00:00:04
Speaker 1: People always ask me who my dream guest would be on Ruthie's Table 4. Cate Blanchett has always been top of that list, an actor, director, and a vocal activist for values and ideas close to my heart. A few weeks ago, Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach took me to see Cate in Thomas Ostermeyer's radical new version of the book. of The Seagull at the Barbican Theatre, after a stunning performance. We all went for a small supper next door, talking about Chekhov, her role in Tar, and the serpentine party that she's co-hosting this summer. And as always, family. Kate lives with purpose in the countryside in East Sussex, keeping bees, growing vegetables in her garden, cooking and eating seasonally. Here we are at the River Cafe on the beautiful first day of summer, The sun is shining, the chefs are cooking, and the garden is flowering. Kate and I are going to talk about our shared love of food, artists, children, and a lot more. A dream come true indeed.
00:01:09
Speaker 2: Aw. Thank you. I'm glad I got out of bed this morning.
00:01:12
Speaker 1: So I'm glad you did too.
00:01:15
Speaker 2: You're right, a little piece of sunshine has just come onto the table. It's coming through.
00:01:19
Speaker 1: That was such an incredible night. How do you feel post-sequel? What does it feel like? You did it for how many weeks?
00:01:26
Speaker 2: It was so short. We were at the Barbican, so it was six weeks. And I mean, I've known Thomas Ostemeyer for years and years and years. You know, he's running the Shower Booner and my husband and I were running the Sydney Theatre Company. So our paths continually crisscrossed. But we never actually worked together. And I think the thing, maybe it's a little bit like a dinner party. When you do Chekhov, it's all about the ensemble and the alchemy that happens or doesn't between the actors. And I've always done Chekhov with a loose ensemble of actors, whereas Thomas was assembling all of us.
00:01:58
Speaker 1: A few people had worked together before.
00:02:00
Speaker 2: I'd worked with Tom Burke on Soderbergh's Black Bag relatively recently before the production started. But a lot of us didn't know one another. And he was able to bring us all together, all from totally wildly different approaches. And I The thing I miss most is the people. I love them all so much.
00:02:21
Speaker 1: People here are like my family. You know, we work together, we go out, or we celebrate, or sometimes we also just work. But it's a very strong attachment when you're working together and creating something. Here it's every day. You know, in a way, they're parallels. The curtain goes up at 12.30 and the curtain goes up with you at 7.30, don't you think? Totally. anticipation. You're dependent, very dependent on each other.
00:02:49
Speaker 2: And also I think you're, you're part of something that, and this is what maybe the patrons don't realize, what an audience doesn't realize is that whatever happens in the kitchen will be totally influenced by the people who come through that, who through your front door. And so the evening is a thing, you know, you know what's on the menu, but you don't know how it's going to unfold. You don't know what people are going to order. And, and so it's, it's fresh every time. And I, you know, being quite shy. I mean, I don't know if you are, but you get to know people by doing something together. Collaborating, being together.
00:03:24
Speaker 1: When we see actors on stage singing or the incredible gift that is given to us as an audience to be able to have that, and Britain has always been known for that.
00:03:38
Speaker 2: Exactly.
00:03:38
Speaker 1: Do you feel that this is something that is threatened now, that the priority of culture in this country is that? being lessened. There was a time when there was money for the arts, you know, there was money for building a theatre. And I know that you are an activist. I know that you're engaged in political life. And what are you feeling about right now in terms of.
00:04:00
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, people talk about activism, you know, that it's political, but I think it's engaging in things that have been politicised. And it always is strange to me when we talk about the arts, this word elite is used and And if you think about an elite sports person, that term means that they have spent many, many years perfecting their ability, that they are at the top of their game. And that when we talk about the arts, yes, they are elite in the sense that those people who put those shows on are exceptional at what they do. It's not for an elite person. I think the elite these days are the people who don't pay tax.
00:04:43
Speaker 1: I agree.
00:04:43
Speaker 2: And if they did pay tax, then all of these wonderful offerings, cultural offerings, that Churchill said, what are we fighting for if we're not fighting for culture and the access to it, is that then they would be more accessible to people. And so there's this, I think it's a linguistic language division that's often created between people and culture.
00:05:06
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:05:07
Speaker 2: And I think that you, I mean, that's the joy of touring a play is that you will tour to a regional area. You'll do it in a major city. You'll do it in one country, in another country. And I think the reaction that people have in various different locations will feed the work and hopefully those people will be fed by the work. The first time I went to, you know, a gallery and saw, you know, a major work of portraiture, It changed the way, you know, at my little state primary school, the way I thought about the world. And dance does that. Music does that. But we're told that it's only for a certain set of people. And I think that's because access is not afforded them.
00:05:49
Speaker 1: Tell me about the early days of being in your family. Did you have sisters and brothers?
00:05:53
Speaker 2: Yes, I have an older brother and a younger sister. And my father was from Texas.
00:06:00
Speaker 1: Where were you born?
00:06:01
Speaker 2: I was born in Melbourne in Australia. Yeah, we were going to move to the States really early on and they decided, I think, for our education that they wanted us to be in Australia. So we stayed there.
00:06:15
Speaker 1: How did he come from Australia to, I mean, from Texas to Australia?
00:06:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was in the, he was the child of two alcoholic parents and so he grew up, I think, killing birds in a park and it would never happen now. But, you know, a gentleman saw him and took him off the streets and educated him and put him through high school. And the minute he could, he wanted to get out. So he lied about his age, joined the Navy, and he went to the Antarctic. And I think he decided to become a Unitarian minister. And my mother, who was at Teachers College in Melbourne... he well his his ship broke down leaving the antarctic so they had to dock in melbourne and there was a teacher's dance and they didn't have enough men so they went down to the port and then he my father came and my mother and he danced all night and then he left three weeks later and they corresponded for two years and then he decided to come out it was quite old-fashioned it's a little bit like this wonderful patrick white novel called vos where these uh an explorer. And I can't remember what she did. I think she might have also been a teacher. They fell in love, but didn't consummate it or declaim it to one another. And then they corresponded through letters. And that's sort of what my mother and father did. And then they decided that he'd come out and get married.
00:07:43
Speaker 1: That's a story of adventure and chance and Yeah. Pursuing an idea.
00:07:50
Speaker 2: Or two lonely people who found one another.
00:07:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the idea of the harbor and meeting and the dancing all night.
00:07:57
Speaker 2: We celebrated Halloween and Thanksgiving, so I grew up with pumpkin pie and pecan pie and ribs.
00:08:03
Speaker 1: So did he make them, or did he teach your mom how to make them? Yeah, both.
00:08:08
Speaker 2: And so, yeah, we grew up with quite a lot of American black-eyed peas, all of those things, so.
00:08:14
Speaker 1: Did you ever go back to Texas? Did you ever visit?
00:08:17
Speaker 2: Yes, sadly. He died when he was 40, and we had planned a trip back to Texas. And he died in January, and we were going in May. And so we made the trip anyway and went and met his sort of diaspora of his family.
00:08:34
Speaker 1: Yeah. And so growing up, there was a sense of the American influence. There was Australian influence as well.
00:08:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, my grandmother was, I think, a Scottish. And you said your grandmother lived with you?
00:08:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, she did. She lived with you and made the sandwiches?
00:08:47
Speaker 2: Made the sandwiches. I think she was a Scottish descent, so everything was boiled within an inch of its life. And at that point in Australia, avocados were... you know, incredibly exotic mangoes.
00:08:59
Speaker 1: Wait, who are we talking about, Kate?
