Episode Transcript
When Will Ferrell said he'd be my guest on Ruthie's Table four, I expected some laughs, some great stories, but not happy birthday.
Speaker 2In Swedish yah more healeva into who roto yaviska haaleva javiska haalev va yaviska hileva inteh.
Speaker 3Hurrah, Hurrah, hurrah hurrah.
You have to say hooray four times.
Speaker 1When I tell people that I'm doing a podcast with Will, their faces light up.
Everyone seems to love him when they remember working with him, or, of course watching him on screen in those classic comedies Elf and Anchorman and many more.
We do have a mutual friend, Saturday Night Live creator and producer Laurene Michaels, but we first met last spring when I was invited to a lunch Now walking into a lunch party late can be awkward.
Conversations, stop chairs are adjusted, introductions made.
But there I Will us heated next to Will, and all was right with the world.
He was here in London filming Barbie and I was just off to New York.
But we promised to continue the conversation.
Speaker 3Are you oh great?
How are you doing well?
Speaker 1You're not allowed to go to the river cafe anymore without me being there.
Speaker 3I know, so frustrating.
We keep missing each other.
Speaker 1All right, where are you, by the way, Are you in your house?
Speaker 3No, we're in one of the studios here.
Oh Hollywood.
Speaker 1Well would you like to read?
Speaker 4Do you have it?
Speaker 3There?
Speaker 1The recipe for I do so.
Speaker 3This is a recipe for white truffle tagliarini, not to be confused with tagliatelli.
Speaker 1Correct correct finer noodle.
Speaker 3It serves four and you need at least one ten gram fresh white ruffle.
I guess you could have more two hundred and fifty grams of dried Italian made taglierini or fresh rich egg, pasta, sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, and twenty grams of unsalted butter.
So what you're gonna do is you're gonna start by You're going to clean the truffle.
You don't want a dirty truffle, trust me.
Brushing the surface to remove any sand that may be stuck in the crevices.
You cool the tagle arena until al dente.
Speaker 1Okay, I think you cook it rather than cool it.
Speaker 3Oh yeah, you cook it.
That makes no sense.
See I'm like, okay, yeah, you cook that's fine, cook the tagle arena in boiling salted water until al dente.
Now in a in a pan large enough to hold the pasta, gently heat the butter until just soft, adding a pinch of nutmeg and black pepper, and a few shavings of truffle.
And now after that you add the pasta to the warm butter mixture and toss again and again to coat each strand.
And then once you've done that, you place into hot plates and grate the truffle generously over each portion.
Speaker 1Sounds good, easy, Yeah, So tell me why did you choose this recipe of all the recipes.
Speaker 3I chose it.
I chose it because it seems relatively accomplishable, doesn't seem too overwhelming.
And I love a good truffle.
I love that flavor.
I love black pepper.
And it's also just it's very comforting.
Speaker 1Yes, it's comforting.
And it's also it's such a luxury, isn't it.
I mean, the idea of having white truffle.
It's a very special.
It's very short season you have it.
Can you get them?
I guess you must be able to get them in California?
Of course, they must send them over from Italy.
But did you live in Italy?
Did you have you ever spent any time there where you would have white?
Speaker 3You know, I've I've worked there once, which was great.
Speaker 1What were you doing?
Speaker 3I was working on Zoolander two.
I was working there for five weeks, but I didn't have to work every day.
It was kind of perfect.
So I'd get some time off to go and explore and you know, have a good meal.
Speaker 1And where were you were?
Speaker 3Just in Rome?
Yeah, and that that's such a luxury to get to do that, and it was.
It was up until that point i'd had I had a career of where you're always talking to everyone else who's gotten to film in exotic places.
And the most exotic place I would get to film is you know, the San Fernando v uh Or.
And so finally this was this was after after decades, I was finally shooting a movie in Europe and it was so much fun.
It was great.
Speaker 1I did an interview with John McEnroe recently, and he was saying that when he was playing tennis, or when he was even performing in a band, there was no time to eat.
You were just working, working, working, So you know you're being able to go that's usually.
Speaker 3Yeah, that's and that's usually the case.
