that you go to some john
for instance, they have Ecoes cakes, and the Echoes cakes
are incredible, and they serve it with the cheese and
it's just like wow, man from Heaven. Nowadays, unfortunately I
can't eat it because I'm semi diabetic, but I do
like those English stalwarts a lot.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
I do too well. So growing up, you had a
mother and a grandmother in the house, and your father
was where he was.
Speaker 6 (13:15):
He was away in the Air Force in Aiden, and
so I didn't really see much for him. So it
was a woman's household. My mom's sister, my aunt, was
always there as well. So I grew up with a
bunch of women who knew how to cook, which was great.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
And you all sat down to meal every night together, yes.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
And we toasted our toast by the fire.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Was yours? Similar in Toronto.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
I grew up in Canada.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
I was in Toronto.
Speaker 7 (13:40):
I was one of three boys, and my mom was
We were very lucky. She was a stay at home mom.
She could make almost anything happen instantly. She had a
deep freeze in the basement. And sometimes we'd come back
from school or a sports match and we'd bring two
friends along and she'd say, no problem, and she'd go
on stairs and she thought out some pastries, she thought
(14:02):
some meat, she thought a tomato sauce or something then
prepared in advance. Suddenly the dinner could just expand or change,
you know, with thirty minutes notice. And meals were important,
although given it was three boys and there was a
lot going on, it was a lot of meals on
the hop what you were the I'm the middle one,
the middle one. Yeah, the one thing that mum was
important because we were always coming and going, but Sunday lunch,
(14:25):
Sunday dinner was the one time she wanted the family
to be around the table and have more of a
sense of occasion, and that was a traditional English roast.
My grandparents on my mother's side were from the north
and the South of Ireland, and my grandparents on my
father's side were from England and Wales, so a lot
of those traditions came across to Canada and Sunday roast,
(14:49):
Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes, roast beef, you know, Brussels sprouts, beans, carrots,
a really good gravy, and then always a baked pie
or cake or sweet for dessert. My British grandmother was
an amazing baker.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
So you both had grandmothers that.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
I think grandparents are so important.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
They are. I agree.
Speaker 6 (15:13):
The thing about my grandmother was that because we had
a garden, we grew all our own produce because it
was so much cheaper, and my grandmother had green fingers,
so we always had fresh vegetables.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Hardly ever had processed peas.
Speaker 6 (15:26):
I mean the great advantage in those days that food
wasn't really you know, instant did no instant whips, no
instant there's mashed potato. It was all genuinely from the garden,
which was delicious. So I mean I remember shelling the
peas every Sunday morning. That's that was like David Sunday
roast was very important for the family gathering. So shelling
(15:47):
the peas was one thing. Peeling the potatoes with another
broad being to another. So we always had good produce
because we couldn't afford to buy them because you know,
teams times were hard after the war and the butt,
and we had a tiny bottle of orange juice which
you diluted and poured the water into. But I never
felt as if we were missing any denied.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Yeah, but neither of your mother's work. They didn't have
to combine a career with cooking your mother.
Speaker 6 (16:13):
My mother worked all the time and worked really really
hard as well. And she worked in a shop, she
worked in a dairy, she worked at the Air Force.
She's always but she'd always come home and make dinner. Yeah,
she was very hard working woman, but still cooked.
Speaker 7 (16:28):
She raised Elton as a single mom, and so you
know his ability to study and take lessons.
Speaker 8 (16:34):
And learn and everything.
Speaker 7 (16:35):
His mum worked very very hard providing for the family
to allow him to do that. That's what got him
on his path to be who he is today.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Did you ever go to restaurants?
Speaker 6 (16:45):
The only time I remember going to a restaurant is
when I went to a Chinese restaurant in Harrow. We
lived in Pinner and Chinese restaurants suddenly became the rage.
Coffee bars were the rage before that, but we went
for a Chinese meal. Was the first restaurant I care
remember going to, and it was just wow. We have
bean sprouts and it was just so delicious and it
(17:06):
was so exotic, and I remember I was so excited
to go to this Chinese restaurant.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
There weren't many in the area.
Speaker 6 (17:13):
One in how there wasn't certainly one in Pillar, but
it was just an incredible occasion. And that's the first
exotic food I ever really had. How old were you,
I don't know, eight nine maybe yeah?
Speaker 7 (17:23):
And did you get to a restaurant It was a
very very special treat. Yeah, because again it was expensive
and it was a big treat. What we never had
was fast food.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
Book.
Speaker 7 (17:35):
My mother was very anti fast food. She just didn't
didn't think it was good for us. I think she
was ahead of her time with that. There wasn't any
fast food when I grew up.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Fast food was boiling the cabbus for ten minutes.
Speaker 6 (17:47):
I went to school, there suddenly became there was a
Wimpy bar when I was about fifteen.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
That's the first fast food place I can ever remember.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
But you both, what is interesting to talk to you
about is that food was important to you, and delicious
food was important to you, and you grew up with
a sense of that importance in your life.
Speaker 6 (18:06):
You know, Well, meals were very social. It's when you
got together. I mean when I went to school, I
had school meals which were vile.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
That was a day school that was justful.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Just awful, awful.
Speaker 6 (18:17):
Awful, But then you come home at night and that
was the day. That's where you got breakfast was just
on the on the run really to get to school.
But the meal at night was always important, and of
course the weekend, the Sunday lunch was really important.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
And when you both in different stages of your life,
left this coon of your grandmother's your food, your mother
rustling something up, and a friend came for you to
talk when each of you, would you tell me when
when did you leave home? When did you How old
were you when you suddenly were out on your own
and thinking about food in your own way?
Speaker 1 (18:53):
When I was about I met Bernie that.
Speaker 6 (18:56):
Was nineteen maybe or twenty, and we shared a flat
in Islington.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
And did it have a kitchen?
Speaker 1 (19:08):
But I'm incapable of cooking anything and Bernie as too,
so we just out all the time.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Yeah, And would that be would you seek out restaurants
or would you just have grabbed something? Stuff like that?
Speaker 6 (19:22):
Keep things because we couldn't afford expensive things. But never
The first real exciting restaurant I went to was when
Dick James took her to a restaurant off of Tottenham.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Court Road, And who was Dick James.
Speaker 6 (19:34):
Dick James was my publisher and my manager who you
know published the Beatles, was very famous, first person to
sign on. Yeah, And so I went to this restaurant
called La Maisonette and I had a prawn cocktail. I
never seen anything like. I didn't know what to do,
what's this?
Speaker 1 (19:50):
So that was the first posh in in Berti Coomma's
restaurant that I ever went to.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Paul mccurrenty told me that that same experience, said he
when he went was taken.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
By Brian Epstein.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Again another mam Maisonette or Montclair or Bontant, and it
was suddenly an eye opener. He said. It was the
first time he'd only had cheap wine. With John Lennon.
They used to really and they couldn't understand the point
of wine because it tasted so terrible because it was
so cheap. And then he went and had a good
glass of wine and realized what life could be. Did
(20:27):
you have the same feeling about your prome cocktail?
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Exactly?
Speaker 6 (20:31):
It was like, oh, and the bread was lovely and
it was beautiful bread rolled and crispy, and and you thought, well,
this is a different this is a step up. I mean,
it's not the Aberdeen Steakhouse.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
This, well it's not. This is a proper restaurant, sorry Aberdeen.