00:09:00
Speaker 2: We're talking about a long time ago, Ruthie. So in the... No, in the 80s. In the 80s, okay. And so because of the fruit fly, there were quite strong demarcations between what was grown in Queensland, what was grown in New South Wales. Nothing ever came over from Western Australia to Victoria. If you had fruit and you were crossing between Victoria and New South Wales, you had to leave the fruit, the vegetables at the border. So there was no tropical fruit that even came down i mean i have the utmost respect for for farmers it's a i mean in any in any country but but in australia it's really it's very hard it's such an ancient land um and i think because for so long we have marginalized indigenous understandings of the way way to grow and and collect food.
00:09:51
Speaker 1: Tell me about the indigenous experience.
00:09:53
Speaker 2: Of Well, I mean, there were so many hundreds of language groups and cultures that have been wiped out through you know, a white invasion. I mean, you can't call it any other, name it any other way. But I think we've not grown as a white culture through that wisdom and understanding of the land. And so the food bowl in so many parts of Australia is actually in the wrong place. Water is a scarce commodity. I mean, brand Australia when I was growing up was multiculturalism. And so once we, you know, really embraced the wave of Vietnamese and Lebanese and Greek and Italian immigrants and refugees, our cuisine became extraordinary. And now it's been exported to the world as Pan Pacific or Asia Pacific and So it's, but at the time when I was growing up, my mother was an excellent cook.
00:10:43
Speaker 1: So tell me about, so your mother was left with three children. Yeah. She was what, in her 30s?
00:10:49
Speaker 2: She was, yeah, 39.
00:10:50
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:10:50
Speaker 2: And my brother was 11, I was 10.
00:10:52
Speaker 1: Was she working?
00:10:53
Speaker 2: My sister was eight.
00:10:53
Speaker 1: Did she have a job?
00:10:54
Speaker 2: Well, she had to go back to work as a teacher. As a teacher. And so she taught home economics. So our kitchen was fantastic.
00:11:02
Speaker 1: Describe it.
00:11:02
Speaker 2: Yeah. What was it like? A lot of Italian cooking and a lot of fresh seafood. and salads, and that was not what people were eating at the time. But I think the thing when there was a lot of grief in my house, so the meals were delicious, but they were silent. And that's what's been one of the great joys, I think, for my side of the family, but also for me, is my husband came from this enormous Catholic family. So the food may not have been.
00:11:37
Speaker 2: But they had massively noisy, loud, raucous meals. And my husband's an excellent cook. And actually the first time I met my brother-in-law was at Christmas. And I came towards the house and people were screaming with laughter. And I don't know what the meal is, but it's a medieval recipe where you stuff a goose.
00:12:01
Speaker 1: With a pheasant, with a pigeon, with a quail.
00:12:04
Speaker 2: And what had happened was he'd opened the oven and And the thing, it shot out and it telescoped out onto the wall. So there goes Christmas lunch. The smallest thing that was in there. Yeah, so they were madly trying to stuff it back in.
00:12:18
Speaker 1: I know that recipe. I mean, I've never done it myself, but I know that.
00:12:21
Speaker 2: It's dangerous.
00:12:22
Speaker 1: Have you ever done that? Do you know that? It's really dangerous. That's so funny. Because probably as they're cooking, they... expand expand and then therefore yeah that's hilarious yeah so they're wildly adventurous with their with their cooking when you met him was it um.
00:12:36
Speaker 2: My husband and i got to we've been married god we got married very quickly actually in 97 it wasn't a shotgun wedding we didn't have children for quite some time but um i think we're 28 yeah.
00:12:48
Speaker 1: So you were embraced by this But going back to yours, you grew up with your father in the beginning cooking, and I assume your mother both cooked, and you had meals and barbecues and people. And then it became a kind of sadness, and then there was a joy. It was just very silent. And did that change?
00:13:11
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I was thinking about it, maybe because I was coming to speak to you. But then... I've always loved the dinner party. And so what I would do is I wouldn't go to a lot of parties as a teenager. I would have dinner parties.
00:13:24
Speaker 1: Would you? Yeah.
00:13:25
Speaker 2: So I would, where everyone would dress up, my girlfriends would all dress up and we'd, you know, we'd all cook something and we'd, you know, I don't know who we were trying to ape or what we were trying to ape. There was a lot of sorbet inside orange cups and I don't know. And I grew up with this Salvador Dali cookbook. You know, the one that he'd done and he'd done the illustrations.
00:13:44
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes.
00:13:45
Speaker 2: And I cooked recipes from that.
00:13:47
Speaker 1: This is what I really like.
00:13:48
Speaker 2: Crazy.
00:13:48
Speaker 1: I have to admit that I didn't ever make anything from it.
00:13:51
Speaker 2: That was where I cooked my first snails.
00:13:53
Speaker 1: A surrealist cookbook, a surrealist recipe.
00:13:55
Speaker 2: But it was hard in Melbourne at the time to find a pheasant. But brave of you to do that. Yeah, I tried. I tried. So, yeah, I cooked and tried to decorate the dishes from the Salvador Dali cookbook.
00:14:07
Speaker 1: What age was this? Probably about 13. So that's, yeah, because I often talk to people who, when I say, okay, so you grew up in this nurturing home with a grandmother and a mother and cooking, and then what happened when you left home? And very often people say, then when I had my own flat and I started buying local ingredients and I started cooking. But 13 is an early age to do that and to entertain.
00:14:31
Speaker 2: I think it's because it was my father's book. He worked in advertising, and it must have been a gift that he was given one year. Yeah, so it was sort of trying to.
00:14:41
Speaker 1: Oh, the Salvador Dali? Yeah.
00:14:42
Speaker 2: Not that I can remember him ever cooking from it, but it was something of his that maybe I gravitated towards that. And also, the surrealism seemed to make sense to me. I had very vivid nightmares and dreams as a child, and so his work and the surrealism movement as a whole kind of really unlocked something for me.
00:15:06
Speaker 1: Tell me about cooking the dough for soul. What was that?
00:15:09
Speaker 2: Well, I'd actually deboned a soul in Alfonso Cuaron's disclaimer. And I don't know whether he thought my deboning was too good or that the scene was too static or whatever, but he then threw a cat onto the bench. So I was trying to debone and cook the soul with a cat on the bench.
00:15:30
Speaker 1: What did the cat do?
00:15:31
Speaker 2: She tried to eat the fish.
00:15:33
Speaker 1: So having cooked the Dover sole, filleted the Dover sole, would you like to tell everyone listening how to make roasted Dover sole?
00:15:42
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, come to the River Cafe and have the Dover sole cooked for you.
00:15:49
Speaker 1: And also, you know, you can change it in any way you want. People read it and add their own advice. Or you can just read it, whatever you like.
00:15:56
Speaker 2: There's something I was thinking, too, about the way you cook. Someone said this, and I'm going to phrase it so badly, that Chopin apparently said that the great reward of having played many, many notes over many, many years is simplicity. And I think that is something extraordinary about the way you cook. And maybe it's for this recipe. So the more Dover soles you cook, the better you'll cook them. Dover sole with capers and marjoram. Two tablespoons salted capers. Extra virgin olive oil. But put that on the fish before you put it in the pan. That's what I learned today. A bunch of fresh marjoram leaves, four whole Dover sole weighing 350 to 400 grams each, scaled and cleaned by someone at the Roofer Cafe. One lemon cut in half and put in the pan eventually. Put the capers on. This is the method. Put the capers in a sieve and rinse under cold running water. Leave to soak in cold water for 40 minutes, then rinse again. Preheat the oven, 230 degrees Celsius. Brush a large, flat oven tray with extra virgin olive oil. Scatter half of the marjoram leaves over the tray. Season. Place the fish on top, side by side, little buddies who are about to be eaten. Season, then scatter the remaining marjoram. and the capers over. Drizzle with olive oil. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes. Test with the point of a sharp knife or a fork inserted into the thickest part of the sole. If cooked, the flesh should come away from the bone. Don't eat it yet. Squeeze the lemon over the fish and serve with any juices from the pan. Delicious.