You're you're a movie schedules intense, there's long days, and you maybe have you know, you're catching up on your rest on the weekend, so maybe have one night a week ago.
But this I had enough time off to where I could kind of explore.
But there was there was also a really fun group of actors who uh Christen Wigg was working at the time, and she would organize these fun dinner parties and so that's that's another when you can kind of combine great food with great company.
There's nothing better.
Speaker 1Do you think about a location that you're going to be filming and wonder what the food will be like?
Speaker 3No, it's I always am envious of people who've able have been able to like write something specifically, you know, like Mike White who did White Lotus as a genius.
His locations have been Hawaii, they've been you know, the last one was Sicily, and then I think they're doing a third one and it's going to be in some beautiful location in Southeast Asia.
So he's a smart he's smart, smart guy.
Speaker 1So going right back, tell me about your family.
Tell about your mother and father and what food was, what meals times were like in your house.
Speaker 3Well, my folks divorced at an early age, so while my dad did made a really good effort of still being involved, my brother and I pretty much grew up in a single parent household.
Of course, my mom had to work, and what did she do.
She did a number of various jobs, from landscaper to we used to call her a plant lady at one point, which meant she was worked for a company that took care of plants in office buildings, so she'd go from office building to office building and maintain the plants.
And she was kind of doing all these odd jobs while she finally figured out she needed to go back to school and get her master's degree and later went on to have a great career in adult education, teaching English as a second language.
But it's kind of remarkable to think about now having been a parent myself, you know, being involved with my wife and we we've always been able to help each other, and we've always had help around the house.
But to think of the idea of just doing it by yourself, and the fact that she always got home in time for dinner and made dinner, and she both my folks are from North Carolina, so she she was an amazing cook.
Every night there would there would you know.
It's the reason why I still I like liver and onions.
It's because my mom would cook it.
Yeah.
She would make this amazing livered onions where she'd kind of see it and grill.
Yeah, and when she.
Speaker 1Cook the onions right down, yeah, and very soft onions.
Speaker 3But she just kind of she'd just do it all by feel, and she would make or she'd make great kind of stews in a crock pot, or she'd one of her great things that we would request that didn't happen, and all the time were she'd make a fantastic fried chicken dinner with mashed potatoes that she did herself, and green beans and sometimes and would make homemade biscuits and things like that.
So and I look back at that, and my cooking skills are negligible at best, And I was like, Mom, how did you do that?
And she's like, you know, you just didn't think about it.
And I was raised to learn how to cook, and I just wanted to make sure you guys at least had that one meal every night.
And it was it was our time to kind of uh, to kind of sit down and check in, which I'm sure is a common story you probably have heard, where you get to check in about how the day was and how your lives are going and et cetera.
Speaker 1When you think about what that memory for you of sitting down at the table and that she provided that and did that with you know, and maybe maybe also cooking was a great pleasure for her also after I used to come home after work and start cooking and everybody would say, relax, stop cooking, And actually I found it quite Do you find that that sometimes just the thing of cooking is kind of.
Speaker 3Oh yeah, the times we're kind of find ourselves.
I think cooking a lot more in the summertime, and it really can be I'm kind of more of the soux chef to vivoca to my wife.
So I'm like, tell me what, tell me what to do now?
Okay, let me chop, Okay, what do I do?
Speaker 1Now?
Speaker 3Watch that?
Yeah, and you get in a rhythm and you put the baseball game on and you pour a glass of wine and it's really nice.
It's nice.
Yeah, yeah, it matters.
Speaker 1And when you would see your dad, would he cook for you?
Speaker 3Would you yeah, Dad would we'd kind of see her dad.
And then Dad started getting into cooking and he he was he loved kind of you know, I feel like he was always grilling a breast of chicken.
Yeah, like that was the main and or he'd there was a local market with like a really good butcher section and he would get like sweet Italian sausages and make some pasta with sausages.
And then of course there's the one infamous time where we were eating something.
We're like, Dad, what is this?
He's like, just try it, and he had cooked us rabbit.
The only problem was he just didn't connect the dots that at that time, my brother had a pet rabbit and we we were like, Dad, what why are you serving rabbit?
And I think he got mad at us for not trying the rabbit, but mad at himself for not thinking that that would feel weird to us.