But to me, the Aberdeen Steakhouse was posh was peah.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
I remember once I was in New York and my
parents used to take us a special treat to this restaurant.
And then I was with a girlfriend who was a
friend of mine, and she said her parents were deciding
where to go out to eat and they mentioned this
restaurant and her parents said, oh, we're not going into
a place like that, And I thought that was our
special place.
Speaker 6 (21:11):
Well yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
What about you?
Speaker 7 (21:17):
When I was working in advertising, you you were taking
out clients and you were entertaining them. So that was
a little bit like being let off the leash to
to explore and have and have fun. And you know,
you wanted to treat your clients well, and you were
able to take them to nice restaurants. In Toronto, where
I grew up, has a fantastic it's a great restaurant town.
It's very international, so what you get exposed to is
(21:40):
was very very sophisticated and very very worldly. And that
was that was I've never you know, eaten like that
in my life.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
That was really special.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
And so back to the apartment you lived in Islington,
you ate out, you grab food, and then slowly, with
your success, you you were able to go and at
that point to being able to eat food another restaurants.
Speaker 6 (22:01):
When I became successful, it was a different kettle of fish.
I met people who were more sophisticated than I was,
who knew the London restaurant scene and everything, and I
started going to better places with them. It's just it's
just the journey. I'm starting to play better venues. I
was starting to eat at better restaurants. I was starting
(22:22):
to earn more money. I was starting to live in
a better place. As you go, as you do things
like that, step by step, you know, you get introduced
to different things. And it was lovely. It was a
wonderful journey in every respect. I never collected art until
I suddenly became wealthy enough to buy some prints, and
the whole journey just went step hand in hand. And yes,
(22:44):
I loved I loved going to lovely restaurant. I remember
when I first got there was two restaurants in Cavon
Garten called The Garden and Inigo giants. I used to
go there all the time.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
That was English food, wasn't it called? Yeah? Did you
go to a Greek or did you discover I never.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
I never went abroad at all, hardly.
Speaker 6 (23:05):
I went to America, but I'd never really in France
because I never really went to France or itsly or
any plant places that came later on. I was introduced
to America in cuisine in inverted commers. I don't really
think they have a cuisine unless you're in the South
and it's chicken and the food is incredible in the South.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Yeah, oh my god, do you think what do you
like in the South?
Speaker 6 (23:28):
I like all sorts of things that aren't good for me,
fried chicken, fried chicken, donuts. If I had a death
row meal, it wouldn't contain anything except sweets because I
can't eat them now, So I'd have ice cream, donuts,
apple pie, ruberb crumble.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Blah blah blah.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
I get it. Yeah, so you don't need any sugar
now at all. The River Cafe, when you said lunch
is now running from Monday to Thursday. Reserve okay at www.
Rivercafe dot co dot uk or give us a call
(24:09):
Zoeh Sardana's nominated for Best Actress in a Supporting Role
for her magnetic performance in the musical Amelia Perez. Talking
to her, it's clear she was destined for the role.
Dance was an important part of her life from a
young age. Sitting in the river cafe, she told me
all about those early years.
Speaker 5 (24:28):
I come from a family, and I do know this.
That is a cultural thing. We dance. We dance at funerals,
we dance, had births, we dance. If you fail to test,
we danced if you passed it. You know what I mean.
Speaker 8 (24:42):
It's you just dance, and you dance at ing and
you dance alsa.
Speaker 5 (24:46):
And neighbors all they can be doctors or architects, but
they know how to play the gongas, and they know
how to play the drums, and they'll come with a trumpet.
Speaker 8 (24:54):
And everybody sits in someone's.
Speaker 5 (24:55):
Backyard and you can see it. Even Puerto Rico is
the same, the same. Dominican Republic is very much that way.
So I grew up just and and there's always everything
is always a reason to have a party. It's somebody's
it's somebody's baptism, and you sort of go, why are
we having this parade? Like, no, no, it's a baptism And
you're like, but he's four. You're like, it's the biggest party,
(25:17):
can last sixteen hours. And so I grew up always
seeing great grandparents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, teenagers, dancing,
everybody always dancing.
Speaker 8 (25:26):
So we dance.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
We did as well.
Speaker 5 (25:29):
Yes, yes, but that transition into dance was very different
from what you do at home.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
Right.
Speaker 8 (25:35):
It was therapy.
Speaker 5 (25:35):
It was medicine for my soul. Yes, because I was
I wasn't really acclimating enough.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
I just wasn't a Dominican republic. Yeah, my mom.
Speaker 5 (25:46):
Says that we were, but I think it was just grieving.
We were just you were grieving. It was something that
happened to us, was very traumatic. In children don't really
describe trauma. They don't really say I.
Speaker 8 (25:57):
Am going through something right now.
Speaker 5 (26:01):
They either shut down or they overreact. They just whatever
it is, they're just not themselves and that's the sign.
That's the indication that they've experienced trauma and they're still
like in a state of shock and bal Ballet became
my outlet, my place, my safe haven. I would go
(26:21):
to after school it was an environment that I can
go and test myself and challenge myself and.
Speaker 8 (26:27):
Learn something new.
Speaker 5 (26:28):
So when you're learning something new, that takes a lot
of your attention and your time, and that's what I needed.
I needed a lot to put all of my attention,
all of my time into something that was going to
give me some kind of release and relief, and Ballet
did that.
Speaker 8 (26:44):
It almost became an obsession.
Speaker 5 (26:46):
I was very blessed in the sense that throughout my
life I had really great role models that took my mom, my, sisters,
and I in and either by cooking a meal or
teaching us something, you know, we were taken in and
we were told that we can believe in ourselves, that
we can believe in love again, that we can believe
(27:07):
in life again, that we can do this, and we
began our healing process.
Speaker 8 (27:10):
But it didn't come that quickly.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
It's a kind of rigor, isn't that that when you're
following a recipe or you're learning how to do first
position sex position? That rigor of a discipline of doing
something allows you then to come be free. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (27:24):
Absolutely, And it gave me a confidence that I was
beginning to lose. Studies show that children when they enter
middle school, which is what you know, we were kind
of about.
Speaker 8 (27:33):
We were still not out of elementary school when he passed.
Speaker 5 (27:35):
Away, but when the first couple of years after he
was gone, we were entering middle school. That's around the
time when children start losing their confidence. And I'm just
happy that that ballet didn't allow me to lose it completely.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
And you went to New York. You went back to it.
Speaker 5 (27:52):
When I was seventeen, So from ten to seventeen, I
was in Dominican Republic. By the time we were fourteen
fifteen years old, we were beach heads.
Speaker 8 (27:59):
Were just like surfing. We were you you have a
bad day, go to the beach.
Speaker 6 (28:04):
Yah.
Speaker 8 (28:05):
Yeah, yeah, you break your boyfriend breaks up.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
With you, you go to the beach, you know what I mean.
Speaker 8 (28:09):
And and so we were always at the beach.
Speaker 5 (28:11):
We were always dancing, we were always at school, ballet,
learning languages.
Speaker 8 (28:16):
That sort of, you know.
Speaker 5 (28:18):
And then my mom found love again also when we
were in Dominican Republic by reconnecting with a childhood friend,
and that began to also she began to kind of
step out of her spell because my mom was in
a really bad depression after my dad passed away. For
I would say like two to four years after he passed,
(28:39):
and then she found love and they're still together, still married.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Huh. Was that good for you? Yes? I was.
