Bonus: Wine with Ab Rogers

0:00Speaker 1:Ruthie's Table four is now a book. Paul McCartney, Michael ka Kamala Harris, David Beckham, Tina fey Elton John and many more. It's full of stories, beautifully designed, and a celebration of the way food connects us all. It's available now wherever you buy your books. Ruthie's Table four brought to you by Sky and Montclair. I know from a very early age, going with you to Italy, you were really interested in the vineyard, in the vineyard. Yeah, you know that vineyards were part of you know, exploration for you, getting to know people who made wine, how they made the wine, whether it was in Greek Island or whether it was in Chianti or whether it was in Piamonte.

0:53Speaker 1:That your interest in wine came from the very from the from the grape. So would you like to talk about what your relationship with wine.

1:02Speaker 2:I mean for me when you make a tajin, I find it really fascinating because you can't stir it in a way that for me, it's very different from Italian So you have to you have to imagine all the different layers and you're going to put it in the fire for four hours and how those layers are going to be interacted during the time, and wine is kind of like that. You need to imagine all the things that's going to happen to that wine when you pick it. How ripe the grapes are, Are you going to let them stay on there? Are you going to allow the skin to kind of to stay on a little bit, what it's going to sit in and all the way through them. The wine takes memories from those moments. But maybe the most important is the soil that it's grown in.

1:42Speaker 2:And I think we see in this. You know, it's amazing what world wine is doing. But for me in Australia and in California, we had these really rich soil and I think the grape's going to a bit lazy. It's like, God, this is really easy to grow. And so you know, I'm just going to see here and sure I can be high alcohol and I can be round, and I can get many points, but there's no tension, there's no there's no fight. You know, when you're on a volcano, particularly like Lapama, which is erupted, and you have an incredible wine making there called Victoria, you have these these grapes that are growing against all odds. You know, they're they're fighting through the volcanic soil and the volcanic ash to make their foundations, and they're really working hard.

2:21Speaker 2:And when the grape comes out and it's been got trade winds blowing on it, it's this incredible grape that has fought through all of this. And then you kind of put it in, you know, in glass rather than oak, so you're kind of really holding on to the to the to the flavors, and you know, you this one woman runs around these twenty different parcels. She has no employers. She's kind of her backgrounder is art history, and she's in Lapama, that's kind of one of the smallest Canary islands.

2:51Speaker 2:Like Legs the Anchor and these these kind of ancient these ancient breaks also very very old old roots, and the whole influence of the of the volcanic soil makes it's very very mineral wines. I mean like in Etna there's Envenette who do really interesting wine on the other islands. But also it's what the wine's put in. I mean, oak makes our wine very rich. But let's you know, we go back to the Romans and they're putting in terra cotta, and you know, it's like the way you put clay against plastic and it looks like plastic. When you put the wine in the terra cotta, it takes on this very matte influences. And so you get these you know, I like wines which I like, I don't like the really heavy and I love Spanish wine. The modern wine I find the old rocket can be a little bit too heavy. Piermonti is fantastic for the for the for the reds.

3:41Speaker 1:And so when you go to cook and you're you know, you're spending this time in the market thinking about how you're going to cook a whole fish, how are you going to you know, make the vegetables in a certain way. Are you thinking at that point of the wine that you're going.

3:56Speaker 2:To be drinking? Definitely, I'm thinking, you know, and I think how you know, to have a volcanic red with a turb it's fantastic because it kind of that it's very very savory insult. You've all the sea, the salt from the sea blowing onto the grapes, and this kind of slightly salty, savory light red wine really cuts perfectly with this with that kind of mulsified fats that you have in the turbots.

4:22Speaker 1:I know that when you're coming into the River caf you really take great care of the wine that you're going to have with your food. When you come to our house, go downstairs, and you really come up and say, Ruthie, this is what we should be drinking tonight. This wine is something that will make the food taste different, and you know the food will take the wine.

4:40Speaker 2:Also. I think it's interesting the stress when you're cooking for certain people and how that's you know, how that affects you.

4:48Speaker 1:Do you think cooking is a performance? Does it matter to you very much how the audience reacts to what you're for me?

4:53Speaker 2:Cooking is, yeah, definitely a part of performance, but it's a kind of an It's a way of expressing your love, I think to the people that you're cooking for or to an extent, and I cook behind a counter and I put food out as I'm cooking, and then someone might be peeling peas or doing doing something on the on the other side. But that energy that is going into it, the energy of the room, completely defies how the food comes out. I think to an extent, and if there's there's this kind of very positive spirit and the food comes out much more, you know, perfectly to an extent. And sometimes you can get nervous, and when you get nervous, then your kind of sixth sense goes goes out. And I think partly because have been dyslexic, I can lie in bed and you know, melt. I melt colors together and look at things, but also very much foods and smells and tastes and think about how things might go together or the things that I want to try or to do, and the kind of chemistry of these different fish fats or you know with some Thai fish oil or these kind of emulsifications and how they they go for me. That's you know, thinking of

5:55Speaker 2:you know, spend the last two days preparing for this. The opportunity just to be thinking about food, I find it, you know. Yes, I had a big design meeting and I found myself bicycling and just thinking about food, and I stop. You need to be thinking about design