But that was a that was an emotional.
Speaker 1Evening and we had that.
We had that in Tuscany this summer because we have always get rabbits for the little kids, and they had them in occasion.
Then night, you know, there was a rabbit, you know, and that that wasn't too good.
But do you think that he kind of wanted to cook, or do you think he wanted to show you that he was taking care of you as a as a parent.
Speaker 3I think it was both.
I think he learned to enjoy it, and he became pretty good at it.
And there was a stretch over the holidays.
We still laugh about it today where and he would listen to the local cooking show on like AM radio and KBC out here in Los Angeles, and it was and he was like, you know what I want.
I want to cook a Christmas.
Speaker 1Goose at Christmas at Christmas.
Speaker 3And he worked so hard and we we and it was just as tough as like leather.
Speaker 1It was just goose is challenge really hard.
Speaker 3It was so bummed out, like it's okay, it's okay, you tried your best.
Speaker 1We'll just yeah, we'll.
Speaker 3Order a pizza.
I don't know.
Speaker 1Yeah, but that's that sort of thing of cooking as a performance.
Yeah.
I feel that in the restaurant because we have an open kitchen and I serve something and then I always look to see the expression of someone, Oh, I'm sure when they're eating.
Speaker 3It, and I would think you are genuinely seeing a positive expression.
Speaker 1Yeah, Okay.
It's kind of nice when they say, you know, try this, and then you see them, you know, sharing it, and sometimes people send things back now they don't like it, and that's fine, right, you know, you just redo it or cook it differently or whatever.
But it is it is a bit of a before.
I always feel a bit sorry for somebody's cooking for a dinner party and bringing it out and they've been working all day trying to get it right.
Speaker 3Yeah, yeah, no, he my dad would get very perfectionistic about timing things out and has to go in at a certain time.
And yeah, but but I I've seen, like we spend our summers in Sweden.
My wife was born there and we we over the years, we we've always gone every summer and and we have a place out there that's way out in the middle of nowhere along in this collective of little summer cottages next to her.
No, it's actually, yeah, we're not anywhere near the ocean.
We're we're we're kind of in the woods, and we have a couple of beautiful lakes around us and that sort of thing.
But it's I know, that pressure that my debt because h and we tend to grill a lot, and the Swedes are all the Swedes are annoyingly good at everything with and they don't really try, and they're they're good bakers.
And and my wife's cousins will come and you know that pressure of someone watching over your shoulder while you grill something, and they'll they'll be like, you might want to take that off.
I'm like, really, okay.
And I always listen to them and they they they'll just walk right up and go like, no, I do two minutes longer, okay, wow.
And they don't use thermometers or timers or anything.
And sure enough, every time I listen to them, it's delicious, and it was it was the right it was the right temperature and the right time.
Speaker 1I'm trying to think, I'm trying to think of what sweets maybe can they do comedy?
Are they funny?
I think of Igmar Bergman and all those kind of They weren't exactly a lot of.
Speaker 3They're not considered culturally funny, but I think they're like a little little, you know, sneaker upper type.
They're they're very dry with their humor, very sarcastic, and they're they're very clever, and they love to.
They love to tease in a very gentle way, and so I find them really kind of funny.
Speaker 1Yeah, I don't want to lose my Swedish listeners.
Speaker 3So right, Stockholm.
Speaker 1I've been to Stockholm and we ate really really well in Stockholm.
There's a real food culture now in Sweden, you know, and they're all foraging and it's a very foodie place.
Speaker 3Yeah, we're always trying to if we hear of a new restaurant, we'll go, try to go a couple of nights into the city and explore.
There's an amazing hotel we've stayed at a couple of times called at Hem, and their restaurant there is as good as any I've ever been.
They have an excellent group of chefs there and it's a very cozy place.
It's like sitting in someone's living room.
Speaker 1Do you eat Swedish at home?
Does Fivica cook well Swedish?
Speaker 3It's funny because Swedes, for the most part, they're day to day kind of menu or died is fairly just continental.
Yeah, and the only time you really eat specific quote unquote Swedish food is usually around the holidays.
So we always host a big Swedish Christmas party which is called a yule Fest.
