February 27, 2023 • 34 mins
Over the years in The River Cafe, I’ve witnessed the spell-binding effect an athlete can have. None of us are able to do what they do, and we all know it. There are many, many images of John McEnroe on the tennis court, but the one I recall is not athletic, but artistic. It's a photograph of John, in fact, almost cradling a painting by Philip Guston, who was a close friend of my father and mother.
It was moving to see a strong, powerful athlete I admire carrying something so fragile. Today in New York City, John has walked across Central Park from his home and, in the fading autumn light, we will talk about the food we eat, the art we love, and the friendship the we, the tennis player and a cook, have begun.
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, 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/
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Instagram: www.instagram.com/ruthiestable4
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Ruthie's Table for a production of iHeartRadio and
Adami's Studios. Summer in London has ripe strawberries, green grass
in the parks and skies that are at last blue.
The city fills up with visitors, many here for Wimbledon.
Last July, I went to a dinner with people well
(00:20):
known in the world of theater, politics, movies, art and television.
At around ten thirty the doorbell rang and John McEnroe
entered the room. Everyone stopped talking. Over the years, I've
witnessed in the River Cafe the spell binding effect an
athlete can have. None of us can do what they do,
(00:41):
and we all know it. There are many many images
of John McEnroe and the tennis court, but the one
that I recall is not athletic but artistic. It's a
photograph of John Carrey, in fact, almost cradling a painting
by Philip Guston, who was a close friend of my
father and mother. It was moving to see a strong,
power full athlete I admired carrying something so fragile. Today
(01:05):
in New York City, John has walked across Central Park
from his home and in the fading autumn light, we
will talk about the food we eat, the art we love,
and the friendship we A tennis player and a cook
have begun really very nice inro Thank you, Thank you
for coming. It'd be nice if you begin to read
(01:27):
a recipe. I do love Italian food, so I'm gonna
try to. Yeah, that's my favorite food. Amatriana. See is
the dish that I'm going to read to tablespoons of
extra virgin olive oil, two hundred and fifty grams nine
ounces of panchetta, two dried red chilies, get a little spice,
(01:50):
one red onion, two tablespoons eight hundred grams of tin tomatoes,
tin plum tomatoes, three hundred grams of panay, hundred grams
of freshly graded peccorino peccorino. Okay, Heat the olive oil
(02:10):
in a large frying pan, Add the panchetta and fry
until it becomes crisp. Add the chilies, onion, and rosemary
to the pan and sweat. It says sweat okay, y well,
it means that you don't want it to brown, you
want it to soften. Add the tomato, stirwell. Simmer for
(02:33):
thirty minutes until the sauce is very thick. Bring a
large sauce pan of salted water to the boil. Cook
the panna until cooked but still firm, which is known
in Italian as aldente. Drain the panay and add to
the sauce. Mix well, and serve with the peccorino. You know,
(02:59):
I don't remember that much about my childhood, mainly because
what's happened to me from eighteen to know I'm sixty
three years old has been so incredible in a lot
of ways that I'm sort of like, you know, I
had a nice, okay upbringing. I had a commute now
each way from Queens, New York into the city to
(03:21):
go to high school. Sports kept me, helped me get
friendships because I was a bit of an introvert, shy kid.
I know I'm not really now, but I was then.
I don't have a lot of great memories in my childhood,
but that doesn't mean it was bad. It means that
there was a loving family, a mom who took care
(03:43):
of me, God rest her soul, my dad as well,
that always believed in me. My mother did cook. Here's
a thing. She wouldn't allow us to leave the table
till everything was eaten. She grew up during the Depression,
so didn't have a whole lot, but she wasn't super poor,
but she felt that we needed to finish what was
(04:06):
on our plate. We had to have liver once a
week or a month because we were Catholic, and we
had to have fish, which I hated, and liver, which
was even worse. I felt like I was going to
throw up two younger brothers. But the good news was
is that I didn't know that dessert was an option
until I went to college, because my mom would always
have a you know, a chocolate cake with you have
(04:29):
to finish this. You're a kid, You're like, really, I
have to finish this? Do you think maybe it's because
she's that time. Maybe she's you have to finish. To
finish your dessert, you have to finish. So, you know,
I was a bit um. They used to have four
sizes when I grew up. There was small, medium, husky,
and large. I was husky. I was a bit husky.
(04:52):
So it dawned on me when I went to college,
um that oh, I could sort of eat whenever I
want and I don't have have to eat what I
don't want. So are they miserable? Meals around the table.
Did you always dread great meals? But the experience of
having just once once a month, you know, or once
(05:13):
a week, it was it was tough. We didn't get
the type of fish and chips that you got in England,
saying that would have been more bearable heavily fried with
a lot of ketchup. Yeah. So did she work during
the day, You know, she was a nurse and operating
room nurse when I became probably around twelve. I think
she retired from that because she had she I had
(05:35):
two younger brothers, we had three kids. My dad was
a lawyer, so she sort of took care of us
at home and we didn't have anyone cooking for us
except her. It's hard work. It is hard. I wish
I had been more appreciative at the time mom getting food.
Did you all do the dishes afterwards? Do you think
did you all have to do? Was? See, my mom
(06:00):
was like the very clean house, so we didn't really
have to do the dishes. I mean we probably just
stuck him in the sink and we didn't have to
make our bed, which is sort of maybe that's why
I got spoiled so young. One of the reasons. Um, yeah,
so beal times at the macnu house. Generally it was
(06:23):
a loud dinner table. You know, my parents are very loud. Um,
So you know, it was definitely a shot going to
London when I was eighteen because people were very polite
and you know, it had to be a certain way,
and beer was very hot and it was in a
you know, a wood barrel or something like what the
hell is wrong with this is that when you were
playing when you when you were The first time I
went to London was I was eighteen, so it was
(06:45):
sort of these in seventies seven, so that was like
the punk sort of revolution. You know. So I was
walking around the King's Road for the first I'm like,
oh my god, these people are crazy. But then I
started realizing that they were sort of like we were both.
They started calling me a punk for tennis, I'm like,
wait a minute, I mean, have you seen this expistols?
So I guess in tennis terms, I was sort of
(07:08):
a punk, but compared to the real ones, I had
a lot of work to do. But you know, something
of what they were espousing was not all that different
than what I was thinking, you know, sort of rebelling
against unfairly obvious that felt unfair. I thought, you know,
when I raise my hand and say, you rebuild against
what was unfair, that's what I on. That's what I'll
(07:31):
tell them. Yeah, but I'll admit I went over the
line on a couple of occasions, maybe a couple of hundred.