Speaker 8 (28:47):
I was fourteen.
Speaker 5 (28:47):
I think when they when they reconnected and they're still together,
and he became he became my father.
Speaker 8 (28:54):
Yeah he is.
Speaker 5 (28:56):
He's a really good father and a really great husband,
and he's it's funny, and he's geeky, and yeah, he
dances really great.
Speaker 8 (29:03):
So to see that my.
Speaker 5 (29:04):
Mom also was able to regain, you know, a good
dancing partner, because dancing is really a part.
Speaker 8 (29:11):
Of who we are alive. Yeah, of our bank.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
You that into a profession for yourself when you came back,
Did you go to Julie did you? No?
Speaker 8 (29:18):
No, no, no no.
Speaker 5 (29:19):
I danced in like a little academy in Queens that
I had to take a train and two buses for
every day after school. It wasn't the same. I still
kept at it, you know, for I would say two
more years. By the time I was like to eighteen,
about to be nineteen, I had already kind of started
meddling with acting.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
So you went to auditions. Tell us about just.
Speaker 8 (29:42):
One thing led to another I had.
Speaker 5 (29:44):
I knew nothing about that anything. I just knew that
I was going to dance. And I guess, once I
graduate high school, maybe I'll go to Sunny Purchase.
Speaker 8 (29:53):
If I'm lucky enough and.
Speaker 5 (29:54):
I really want to pursue this, maybe I'll go to
Yale and master in some kind of dance psychology. And
so I was starting to already think about that and
working with the dean and your in your high school
and everything. But deep, deep down, I had no desire
of doing any of those things because I realized I
had reached my glass ceiling in ballet and I wasn't
(30:18):
able to shatter it. I just I didn't have the feet,
and I was getting really tired of just punishing myself
for not being good enough, and had I had too
much hunger in me that just being in the core
of a company wasn't going to cut it for me
if it cuts it for other people. I wished I
(30:38):
was more like other people at that time, other dancers,
but I wasn't, and I.
Speaker 8 (30:42):
Would pass by all these little theaters.
Speaker 5 (30:44):
When I was in Manhattan. My mom would only let
me go with my sister to Kapezio, to the store in.
Speaker 8 (30:49):
Fifty seven and columbus to.
Speaker 5 (30:51):
Go buy my shoes and go buy some leotards. Whenever
I was like running out and then was like you
come straight back. I hop on the train and come
straight back to Queens. But there was they were holding
these auditions, and there was this little sign yeah, like
on the basement of like this brown stone uptown and
it said New York Youth Theater holding auditions for the Wiz.
(31:12):
And I looked at my sister, who at the time,
she was smoking cigarettes and she wasn't supposed to, so
obviously she brings me into the city.
Speaker 8 (31:22):
She's like buys her pack of cigarettes and.
Speaker 5 (31:24):
She's just smoking away as she's being like my chaperone,
and I'm like, Marie, can I go check.
Speaker 8 (31:29):
This out really quickly?
Speaker 5 (31:30):
And then we take the train and go home, and
she's like looking look like her cigarette and kind of
goes for yeah, sure.
Speaker 8 (31:35):
And then puts it out.
Speaker 5 (31:36):
We go inside, we audition and no, no, no, she
just she was there, signs me up and everything, and
you know, but mind, she's only a year older. It's
not like she's much older than I am. But we
were always partners and crying. My sisters and I I
auditioned for it, and I get called back for the Whiz.
Speaker 8 (31:54):
Yes, but it was like a small little off off
off Broadway.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
To this story. These probably guys and actors standing that
this little girl, she's walked off the street, she wants
to audition. Okay, you know, we'll do it. We have
to do it, and it's you.
Speaker 5 (32:12):
Oh yeah, and they were so nice they called me back.
I remember waiting for that phone call. Every time the
phone in my house would would ring, I'd.
Speaker 8 (32:22):
Be like, I got it, I got it, hello, you know.
Speaker 5 (32:24):
And finally it was them, and I think my sister
took the call and she said, they're calling you back,
So now we have to tell our parents. So I
remember we did. I waited for my mom to come
home from work and I was like, well, don't be upset,
but we I did audition for this place and I
got called back and she was just like, okay, what
(32:46):
about ballet.
Speaker 8 (32:47):
I'm like, I don't know. I just they're just calling
me for It's a call back. It's like, what's a
call back? I don't even know what a callback was.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
What's a call back?
Speaker 8 (32:54):
I guess it's just the second round. It's not like
I got it. It's just the second round. I'm so sorry.
And then at this point, my.
Speaker 5 (33:00):
Mom takes off from work and she takes me with
my sister for the callbacks.
Speaker 8 (33:05):
And I remember there was I'm reading for the role
of the Scarecrow.
Speaker 5 (33:09):
Guys, I sucked so bad. She hat my lines. But
I can dance, I can do whatever. And my mom
leans over to my sister and says, oh, boy, I
guess that's what she wants to do, because I guess
I was really bad at the audition because they're watching it.
They're sitting in the theater and they're allowing the parents
to watch the children because we're all miners.
Speaker 8 (33:29):
I was seventeen, yeah, I was seventeen.
Speaker 5 (33:32):
And my mom was like, oh, oh, am on, okay,
this is what she wants to do.
Speaker 8 (33:37):
So then we all went back to the house.
Speaker 5 (33:39):
When I booked it, I didn't book the role of
the Scarecrow, but I booked to be like.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
In the core.
Speaker 8 (33:43):
We go back and it's the news.
Speaker 5 (33:45):
Now we've told my grandmother, my stepdad, and my younger sister,
Oh my god. But we're looking at the schedule. If
I take off from work, then you can take Zoe.
Then maybe I'll pick her up.
Speaker 8 (33:55):
So at this point that we're all. We've always been
a team.
Speaker 5 (33:58):
But we realized that with all my ballet commitments and
I had her recital, there was just no way that
I could do it without failing this academy, which I'd
granted me a scholarship to dance.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
So happened.
Speaker 5 (34:10):
I called them up and I said, I can't do it.
Thank you so much. I realized that my commitments with
ballet are far greater and I just can't really do
what but my younger sister can. And they were like, well,
I'm like, she looks just like me. People things were
twins and she used to dance, and at that time,
my sister was going through like a really hard time,
just sixteen years old, can't fit in theater. Just gave
(34:34):
her what ballet had given me in my early years,
so I say it for the poor. They did and
she started doing you know, she did the Whiz and
she did Bye Bye Bertie. Then she did Jesus Christ
Superstar and she did a whole bunch of productions with
this theater company for I would say like five six years.
So all into like her like twenty until she was
like twenty years old or twenty one.
Speaker 8 (34:56):
I joined at once I stopped dancing.
Speaker 5 (34:59):
Then I joined this other theater group in Brooklyn, and
then they hired me. I did it through like an
internship program from school, and then after I graduated high school,
then they gave me a job with full coverage.
Speaker 8 (35:13):
I was I was eighteen.
Speaker 5 (35:14):
So I'm in this theater group in Brooklyn. My sister's
the one in Broadway in Manhattan. So she's the one
with all jazz hands and bye bye Bertie, and I'm
writing skits about urban life and domestic violence and drug
addiction with a whole bunch of kids and this other
and we're performing in hospitals, in high schools and jails.
(35:36):
Like I went to sing sing to perform, you know,
with the theater troupe, and I loved it because it
was raw. It was awesome, but it was just dangerous.