And we have found this lovely couple, Mark and Lena who have a restaurant out here in la called open Face, which is all these types of open face sandwiches and it's a small kind of pop up place, but the main part of their business is catering.
And she's Danish, I believe, but we found her years ago and she knows how to cook all the Swedish food.
So that's our big night where you have all the herrings and they cook a ham and Swedish meatballs with the lingenberries and all the cheeses and the kaneki bread.
So that's like our big night to have Swedish food, and we invite it's a party for eighty people, so all of our friends.
We've been doing it for over a decade now and everyone.
In fact, there was one well there was one year we couldn't do it.
I think we were out of town and people were people were upset and thought we'd left them off the list, so created quite an outrage.
But no, that's that's our big night to eat Swedish food.
And then the other big kind of Swedish meal is is what's called a creft weaver, which is in August, and that's when you eat crayfish.
And that's really fun too, you know, you just boil all these crayfish with the cheese and of course it's all done with aquavit and songs.
Speaker 1And yeah, sing me a Swedish song.
Speaker 3I can sing you happy birthday in Swedish.
Speaker 2Okay, okay, yuh or yuh more yah moreva inteh ya viscav javiska live javiskava.
Speaker 3In Hurrah, Hurrah, hurrah, hoorah.
You have to say hooray four times.
Speaker 1I never expected to have a different too.
I thought that sounds like a kind of marching salt of us.
Speaker 3It's the funniest.
The funniest lyrics in English is like I hope you live.
I hope you live.
I hope you live for a hundred years, but if you don't, but if you don't, we'll still drink to you.
It's something like that.
Yeah, so it's this very The sweets are so funny with how they accept life and death.
It's just like, I hope you live, but if you don't, don't worry, We'll still.
Speaker 1Think you out.
You'll be okay, but on your birthday.
It's your birthday.
But let's just you know, maybe it's not going to be forever.
Speaker 3It could be, but maybe it's not.
And but anyway, the point is we're here and let's have a drink.
Speaker 1Yeah, good Swedish accent.
Did you know The River Cafe has a shop.
It's full of our favorite foods and designs.
We have cookbooks, linen napkins, kitchen ware, tote bags with our signatures, glasses from Venice, chocolates from Turin.
You can find us right next door to the River Cafe in London or online at Shopthrivercafe dot co dot uk.
While you left your home and you had all those meals together with your brother and your mother and then your father and then did you go to college?
Did you eat out or did you eat in the dorm?
Yeah?
I think was it a rude awakening?
Speaker 4No, it was.
Speaker 3It was pretty good dorm food.
I was just happy to have three square meals, but probably not by freshman sophomore.
As I moved out of the dorms into more of an apartment situation, that's where it was a little more bleak.
Speaker 1That's what it changed.
Speaker 3That's where it changed.
Speaker 1Just yeah, and was that in college.
Speaker 3I was in college and then and then later after college.
You know that those are some pathetic moments in my food life where I was like, uh, you know, the struggling actor and I working in a desk job that doesn't pay a lot, where literally have twenty bucks that has to last me the rest of the week.
I remember my my roommate at the time, who had a better job and a little more money.
I was literally sitting down.
I think my dinner one night was was pasta with and the only thing I had was some mustard and I put the mustard on.
Speaker 1That's I don't think that is a far cry from pasta with white truffles.
Speaker 3And my friend Chare Jerry was like, you can borrow some of my tomato sauce.
I'm like, oh no, I like I prefer them.
Yeah, yeah, but anyway, and then you went to New York?
Speaker 1Did you move to New York?
Speaker 3Moved to New York when I was hired for Satay Night Live, And I know I told.
Speaker 1I told Lauren that we were doing this, and he was usually Lauren self saying how much he loved you.
Speaker 3Yeah, you know, that's such a you spend so much time in that studio and then those offices, and at that show you're not really sitting down in your apartment for a meal.
But that was getting to kind of go to some of these New York restaurants.
That was That was seven years of getting to explore.
In fact, there was a there was a great place down in the village on Commerce and Barrow, and I don't think it's there anymore.