But at the same time, it was because I believe
that our sport should be viewed differently than it was
and even is now. You know this, You know, upper
class have to behave a certain way. I think that's
(07:53):
a bunch of bologny. I never believe that I wanted
to be thought it was the same way that they
look at what you call Paul, Well, you're American also,
but you've been there since seven in the seventies, I believe.
But we call soccer, they call football. I thought, you know,
in the rugby field, they're not saying hello, how are
you out there? And our football field or whatever sport
(08:15):
it is. So that's always been an uphill battle. So
I take pride in trying to change his sport what
I believe was for the better. But some people may
differ with that. I knew you refused to play in
South Africa. Didn't you thank you for saying? That? Was
my probably the proudest decision I ever made, you know,
And I think I just remember being with our friends
and saying, this kid, you know in Wimbledon is talking
(08:39):
about what's not right, but his political values, his social
values are so correct, and there weren't many players who
were doing that. Did you ever play? Did you ever
go to suth You know? I did only when they
ended up apartheid. And I believe that the reason that
I ended up meeting Nelson Man my first trip, where
(09:03):
he rutely he said, I wish I would have given
a million dollars if we had a tape of this.
But he said to me when I walked in his
house that he lived in, it's an honor to meet you.
And I'm like, yeah, he's not talking to me as
he because that's about what I was going to say
to him. Yeah, And he was the most beautiful man
(09:23):
I ever met. While just his hand it felt like
I was shaking hands with an angel. There was this
feeling that I can't explain. And I brought a racket.
I gave him the racket that I used. It wimbled
and the old wooden racket. I said, this is for you,
and he held it and he said to me, I
(09:46):
listened to your match when you played Biorn in nineteen
eighty And I realized that he was saying that he
was listening to me while he was at Robbins Island,
where he spent twenty seven years of his life. And
I'm sitting there complaining about a goddamn line call, like
this is the world's coming into an end. And this
(10:08):
guy didn't have a bone of bitterness. It felt like
in his body. How God's name could anyone ever have
that this? So, you know, I really felt like he
was one of the most beautiful people in history. He
said it was an honor to meet you, and then
he said that he'd listen to you at Wimbledon. Maybe
that that was the connection, you know that he was
also saying, yeah, well it was fair, Yeah like that.
(10:29):
I just you just could picture that. And then me
going homely did think he ever play tennis? From the
way he was swinging the racket. I believe he did play.
He did. I thought he played. I can't swear to that.
I'd looked like he knew how to play. Yeah, my
brother told me that he was once in Hollywood. My
(10:49):
father was in the movie, said that he was in
Hollywood and Mandela was there, and there was this huge audience,
and Spielberg was there, and Geffen was there, and Tom
Hanks every every movie started, Harrison for was there. And
then Nelson Dale was talking and he just looked out
and he just stopped and he came down to the audience.
He walked through to the one important person in the room,
(11:11):
and it was Muhammad Ali, you know. And that's going
back again to the athlete, to the person who had dignity,
the person who Yeah, and that's that's what we know. Well,
I met Ali a few times and he had a
pretty profound effect too, but he was already suffering from
the effects of Parkinson's and it was tough to see this,
(11:33):
you know, incredible human being. And you know how many
athletes do you know? Or they would give up three
years of their prime, Yeah, and refused to fight because
they unprincipled. So I think pretty much nobody, honestly, When
(12:03):
did you start playing tennis? I was eight years old.
Did your tennis coach think about what you should be eating? No? Never, once,
you know, I ate um cereal that had tons of sugar. Yeah,
I'd have a bacon sandwich for breakfast. Um, cinnamon toast
with butter and cinnamon on it. My mother never said
a word. Yeah, it didn't matter. Yeah, just eat when
(12:27):
you're a kid. I mean, I just totally disagree. I
see these kids in my academy and they've got these portions.
I'm like, you're twelve, go burn it, run around a little.
What about when they when they're sitting there, they're drinking
the water and sweat, you know, sweating and there. Would
you ever think of having anything at all to eat? Oh? No,
you wouldn't. You mean during the match, Yeah, you'd have
(12:47):
some nuts or anything like that, or nothing, I mean bananas.
That board match went off for how long? Four hours?
Were you hungry at all? Yeah, you were hungry. But
I mean, also, you're so jacked up. I think people
ever saw me play they could probably agree that they
saw some a lot of energy being thrown out. You're
(13:08):
actually running a lot, So it's not a good thing
to have a big steak an hour or two before
you play. I mean I remember biorn Borg, my buddy
would have a steak two hours before every match, and
it didn't affect him at all. He was fine. He
was probably one of the greatest and not the greatest
athletes they saw in a court. Murray, for example, Andy Murray,
I saw him eating a turkey sandwich about a half
(13:30):
hour before he played. Because it doesn't affect me at all. Yeah,
before he played, like a you know, Wimbledon or something
or usacause you can eat that, right, No, it doesn't
bother him, you know. So some people have different metabolisms.
I couldn't do that. Some people are even worse, you know,
the don't go the whole day and not eat at all.
(13:51):
But you know then that's why could be why they're
a little more irritable. I felt like I didn't digest
as quickly, needed a little bit more time you wake
up in the morning. It wasn't a big not a
big breakfast. Depending on tomentum when I played, I would
have a bigger meal probably three hours before I played.
That would that would be something like chicken, some type
(14:14):
of pasta, some type of blandish potato, some type of vegetable,
maybe as possibly a soup. Not really two eat three
hours before. They have a two hour break before you
actually were on the court. Two to three hours. Yeah,
later matches was preferable because I don't really like breakfast
(14:38):
that much and I don't like to have to eat early,
but sometimes you have to do it, you know. It's
in my day there was more emphasis on carbs. I
was going to ask you, if it's changed changed quite
a bit, what year did you start? I started in
seventy seven, and so what was nutrition? Like? I asked
this Tebeccam the other day, and about when did that feeling,
(15:00):
you know, what we ate affect our help? And I'd
say the early to mid eighties there was more talk
about what would be most beneficial. You know, when you're eighteen,
I think you can pretty much run through anything, and
the first couple of years after that you can burn.
You're burning so many calories it almost doesn't matter, or
(15:23):
so you thought, because it's sort of mind over matter,
But it because I think it's people are more aware
of it than ever. I think they've gone a little
bit too far the other way, do you in my opinion,
But I think they just you know, every little you know,
they regulate everything, and they've got to do it at
such a time and eat such an amount. And I
think it's such a bunch of bs personally, And are
(15:45):
you going to come back to Wimbledon the summer you
will be that. You know, I've been there probably forty
seventy seven I'd say forty three of the last forty
five years. Yeah, when my first child was born, I
miss one. The pandemic was canceled, but pretty much everyone
(16:07):
I've been there, either as a player as a commentator. Yeah.