00:17:46
Speaker 1: So simple, isn't it?
00:17:47
Speaker 2: I know, but I didn't realize if you oil the fish first, of course it doesn't stick to the pan.
00:17:52
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:17:53
Speaker 2: I know. And marjoram, I would have put parsley, which is a bit more, the marjoram is just so flavorsome.
00:17:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's very perfuming, the marjoram. But then again, we do it with rosemary. Sometimes we put a whole branch of rosemary under the sole when we cook it. We do it, we do parsley. And then the capers, the saltiness of the capers.
00:18:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was delicious.
00:18:15
Speaker 1: Or maybe I'll just do an anchovy, one anchovy over it.
00:18:17
Speaker 2: I love anchovies.
00:18:18
Speaker 1: You love anchovies too. I do too.
00:18:20
Speaker 2: They're much maligned. I think it's probably one of my favorite fish. Yeah.
00:18:24
Speaker 1: It's cool. We use them in Italian cooking. They are like a herb. Yeah. They're like the seasoning. So we make, right now we're doing white asparagus or green, and we make an anchovy butter and it kind of melts over it. I've never done it because asparagus is my favorite.
00:18:40
Speaker 2: Do you love asparagus?
00:18:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love asparagus. Do you grow it?
00:18:43
Speaker 2: Yes, I have been.
00:18:44
Speaker 1: Are you getting it now? Yeah.
00:18:45
Speaker 2: Although we're changing. We had a really tiny little garden. We used to have pigs. And then the pigs went because we realized we weren't pig farmers. And they're too intelligent. And there was something just... Charlotte's web.
00:18:58
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:18:59
Speaker 2: And actually, it was my Machiavellian plan to turn my family vegetarian. I thought if we get pigs, then the children will realize that the sausages they eat, the ham, the bacon... It all comes from these pigs. And my now 17-year-old called himself the pig whisperer, and he used to go up and he used to hug the pigs and stroke the pigs. And, of course, then when they got turned into sausages, and, you know, ethically and as humanely as you can, I was sitting down. I was a little bit cruel. They were sitting down, putting the ketchup on their sausages, and I said, you know, this used to be Benson and Hedges. My husband called them Benson and Hedges because he said they were going to be smoked. It was a little bit... bit off but anyway and they said this is Benson and Hedges and my now 17 year old said delicious so it didn't work so then the pigs went and so then.
00:19:49
Speaker 1: We I'd want to be on a lifeboat with that boy.
00:19:52
Speaker 2: No, he's actually incredibly kind and sweet. But he's a sensualist, so he's very in the moment. And so then that little vegetable garden where we're growing asparagus and we had raspies, we had a whole hodgepodge. We then decided to build a walled garden. So that has gone to fallow. So the asparagus has kind of now gone to seed.
00:20:13
Speaker 1: So you get great fish from the coast? Yes.
00:20:15
Speaker 2: In Forest Row, there's a fantastic fishmonger, Vesey's. So we get our fish from there. And we used to live in Brighton, you know. And mushy peas. That's what I discovered when I came to this. I love a mushy pea. I love mushy peas. There was one fish and chip shop. on the tram stop near my school, my high school. And I discovered, I was going out with a skinhead at the time and he took me there and I had my first mushy peas and chips.
00:20:46
Speaker 1: So I like mushy peas. And they're not, those don't need to be like freshly picked peas, do they?
00:20:53
Speaker 2: They're better if they are, let's face it. But the first ones I had were not.
00:20:57
Speaker 1: Did you enjoy going out to eat? Was that something in your culture that you'd go to eat for a special occasion?
00:21:04
Speaker 2: We did when my father was alive. We had a lot of Asian restaurants. And my father, I never really got to speak to him about this as an adult. But he had a lot of Japanese lithographs and books of haiku poetry. And I think he must have traveled through Japan quite a lot. So there weren't very many Japanese restaurants when I was growing up. But I remember going to several with him and eating a lot of Chinese food. The first time I had fried ice cream, it was just miraculous. Or the first time I had raw fish was amazing. And I just loved the beauty and precision of the Japanese culture. And so I remember those experiences. And when I went to drama school, I didn't have a penny, but a girl who was in the directing course was married to a QC.
00:21:51
Speaker 1: This is in Melbourne.
00:21:53
Speaker 2: In Sydney. In Sydney. Yeah, the National Institute. And we used to sneak away and go and have sake and a little bit of sashimi at lunchtime. And that seemed so, yeah, so chic and, you know, extravagant.
00:22:09
Speaker 1: Do you remember when you started acting how that married with your wife? How did that affect your food? I mean, did it? Did you eat a different way? Did you go out to more restaurants?
00:22:18
Speaker 2: I mean, my first job actually out of drama school, I worked in the catering truck on a television show because I wasn't working as an actor. And it was my first entry into the film world. So I didn't, it was like this distraction that was happening that was so frustrating being in the catering truck trying to get breakfast out and lunch out and the afternoon, whatever it was called, that we had to keep stopping because they were doing this annoying thing called filming. They kept turning over. It was like, guys, how are we going to get the cheesecake ready? And then eventually I ended up on the other side. But I had a real love and respect for the difficulty of working in the catering van and how it can be thankless sometimes.
00:23:07
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00:23:35
Speaker 2: Your order now. When I came here, we'd always wanted to have a garden. We'd always wanted to grow things. I've got brown thumbs. My mother and my grandmother had very, very green thumbs. And now my mother lives with us.
00:23:53
Speaker 1: I was saying a brown thumb as well. A green thumb?
00:23:57
Speaker 2: Being grow well and I touch something and it just goes.
00:24:01
Speaker 1: I bet that's not true. No, it is.
00:24:03
Speaker 2: But this is changing slowly. And so it's been so fantastic. I think, too, because I grew up with my grandmother... Now that my mother's living with us. Has your mother lived with you? Yeah.
00:24:13
Speaker 1: My mother lived with us.
00:24:14
Speaker 2: Oh, really?
00:24:14
Speaker 1: It's great, isn't it?
00:24:15
Speaker 2: It's great having a multi-generational household.
00:24:18
Speaker 1: It's great. I was saying there was always, my son when he was little used to try and wake us up. We'd say, you know, we're going back to sleep. And then we'd hear him go downstairs. He'd say to his brother. Ruth, can you wake up? And he'd say, no, I want to go back to sleep. And then we'd go all the way down to my mom and she'd open the door and say, hi, Bo, want to.
00:24:35
Speaker 2: Make a cake?
00:24:36
Speaker 1: You know, it's like 7 in the morning. There's always somebody there.
00:24:40
Speaker 2: What every child wants to hear. But I know, you probably know this with your grandmother, is that you talk so differently to your grandparents than you do to your parents and that you can't tell everything to one person. Sometimes, you know, we are different things with different people.
00:24:57
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:24:57
Speaker 2: But anyway so having my mum in.
00:24:59
Speaker 1: The house has been great so she gardens.