My mom just didn't want me going to Brooklyn. So
one day she tells my sister just convinced her, because
I was also dating a guy that didn't want me
dating whatever, just convinced her to audition for Joseph and
the Amazing Technicolor dream Coat at your theater. And then
(35:58):
we'll get her out of Brooklyn. You with this, I
was I think I was like I was nineteen.
Speaker 8 (36:03):
It all happened really fast. This was nineteen ninety seven.
Speaker 5 (36:08):
So I auditioned and I booked the role of missus Potiphar,
and I really had fun, and I decided to stay
with the production and with my sister. Well at that
point was doing more production work than being on stage,
because she's always had a good eye. And there was
a manager in the room and signed signed me and
(36:31):
started sending me out immediately for soap operas and shows
like episodics and commercials.
Speaker 8 (36:39):
And I started booking things left and right.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
It left home by then. Are you living still at home?
Speaker 5 (36:45):
No? No, no, no, no, oh my god, no, we're
such a I'm still living with my parents.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
So you were still being cooked for. I'm getting to
the food that.
Speaker 8 (36:54):
Yes, oh, my grandmother.
Speaker 5 (36:56):
At this point, my grandmother was always with us and
her husband, and they lived. You know, my mom and
my grandmother always lived within a block from each other
or in the next building of each other. And that's
how we grew up in Queen's where I would open
the window of my bedroom and go aha, and she
would open her window, Gay.
Speaker 8 (37:20):
And you would go in this Jon. And this is
how you greet all of your elders.
Speaker 5 (37:23):
You say bless me, and then they always respond, may
God bless you. That's how you greet them, and that's
how you say good night. In Spain you do it
as well.
Speaker 3 (37:36):
And beniz Jon.
Speaker 5 (37:41):
And then she would literally come over from her apartment
and her pjs and come.
Speaker 8 (37:48):
Inside our apartment.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
What do you want?
Speaker 5 (37:50):
It's like Papa Mango, so beata.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership
with Montclair h
You were listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
The Oscars are only a few days away, and Ruthie's
Table four is excited. Rave finds Zoe Saldana and Elton John.
Three Ruthy Table four guests are nominated for Academy Awards.
The reason we're revisiting their interviews today. Rave is nominated
for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his brilliant
and moving performance in Conclave. Tell me about eating and acting?
(00:28):
What's the deal that do you eat?
Speaker 3 (00:30):
That's a good question.
Speaker 4 (00:31):
I think you need a bit of food for energy.
So to have starved yourself or not have eaten within
three hours before a performance, you can, I think your
sugar level would drop. Mean, but I know I can't
eat a big meal.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
What do you eat? Not? What about on a film set?
When we touched first breakfast Breakfast, breakfastival?
Speaker 4 (00:53):
Really they have now found ways to shorten the day,
and they had what I called a running lunch. A
lot of films won't. You can maybe twenty minutes to
have a sandwich, and they'll have a running lunch from
twelve to two. Maybe if they do stop, it's half
an hour.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Only and so, as I said, you were in Rome, I.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Was filming around twice this year.
Speaker 4 (01:11):
I was filming this Conclave which you mentioned about, a
film recreating the conclave when the cardinals, when the Pope
has died and all the cardinals get into the Sistine
Chapel and they are sequestered away from the world. They
have no contact with the outside world at all while
they vote for the new pope, and they have to
(01:33):
keep voting until the required majority is achieved.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Does somebody put them? Can I can one of them
say I want to be pope and campaigned?
Speaker 4 (01:41):
There's a bit of that in it. There is the
oh yes, no, that's a bit. It's based on a
great book by Robert Harris. Yeah, and it was written
maybe nine years ago. And it's been directed by Edward Berger,
who directed All Quite on the Western Front, which got
a lot of acclaim the last season.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
He was wonderful director, very very very good, very.
Speaker 4 (02:02):
Lovely man, very detailed and very and the best sets,
attentive to the actors and the nuances that he wants
them to bring out. I love working with him, and
wonderful Stanley Tucci. He loves playing my two We're two
We're two cardinals who are friends and we hit we
hit a few bumpy patches in our friendship in.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
The film, do you both want to put yourselves up
for being pope?
Speaker 4 (02:24):
In different ways? He's a bit more. We're both reluctant
to admit it that we do. And he's brilliant in
the film.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
I have to say, did the Vatican were they involved?
Speaker 4 (02:36):
They they just rise above it. They just know they're
not really involved. But nor they just they just and.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
They let you film in the Vatican.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
No, no, no, no, no, There is a whole The key
voting scenes are in the Sistine Chapel in real life,
and there exists Assistine Chapel set made I believe for
the mini series The Young Pope, which I think so
that set of the Sistine Chapel was was mothballed and
then our production brought it out, cleaned it out, repainted it,
(03:06):
and it's the whole of the first twenty feet of
the Sistine Chapel with the Day of Judgment at one
end as a copy and they add the rest with CGI.
But I've seen bits of the footage with the added
siagi and it looks it looks like we're in the
real place.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
And then for me what i'd last like that was
where did you eat in realm?
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Don't ask me the names I've gone.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Okay, just tell me about the food. How did it
feel to be eating the food around? For as long as.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
I'm in there, Stanley, I hope you don't may bring
you up again in this podcast with you, but Stanley,
teach you brought a chunk of us towards the end,
a group of us who were filming, including Edward.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
It's wonderful restaurant.
Speaker 4 (03:46):
Called not pomer Doughty but Pomme Dory, I believe, and
it's an old family restaurant that was beloved of Pasolini,
the director, and he organized this wonderful meal there late,
very late after a day's filming, and that I think
was the best meal I had. They had put on
the special meal because it was Stanley and they were charming.
(04:09):
And I went back there to that restaurant again when
I returned to Rome later this year in the summer
to make the return, and it's just very and you
don't really they kind of give you food you didn't
really order. I mean, you can't order, but they just
sort of present you with what they feel is the
best pastor of the evening.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
And it was very easy.
Speaker 4 (04:27):
And I definitely preferred the more threat or ear style
than the restaurants, the high flying restaurants.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
I'm not drawn to it so much.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Did you read out a lot? Would you filming.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
On Conclaive? I ate out quite a bit, but.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
We're filming day. The filming hours are so long. In
the end, I would go back to my flat and
I cook something. But in the weekends really.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
And what about in Greece?
Speaker 3 (04:54):
I love, oh when Greece and Corse.
Speaker 4 (04:56):
We were in Corforu for most of it, and we
came across a wonderful restaurant which served the most exquisite
lamb that was on the spit.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Oh god, the lamb.
Speaker 4 (05:06):
Was was just extraordinary, just so circular and tasty, and
Spiros's restaurant it was. It was quite a simple restaurant,
catering for mostly tourists. But got the lamb was?
Speaker 2 (05:20):
What month was that? Spring?
Speaker 4 (05:22):
May?
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (05:26):
We just kept in Morocco? Was that also? Don't you think?
I agree?