So it's sort of come full circle because when they
wanted to get rid of me for a while and
throw me out, now all of a sudden, you know,
I'm working for BBC of all places, and they're telling
me to do exactly what I want, you know. So
I find that to be very commendable, I must say,
because you know, there's sort of we thought like, hey,
(16:29):
they're a bunch of stuff shirts the way they talk
and the way they deal with the event. But when
they hired me, they were like, look, we want something different,
you know, we want you to be you. And I
think that's the key to hopefully my success, if you
know people want to call it that is because I'd
recognize that you need to be yourself obviously for you,
(16:52):
and I can't imagine what it's like being booed out
of court. I can't imagine who would do that, you know,
but people did. I know, and I think that, how
did you feel when you got booed when you walked
on the court for the nineteen eighty and eighty one
Wimbledon final against Borg? Didn't feel that great? But I
(17:13):
could always do what Trump did, which was, you know,
I sat next to him once and we were at
a hockey game. Coincidence that we were sitting next to
each other, and they would introduce quote unquote celebrities and
they you know, I'm hoping, like I don't hope they
don't boo you know, ladies and gentlemen. John McEnroe, three
(17:34):
time Wimbledon chimp. You know, luckily I'm in New Yorker.
I've been in New York in my whole nice applause. Yeah.
A half hour later, ladies and gentlemen, you know, entrepreneur,
real estate icon and apprentice. This is two weeks two
years before he ran, two years before he ran. Yeah,
(17:56):
fifteen thousand of the seventeen thousand people booed him. He
sat down and he looked at me, and he says, John,
they still loved me, and I thought, for the first time,
I thought maybe he could be a politician of all things.
That guy became the president of the United States. But
he's not going to be again. You know, you would
(18:19):
have thought he would have actually like saying, oh my god,
how in God's name did I do this? We've been
around about two hundred and fifty years. I would say
that was probably the craziest thing that ever happened. And
we've had civil wars. This guy, you know, never ran
for anything in his life. Now, see, you can't do
(18:40):
it something with Trump though, because he doesn't he know,
he eats terrible food, right, he doesn't sleep, and he
never works out, and he's you know something, that guy's
got more energy than I've ever seen anywhere in my
entire life. It is crazy. I mean it's weird. Are
you even emotional when you would lose a game? Would
(19:01):
you really? Nothing like that? I would be alcohol or
other things, but not food. I mean food. Might you
know It's not like I, you know, go in and
eat a bag of you know, potato chips because I
was passing. Yeah, what's your playing? You don't go out,
you don't party, you don't go out in the evening.
(19:22):
You I was not able to do much in the
way of partying during Wimbledon, of all things. You'd hate
to sort of blame it on that. Anybody do it,
not that I'm aware of. I mean, I think that
in the older days or a few of us tried
to do it a little bit, but not you know,
you'd be a fool to do it at Wimbledon. Yeah,
(19:43):
you could do it at a period of time where
you're not you know, it's an exhibition or a smaller event,
or it's not much on the line. But if you're
willing to do it then and then to me is
sort of like you're not taking it seriously enough. Um.
Sometimes you know, you may not want to be particularly
social if you're more wound up, maybe before close to
(20:06):
a match, especially me. Yeah, I'm sad I missed you
in London because it was crazy the last time you
were there and I was here. Do you remember you
were just arriving. Yeah. I came over for a cup,
an event called the labor A Cup, which is a
team tennis event where Roger Federer ended up retiring, so
(20:28):
it was a big deal for the sport. Yeah. Yeah,
how did you feel. We felt. I felt that it
was a beautiful night and moment incredible. We also won
as a team for the first time, which was even
more incredible. No offense to Roger, and so the weekend
or the week I was there turned out to be awesome.
(20:49):
Do you ever go to your friends because it's very
international tennis, you're talking about playing with Borg and playing
Feder Do you go to their house? Everybod in Switzerland
to Feders never get a fund Do you think, damn
guy won't invite me the Orange House I've been at?
What was that like? You know, it's that you know
the sweets, you know their great spot. He had up
(21:11):
in the on the water and loves to entertain. You know.
One of the best friends you could ever have. Never
eats much. He doesn't eat, not a big eater. I
don't know how that guy never has been tired in
his life. Yeah, uh, phenomenal athlete. I don't know. It's constitution,
(21:32):
you know, whatever it is, it's him because he'll he
eats because he has to eat. I eat because I
like to eat. There's the difference. What about your kids?
So having six kids, that's a kind of food responsibility.
Did you take that on. In terms of it, I
check it on. But sometimes I think, you know, we
we we should have just let it go and let
them do what they want pretty much, let them learn
(21:54):
on their own. I mean, you could recommend stuff, but
if you sort of no, that's not good to desert
because you're putting on. You know, girls are four girls
and two boys. Every human being is different. All my
kids are different, so you got to sort of know
how to treat them. My son, one of my sons,
(22:15):
he would eat so slowly. Everyone would be finished at
the table. He'd still be cutting the salwich. Joan to
eat your goddamn salad, you know, and he'd sit there
absolutely perfect body. Though I don't know why he you know,
he chewed everything twenty times. I never said that. Did
(22:38):
you all sit down to dinner when you had the
kids with the family, you had dinner every night together.
They called me Larry the lecturer. This is what I
became because I try to give him a little bit
of life's lesson and then, oh god, here he goes again,
about food, about life, about anything. Sometimes it was food,
sometimes it's about tennis, sometimes it was about life. Sometimes
(22:59):
it's about cool work. Sometimes it was about nothing in particular,
and then I started pontificating and that rubbed them the
wrong way. And sometimes I overdid it, and then I
dig in and they go, Dad, everyone disagrees with me.
At the table, there's seven seven to one, including Patty
and I go I'm still right. I love Italian food,
(23:34):
lived in Italy. I've never lived there. I've been there, remember,
you know, probably fifty to seventy five times. Yeah, playing
you know, but yeah, where did you go at? Oh?
Every every city you can imagine. The first rock and
roll tour that I ever participated in as a band,
allegedly I was the most traveled unsigned band in history.
(24:01):
Is that a fact? I would I would bet money
on that. But we did a two week tour of
Italy in the summer of nineteen ninety four. I was
thirty five. Yeah, I had stopped playing. Well, I was
more of a sort of a passion and I don't
want to say hobby, but something that was trying to
(24:22):
sort of find that, uh uh, find out where I
was headed, because you know, when you stopped playing, it's
not always on the terms you want. I was going
through a divorce at the time. At the end of
my career, which I didn't anticipate. I had three kids. Um,
so I was you know, then the next couple of
(24:42):
years you're going through it. It's not fun. So I
needed a little bit of levity. Uh, and so I
was able to start to do something that I love
to do. It made me appreciate my friends who did
it for a living more. But it was a fun trip,
I must say. And by Italy, my agent at the
(25:03):
time was Italian and so he sort of set the
whole thing up. Um we played were Frank Sinatra, plant
I forgot, but we played some nice locales, but we um,
we didn't knock them dead. Um. Now we didn't get
to eat the food that you know, you're normally able
to get pretty easily just because it's scheduling and stuff.