00:25:01
Speaker 2: Yes she does she's got her own garden but also together where we've just reinstated a walled garden that used to be there because the house we're living in was was derelict for many many years and so when we part in lockdown we realized that under a lot of rubble and mud there was a greenhouse so we we restored it and then We saw an aerial shot of the house or the block of land in the 40s. And so we've rebuilt along the lines of where the wall garden used to be. And it's a learning curve. It keeps you humble. You must have a garden.
00:25:33
Speaker 1: What does it teach you, would you say?
00:25:34
Speaker 2: Humility. And patience.
00:25:37
Speaker 1: Because you don't have control over everything. Yes.
00:25:39
Speaker 2: And the weather. Yeah. And also, I mean, I think it's just that thing of knowing that certain moths are going to come. And so we're not having a lot of luck with broccoli and cauliflower, but Brussels sprouts are okay.
00:25:49
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:25:50
Speaker 2: And so you cook with what you've... what you gather that day.
00:25:53
Speaker 1: So when you said we were going to do this today, I thought, well, Kate will come and we'll have a conversation and a sake tasting. So how did sake come into it? How did this happen? This is so cool.
00:26:07
Speaker 2: Well, it started a long time ago. I mean, my mother and father drank sake when we went out to Japanese restaurants, and that was to have a drink in a tiny little cup. I mean, I found all of the elements of So beautiful. And I've always loved ceramics since I was obsessed with the accoutrement around it. And then I worked with a Japanese skincare company. This is years ago, for about 15 years. And we would go to Japan a lot. And the active ingredients in the skincare was found during the rice polishing process. Because obviously, and this one is a Junmai Dagingo, which is a highly polished rice. And that made the people who were working with the rice, their hands were just like infant's hands. Their skin was amazing. But as a result, I went to a lot of breweries and I got really fascinated with the fermentation process and the fact that sake is brewed like a beer but drunk like a wine. And I thought, well, I often drink it when I'm having Italian food because there's a purity and simplicity, particularly to the way you serve it up, that also is quite twinned to the purity and simplicity of Japanese food. And I thought I would love to be part of trying to bring that to Western cuisine. Yeah. I have to pour for you. You're going to pour for us?
00:27:33
Speaker 1: What is the ritual? Is there a ritual?
00:27:35
Speaker 2: Oh, it's at the right temperature.
00:27:36
Speaker 1: You don't drink it hot.
00:27:39
Speaker 2: No, but the first time I had.
00:27:40
Speaker 1: When we go to a Japanese restaurant, they'll say, do you want it hot or do you want it cold, right?
00:27:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, the first time I had sake, it was hot, but because this is such a, The more highly polished it is, and this is really highly polished. It's polished to 35% for what that's worth. It has such a refined flavor that you don't want to heat it because it would take all that complication away. Beautiful complication.
00:28:07
Speaker 1: And you said to serve it in a wine glass.
00:28:08
Speaker 2: Well, yeah. I've always drunk it in a little.
00:28:14
Speaker 2: Vessel the ceramic but there's something about you can you can smell it better i think and it doesn't feel so much like a spirit.
00:28:22
Speaker 1: Yeah that's nice to you yeah it's very fragrant so nice that you're here to morisaki together and do you go to japan do you go where they make it have you.
00:28:32
Speaker 2: Been yes yeah it's been amazing actually being part of the um the the process of of of seeing it made and And it's aged in a very cold environment too.
00:28:46
Speaker 1: This is so good.
00:28:47
Speaker 2: It's really good.
00:28:48
Speaker 1: How would you describe it?
00:28:49
Speaker 2: I think it's fruity, but it's not too sweet.
00:28:52
Speaker 1: It isn't sweet.
00:28:53
Speaker 2: It's great with asparagus, pineapple-y.
00:28:55
Speaker 1: I think you described the sake in very visual terms as well as taste terms.
00:29:01
Speaker 2: I always wanted to paint.
00:29:04
Speaker 1: Oh, you did?
00:29:05
Speaker 2: Like I always wanted to dance.
00:29:07
Speaker 1: By the way, can I just interrupt you for a minute and say those splits....
00:29:12
Speaker 2: I'm still suffering.
00:29:14
Speaker 1: Don't speak.
00:29:17
Speaker 2: I have no skills.
00:29:18
Speaker 1: The whole performance was a kind of revelation of what you could do with a part and to take it. But when you came and did those splits.
00:29:26
Speaker 2: I did it as a joke.
00:29:28
Speaker 1: That was great.
00:29:29
Speaker 2: It was like we all gasped. What was that like? Yeah, I think I'm quite, I make more sense in movement, I think. You know, it's taken me a long time to get used to being sort of in a two-dimensional medium or being photographed is always, I have to sort of trick myself into feeling comfortable. But, yeah, it ended up being quite physical.
00:29:52
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. And conducting is physical.
00:29:55
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's dancing, actually.
00:29:57
Speaker 1: It's dancing, your arms, your.
00:30:00
Speaker 2: Legs, the splits. I mean, there's an amazing choreographer who also dances called Xavier Leroy. He watched Simon Rattle conduct The Rite of Spring. And when he can, I mean, every strand of hair is flying. He's such an incredible creature when he conducts. And he took that, his act of conducting, and turned it into a piece of choreography. And actually when I was playing Ta in Todd Field's film.
00:30:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that.
00:30:30
Speaker 2: I watched that piece of, that dance, and it was totally freeing. And so I saw it, the conducting, as a kinetic response like dance is to music or to silence, you know, and so I found that quite liberating.
00:30:44
Speaker 1: When we think about food, we think about food as you talked about your father and the memory of him in Australia... entertaining as a 13 year old and then tasting a delicious tomato and then what we've just said right now food is all that but it's also comfort and so i was wondering if you could just tell me before you say goodbye what if you need comfort if you do want food as comfort is there something that you would reach for or cook or buy.
00:31:13
Speaker 2: I think in the end it would be it would be a soup hmm It would be a soup. And I think really good soups often take time to make. So first of all, you have to do the onions and the garlic, and then you have to put certain vegetables, root vegetables in first, and you have to let it simmer. And I'm quite impatient, which is why I'm really relishing starting a garden, because it's teaching me humility and patience.
00:31:43
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
00:31:44
Speaker 2: But there's something about making a soup that you just have to let it sit and you have to let it rest. And there's one soup, talking about food waste, which I can't stand. I get ribbed a lot about it by my boys. But, you know, that two or three day old bread that is otherwise going to go into the bin. You chop it up and you make that fantastic soup with tomatoes and onions and it makes the bread go quite cheesy.
00:32:12
Speaker 1: Yes, they call it papa pomodoro.
00:32:14
Speaker 2: Yes, I love it.
00:32:15
Speaker 1: It's a version of it, yeah.
00:32:17
Speaker 2: And I made it over the weekend because we had a lot of white bread that was some.
00:32:20
Speaker 1: They do papa pomodoro in Tuscany in the summer when the tomatoes are very ripe. And then in the winter they actually call it ribollita, which means a kind of... Basic minestrone, very often it just has cavolo nero, which is a kind of cabbage.
00:32:34
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, delicious.
00:32:35
Speaker 1: And beans, and then you add the bread, and then it expands, and then it's called bibolita. It's one of my favorite soups.
00:32:41
Speaker 2: We have cavolo nero in the garden, so I'll make it.
00:32:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's good.
00:32:45
Speaker 2: Thank you, Kate.
00:32:47
Speaker 1: Thank you.
00:32:47
Speaker 2: Thank you.
00:32:48
Speaker 1: It was really lovely having you. Bye.