Speaker 4 (05:33):
I think Moroccan food that was heaven. Tagine cooking is
one of the best cooking ways of cooking. I think
I've had come across.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
When the lamb. Yeah, that was I was going to
ask you about the menu. Yeah, because you know, here
we are a chef. Chef Shan is a chef for
going into a restaurant. And I remember you calling me
up from there and saying that you were, you know,
learning the skill. A woman from San Francisco came, didn't
She a.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
Chef, Dominique Krenn, who I think has a restaurant in
San Francisco called Atlier kren And there's a wonderful chef's
table on her. She's from Brittany originally, she's fantastic and
she came and she designed all the food for the film,
and then she oversaw the initial first few days of shooting,
(06:24):
and then she left a couple of her chefs with
us who oversaw not just the food and the preparation
of the food, but they were looking at the kitchen
staff in our film to make sure that they behaved
in their demeanor and their just their rhythm of movement,
just so anyone looking at it would believe it was
a working kitchen.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
What was it like playing it was a working kitchen?
I thought I believed it was a working kitchen. No
I did. I definitely did. I mean, we were just
such a fantastic character and that type of food and
the hidden humor, saying to Will that Richard and I
went to El Bulli in the early days, you know,
that restaurant in Spain, and it was very much one
(07:05):
little tiny piece of food after another, one olive that
exploded in your mouth, and one, you know, piece of
crab that you know, you had to pick, and then
that was it. And we said, they said to us,
after twelve courses, he said, now we're going to finish
with ravioli with parmesan and butter and sage. And I thought,
at last we're getting something to eat. And a plate
(07:26):
came and it was just a plate, and so we
just waited and waited and waited, and we said, where
is the ravioli And they said that basically, it was
a spray. It was a spray that they'd sprayed on
the plate and it had the essence of ravioli with
butter and parmesan. And we had to take our finger
and kind of wiped the plate and that was a dish,
you know, And I thought, that's okay, exactly. Yeah, that kind.
(07:51):
So what was it like being a chef in that?
Speaker 1 (07:53):
And that's well as you.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
Saw from the film. I mean, i'm I'm I run
the restaurant side. He doesn't do much cooking at all.
He's seeing it until the very end when he's challenged
to make a good old fashioned cheeseburger, which he does
make and I had to cook that.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Did you learn skills? Chog? Yeah, you make a good cheeseburger.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
It was good?
Speaker 5 (08:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Is there something that you love about a restaurant or
going I would say that people do very private things
in a public space. Have you used restaurants as a
sort of safety net? Do you think to do something
that's difficult or not.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
If you meet someone in I mean I usually eat
either with one other or on my own, or maybe
after a show with whoever it might have been coming.
I like, I love going on my own to restaurant
with a book and it's a privilege. But to have
a glass of wine and simple food, I love that.
But going with I have been in situations where this
(08:53):
is the meal where you tell son so that you're
not going to do the film, or you tell them
that you can't see them anymore.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
Or you know, and that's heavy.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
That's I mean that that in that sense, when it's
a tricky thing, then the restaurant is a sort of padding,
as you say, safety note, but it means you don't
enjoy it's all. Then then the food and the service,
then that's all a kind of pathway to get through
the difficult thing you've told yourself you've got to do.
(09:22):
So I like, I like to be in a relaxed
context where it's just the enjoyment of sharing food with people,
and of course drink a good you know. I mean,
let's talk about alcohol.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
I love a drink.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Let's have a drink.
Speaker 6 (09:38):
You know.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
I love martini, I love a Negroni. And why I mean,
I am not in excess, but I just love that
that little drop in the kind of anxiety as that.
And I hate getting really off my face. I don't.
I hate the after effect, but I just love that
little with the first do you have a cocktail?
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Sorry? Now, imagine a state bottled olive oil chosen and
bottled for the River Cafe, arriving at your door every month.
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(10:24):
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Our wonderful conversation with Elton John and his husband David
(10:47):
Furnish took place around the wooden dining table at their
beautiful home in Berkshire. Elton is nominated for Best Original
Song for Never Too Late from the documentary of the
same name about his life. It was directed by David
and RJ.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
Cutler.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
This episode was particularly moving. Elton shared with us his
memories of growing up cooking with his mother and his grandmother.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
I grew up after the war, so everything.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Was about early life.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (11:18):
I was born in the council house. I lived with
my mother, my grandmother, because my father was away in
the Air Force.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Was it your mother's mother, Yes.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
My grandmother. She was fantastic.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
What was she like?
Speaker 6 (11:29):
She was wonderful. She could cook anything and make it
taste incredible. I mean, basic ingredients were hard to get.
After all, we were russianed and bacon was partly a nono.
But she made I never remember a bad meal or
going hungry, and everything that was left over she made
into something else the next day.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
And what I loved about her because I have the
biggest sweet tooth.
Speaker 6 (11:51):
Her bread puddings and her apple pies, and her scones
or scones, and her victorious sponges.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Very simple. The kitchen was again, the coal cellar was
in the kitchen. It was you believe it.
Speaker 6 (12:06):
The laundry was done on the stove in a boiler,
and we had a mangle to It was a very
basic upbringing, but I can never remember the smell of
cooking was always wonderful, and she could cook anything. I
fell in love with very basic, simple English food at
that point.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
I think that a simple English food as you talk
about bread pudding and apple pie, those are very They're
not easy to make, you know, And it's to do
with the ingredients and the method and the way you cook.
Speaker 6 (12:34):
Yeah, and things like Spotty Didnking cast It. I walk
into a restaurant, say in Yorkshire or something like that,
and sometimes they have things like that on the menu
to go oh my God, which.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
For me is just a sheer delight.
Speaker 6 (12:51):
I always sometimes think that you go to some john
for instance, they have Ecoes cakes, and the Echoes cakes
are incredible, and they serve it with the cheese and
it's just like wow, man from Heaven. Nowadays, unfortunately I
can't eat it because I'm semi diabetic, but I do
like those English stalwarts a lot.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
I do too well. So growing up, you had a
mother and a grandmother in the house, and your father
was where he was.
Speaker 6 (13:15):
He was away in the Air Force in Aiden, and
so I didn't really see much for him. So it
was a woman's household. My mom's sister, my aunt, was
always there as well. So I grew up with a
bunch of women who knew how to cook, which was great.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
And you all sat down to meal every night together, yes.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
And we toasted our toast by the fire.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Was yours? Similar in Toronto.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
I grew up in Canada.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
I was in Toronto.
Speaker 7 (13:40):
I was one of three boys, and my mom was
We were very lucky. She was a stay at home mom.
She could make almost anything happen instantly. She had a
deep freeze in the basement. And sometimes we'd come back
from school or a sports match and we'd bring two
friends along and she'd say, no problem, and she'd go
on stairs and she thought out some pastries, she thought
(14:02):
some meat, she thought a tomato sauce or something then
prepared in advance. Suddenly the dinner could just expand or change,
you know, with thirty minutes notice. And meals were important,
although given it was three boys and there was a
lot going on, it was a lot of meals on
the hop what you were the I'm the middle one,
the middle one. Yeah, the one thing that mum was
important because we were always coming and going, but Sunday lunch,
(14:25):
Sunday dinner was the one time she wanted the family
to be around the table and have more of a
sense of occasion, and that was a traditional English roast.
My grandparents on my mother's side were from the north
and the South of Ireland, and my grandparents on my
father's side were from England and Wales, so a lot
of those traditions came across to Canada and Sunday roast,
(14:49):
Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes, roast beef, you know, Brussels sprouts, beans, carrots,
a really good gravy, and then always a baked pie
or cake or sweet for dessert. My British grandmother was
an amazing baker.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
So you both had grandmothers that.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
I think grandparents are so important.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
They are. I agree.