(25:26):
But I mean you can stop by a highway, yeah,
which is a lot better than the hot exactly little places,
those little thin sandwiches that they thought when you segued
from that that photograph that I describe, which I can
imagine in my head, off you carrying the painting. How
(25:48):
we seed from from music to art from tennis. Well,
I always loved art because I relate to artists big time,
because um there is close to tennis players as almost
anyone else because they're sort of on their own island.
They've got to represent. They go to a gallery opening,
(26:10):
people could be there and it sucks, you know, and
the person could be right there. Well, yeah, they couldn't.
He couldn't give those paintings away. He got so frustrated
with the art world that he sort of walked away
from it. So it's like sort of like if I
walked into the center court of Wimbledon and you know,
I lose six zero, you know, and I'm down two
(26:30):
zero and people are booing and you feel like, you know,
you want to hide. It's the worst feeling in the world.
So I think it takes guts to put yourself in
a position there's a great reward if it goes well,
but there's also a definite downside. So it takes I
think it takes emotional strength to do that. And so
(26:51):
I think it's the same as for an artist or
like a comedian that does stand up. You know, I've
seen many a comedian's bomb and I would never criticize
a player on a court if I see them giving
a hundred percent and they're laying an egg. That's not
what I have a problem. I have a problem with
the people that go out in the court and don't
try and give their best. That's the part I have
(27:13):
a problem. Because you've been put in this position where
you could do something that would be truly memorable at
a you know, a truly memorable site, say at Wimbledon
and US Open, you don't want to go out there
in half ascid. So that's why I've always related. I
always loved Gusting. He was one of my favorite artists.
I'm not sure why that started. I loved, like, I
(27:36):
think because they're so political. Yeah, all through his career,
you know, in his even when he was in his
twenty not his twenties, in the twenties and thirties, he
was painting hooded figures and you know, clan people railing
against that. And then he went through different periods, which
I love to see artists doing different things. And then
(27:57):
he went almost abstract express and this you know, you're like,
that's a huge change, and then back to these like
cartoonish figures, which I thought were incredible. So I just
thought this guy just had a you know that would
be like the type of artists that if I was
an RST, I'd be trying to emulate. Yeah, you know
so and he suffered. He really was so. And when
(28:20):
you were talking about, you know, saying, somebody is just
criticizing them in such a damaging way. You know, Hilton
Cramer of the New York Times, when when Gustin had
his first show of Marlboro and he showed the hooded
figures and he showed the clan just through it on
the front page of the New York Time Arts that,
you know, hit, this guy should give up and go
go home. And you know, he got on a boat
(28:41):
to Rome. He as I said, he was a friend
of my father's who was also very political, and it
was so damaging, you know, and it was so cruel
and it was fearful. I find it, you know, difficult
to respect these I mean, I respect someone who gives
some constructive criticism or who would admit I don't get
(29:05):
this and I'm not sure why this person did it,
but I've got to sort of let this, let me
digest this, or some half ass that goes on, you know,
some tennis guy you know who writes tennis who did
make it because he wasn't good enough, and then he's
gonna sit there and criticize me. I go, you better
know what you're talking about before you start laying it out.
(29:27):
Some people that went around the tennis circuit for a
handful of years I respected. I respected their opinion. I would,
you know, take the heart what they would say. At
least I give it, you know, the legitimacy had deserved,
a lot of other people would come in that show
up one or two weeks a year because they were
local beat writers for the hockey teams or basketball, and
(29:49):
they'd roll in when we went to Philly or these
other places and they'd start, you know, lambassing the tennis
players in and I was like, you don't know a
damn thing about what we're doing, and was frustrating, and
it's hard to respect that. So I could certainly see
where a guy who you know, put his heart into
(30:10):
soul into something, you know, either way, like in my case,
I was lucky because even I didn't like it. But
sometimes negative attention can still people still want you. You know,
they'll offer you money to come because they think that
you know. The car crash if you're an artist and
(30:30):
someone completely shits on you and you know you don't
sell anything, you're not making any money, so you could,
you know, head down a really bad path. And I
think a lot of artists have done that, as well
as comedians. The upside is if you're able to stick
with it and believe it that, you know, the turnaround
(30:51):
could be all the more sweet. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem
to happen that often with artists that are alive and
nowadays to me, the successful artist, at least financially, they're
like businessmen. They're not even like, you know, the best
artist to me anymore. They're just the smart. They're extremely
smart people, and they manipulate the system in a in
(31:12):
a brilliant way. I mean, I must say, um, and
that's part of what I like about sports ultimately, because
you can't really do that in sports. I mean, ultimately,
you got to go out there. You can talk all
you want, but you know, you get out in the
court or you got to step up. So that part
I like that. Ultimately, the best will the cream will
(31:35):
rise to the top. I think that you know your
honesty and your you know what you say about whether
it's you know the world or Trump or the booing
or the art or the solitariness. It is a solitary thing,
isn't play, you know, being an artist in your solitary
especially our sport. And that's why I love the musician Devils,
(32:00):
and I also love playing for my country because you're
with the team for that brief period of time. And
I think you you know, as I said, from the
very beginning, we were on your side. We thought you are.
You know, your anger was fine, your unfairness was respected.
Your politics, you know, your politics were amazing, how hard?
And I think as a model that's what counts, you know,
(32:22):
and as a player, And I think you're I do.
I think you're really nice. I think you're nice to
walk over across the park. I think you are. So
if we think that food, you're gonna have food which
makes you feel healthier, or food which makes you feel
better performance. You could have food that pleases your mother
because you've eaten it. You could have food that you
(32:44):
want your children teath. Food can be all that, but
can also be comfort. If you needed comfort, what food
would you reach for the big ball of ice cream?
Ice cream? I'm sure you're going to say I do too.
I love ice cream. Cookies and cream coffee, you know,
(33:06):
mixture of things. Do you always keep it in the house? Yeah?
I do, but that's not you know, we shouldn't do that.