Speaker 1: People always ask me who my dream guest would be on Ruthie's Table 4. Cate Blanchett has always been top of that list, an actor, director, and a vocal activist for values and ideas close to my heart. A few weeks ago, Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach took me to see Cate in Thomas Ostermeyer's radical new version of the book. of The Seagull at the Barbican Theatre, after a stunning performance. We all went for a small supper next door, talking about Chekhov, her role in Tar, and the serpentine party that she's co-hosting this summer. And as always, family. Kate lives with purpose in the countryside in East Sussex, keeping bees, growing vegetables in her garden, cooking and eating seasonally. Here we are at the River Cafe on the beautiful first day of summer, The sun is shining, the chefs are cooking, and the garden is flowering. Kate and I are going to talk about our shared love of food, artists, children, and a lot more. A dream come true indeed.
00:01:09
Speaker 2: Aw. Thank you. I'm glad I got out of bed this morning.
00:01:12
Speaker 1: So I'm glad you did too.
00:01:15
Speaker 2: You're right, a little piece of sunshine has just come onto the table. It's coming through.
00:01:19
Speaker 1: That was such an incredible night. How do you feel post-sequel? What does it feel like? You did it for how many weeks?
00:01:26
Speaker 2: It was so short. We were at the Barbican, so it was six weeks. And I mean, I've known Thomas Ostemeyer for years and years and years. You know, he's running the Shower Booner and my husband and I were running the Sydney Theatre Company. So our paths continually crisscrossed. But we never actually worked together. And I think the thing, maybe it's a little bit like a dinner party. When you do Chekhov, it's all about the ensemble and the alchemy that happens or doesn't between the actors. And I've always done Chekhov with a loose ensemble of actors, whereas Thomas was assembling all of us.
00:01:58
Speaker 1: A few people had worked together before.
00:02:00
Speaker 2: I'd worked with Tom Burke on Soderbergh's Black Bag relatively recently before the production started. But a lot of us didn't know one another. And he was able to bring us all together, all from totally wildly different approaches. And I The thing I miss most is the people. I love them all so much.
00:02:21
Speaker 1: People here are like my family. You know, we work together, we go out, or we celebrate, or sometimes we also just work. But it's a very strong attachment when you're working together and creating something. Here it's every day. You know, in a way, they're parallels. The curtain goes up at 12.30 and the curtain goes up with you at 7.30, don't you think? Totally. anticipation. You're dependent, very dependent on each other.
00:02:49
Speaker 2: And also I think you're, you're part of something that, and this is what maybe the patrons don't realize, what an audience doesn't realize is that whatever happens in the kitchen will be totally influenced by the people who come through that, who through your front door. And so the evening is a thing, you know, you know what's on the menu, but you don't know how it's going to unfold. You don't know what people are going to order. And, and so it's, it's fresh every time. And I, you know, being quite shy. I mean, I don't know if you are, but you get to know people by doing something together. Collaborating, being together.
00:03:24
Speaker 1: When we see actors on stage singing or the incredible gift that is given to us as an audience to be able to have that, and Britain has always been known for that.
00:03:38
Speaker 2: Exactly.
00:03:38
Speaker 1: Do you feel that this is something that is threatened now, that the priority of culture in this country is that? being lessened. There was a time when there was money for the arts, you know, there was money for building a theatre. And I know that you are an activist. I know that you're engaged in political life. And what are you feeling about right now in terms of.
00:04:00
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, people talk about activism, you know, that it's political, but I think it's engaging in things that have been politicised. And it always is strange to me when we talk about the arts, this word elite is used and And if you think about an elite sports person, that term means that they have spent many, many years perfecting their ability, that they are at the top of their game. And that when we talk about the arts, yes, they are elite in the sense that those people who put those shows on are exceptional at what they do. It's not for an elite person. I think the elite these days are the people who don't pay tax.
00:04:43
Speaker 1: I agree.
00:04:43
Speaker 2: And if they did pay tax, then all of these wonderful offerings, cultural offerings, that Churchill said, what are we fighting for if we're not fighting for culture and the access to it, is that then they would be more accessible to people. And so there's this, I think it's a linguistic language division that's often created between people and culture.
00:05:06
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:05:07
Speaker 2: And I think that you, I mean, that's the joy of touring a play is that you will tour to a regional area. You'll do it in a major city. You'll do it in one country, in another country. And I think the reaction that people have in various different locations will feed the work and hopefully those people will be fed by the work. The first time I went to, you know, a gallery and saw, you know, a major work of portraiture, It changed the way, you know, at my little state primary school, the way I thought about the world. And dance does that. Music does that. But we're told that it's only for a certain set of people. And I think that's because access is not afforded them.
00:05:49
Speaker 1: Tell me about the early days of being in your family. Did you have sisters and brothers?
00:05:53
Speaker 2: Yes, I have an older brother and a younger sister. And my father was from Texas.
00:06:00
Speaker 1: Where were you born?
00:06:01
Speaker 2: I was born in Melbourne in Australia. Yeah, we were going to move to the States really early on and they decided, I think, for our education that they wanted us to be in Australia. So we stayed there.
00:06:15
Speaker 1: How did he come from Australia to, I mean, from Texas to Australia?
00:06:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was in the, he was the child of two alcoholic parents and so he grew up, I think, killing birds in a park and it would never happen now. But, you know, a gentleman saw him and took him off the streets and educated him and put him through high school. And the minute he could, he wanted to get out. So he lied about his age, joined the Navy, and he went to the Antarctic. And I think he decided to become a Unitarian minister. And my mother, who was at Teachers College in Melbourne... he well his his ship broke down leaving the antarctic so they had to dock in melbourne and there was a teacher's dance and they didn't have enough men so they went down to the port and then he my father came and my mother and he danced all night and then he left three weeks later and they corresponded for two years and then he decided to come out it was quite old-fashioned it's a little bit like this wonderful patrick white novel called vos where these uh an explorer. And I can't remember what she did. I think she might have also been a teacher. They fell in love, but didn't consummate it or declaim it to one another. And then they corresponded through letters. And that's sort of what my mother and father did. And then they decided that he'd come out and get married.
00:07:43
Speaker 1: That's a story of adventure and chance and Yeah. Pursuing an idea.
00:07:50
Speaker 2: Or two lonely people who found one another.
00:07:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the idea of the harbor and meeting and the dancing all night.
00:07:57
Speaker 2: We celebrated Halloween and Thanksgiving, so I grew up with pumpkin pie and pecan pie and ribs.
00:08:03
Speaker 1: So did he make them, or did he teach your mom how to make them? Yeah, both.
00:08:08
Speaker 2: And so, yeah, we grew up with quite a lot of American black-eyed peas, all of those things, so.
00:08:14
Speaker 1: Did you ever go back to Texas? Did you ever visit?
00:08:17
Speaker 2: Yes, sadly. He died when he was 40, and we had planned a trip back to Texas. And he died in January, and we were going in May. And so we made the trip anyway and went and met his sort of diaspora of his family.
00:08:34
Speaker 1: Yeah. And so growing up, there was a sense of the American influence. There was Australian influence as well.
00:08:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, my grandmother was, I think, a Scottish. And you said your grandmother lived with you?
00:08:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, she did. She lived with you and made the sandwiches?
00:08:47
Speaker 2: Made the sandwiches. I think she was a Scottish descent, so everything was boiled within an inch of its life. And at that point in Australia, avocados were... you know, incredibly exotic mangoes.
00:08:59
Speaker 1: Wait, who are we talking about, Kate?