Speaker 6 (15:13):
The thing about my grandmother was that because we had
a garden, we grew all our own produce because it
was so much cheaper, and my grandmother had green fingers,
so we always had fresh vegetables.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Hardly ever had processed peas.
Speaker 6 (15:26):
I mean the great advantage in those days that food
wasn't really you know, instant did no instant whips, no
instant there's mashed potato. It was all genuinely from the garden,
which was delicious. So I mean I remember shelling the
peas every Sunday morning. That's that was like David Sunday
roast was very important for the family gathering. So shelling
(15:47):
the peas was one thing. Peeling the potatoes with another
broad being to another. So we always had good produce
because we couldn't afford to buy them because you know,
teams times were hard after the war and the butt,
and we had a tiny bottle of orange juice which
you diluted and poured the water into. But I never
felt as if we were missing any denied.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Yeah, but neither of your mother's work. They didn't have
to combine a career with cooking your mother.
Speaker 6 (16:13):
My mother worked all the time and worked really really
hard as well. And she worked in a shop, she
worked in a dairy, she worked at the Air Force.
She's always but she'd always come home and make dinner. Yeah,
she was very hard working woman, but still cooked.
Speaker 7 (16:28):
She raised Elton as a single mom, and so you
know his ability to study and take lessons.
Speaker 8 (16:34):
And learn and everything.
Speaker 7 (16:35):
His mum worked very very hard providing for the family
to allow him to do that. That's what got him
on his path to be who he is today.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Did you ever go to restaurants?
Speaker 6 (16:45):
The only time I remember going to a restaurant is
when I went to a Chinese restaurant in Harrow. We
lived in Pinner and Chinese restaurants suddenly became the rage.
Coffee bars were the rage before that, but we went
for a Chinese meal. Was the first restaurant I care
remember going to, and it was just wow. We have
bean sprouts and it was just so delicious and it
(17:06):
was so exotic, and I remember I was so excited
to go to this Chinese restaurant.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
There weren't many in the area.
Speaker 6 (17:13):
One in how there wasn't certainly one in Pillar, but
it was just an incredible occasion. And that's the first
exotic food I ever really had. How old were you,
I don't know, eight nine maybe yeah?
Speaker 7 (17:23):
And did you get to a restaurant It was a
very very special treat. Yeah, because again it was expensive
and it was a big treat. What we never had
was fast food.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
Book.
Speaker 7 (17:35):
My mother was very anti fast food. She just didn't
didn't think it was good for us. I think she
was ahead of her time with that. There wasn't any
fast food when I grew up.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Fast food was boiling the cabbus for ten minutes.
Speaker 6 (17:47):
I went to school, there suddenly became there was a
Wimpy bar when I was about fifteen.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
That's the first fast food place I can ever remember.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
But you both, what is interesting to talk to you
about is that food was important to you, and delicious
food was important to you, and you grew up with
a sense of that importance in your life.
Speaker 6 (18:06):
You know, Well, meals were very social. It's when you
got together. I mean when I went to school, I
had school meals which were vile.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
That was a day school that was justful.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Just awful, awful.
Speaker 6 (18:17):
Awful, But then you come home at night and that
was the day. That's where you got breakfast was just
on the on the run really to get to school.
But the meal at night was always important, and of
course the weekend, the Sunday lunch was really important.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
And when you both in different stages of your life,
left this coon of your grandmother's your food, your mother
rustling something up, and a friend came for you to
talk when each of you, would you tell me when
when did you leave home? When did you How old
were you when you suddenly were out on your own
and thinking about food in your own way?
Speaker 1 (18:53):
When I was about I met Bernie that.
Speaker 6 (18:56):
Was nineteen maybe or twenty, and we shared a flat
in Islington.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
And did it have a kitchen?
Speaker 1 (19:08):
But I'm incapable of cooking anything and Bernie as too,
so we just out all the time.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Yeah, And would that be would you seek out restaurants
or would you just have grabbed something? Stuff like that?
Speaker 6 (19:22):
Keep things because we couldn't afford expensive things. But never
The first real exciting restaurant I went to was when
Dick James took her to a restaurant off of Tottenham.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Court Road, And who was Dick James.
Speaker 6 (19:34):
Dick James was my publisher and my manager who you
know published the Beatles, was very famous, first person to
sign on. Yeah, And so I went to this restaurant
called La Maisonette and I had a prawn cocktail. I
never seen anything like. I didn't know what to do,
what's this?
Speaker 1 (19:50):
So that was the first posh in in Berti Coomma's
restaurant that I ever went to.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Paul mccurrenty told me that that same experience, said he
when he went was taken.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
By Brian Epstein.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Again another mam Maisonette or Montclair or Bontant, and it
was suddenly an eye opener. He said. It was the
first time he'd only had cheap wine. With John Lennon.
They used to really and they couldn't understand the point
of wine because it tasted so terrible because it was
so cheap. And then he went and had a good
glass of wine and realized what life could be. Did
(20:27):
you have the same feeling about your prome cocktail?
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Exactly?
Speaker 6 (20:31):
It was like, oh, and the bread was lovely and
it was beautiful bread rolled and crispy, and and you thought, well,
this is a different this is a step up. I mean,
it's not the Aberdeen Steakhouse.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
This, well it's not. This is a proper restaurant, sorry Aberdeen.
But to me, the Aberdeen Steakhouse was posh was peah.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
I remember once I was in New York and my
parents used to take us a special treat to this restaurant.
And then I was with a girlfriend who was a
friend of mine, and she said her parents were deciding
where to go out to eat and they mentioned this
restaurant and her parents said, oh, we're not going into
a place like that, And I thought that was our
special place.
Speaker 6 (21:11):
Well yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
What about you?
Speaker 7 (21:17):
When I was working in advertising, you you were taking
out clients and you were entertaining them. So that was
a little bit like being let off the leash to
to explore and have and have fun. And you know,
you wanted to treat your clients well, and you were
able to take them to nice restaurants. In Toronto, where
I grew up, has a fantastic it's a great restaurant town.
It's very international, so what you get exposed to is
(21:40):
was very very sophisticated and very very worldly. And that
was that was I've never you know, eaten like that
in my life.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
That was really special.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
And so back to the apartment you lived in Islington,
you ate out, you grab food, and then slowly, with
your success, you you were able to go and at
that point to being able to eat food another restaurants.
Speaker 6 (22:01):
When I became successful, it was a different kettle of fish.
I met people who were more sophisticated than I was,
who knew the London restaurant scene and everything, and I
started going to better places with them. It's just it's
just the journey. I'm starting to play better venues. I
was starting to eat at better restaurants. I was starting
(22:22):
to earn more money. I was starting to live in
a better place. As you go, as you do things
like that, step by step, you know, you get introduced
to different things. And it was lovely. It was a
wonderful journey in every respect. I never collected art until
I suddenly became wealthy enough to buy some prints, and
the whole journey just went step hand in hand. And yes,
(22:44):
I loved I loved going to lovely restaurant. I remember
when I first got there was two restaurants in Cavon
Garten called The Garden and Inigo giants. I used to
go there all the time.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
That was English food, wasn't it called? Yeah? Did you
go to a Greek or did you discover I never.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
I never went abroad at all, hardly.