I love you know. I love a beer in Pratzels
late at night. That's comforting. Yeah. Is there a food
that reminds you of your childhood? Pancakes and the something great? Well,
(33:26):
thank you, thanks for having me. The River Cafe Lookbook
is now available in bookshops and online. It has over
one hundred recipes, beautifully illustrated with photographs from the renowned
photographer Matthew Donaldson. The book has fifty delicious and easy
(33:47):
to prepare recipes, including a host of River Cafe classics
that have been specially adapted for new cooks. The River
Cafe Lookbook Recipes for Cooks of all ages. Ruthie's Table
four is a production of iHeartRadio and Atomi Studios. For
(34:09):
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Ruthie's Table for a production of iHeartRadio and
Adami's Studios. Summer in London has ripe strawberries, green grass
in the parks and skies that are at last blue.
The city fills up with visitors, many here for Wimbledon.
Last July, I went to a dinner with people well
(00:20):
known in the world of theater, politics, movies, art and television.
At around ten thirty the doorbell rang and John McEnroe
entered the room. Everyone stopped talking. Over the years, I've
witnessed in the River Cafe the spell binding effect an
athlete can have. None of us can do what they do,
(00:41):
and we all know it. There are many many images
of John McEnroe and the tennis court, but the one
that I recall is not athletic but artistic. It's a
photograph of John Carrey, in fact, almost cradling a painting
by Philip Guston, who was a close friend of my
father and mother. It was moving to see a strong,
power full athlete I admired carrying something so fragile. Today
(01:05):
in New York City, John has walked across Central Park
from his home and in the fading autumn light, we
will talk about the food we eat, the art we love,
and the friendship we A tennis player and a cook
have begun really very nice inro Thank you, Thank you
for coming. It'd be nice if you begin to read
(01:27):
a recipe. I do love Italian food, so I'm gonna
try to. Yeah, that's my favorite food. Amatriana. See is
the dish that I'm going to read to tablespoons of
extra virgin olive oil, two hundred and fifty grams nine
ounces of panchetta, two dried red chilies, get a little spice,
(01:50):
one red onion, two tablespoons eight hundred grams of tin tomatoes,
tin plum tomatoes, three hundred grams of panay, hundred grams
of freshly graded peccorino peccorino. Okay, Heat the olive oil
(02:10):
in a large frying pan, Add the panchetta and fry
until it becomes crisp. Add the chilies, onion, and rosemary
to the pan and sweat. It says sweat okay, y well,
it means that you don't want it to brown, you
want it to soften. Add the tomato, stirwell. Simmer for
(02:33):
thirty minutes until the sauce is very thick. Bring a
large sauce pan of salted water to the boil. Cook
the panna until cooked but still firm, which is known
in Italian as aldente. Drain the panay and add to
the sauce. Mix well, and serve with the peccorino. You know,
(02:59):
I don't remember that much about my childhood, mainly because
what's happened to me from eighteen to know I'm sixty
three years old has been so incredible in a lot
of ways that I'm sort of like, you know, I
had a nice, okay upbringing. I had a commute now
each way from Queens, New York into the city to
(03:21):
go to high school. Sports kept me, helped me get
friendships because I was a bit of an introvert, shy kid.
I know I'm not really now, but I was then.
I don't have a lot of great memories in my childhood,
but that doesn't mean it was bad. It means that
there was a loving family, a mom who took care
(03:43):
of me, God rest her soul, my dad as well,
that always believed in me. My mother did cook. Here's
a thing. She wouldn't allow us to leave the table
till everything was eaten. She grew up during the Depression,
so didn't have a whole lot, but she wasn't super poor,
but she felt that we needed to finish what was
(04:06):
on our plate. We had to have liver once a
week or a month because we were Catholic, and we
had to have fish, which I hated, and liver, which
was even worse. I felt like I was going to
throw up two younger brothers. But the good news was
is that I didn't know that dessert was an option
until I went to college, because my mom would always
have a you know, a chocolate cake with you have
(04:29):
to finish this. You're a kid, You're like, really, I
have to finish this? Do you think maybe it's because
she's that time. Maybe she's you have to finish. To
finish your dessert, you have to finish. So, you know,
I was a bit um. They used to have four
sizes when I grew up. There was small, medium, husky,
and large. I was husky. I was a bit husky.
(04:52):
So it dawned on me when I went to college,
um that oh, I could sort of eat whenever I
want and I don't have have to eat what I
don't want. So are they miserable? Meals around the table.
Did you always dread great meals? But the experience of
having just once once a month, you know, or once
(05:13):
a week, it was it was tough. We didn't get
the type of fish and chips that you got in England,
saying that would have been more bearable heavily fried with
a lot of ketchup. Yeah. So did she work during
the day, You know, she was a nurse and operating
room nurse when I became probably around twelve. I think
she retired from that because she had she I had
(05:35):
two younger brothers, we had three kids. My dad was
a lawyer, so she sort of took care of us
at home and we didn't have anyone cooking for us
except her. It's hard work. It is hard. I wish
I had been more appreciative at the time mom getting food.
Did you all do the dishes afterwards? Do you think
did you all have to do? Was? See, my mom
(06:00):
was like the very clean house, so we didn't really
have to do the dishes. I mean we probably just
stuck him in the sink and we didn't have to
make our bed, which is sort of maybe that's why
I got spoiled so young. One of the reasons. Um, yeah,
so beal times at the macnu house. Generally it was
(06:23):
a loud dinner table. You know, my parents are very loud. Um,
So you know, it was definitely a shot going to
London when I was eighteen because people were very polite
and you know, it had to be a certain way,
and beer was very hot and it was in a
you know, a wood barrel or something like what the
hell is wrong with this is that when you were
playing when you when you were The first time I
went to London was I was eighteen, so it was
(06:45):
sort of these in seventies seven, so that was like
the punk sort of revolution. You know. So I was
walking around the King's Road for the first I'm like,
oh my god, these people are crazy. But then I
started realizing that they were sort of like we were both.
They started calling me a punk for tennis, I'm like,
wait a minute, I mean, have you seen this expistols?
So I guess in tennis terms, I was sort of
(07:08):
a punk, but compared to the real ones, I had
a lot of work to do. But you know, something
of what they were espousing was not all that different
than what I was thinking, you know, sort of rebelling
against unfairly obvious that felt unfair. I thought, you know,
when I raise my hand and say, you rebuild against
what was unfair, that's what I on. That's what I'll
(07:31):
tell them. Yeah, but I'll admit I went over the
line on a couple of occasions, maybe a couple of hundred.
But at the same time, it was because I believe
that our sport should be viewed differently than it was
and even is now. You know this, You know, upper
class have to behave a certain way. I think that's
(07:53):
a bunch of bologny. I never believe that I wanted
to be thought it was the same way that they
look at what you call Paul, Well, you're American also,
but you've been there since seven in the seventies, I believe.