It's called Grange Hall, and we had so many meals there where my folks would fly in that week to come see the show and we'd go, like on a Thursday night to go eat at Grange Hall and it was like the amazing, very cozy, neighborhoody place where they I just remember always ordering the Hangar steak, which was like cooked really well and great atmosphere and just a very I was like, oh, this is the typical New York place, which Lauren would always point out.
It's funny, he would always he made a great observation.
He was like, you can tell like restaurants, it's all about lighting.
And I was like, you're right, yeah, if the lighting works, it's inviting and you want to sit down.
And I also had a really funny meal once with Lauren at pastise at the old Pastise before and where Lauren kept saying that that Mic Jagger may stop by, and I was like, uh huh, yeah sure, and the meal was almost done, and then all of a sudden, Lauren was like, oh, he's here, and then we were both I don't see Lauren get nervous very much.
And then we both were incredibly nervous, and he was like, will you sit there?
Wait, no, hold on, I'll have him sit here, and then you sit across from here, and then okay, oh, hello, Mick hi.
And then and there I was, you know, sitting next to Mick.
I didn't contribute to the conversation at all because I just sat there.
And but Mick jagr couldn't have been nicer to me and kept he kept pulling me in and everything like that, but I was too scared to say anything.
Speaker 1Yeah, he was in the restaurant year two ya and he was and he said, Ruthie, how are you?
And I said, I am so excited because David Letterman is here.
And then I realized I was not the thing you say to Mick Jagger.
I was really excited that David.
And then he's a nice person.
Speaker 3That's so funny.
Speaker 1Do you think that getting to eat in good restaurants almost was a measure of your success when you when you were able to go to a good restaurant or be taken to a good restaurant.
Speaker 3Yeah, I think to some extent.
I mean definitely, you're definitely all of a sudden in this this new category.
And Lauren, part of the ritual and the schedule of the show is his big Tuesday night dinners where he has the host and he invites members of the cast.
So that would either be at Orso or Latanzi or all the you know sometimes occasionally Joe Allen's and all these kind of venerable New York restaurants, And that was really eye opening to be Yeah, you kind of felt like, you know, country mouse in the big city all of a sudden that hadn't been so uh my folk.
I wouldn't say we grew up.
You know, we were very very much lower middle class.
We didn't have a lot.
They still would splurge on occasion and take us to the interesting restaurant that had just opened up, you know where we lived, and so they still gave us an appreciation for I wouldn't say fine, but like, what is kind of different in terms of culinary thing experiences and and force us to try different types of foods and this, that and the other.
So I definitely had a little bit of that in my kind of dining background.
Speaker 1Did you ever work in a restaurant?
Were you ever a waiter?
Speaker 3I never did.
I avoided that because I knew I would be fired immediately.
Speaker 1Why would they fire?
Oh yeah, car plates?
Speaker 3Or I would have been the one that how many tables does a waiter usually handled?
Speaker 1What?
Speaker 3Four to five tables?
Speaker 1Yeah?
Maybe maybe we don't.
Well, we don't like to have we share it around.
So every waiter has a section which is about three or four tables, and then everybody helps, you know, we all you know, you see managers changing the table class right, everybody does everything.
Speaker 3So you guys have a real team effort.
But you know, if I just I would watch waiters and I'd be like, I could never keep track of everything.
Speaker 1I need.
Speaker 3I need a long I need a long grace period.
I would eventually get it down.
So I knew that wasn't an area that would be a strong suit for me.
Speaker 1It's a really hard job, you know, you send food out and the way all these young you know, sometimes I get impatient at somebody on the grill and say, where is that sea bass?
Where is that?
And I thought, you know, when I was their age, I couldn't cross the street, you know, and they're they're amazing the way they can, you know, send out food and the mind take it.
Speaker 3When waiters just memorize it the order and they don't write it down.
Speaker 1Well, we write everything down, okay, because.
Speaker 3When you go to a restaurant and the waiters like, yes, go ahead, and I'm like, I get stressed out for them.
Speaker 1Yeah, but you memorize lines, right, you can do that or not?
Speaker 3Yeah, yeah, you obviously.
So maybe that's a muscle you develop if you're but.
Speaker 1You would be good, probably because you could be really nice to people.