00:09:00
Speaker 2: We're talking about a long time ago, Ruthie. So in the... No, in the 80s. In the 80s, okay. And so because of the fruit fly, there were quite strong demarcations between what was grown in Queensland, what was grown in New South Wales. Nothing ever came over from Western Australia to Victoria. If you had fruit and you were crossing between Victoria and New South Wales, you had to leave the fruit, the vegetables at the border. So there was no tropical fruit that even came down i mean i have the utmost respect for for farmers it's a i mean in any in any country but but in australia it's really it's very hard it's such an ancient land um and i think because for so long we have marginalized indigenous understandings of the way way to grow and and collect food.
00:09:51
Speaker 1: Tell me about the indigenous experience.
00:09:53
Speaker 2: Of Well, I mean, there were so many hundreds of language groups and cultures that have been wiped out through you know, a white invasion. I mean, you can't call it any other, name it any other way. But I think we've not grown as a white culture through that wisdom and understanding of the land. And so the food bowl in so many parts of Australia is actually in the wrong place. Water is a scarce commodity. I mean, brand Australia when I was growing up was multiculturalism. And so once we, you know, really embraced the wave of Vietnamese and Lebanese and Greek and Italian immigrants and refugees, our cuisine became extraordinary. And now it's been exported to the world as Pan Pacific or Asia Pacific and So it's, but at the time when I was growing up, my mother was an excellent cook.
00:10:43
Speaker 1: So tell me about, so your mother was left with three children. Yeah. She was what, in her 30s?
00:10:49
Speaker 2: She was, yeah, 39.
00:10:50
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:10:50
Speaker 2: And my brother was 11, I was 10.
00:10:52
Speaker 1: Was she working?
00:10:53
Speaker 2: My sister was eight.
00:10:53
Speaker 1: Did she have a job?
00:10:54
Speaker 2: Well, she had to go back to work as a teacher. As a teacher. And so she taught home economics. So our kitchen was fantastic.
00:11:02
Speaker 1: Describe it.
00:11:02
Speaker 2: Yeah. What was it like? A lot of Italian cooking and a lot of fresh seafood. and salads, and that was not what people were eating at the time. But I think the thing when there was a lot of grief in my house, so the meals were delicious, but they were silent. And that's what's been one of the great joys, I think, for my side of the family, but also for me, is my husband came from this enormous Catholic family. So the food may not have been.
00:11:37
Speaker 2: But they had massively noisy, loud, raucous meals. And my husband's an excellent cook. And actually the first time I met my brother-in-law was at Christmas. And I came towards the house and people were screaming with laughter. And I don't know what the meal is, but it's a medieval recipe where you stuff a goose.
00:12:01
Speaker 1: With a pheasant, with a pigeon, with a quail.
00:12:04
Speaker 2: And what had happened was he'd opened the oven and And the thing, it shot out and it telescoped out onto the wall. So there goes Christmas lunch. The smallest thing that was in there. Yeah, so they were madly trying to stuff it back in.
00:12:18
Speaker 1: I know that recipe. I mean, I've never done it myself, but I know that.
00:12:21
Speaker 2: It's dangerous.
00:12:22
Speaker 1: Have you ever done that? Do you know that? It's really dangerous. That's so funny. Because probably as they're cooking, they... expand expand and then therefore yeah that's hilarious yeah so they're wildly adventurous with their with their cooking when you met him was it um.
00:12:36
Speaker 2: My husband and i got to we've been married god we got married very quickly actually in 97 it wasn't a shotgun wedding we didn't have children for quite some time but um i think we're 28 yeah.
00:12:48
Speaker 1: So you were embraced by this But going back to yours, you grew up with your father in the beginning cooking, and I assume your mother both cooked, and you had meals and barbecues and people. And then it became a kind of sadness, and then there was a joy. It was just very silent. And did that change?
00:13:11
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I was thinking about it, maybe because I was coming to speak to you. But then... I've always loved the dinner party. And so what I would do is I wouldn't go to a lot of parties as a teenager. I would have dinner parties.
00:13:24
Speaker 1: Would you? Yeah.
00:13:25
Speaker 2: So I would, where everyone would dress up, my girlfriends would all dress up and we'd, you know, we'd all cook something and we'd, you know, I don't know who we were trying to ape or what we were trying to ape. There was a lot of sorbet inside orange cups and I don't know. And I grew up with this Salvador Dali cookbook. You know, the one that he'd done and he'd done the illustrations.
00:13:44
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes.
00:13:45
Speaker 2: And I cooked recipes from that.
00:13:47
Speaker 1: This is what I really like.
00:13:48
Speaker 2: Crazy.
00:13:48
Speaker 1: I have to admit that I didn't ever make anything from it.
00:13:51
Speaker 2: That was where I cooked my first snails.
00:13:53
Speaker 1: A surrealist cookbook, a surrealist recipe.
00:13:55
Speaker 2: But it was hard in Melbourne at the time to find a pheasant. But brave of you to do that. Yeah, I tried. I tried. So, yeah, I cooked and tried to decorate the dishes from the Salvador Dali cookbook.
00:14:07
Speaker 1: What age was this? Probably about 13. So that's, yeah, because I often talk to people who, when I say, okay, so you grew up in this nurturing home with a grandmother and a mother and cooking, and then what happened when you left home? And very often people say, then when I had my own flat and I started buying local ingredients and I started cooking. But 13 is an early age to do that and to entertain.
00:14:31
Speaker 2: I think it's because it was my father's book. He worked in advertising, and it must have been a gift that he was given one year. Yeah, so it was sort of trying to.
00:14:41
Speaker 1: Oh, the Salvador Dali? Yeah.
00:14:42
Speaker 2: Not that I can remember him ever cooking from it, but it was something of his that maybe I gravitated towards that. And also, the surrealism seemed to make sense to me. I had very vivid nightmares and dreams as a child, and so his work and the surrealism movement as a whole kind of really unlocked something for me.
00:15:06
Speaker 1: Tell me about cooking the dough for soul. What was that?
00:15:09
Speaker 2: Well, I'd actually deboned a soul in Alfonso Cuaron's disclaimer. And I don't know whether he thought my deboning was too good or that the scene was too static or whatever, but he then threw a cat onto the bench. So I was trying to debone and cook the soul with a cat on the bench.
00:15:30
Speaker 1: What did the cat do?
00:15:31
Speaker 2: She tried to eat the fish.
00:15:33
Speaker 1: So having cooked the Dover sole, filleted the Dover sole, would you like to tell everyone listening how to make roasted Dover sole?
00:15:42
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, come to the River Cafe and have the Dover sole cooked for you.
00:15:49
Speaker 1: And also, you know, you can change it in any way you want. People read it and add their own advice. Or you can just read it, whatever you like.
00:15:56
Speaker 2: There's something I was thinking, too, about the way you cook. Someone said this, and I'm going to phrase it so badly, that Chopin apparently said that the great reward of having played many, many notes over many, many years is simplicity. And I think that is something extraordinary about the way you cook. And maybe it's for this recipe. So the more Dover soles you cook, the better you'll cook them. Dover sole with capers and marjoram. Two tablespoons salted capers. Extra virgin olive oil. But put that on the fish before you put it in the pan. That's what I learned today. A bunch of fresh marjoram leaves, four whole Dover sole weighing 350 to 400 grams each, scaled and cleaned by someone at the Roofer Cafe. One lemon cut in half and put in the pan eventually. Put the capers on. This is the method. Put the capers in a sieve and rinse under cold running water. Leave to soak in cold water for 40 minutes, then rinse again. Preheat the oven, 230 degrees Celsius. Brush a large, flat oven tray with extra virgin olive oil. Scatter half of the marjoram leaves over the tray. Season. Place the fish on top, side by side, little buddies who are about to be eaten. Season, then scatter the remaining marjoram. and the capers over. Drizzle with olive oil. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes. Test with the point of a sharp knife or a fork inserted into the thickest part of the sole. If cooked, the flesh should come away from the bone. Don't eat it yet. Squeeze the lemon over the fish and serve with any juices from the pan. Delicious.