But we call soccer, they call football. I thought, you know,
in the rugby field, they're not saying hello, how are
you out there? And our football field or whatever sport
(08:15):
it is. So that's always been an uphill battle. So
I take pride in trying to change his sport what
I believe was for the better. But some people may
differ with that. I knew you refused to play in
South Africa. Didn't you thank you for saying? That? Was
my probably the proudest decision I ever made, you know,
And I think I just remember being with our friends
and saying, this kid, you know in Wimbledon is talking
(08:39):
about what's not right, but his political values, his social
values are so correct, and there weren't many players who
were doing that. Did you ever play? Did you ever
go to suth You know? I did only when they
ended up apartheid. And I believe that the reason that
I ended up meeting Nelson Man my first trip, where
(09:03):
he rutely he said, I wish I would have given
a million dollars if we had a tape of this.
But he said to me when I walked in his
house that he lived in, it's an honor to meet you.
And I'm like, yeah, he's not talking to me as
he because that's about what I was going to say
to him. Yeah, And he was the most beautiful man
(09:23):
I ever met. While just his hand it felt like
I was shaking hands with an angel. There was this
feeling that I can't explain. And I brought a racket.
I gave him the racket that I used. It wimbled
and the old wooden racket. I said, this is for you,
and he held it and he said to me, I
(09:46):
listened to your match when you played Biorn in nineteen
eighty And I realized that he was saying that he
was listening to me while he was at Robbins Island,
where he spent twenty seven years of his life. And
I'm sitting there complaining about a goddamn line call, like
this is the world's coming into an end. And this
(10:08):
guy didn't have a bone of bitterness. It felt like
in his body. How God's name could anyone ever have
that this? So, you know, I really felt like he
was one of the most beautiful people in history. He
said it was an honor to meet you, and then
he said that he'd listen to you at Wimbledon. Maybe
that that was the connection, you know that he was
also saying, yeah, well it was fair, Yeah like that.
(10:29):
I just you just could picture that. And then me
going homely did think he ever play tennis? From the
way he was swinging the racket. I believe he did play.
He did. I thought he played. I can't swear to that.
I'd looked like he knew how to play. Yeah, my
brother told me that he was once in Hollywood. My
(10:49):
father was in the movie, said that he was in
Hollywood and Mandela was there, and there was this huge audience,
and Spielberg was there, and Geffen was there, and Tom
Hanks every every movie started, Harrison for was there. And
then Nelson Dale was talking and he just looked out
and he just stopped and he came down to the audience.
He walked through to the one important person in the room,
(11:11):
and it was Muhammad Ali, you know. And that's going
back again to the athlete, to the person who had dignity,
the person who Yeah, and that's that's what we know. Well,
I met Ali a few times and he had a
pretty profound effect too, but he was already suffering from
the effects of Parkinson's and it was tough to see this,
(11:33):
you know, incredible human being. And you know how many
athletes do you know? Or they would give up three
years of their prime, Yeah, and refused to fight because
they unprincipled. So I think pretty much nobody, honestly, When
(12:03):
did you start playing tennis? I was eight years old.
Did your tennis coach think about what you should be eating? No? Never, once,
you know, I ate um cereal that had tons of sugar. Yeah,
I'd have a bacon sandwich for breakfast. Um, cinnamon toast
with butter and cinnamon on it. My mother never said
a word. Yeah, it didn't matter. Yeah, just eat when
(12:27):
you're a kid. I mean, I just totally disagree. I
see these kids in my academy and they've got these portions.
I'm like, you're twelve, go burn it, run around a little.
What about when they when they're sitting there, they're drinking
the water and sweat, you know, sweating and there. Would
you ever think of having anything at all to eat? Oh? No,
you wouldn't. You mean during the match, Yeah, you'd have
(12:47):
some nuts or anything like that, or nothing, I mean bananas.
That board match went off for how long? Four hours?
Were you hungry at all? Yeah, you were hungry. But
I mean, also, you're so jacked up. I think people
ever saw me play they could probably agree that they
saw some a lot of energy being thrown out. You're
(13:08):
actually running a lot, So it's not a good thing
to have a big steak an hour or two before
you play. I mean I remember biorn Borg, my buddy
would have a steak two hours before every match, and
it didn't affect him at all. He was fine. He
was probably one of the greatest and not the greatest
athletes they saw in a court. Murray, for example, Andy Murray,
I saw him eating a turkey sandwich about a half
(13:30):
hour before he played. Because it doesn't affect me at all. Yeah,
before he played, like a you know, Wimbledon or something
or usacause you can eat that, right, No, it doesn't
bother him, you know. So some people have different metabolisms.
I couldn't do that. Some people are even worse, you know,
the don't go the whole day and not eat at all.
(13:51):
But you know then that's why could be why they're
a little more irritable. I felt like I didn't digest
as quickly, needed a little bit more time you wake
up in the morning. It wasn't a big not a
big breakfast. Depending on tomentum when I played, I would
have a bigger meal probably three hours before I played.
That would that would be something like chicken, some type
(14:14):
of pasta, some type of blandish potato, some type of vegetable,
maybe as possibly a soup. Not really two eat three
hours before. They have a two hour break before you
actually were on the court. Two to three hours. Yeah,
later matches was preferable because I don't really like breakfast
(14:38):
that much and I don't like to have to eat early,
but sometimes you have to do it, you know. It's
in my day there was more emphasis on carbs. I
was going to ask you, if it's changed changed quite
a bit, what year did you start? I started in
seventy seven, and so what was nutrition? Like? I asked
this Tebeccam the other day, and about when did that feeling,
(15:00):
you know, what we ate affect our help? And I'd
say the early to mid eighties there was more talk
about what would be most beneficial. You know, when you're eighteen,
I think you can pretty much run through anything, and
the first couple of years after that you can burn.
You're burning so many calories it almost doesn't matter, or
(15:23):
so you thought, because it's sort of mind over matter,
But it because I think it's people are more aware
of it than ever. I think they've gone a little
bit too far the other way, do you in my opinion,
But I think they just you know, every little you know,
they regulate everything, and they've got to do it at
such a time and eat such an amount. And I
think it's such a bunch of bs personally, And are
(15:45):
you going to come back to Wimbledon the summer you
will be that. You know, I've been there probably forty
seventy seven I'd say forty three of the last forty
five years. Yeah, when my first child was born, I
miss one. The pandemic was canceled, but pretty much everyone
(16:07):
I've been there, either as a player as a commentator. Yeah.