Speaker 6 (23:05):
I went to America, but I'd never really in France
because I never really went to France or itsly or
any plant places that came later on. I was introduced
to America in cuisine in inverted commers. I don't really
think they have a cuisine unless you're in the South
and it's chicken and the food is incredible in the South.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Yeah, oh my god, do you think what do you
like in the South?
Speaker 6 (23:28):
I like all sorts of things that aren't good for me,
fried chicken, fried chicken, donuts. If I had a death
row meal, it wouldn't contain anything except sweets because I
can't eat them now, So I'd have ice cream, donuts,
apple pie, ruberb crumble.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Blah blah blah.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
I get it. Yeah, so you don't need any sugar
now at all. The River Cafe, when you said lunch
is now running from Monday to Thursday. Reserve okay at www.
Rivercafe dot co dot uk or give us a call
(24:09):
Zoeh Sardana's nominated for Best Actress in a Supporting Role
for her magnetic performance in the musical Amelia Perez. Talking
to her, it's clear she was destined for the role.
Dance was an important part of her life from a
young age. Sitting in the river cafe, she told me
all about those early years.
Speaker 5 (24:28):
I come from a family, and I do know this.
That is a cultural thing. We dance. We dance at funerals,
we dance, had births, we dance. If you fail to test,
we danced if you passed it. You know what I mean.
Speaker 8 (24:42):
It's you just dance, and you dance at ing and
you dance alsa.
Speaker 5 (24:46):
And neighbors all they can be doctors or architects, but
they know how to play the gongas, and they know
how to play the drums, and they'll come with a trumpet.
Speaker 8 (24:54):
And everybody sits in someone's.
Speaker 5 (24:55):
Backyard and you can see it. Even Puerto Rico is
the same, the same. Dominican Republic is very much that way.
So I grew up just and and there's always everything
is always a reason to have a party. It's somebody's
it's somebody's baptism, and you sort of go, why are
we having this parade? Like, no, no, it's a baptism And
you're like, but he's four. You're like, it's the biggest party,
(25:17):
can last sixteen hours. And so I grew up always
seeing great grandparents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, teenagers, dancing,
everybody always dancing.
Speaker 8 (25:26):
So we dance.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
We did as well.
Speaker 5 (25:29):
Yes, yes, but that transition into dance was very different
from what you do at home.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
Right.
Speaker 8 (25:35):
It was therapy.
Speaker 5 (25:35):
It was medicine for my soul. Yes, because I was
I wasn't really acclimating enough.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
I just wasn't a Dominican republic. Yeah, my mom.
Speaker 5 (25:46):
Says that we were, but I think it was just grieving.
We were just you were grieving. It was something that
happened to us, was very traumatic. In children don't really
describe trauma. They don't really say I.
Speaker 8 (25:57):
Am going through something right now.
Speaker 5 (26:01):
They either shut down or they overreact. They just whatever
it is, they're just not themselves and that's the sign.
That's the indication that they've experienced trauma and they're still
like in a state of shock and bal Ballet became
my outlet, my place, my safe haven. I would go
(26:21):
to after school it was an environment that I can
go and test myself and challenge myself and.
Speaker 8 (26:27):
Learn something new.
Speaker 5 (26:28):
So when you're learning something new, that takes a lot
of your attention and your time, and that's what I needed.
I needed a lot to put all of my attention,
all of my time into something that was going to
give me some kind of release and relief, and Ballet
did that.
Speaker 8 (26:44):
It almost became an obsession.
Speaker 5 (26:46):
I was very blessed in the sense that throughout my
life I had really great role models that took my mom, my, sisters,
and I in and either by cooking a meal or
teaching us something, you know, we were taken in and
we were told that we can believe in ourselves, that
we can believe in love again, that we can believe
(27:07):
in life again, that we can do this, and we
began our healing process.
Speaker 8 (27:10):
But it didn't come that quickly.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
It's a kind of rigor, isn't that that when you're
following a recipe or you're learning how to do first
position sex position? That rigor of a discipline of doing
something allows you then to come be free. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (27:24):
Absolutely, And it gave me a confidence that I was
beginning to lose. Studies show that children when they enter
middle school, which is what you know, we were kind
of about.
Speaker 8 (27:33):
We were still not out of elementary school when he passed.
Speaker 5 (27:35):
Away, but when the first couple of years after he
was gone, we were entering middle school. That's around the
time when children start losing their confidence. And I'm just
happy that that ballet didn't allow me to lose it completely.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
And you went to New York. You went back to it.
Speaker 5 (27:52):
When I was seventeen, So from ten to seventeen, I
was in Dominican Republic. By the time we were fourteen
fifteen years old, we were beach heads.
Speaker 8 (27:59):
Were just like surfing. We were you you have a
bad day, go to the beach.
Speaker 6 (28:04):
Yah.
Speaker 8 (28:05):
Yeah, yeah, you break your boyfriend breaks up.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
With you, you go to the beach, you know what I mean.
Speaker 8 (28:09):
And and so we were always at the beach.
Speaker 5 (28:11):
We were always dancing, we were always at school, ballet,
learning languages.
Speaker 8 (28:16):
That sort of, you know.
Speaker 5 (28:18):
And then my mom found love again also when we
were in Dominican Republic by reconnecting with a childhood friend,
and that began to also she began to kind of
step out of her spell because my mom was in
a really bad depression after my dad passed away. For
I would say like two to four years after he passed,
(28:39):
and then she found love and they're still together, still married.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Huh. Was that good for you? Yes? I was.
Speaker 8 (28:47):
I was fourteen.
Speaker 5 (28:47):
I think when they when they reconnected and they're still together,
and he became he became my father.
Speaker 8 (28:54):
Yeah he is.
Speaker 5 (28:56):
He's a really good father and a really great husband,
and he's it's funny, and he's geeky, and yeah, he
dances really great.
Speaker 8 (29:03):
So to see that my.
Speaker 5 (29:04):
Mom also was able to regain, you know, a good
dancing partner, because dancing is really a part.
Speaker 8 (29:11):
Of who we are alive. Yeah, of our bank.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
You that into a profession for yourself when you came back,
Did you go to Julie did you? No?
Speaker 8 (29:18):
No, no, no no.
Speaker 5 (29:19):
I danced in like a little academy in Queens that
I had to take a train and two buses for
every day after school. It wasn't the same. I still
kept at it, you know, for I would say two
more years. By the time I was like to eighteen,
about to be nineteen, I had already kind of started
meddling with acting.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
So you went to auditions. Tell us about just.
Speaker 8 (29:42):
One thing led to another I had.
Speaker 5 (29:44):
I knew nothing about that anything. I just knew that
I was going to dance. And I guess, once I
graduate high school, maybe I'll go to Sunny Purchase.
Speaker 8 (29:53):
If I'm lucky enough and.
Speaker 5 (29:54):
I really want to pursue this, maybe I'll go to
Yale and master in some kind of dance psychology. And
so I was starting to already think about that and
working with the dean and your in your high school
and everything. But deep, deep down, I had no desire
of doing any of those things because I realized I
had reached my glass ceiling in ballet and I wasn't
(30:18):
able to shatter it. I just I didn't have the feet,
and I was getting really tired of just punishing myself
for not being good enough, and had I had too
much hunger in me that just being in the core
of a company wasn't going to cut it for me
if it cuts it for other people. I wished I
(30:38):
was more like other people at that time, other dancers,
but I wasn't, and I.
Speaker 8 (30:42):
Would pass by all these little theaters.