00:17:46
Speaker 1: So simple, isn't it?
00:17:47
Speaker 2: I know, but I didn't realize if you oil the fish first, of course it doesn't stick to the pan.
00:17:52
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:17:53
Speaker 2: I know. And marjoram, I would have put parsley, which is a bit more, the marjoram is just so flavorsome.
00:17:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's very perfuming, the marjoram. But then again, we do it with rosemary. Sometimes we put a whole branch of rosemary under the sole when we cook it. We do it, we do parsley. And then the capers, the saltiness of the capers.
00:18:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was delicious.
00:18:15
Speaker 1: Or maybe I'll just do an anchovy, one anchovy over it.
00:18:17
Speaker 2: I love anchovies.
00:18:18
Speaker 1: You love anchovies too. I do too.
00:18:20
Speaker 2: They're much maligned. I think it's probably one of my favorite fish. Yeah.
00:18:24
Speaker 1: It's cool. We use them in Italian cooking. They are like a herb. Yeah. They're like the seasoning. So we make, right now we're doing white asparagus or green, and we make an anchovy butter and it kind of melts over it. I've never done it because asparagus is my favorite.
00:18:40
Speaker 2: Do you love asparagus?
00:18:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love asparagus. Do you grow it?
00:18:43
Speaker 2: Yes, I have been.
00:18:44
Speaker 1: Are you getting it now? Yeah.
00:18:45
Speaker 2: Although we're changing. We had a really tiny little garden. We used to have pigs. And then the pigs went because we realized we weren't pig farmers. And they're too intelligent. And there was something just... Charlotte's web.
00:18:58
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:18:59
Speaker 2: And actually, it was my Machiavellian plan to turn my family vegetarian. I thought if we get pigs, then the children will realize that the sausages they eat, the ham, the bacon... It all comes from these pigs. And my now 17-year-old called himself the pig whisperer, and he used to go up and he used to hug the pigs and stroke the pigs. And, of course, then when they got turned into sausages, and, you know, ethically and as humanely as you can, I was sitting down. I was a little bit cruel. They were sitting down, putting the ketchup on their sausages, and I said, you know, this used to be Benson and Hedges. My husband called them Benson and Hedges because he said they were going to be smoked. It was a little bit... bit off but anyway and they said this is Benson and Hedges and my now 17 year old said delicious so it didn't work so then the pigs went and so then.
00:19:49
Speaker 1: We I'd want to be on a lifeboat with that boy.
00:19:52
Speaker 2: No, he's actually incredibly kind and sweet. But he's a sensualist, so he's very in the moment. And so then that little vegetable garden where we're growing asparagus and we had raspies, we had a whole hodgepodge. We then decided to build a walled garden. So that has gone to fallow. So the asparagus has kind of now gone to seed.
00:20:13
Speaker 1: So you get great fish from the coast? Yes.
00:20:15
Speaker 2: In Forest Row, there's a fantastic fishmonger, Vesey's. So we get our fish from there. And we used to live in Brighton, you know. And mushy peas. That's what I discovered when I came to this. I love a mushy pea. I love mushy peas. There was one fish and chip shop. on the tram stop near my school, my high school. And I discovered, I was going out with a skinhead at the time and he took me there and I had my first mushy peas and chips.
00:20:46
Speaker 1: So I like mushy peas. And they're not, those don't need to be like freshly picked peas, do they?
00:20:53
Speaker 2: They're better if they are, let's face it. But the first ones I had were not.
00:20:57
Speaker 1: Did you enjoy going out to eat? Was that something in your culture that you'd go to eat for a special occasion?
00:21:04
Speaker 2: We did when my father was alive. We had a lot of Asian restaurants. And my father, I never really got to speak to him about this as an adult. But he had a lot of Japanese lithographs and books of haiku poetry. And I think he must have traveled through Japan quite a lot. So there weren't very many Japanese restaurants when I was growing up. But I remember going to several with him and eating a lot of Chinese food. The first time I had fried ice cream, it was just miraculous. Or the first time I had raw fish was amazing. And I just loved the beauty and precision of the Japanese culture. And so I remember those experiences. And when I went to drama school, I didn't have a penny, but a girl who was in the directing course was married to a QC.
00:21:51
Speaker 1: This is in Melbourne.
00:21:53
Speaker 2: In Sydney. In Sydney. Yeah, the National Institute. And we used to sneak away and go and have sake and a little bit of sashimi at lunchtime. And that seemed so, yeah, so chic and, you know, extravagant.
00:22:09
Speaker 1: Do you remember when you started acting how that married with your wife? How did that affect your food? I mean, did it? Did you eat a different way? Did you go out to more restaurants?
00:22:18
Speaker 2: I mean, my first job actually out of drama school, I worked in the catering truck on a television show because I wasn't working as an actor. And it was my first entry into the film world. So I didn't, it was like this distraction that was happening that was so frustrating being in the catering truck trying to get breakfast out and lunch out and the afternoon, whatever it was called, that we had to keep stopping because they were doing this annoying thing called filming. They kept turning over. It was like, guys, how are we going to get the cheesecake ready? And then eventually I ended up on the other side. But I had a real love and respect for the difficulty of working in the catering van and how it can be thankless sometimes.
00:23:07
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00:23:35
Speaker 2: Your order now. When I came here, we'd always wanted to have a garden. We'd always wanted to grow things. I've got brown thumbs. My mother and my grandmother had very, very green thumbs. And now my mother lives with us.
00:23:53
Speaker 1: I was saying a brown thumb as well. A green thumb?
00:23:57
Speaker 2: Being grow well and I touch something and it just goes.
00:24:01
Speaker 1: I bet that's not true. No, it is.
00:24:03
Speaker 2: But this is changing slowly. And so it's been so fantastic. I think, too, because I grew up with my grandmother... Now that my mother's living with us. Has your mother lived with you? Yeah.
00:24:13
Speaker 1: My mother lived with us.
00:24:14
Speaker 2: Oh, really?
00:24:14
Speaker 1: It's great, isn't it?
00:24:15
Speaker 2: It's great having a multi-generational household.
00:24:18
Speaker 1: It's great. I was saying there was always, my son when he was little used to try and wake us up. We'd say, you know, we're going back to sleep. And then we'd hear him go downstairs. He'd say to his brother. Ruth, can you wake up? And he'd say, no, I want to go back to sleep. And then we'd go all the way down to my mom and she'd open the door and say, hi, Bo, want to.
00:24:35
Speaker 2: Make a cake?
00:24:36
Speaker 1: You know, it's like 7 in the morning. There's always somebody there.
00:24:40
Speaker 2: What every child wants to hear. But I know, you probably know this with your grandmother, is that you talk so differently to your grandparents than you do to your parents and that you can't tell everything to one person. Sometimes, you know, we are different things with different people.
00:24:57
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:24:57
Speaker 2: But anyway so having my mum in.
00:24:59
Speaker 1: The house has been great so she gardens.