So it's sort of come full circle because when they
wanted to get rid of me for a while and
throw me out, now all of a sudden, you know,
I'm working for BBC of all places, and they're telling
me to do exactly what I want, you know. So
I find that to be very commendable, I must say,
because you know, there's sort of we thought like, hey,
(16:29):
they're a bunch of stuff shirts the way they talk
and the way they deal with the event. But when
they hired me, they were like, look, we want something different,
you know, we want you to be you. And I
think that's the key to hopefully my success, if you
know people want to call it that is because I'd
recognize that you need to be yourself obviously for you,
(16:52):
and I can't imagine what it's like being booed out
of court. I can't imagine who would do that, you know,
but people did. I know, and I think that, how
did you feel when you got booed when you walked
on the court for the nineteen eighty and eighty one
Wimbledon final against Borg? Didn't feel that great? But I
(17:13):
could always do what Trump did, which was, you know,
I sat next to him once and we were at
a hockey game. Coincidence that we were sitting next to
each other, and they would introduce quote unquote celebrities and
they you know, I'm hoping, like I don't hope they
don't boo you know, ladies and gentlemen. John McEnroe, three
(17:34):
time Wimbledon chimp. You know, luckily I'm in New Yorker.
I've been in New York in my whole nice applause. Yeah.
A half hour later, ladies and gentlemen, you know, entrepreneur,
real estate icon and apprentice. This is two weeks two
years before he ran, two years before he ran. Yeah,
(17:56):
fifteen thousand of the seventeen thousand people booed him. He
sat down and he looked at me, and he says, John,
they still loved me, and I thought, for the first time,
I thought maybe he could be a politician of all things.
That guy became the president of the United States. But
he's not going to be again. You know, you would
(18:19):
have thought he would have actually like saying, oh my god,
how in God's name did I do this? We've been
around about two hundred and fifty years. I would say
that was probably the craziest thing that ever happened. And
we've had civil wars. This guy, you know, never ran
for anything in his life. Now, see, you can't do
(18:40):
it something with Trump though, because he doesn't he know,
he eats terrible food, right, he doesn't sleep, and he
never works out, and he's you know something, that guy's
got more energy than I've ever seen anywhere in my
entire life. It is crazy. I mean it's weird. Are
you even emotional when you would lose a game? Would
(19:01):
you really? Nothing like that? I would be alcohol or
other things, but not food. I mean food. Might you
know It's not like I, you know, go in and
eat a bag of you know, potato chips because I
was passing. Yeah, what's your playing? You don't go out,
you don't party, you don't go out in the evening.
(19:22):
You I was not able to do much in the
way of partying during Wimbledon, of all things. You'd hate
to sort of blame it on that. Anybody do it,
not that I'm aware of. I mean, I think that
in the older days or a few of us tried
to do it a little bit, but not you know,
you'd be a fool to do it at Wimbledon. Yeah,
(19:43):
you could do it at a period of time where
you're not you know, it's an exhibition or a smaller event,
or it's not much on the line. But if you're
willing to do it then and then to me is
sort of like you're not taking it seriously enough. Um.
Sometimes you know, you may not want to be particularly
social if you're more wound up, maybe before close to
(20:06):
a match, especially me. Yeah, I'm sad I missed you
in London because it was crazy the last time you
were there and I was here. Do you remember you
were just arriving. Yeah. I came over for a cup,
an event called the labor A Cup, which is a
team tennis event where Roger Federer ended up retiring, so
(20:28):
it was a big deal for the sport. Yeah. Yeah,
how did you feel. We felt. I felt that it
was a beautiful night and moment incredible. We also won
as a team for the first time, which was even
more incredible. No offense to Roger, and so the weekend
or the week I was there turned out to be awesome.
(20:49):
Do you ever go to your friends because it's very
international tennis, you're talking about playing with Borg and playing
Feder Do you go to their house? Everybod in Switzerland
to Feders never get a fund Do you think, damn
guy won't invite me the Orange House I've been at?
What was that like? You know, it's that you know
the sweets, you know their great spot. He had up
(21:11):
in the on the water and loves to entertain. You know.
One of the best friends you could ever have. Never
eats much. He doesn't eat, not a big eater. I
don't know how that guy never has been tired in
his life. Yeah, uh, phenomenal athlete. I don't know. It's constitution,
(21:32):
you know, whatever it is, it's him because he'll he
eats because he has to eat. I eat because I
like to eat. There's the difference. What about your kids?
So having six kids, that's a kind of food responsibility.
Did you take that on. In terms of it, I
check it on. But sometimes I think, you know, we
we we should have just let it go and let
them do what they want pretty much, let them learn
(21:54):
on their own. I mean, you could recommend stuff, but
if you sort of no, that's not good to desert
because you're putting on. You know, girls are four girls
and two boys. Every human being is different. All my
kids are different, so you got to sort of know
how to treat them. My son, one of my sons,
(22:15):
he would eat so slowly. Everyone would be finished at
the table. He'd still be cutting the salwich. Joan to
eat your goddamn salad, you know, and he'd sit there
absolutely perfect body. Though I don't know why he you know,
he chewed everything twenty times. I never said that. Did
(22:38):
you all sit down to dinner when you had the
kids with the family, you had dinner every night together.
They called me Larry the lecturer. This is what I
became because I try to give him a little bit
of life's lesson and then, oh god, here he goes again,
about food, about life, about anything. Sometimes it was food,
sometimes it's about tennis, sometimes it was about life. Sometimes
(22:59):
it's about cool work. Sometimes it was about nothing in particular,
and then I started pontificating and that rubbed them the
wrong way. And sometimes I overdid it, and then I
dig in and they go, Dad, everyone disagrees with me.
At the table, there's seven seven to one, including Patty
and I go I'm still right. I love Italian food,
(23:34):
lived in Italy. I've never lived there. I've been there, remember,
you know, probably fifty to seventy five times. Yeah, playing
you know, but yeah, where did you go at? Oh?
Every every city you can imagine. The first rock and
roll tour that I ever participated in as a band,
allegedly I was the most traveled unsigned band in history.
(24:01):
Is that a fact? I would I would bet money
on that. But we did a two week tour of
Italy in the summer of nineteen ninety four. I was
thirty five. Yeah, I had stopped playing. Well, I was
more of a sort of a passion and I don't
want to say hobby, but something that was trying to
(24:22):
sort of find that, uh uh, find out where I
was headed, because you know, when you stopped playing, it's
not always on the terms you want. I was going
through a divorce at the time. At the end of
my career, which I didn't anticipate. I had three kids. Um,
so I was you know, then the next couple of
(24:42):
years you're going through it. It's not fun. So I
needed a little bit of levity. Uh, and so I
was able to start to do something that I love
to do. It made me appreciate my friends who did
it for a living more. But it was a fun trip,
I must say. And by Italy, my agent at the
(25:03):
time was Italian and so he sort of set the
whole thing up. Um we played were Frank Sinatra, plant
I forgot, but we played some nice locales, but we um,
we didn't knock them dead. Um. Now we didn't get
to eat the food that you know, you're normally able
to get pretty easily just because it's scheduling and stuff.