Speaker 5 (30:44):
When I was in Manhattan. My mom would only let
me go with my sister to Kapezio, to the store in.
Speaker 8 (30:49):
Fifty seven and columbus to.
Speaker 5 (30:51):
Go buy my shoes and go buy some leotards. Whenever
I was like running out and then was like you
come straight back. I hop on the train and come
straight back to Queens. But there was they were holding
these auditions, and there was this little sign yeah, like
on the basement of like this brown stone uptown and
it said New York Youth Theater holding auditions for the Wiz.
(31:12):
And I looked at my sister, who at the time,
she was smoking cigarettes and she wasn't supposed to, so
obviously she brings me into the city.
Speaker 8 (31:22):
She's like buys her pack of cigarettes and.
Speaker 5 (31:24):
She's just smoking away as she's being like my chaperone,
and I'm like, Marie, can I go check.
Speaker 8 (31:29):
This out really quickly?
Speaker 5 (31:30):
And then we take the train and go home, and
she's like looking look like her cigarette and kind of
goes for yeah, sure.
Speaker 8 (31:35):
And then puts it out.
Speaker 5 (31:36):
We go inside, we audition and no, no, no, she
just she was there, signs me up and everything, and
you know, but mind, she's only a year older. It's
not like she's much older than I am. But we
were always partners and crying. My sisters and I I
auditioned for it, and I get called back for the Whiz.
Speaker 8 (31:54):
Yes, but it was like a small little off off
off Broadway.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
To this story. These probably guys and actors standing that
this little girl, she's walked off the street, she wants
to audition. Okay, you know, we'll do it. We have
to do it, and it's you.
Speaker 5 (32:12):
Oh yeah, and they were so nice they called me back.
I remember waiting for that phone call. Every time the
phone in my house would would ring, I'd.
Speaker 8 (32:22):
Be like, I got it, I got it, hello, you know.
Speaker 5 (32:24):
And finally it was them, and I think my sister
took the call and she said, they're calling you back,
So now we have to tell our parents. So I
remember we did. I waited for my mom to come
home from work and I was like, well, don't be upset,
but we I did audition for this place and I
got called back and she was just like, okay, what
(32:46):
about ballet.
Speaker 8 (32:47):
I'm like, I don't know. I just they're just calling
me for It's a call back. It's like, what's a
call back? I don't even know what a callback was.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
What's a call back?
Speaker 8 (32:54):
I guess it's just the second round. It's not like
I got it. It's just the second round. I'm so sorry.
And then at this point, my.
Speaker 5 (33:00):
Mom takes off from work and she takes me with
my sister for the callbacks.
Speaker 8 (33:05):
And I remember there was I'm reading for the role
of the Scarecrow.
Speaker 5 (33:09):
Guys, I sucked so bad. She hat my lines. But
I can dance, I can do whatever. And my mom
leans over to my sister and says, oh, boy, I
guess that's what she wants to do, because I guess
I was really bad at the audition because they're watching it.
They're sitting in the theater and they're allowing the parents
to watch the children because we're all miners.
Speaker 8 (33:29):
I was seventeen, yeah, I was seventeen.
Speaker 5 (33:32):
And my mom was like, oh, oh, am on, okay,
this is what she wants to do.
Speaker 8 (33:37):
So then we all went back to the house.
Speaker 5 (33:39):
When I booked it, I didn't book the role of
the Scarecrow, but I booked to be like.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
In the core.
Speaker 8 (33:43):
We go back and it's the news.
Speaker 5 (33:45):
Now we've told my grandmother, my stepdad, and my younger sister,
Oh my god. But we're looking at the schedule. If
I take off from work, then you can take Zoe.
Then maybe I'll pick her up.
Speaker 8 (33:55):
So at this point that we're all. We've always been
a team.
Speaker 5 (33:58):
But we realized that with all my ballet commitments and
I had her recital, there was just no way that
I could do it without failing this academy, which I'd
granted me a scholarship to dance.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
So happened.
Speaker 5 (34:10):
I called them up and I said, I can't do it.
Thank you so much. I realized that my commitments with
ballet are far greater and I just can't really do
what but my younger sister can. And they were like, well,
I'm like, she looks just like me. People things were
twins and she used to dance, and at that time,
my sister was going through like a really hard time,
just sixteen years old, can't fit in theater. Just gave
(34:34):
her what ballet had given me in my early years,
so I say it for the poor. They did and
she started doing you know, she did the Whiz and
she did Bye Bye Bertie. Then she did Jesus Christ
Superstar and she did a whole bunch of productions with
this theater company for I would say like five six years.
So all into like her like twenty until she was
like twenty years old or twenty one.
Speaker 8 (34:56):
I joined at once I stopped dancing.
Speaker 5 (34:59):
Then I joined this other theater group in Brooklyn, and
then they hired me. I did it through like an
internship program from school, and then after I graduated high school,
then they gave me a job with full coverage.
Speaker 8 (35:13):
I was I was eighteen.
Speaker 5 (35:14):
So I'm in this theater group in Brooklyn. My sister's
the one in Broadway in Manhattan. So she's the one
with all jazz hands and bye bye Bertie, and I'm
writing skits about urban life and domestic violence and drug
addiction with a whole bunch of kids and this other
and we're performing in hospitals, in high schools and jails.
(35:36):
Like I went to sing sing to perform, you know,
with the theater troupe, and I loved it because it
was raw. It was awesome, but it was just dangerous.
My mom just didn't want me going to Brooklyn. So
one day she tells my sister just convinced her, because
I was also dating a guy that didn't want me
dating whatever, just convinced her to audition for Joseph and
the Amazing Technicolor dream Coat at your theater. And then
(35:58):
we'll get her out of Brooklyn. You with this, I
was I think I was like I was nineteen.
Speaker 8 (36:03):
It all happened really fast. This was nineteen ninety seven.
Speaker 5 (36:08):
So I auditioned and I booked the role of missus Potiphar,
and I really had fun, and I decided to stay
with the production and with my sister. Well at that
point was doing more production work than being on stage,
because she's always had a good eye. And there was
a manager in the room and signed signed me and
(36:31):
started sending me out immediately for soap operas and shows
like episodics and commercials.
Speaker 8 (36:39):
And I started booking things left and right.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
It left home by then. Are you living still at home?
Speaker 5 (36:45):
No? No, no, no, no, oh my god, no, we're
such a I'm still living with my parents.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
So you were still being cooked for. I'm getting to
the food that.
Speaker 8 (36:54):
Yes, oh, my grandmother.
Speaker 5 (36:56):
At this point, my grandmother was always with us and
her husband, and they lived. You know, my mom and
my grandmother always lived within a block from each other
or in the next building of each other. And that's
how we grew up in Queen's where I would open
the window of my bedroom and go aha, and she
would open her window, Gay.
Speaker 8 (37:20):
And you would go in this Jon. And this is
how you greet all of your elders.
Speaker 5 (37:23):
You say bless me, and then they always respond, may
God bless you. That's how you greet them, and that's
how you say good night. In Spain you do it
as well.
Speaker 3 (37:36):
And beniz Jon.
Speaker 5 (37:41):
And then she would literally come over from her apartment
and her pjs and come.
Speaker 8 (37:48):
Inside our apartment.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
What do you want?
Speaker 5 (37:50):
It's like Papa Mango, so beata.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership
with Montclair h
Host
Ruth Rogers
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