00:25:01
Speaker 2: Yes she does she's got her own garden but also together where we've just reinstated a walled garden that used to be there because the house we're living in was was derelict for many many years and so when we part in lockdown we realized that under a lot of rubble and mud there was a greenhouse so we we restored it and then We saw an aerial shot of the house or the block of land in the 40s. And so we've rebuilt along the lines of where the wall garden used to be. And it's a learning curve. It keeps you humble. You must have a garden.
00:25:33
Speaker 1: What does it teach you, would you say?
00:25:34
Speaker 2: Humility. And patience.
00:25:37
Speaker 1: Because you don't have control over everything. Yes.
00:25:39
Speaker 2: And the weather. Yeah. And also, I mean, I think it's just that thing of knowing that certain moths are going to come. And so we're not having a lot of luck with broccoli and cauliflower, but Brussels sprouts are okay.
00:25:49
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:25:50
Speaker 2: And so you cook with what you've... what you gather that day.
00:25:53
Speaker 1: So when you said we were going to do this today, I thought, well, Kate will come and we'll have a conversation and a sake tasting. So how did sake come into it? How did this happen? This is so cool.
00:26:07
Speaker 2: Well, it started a long time ago. I mean, my mother and father drank sake when we went out to Japanese restaurants, and that was to have a drink in a tiny little cup. I mean, I found all of the elements of So beautiful. And I've always loved ceramics since I was obsessed with the accoutrement around it. And then I worked with a Japanese skincare company. This is years ago, for about 15 years. And we would go to Japan a lot. And the active ingredients in the skincare was found during the rice polishing process. Because obviously, and this one is a Junmai Dagingo, which is a highly polished rice. And that made the people who were working with the rice, their hands were just like infant's hands. Their skin was amazing. But as a result, I went to a lot of breweries and I got really fascinated with the fermentation process and the fact that sake is brewed like a beer but drunk like a wine. And I thought, well, I often drink it when I'm having Italian food because there's a purity and simplicity, particularly to the way you serve it up, that also is quite twinned to the purity and simplicity of Japanese food. And I thought I would love to be part of trying to bring that to Western cuisine. Yeah. I have to pour for you. You're going to pour for us?
00:27:33
Speaker 1: What is the ritual? Is there a ritual?
00:27:35
Speaker 2: Oh, it's at the right temperature.
00:27:36
Speaker 1: You don't drink it hot.
00:27:39
Speaker 2: No, but the first time I had.
00:27:40
Speaker 1: When we go to a Japanese restaurant, they'll say, do you want it hot or do you want it cold, right?
00:27:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, the first time I had sake, it was hot, but because this is such a, The more highly polished it is, and this is really highly polished. It's polished to 35% for what that's worth. It has such a refined flavor that you don't want to heat it because it would take all that complication away. Beautiful complication.
00:28:07
Speaker 1: And you said to serve it in a wine glass.
00:28:08
Speaker 2: Well, yeah. I've always drunk it in a little.
00:28:14
Speaker 2: Vessel the ceramic but there's something about you can you can smell it better i think and it doesn't feel so much like a spirit.
00:28:22
Speaker 1: Yeah that's nice to you yeah it's very fragrant so nice that you're here to morisaki together and do you go to japan do you go where they make it have you.
00:28:32
Speaker 2: Been yes yeah it's been amazing actually being part of the um the the process of of of seeing it made and And it's aged in a very cold environment too.
00:28:46
Speaker 1: This is so good.
00:28:47
Speaker 2: It's really good.
00:28:48
Speaker 1: How would you describe it?
00:28:49
Speaker 2: I think it's fruity, but it's not too sweet.
00:28:52
Speaker 1: It isn't sweet.
00:28:53
Speaker 2: It's great with asparagus, pineapple-y.
00:28:55
Speaker 1: I think you described the sake in very visual terms as well as taste terms.
00:29:01
Speaker 2: I always wanted to paint.
00:29:04
Speaker 1: Oh, you did?
00:29:05
Speaker 2: Like I always wanted to dance.
00:29:07
Speaker 1: By the way, can I just interrupt you for a minute and say those splits....
00:29:12
Speaker 2: I'm still suffering.
00:29:14
Speaker 1: Don't speak.
00:29:17
Speaker 2: I have no skills.
00:29:18
Speaker 1: The whole performance was a kind of revelation of what you could do with a part and to take it. But when you came and did those splits.
00:29:26
Speaker 2: I did it as a joke.
00:29:28
Speaker 1: That was great.
00:29:29
Speaker 2: It was like we all gasped. What was that like? Yeah, I think I'm quite, I make more sense in movement, I think. You know, it's taken me a long time to get used to being sort of in a two-dimensional medium or being photographed is always, I have to sort of trick myself into feeling comfortable. But, yeah, it ended up being quite physical.
00:29:52
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. And conducting is physical.
00:29:55
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's dancing, actually.
00:29:57
Speaker 1: It's dancing, your arms, your.
00:30:00
Speaker 2: Legs, the splits. I mean, there's an amazing choreographer who also dances called Xavier Leroy. He watched Simon Rattle conduct The Rite of Spring. And when he can, I mean, every strand of hair is flying. He's such an incredible creature when he conducts. And he took that, his act of conducting, and turned it into a piece of choreography. And actually when I was playing Ta in Todd Field's film.
00:30:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that.
00:30:30
Speaker 2: I watched that piece of, that dance, and it was totally freeing. And so I saw it, the conducting, as a kinetic response like dance is to music or to silence, you know, and so I found that quite liberating.
00:30:44
Speaker 1: When we think about food, we think about food as you talked about your father and the memory of him in Australia... entertaining as a 13 year old and then tasting a delicious tomato and then what we've just said right now food is all that but it's also comfort and so i was wondering if you could just tell me before you say goodbye what if you need comfort if you do want food as comfort is there something that you would reach for or cook or buy.
00:31:13
Speaker 2: I think in the end it would be it would be a soup hmm It would be a soup. And I think really good soups often take time to make. So first of all, you have to do the onions and the garlic, and then you have to put certain vegetables, root vegetables in first, and you have to let it simmer. And I'm quite impatient, which is why I'm really relishing starting a garden, because it's teaching me humility and patience.
00:31:43
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
00:31:44
Speaker 2: But there's something about making a soup that you just have to let it sit and you have to let it rest. And there's one soup, talking about food waste, which I can't stand. I get ribbed a lot about it by my boys. But, you know, that two or three day old bread that is otherwise going to go into the bin. You chop it up and you make that fantastic soup with tomatoes and onions and it makes the bread go quite cheesy.
00:32:12
Speaker 1: Yes, they call it papa pomodoro.
00:32:14
Speaker 2: Yes, I love it.
00:32:15
Speaker 1: It's a version of it, yeah.
00:32:17
Speaker 2: And I made it over the weekend because we had a lot of white bread that was some.
00:32:20
Speaker 1: They do papa pomodoro in Tuscany in the summer when the tomatoes are very ripe. And then in the winter they actually call it ribollita, which means a kind of... Basic minestrone, very often it just has cavolo nero, which is a kind of cabbage.
00:32:34
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, delicious.
00:32:35
Speaker 1: And beans, and then you add the bread, and then it expands, and then it's called bibolita. It's one of my favorite soups.
00:32:41
Speaker 2: We have cavolo nero in the garden, so I'll make it.
00:32:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's good.
00:32:45
Speaker 2: Thank you, Kate.
00:32:47
Speaker 1: Thank you.
00:32:47
Speaker 2: Thank you.
00:32:48
Speaker 1: It was really lovely having you. Bye.