(25:26):
But I mean you can stop by a highway, yeah,
which is a lot better than the hot exactly little places,
those little thin sandwiches that they thought when you segued
from that that photograph that I describe, which I can
imagine in my head, off you carrying the painting. How
(25:48):
we seed from from music to art from tennis. Well,
I always loved art because I relate to artists big time,
because um there is close to tennis players as almost
anyone else because they're sort of on their own island.
They've got to represent. They go to a gallery opening,
(26:10):
people could be there and it sucks, you know, and
the person could be right there. Well, yeah, they couldn't.
He couldn't give those paintings away. He got so frustrated
with the art world that he sort of walked away
from it. So it's like sort of like if I
walked into the center court of Wimbledon and you know,
I lose six zero, you know, and I'm down two
(26:30):
zero and people are booing and you feel like, you know,
you want to hide. It's the worst feeling in the world.
So I think it takes guts to put yourself in
a position there's a great reward if it goes well,
but there's also a definite downside. So it takes I
think it takes emotional strength to do that. And so
(26:51):
I think it's the same as for an artist or
like a comedian that does stand up. You know, I've
seen many a comedian's bomb and I would never criticize
a player on a court if I see them giving
a hundred percent and they're laying an egg. That's not
what I have a problem. I have a problem with
the people that go out in the court and don't
try and give their best. That's the part I have
(27:13):
a problem. Because you've been put in this position where
you could do something that would be truly memorable at
a you know, a truly memorable site, say at Wimbledon
and US Open, you don't want to go out there
in half ascid. So that's why I've always related. I
always loved Gusting. He was one of my favorite artists.
I'm not sure why that started. I loved, like, I
(27:36):
think because they're so political. Yeah, all through his career,
you know, in his even when he was in his
twenty not his twenties, in the twenties and thirties, he
was painting hooded figures and you know, clan people railing
against that. And then he went through different periods, which
I love to see artists doing different things. And then
(27:57):
he went almost abstract express and this you know, you're like,
that's a huge change, and then back to these like
cartoonish figures, which I thought were incredible. So I just
thought this guy just had a you know that would
be like the type of artists that if I was
an RST, I'd be trying to emulate. Yeah, you know
so and he suffered. He really was so. And when
(28:20):
you were talking about, you know, saying, somebody is just
criticizing them in such a damaging way. You know, Hilton
Cramer of the New York Times, when when Gustin had
his first show of Marlboro and he showed the hooded
figures and he showed the clan just through it on
the front page of the New York Time Arts that,
you know, hit, this guy should give up and go
go home. And you know, he got on a boat
(28:41):
to Rome. He as I said, he was a friend
of my father's who was also very political, and it
was so damaging, you know, and it was so cruel
and it was fearful. I find it, you know, difficult
to respect these I mean, I respect someone who gives
some constructive criticism or who would admit I don't get
(29:05):
this and I'm not sure why this person did it,
but I've got to sort of let this, let me
digest this, or some half ass that goes on, you know,
some tennis guy you know who writes tennis who did
make it because he wasn't good enough, and then he's
gonna sit there and criticize me. I go, you better
know what you're talking about before you start laying it out.
(29:27):
Some people that went around the tennis circuit for a
handful of years I respected. I respected their opinion. I would,
you know, take the heart what they would say. At
least I give it, you know, the legitimacy had deserved,
a lot of other people would come in that show
up one or two weeks a year because they were
local beat writers for the hockey teams or basketball, and
(29:49):
they'd roll in when we went to Philly or these
other places and they'd start, you know, lambassing the tennis
players in and I was like, you don't know a
damn thing about what we're doing, and was frustrating, and
it's hard to respect that. So I could certainly see
where a guy who you know, put his heart into
(30:10):
soul into something, you know, either way, like in my case,
I was lucky because even I didn't like it. But
sometimes negative attention can still people still want you. You know,
they'll offer you money to come because they think that
you know. The car crash if you're an artist and
(30:30):
someone completely shits on you and you know you don't
sell anything, you're not making any money, so you could,
you know, head down a really bad path. And I
think a lot of artists have done that, as well
as comedians. The upside is if you're able to stick
with it and believe it that, you know, the turnaround
(30:51):
could be all the more sweet. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem
to happen that often with artists that are alive and
nowadays to me, the successful artist, at least financially, they're
like businessmen. They're not even like, you know, the best
artist to me anymore. They're just the smart. They're extremely
smart people, and they manipulate the system in a in
(31:12):
a brilliant way. I mean, I must say, um, and
that's part of what I like about sports ultimately, because
you can't really do that in sports. I mean, ultimately,
you got to go out there. You can talk all
you want, but you know, you get out in the
court or you got to step up. So that part
I like that. Ultimately, the best will the cream will
(31:35):
rise to the top. I think that you know your
honesty and your you know what you say about whether
it's you know the world or Trump or the booing
or the art or the solitariness. It is a solitary thing,
isn't play, you know, being an artist in your solitary
especially our sport. And that's why I love the musician Devils,
(32:00):
and I also love playing for my country because you're
with the team for that brief period of time. And
I think you you know, as I said, from the
very beginning, we were on your side. We thought you are.
You know, your anger was fine, your unfairness was respected.
Your politics, you know, your politics were amazing, how hard?
And I think as a model that's what counts, you know,
(32:22):
and as a player, And I think you're I do.
I think you're really nice. I think you're nice to
walk over across the park. I think you are. So
if we think that food, you're gonna have food which
makes you feel healthier, or food which makes you feel
better performance. You could have food that pleases your mother
because you've eaten it. You could have food that you
(32:44):
want your children teath. Food can be all that, but
can also be comfort. If you needed comfort, what food
would you reach for the big ball of ice cream?
Ice cream? I'm sure you're going to say I do too.
I love ice cream. Cookies and cream coffee, you know,
(33:06):
mixture of things. Do you always keep it in the house? Yeah?
I do, but that's not you know, we shouldn't do that.
I love you know. I love a beer in Pratzels
late at night. That's comforting. Yeah. Is there a food
that reminds you of your childhood? Pancakes and the something great? Well,
(33:26):
thank you, thanks for having me. The River Cafe Lookbook
is now available in bookshops and online. It has over
one hundred recipes, beautifully illustrated with photographs from the renowned
photographer Matthew Donaldson. The book has fifty delicious and easy
(33:47):
to prepare recipes, including a host of River Cafe classics
that have been specially adapted for new cooks. The River
Cafe Lookbook Recipes for Cooks of all ages. Ruthie's Table
four is a production of iHeartRadio and Atomi Studios. For
(34:09):
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Host
Ruth Rogers
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