I think you can get away with a hell of a lot, you know, if you are kind of nice, if you're not going to get annoyed with people, then if you basically like people, then it's okay.
Speaker 4You know.
Speaker 3Well, some of the jobs I worked and I did survive with with charm and with with confronting my mistakes in such an open way that it was almost disarming and when they when they said, you never finished this one thing, and I would say, you are absolutely right.
I didn't and I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1And I worked as I worked as a waitress one summer and I promise you my last day there, I'd worked there for two months.
I was still telling people it was my first day, just like, I'm really sorry.
I forgot that.
But I just started this sporting, you know, so if you get people on your side, you walk into that room and you're serving people, it's like an audience, you know.
Speaker 3Bartending is the one thing I thought maybe I could handle because it's all kind of yeah right there in front of you.
Yeah, And I thought maybe I could do that.
But anyway, I yeah, I somehow avoided.
Speaker 1But you're not.
But you like going to and you go, well, you come to the River Cafe and you like going out.
Have your kids ever worked?
Have they worked yet in a restaurant?
Speaker 3They haven't?
They should.
Yeah, that would be a nice wake up call.
Speaker 1It's not a bad it's not a bad job for kids because it's so collaborative.
Speaker 3You know.
Speaker 1I always say if you do something, if you don't do your job, then it's not your boss that gets upset.
It's your you know, the person who's depending on the carpet being swept or the parsley being chopped.
It's it's not a bad idea.
If you like listening to Ruthie's Table for would you please make sure to rate and review the podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Thank you.
Should I ask you your favorite food scene in the movie that you've been in?
Is there one?
Speaker 3The one that's kind of sweet that I'm asked about the most, probably is eating the spaghetti and maple syrup and in elf?
Yeah, because that we didn't really plan out what.
They just put a bunch of stuff in front of me and I just kind of improvised that and then ate as much much as I could.
And so hundreds of kids every year ask me, what does that taste like?
Uh, that's the one that stands out probably.
Speaker 1The most great movie, great scene.
What are you working on now?
What's what's happening now?
Speaker 3Still kind of on a holding pattern?
Speaker 1Is that with the strike?
After the strike?
Because did you eat more when the strike was going on?
Did you have time to be at home cooking?
Oh?
Speaker 3Yeah, we're still we just were.
I mean, we were just out last night at an amazing place in La called The Japan House, which is two chefs who were formerly the chefs for the Japanese ambassadors to the US.
They've started this restaurant and it's yeah, really extraordinary.
But yeah, I've been at home more and uh, you know, kind of waiting for the next thing to kind of, you know, happen.
Speaker 1When did you start cooking?
When did you actually cook?
Or don't you really cook?
Speaker 3I can't.
I can't lie and say that I'm that's okay, really cook that much?
Speaker 1You boys?
Three boys?
Do they cook?
Speaker 3The boys?
Yeah?
The boys.
Our oldest is a sophomore in college, so I think he's he'll he'll cook a little bit.
It's a really our middle son, who is the big he's the big foodie of the three.
He really will love to get in there.
And he's like, Dad, should I make smash burgers?
I'm like, do it?
Speaker 1And what's a smash burger?
Speaker 3Yeah?
That's where you take the patty and you you smash it down on the skillet.
Yeah, and then you don't leave it on too long.
Then you flip it and smash it.
So they're they're really kind of thin and kind of you you have a nice char on the outside.
And then but he's he's he's the one who's like, if we are traveling, he'll look up, Yeah, he'll look up like restaurants we should go to And he just loves all those experiences and through through food and and he'll just occasionally I think he also finds it really comforting.
Our youngest boy likes it.
He's like, Mom, should we should we bake a cake?
Let's do it, And they'll just want to spend the couple hours, you know, doing something like that.
Speaker 1I think you should just demand that your next movie's made in London.
We can sit in the river cafe garden, or we can take a walk, or we can have food at home, or we can I would love and maybe I'll see you in New York.
So the last question, and thanks so much for taking so much time, is if you had a food that you would go to for comfort?
Is was it the liver and onions your mother made or is it something that you cook or a Swedish birthday celebration bake?
What would be your comfort food?
Speaker 3Oh, it's such a good question.
Yeah, I mean we've touched on some of them.
But the other one that pops to my mind is I guess it's connected to we have a chicken coop at our house, and there's nothing more satisfying than going and getting the fresh eggs.
And I don't know if scrambling up eggs is the hardest thing to do from a cooking standpoint, Probably not, but it is.
That's one of those connective moments of when you know, if one of my boys we have to get them up early on the weekend because they got a soccer game or a basketball game, that to go ahead and grab some of those eggs and just kind of gently scramble them and maybe put a little parmesan cheese on the top, and toast a couple pieces of bread and just sit and kind of talk as we have breakfast.
That's very special to me.
And so I love the connection of all of that together, food and love.
Speaker 1Well, Thank you, and I hope that we can see each other soon.
Yeah, somewhere in London, New York.
Speaker 3That would be great.
I would love it.
Ruthie, Thanks, we.
Speaker 1Miss you, Sean and I are here.
So Will Ferrell chose for his recipe Tagulerini with butter and white truffles.
Speaker 4I mean, it's such a luxury ingredient.
Speaker 3Really.
Speaker 4All the chefs get really excited when the truffle season begins and you slice your first truffle and smell it and they're like, oh my god, that's amazing.
When a lot of people are having truffles in the River Cafe and the air is filled with smell, it's really intoxicating.
People feel like people maybe getting high on the smell.
Speaker 1There's also the I think, well there's there's a choosing them as well when you have that.
You know, they bring in the white truffles and they sit at the table and you look at them for their shape and their firmness and how the how many holes there are and where the cracks are, and how they will be to clean and how they will be to shave.
But it is that sort of smell, you know.
We always just sort of worry that maybe they put truffle oil on the box or to make sure that they could smell that strong.
But that's why we're really careful if we buy them from.
Speaker 4Because it's such a sort of high value ingredient.
It's open to people.
When I was a younger chefer.
Maybe not quite so much now, but people used to bring them around London in their sort of wheeli cases and then two Dodge Dodgy guys would arrive at the back door of a restaurant and ask if you wanted to see what's in their suitcase, and you'd be like, what we letting us als in for?
And then you'd have to sift through, you know that.
We had one man that turned up with something that literally, I think was a potato filled with truffle oil, and we were like, we can't buy that.
Speaker 1I think the other thing about truffle is that because it's such a luxury, it's so expensive, and so you're careful.
People try to be very very careful.
You measure, you sell it by the gram, so you sell you know, two grams or five grams or ten grams.
And then there's you know, you have to weigh them.
We weigh them when we get them, we weigh them.
They have to service, We make sure that we have it.
But on the other hand, when you're actually doing it, you just want to give more and more and more.
Speaker 3Don't you.
Speaker 1I'm really the worst person because that they are having to judge it.
Do you judge it or do you weigh it when you've got it?
I freestyle.
Speaker 4Actually I shouldn't really say that.
I've never I've never undercut people, no, but I just always probably go a bit over.
But it's the only time you see a little tiny scales on the past.
Speaker 1What's that for.
Speaker 4I got one of the biggest bollockings of my career when I was a young chef.
God, I thought I was going to get sacked.
Literally, I got taken to the chef's office and I was literally like torn down the strip.
But it was really like because often you wrap the truffle in the tissue, don't need to stop it from getting whatever.
And he left the truffle in the tissue on the front pass and so I was obviously cleaning down with Saphie water, and he was like, where's the trufle And I was like, oh, God, I haven't seen it.
And then I realized I looked on the floor where all the water and all the guys were cleaning the floor and with trodden on it in the water.
Speaker 1It's really cool that Will Ferrell chose that in California, And as we just said that, he just loved that was white Treves.
Speaker 3Ruthie's Table for is produced by Outa My Studio for iHeartRadio.
It's hosted by Ruthie Rogers and it's produced by William Lensky.
This episode was edited by Julia Johnson and mixed by Nigel Appleton.
Our executive producers are Fay Stewart and Zad Rogers.
Our production manager is Caitlin Paramore, and our production coordinator is Bella Sellini.
This episode had additional contributions by Sean Wynn Owen.
Thank you to everyone at The River Cafe for your help in making this episode.
