Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Fantastically successful Pink Ladies - with Grace Dent

Episode Date: November 21, 2022

Jane and Fi discuss loos at motorway service stations, removing the glue from HRT patches, and how to deal with awkward supermarket encounters...They're joined by award winning food critic, columnist and broadcaster Grace Dent, to talk more about the fourth season of her podcast Comfort Eating.If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] Producer: Kate LeeTimes Radio Producer: Rosie CutlerPodcast Executive Producer: Ben Mitchell Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Right, we have to be really quick because I've got to get back for the Wales USA game. I want to have a baked potato and then I want to settle down with it. Welcome to Off Air with Jane Garvey and me, Fee Glover. So let's crack on then. Yeah, no, let's. Do you ever fancy, just fancy a baked potato? I'm very low down, aren't I? You are very low down.

I've raised my chair. So for once in my life, I'm looking down on you. I'm going to enjoy every second. No, I never really fancy a baked potato, but then when I have a baked potato, I really enjoy it. But I think you have to really, really commit to a baked potato an hour and a half before you want a baked potato. I forgot, I was going to text my daughter and say,

put the oven on and stick the potato in. I'll do that before I leave. Did you ever have that disappointment on bonfire night where you'd wrapped your tatties in tinfoil and you'd put them in the bonfire? It doesn't work, does it? It doesn't work at all. So you just get this terrible kind of charred boulder out the other side.

Also, the other thing that doesn't work, microwave baked potatoes don't ever go there. No. They're not nice. They're not nice. They end up having a moist outside, and that's not right. You want a very smooth and crackly it should be crisp potato right this one's from lindsey who says uh dear jane and fee your interview with the journalist and author sally hughes last thursday during which she talked about women's genes triggered

that's a word of our century isn't it triggered a particular memory for me which i'd like to share a few years ago i was in a supermarket and having completed my shopping, I was at the checkout packing my bags. The conveyor belt was broken, so I had to reach in front of the next customer who was standing very close to me. I don't like that. But then I saw something which caused me to stop. Now, as a wheelchair user, I'm used to life at groin level and occasionally I get to see the unexpected. And this was one of those moments. I stopped because I noticed that the customer's hair was poking out of the top of her low-waisted jeans was curling towards my bananas about 10 centimetres away. That's a sentence I never want to hear again. I faced a dilemma which I had to resolve quickly should I mention it to her and ask her to move or say nothing and very

carefully reach through the narrow gap to rescue my bananas. I chose the latter. Driving home, I tried to think what I could have said to her. And I'd be interested to know what you would have said. Thank you for your wonderful podcast. It has a warm vibe, which is very welcome. And it frequently makes me giggle. Well, Lindsay, what is the right because you're a person who knows about etiquette. You're quite posh. What would you do? I would just say, could you move out of the way, please? And then I'd give one of those looks where, you know, you looked at the offending area and then you looked at the person in the face and you looked at the offending area again and you cracked on with your business.

That's what I'd do. But I would say, could you move, please, if somebody was in my personal space? But, Lindsay, I'm very, very sorry that happened to you. It's just not nice. It isn't nice at all. And I bet you didn't really fancy the bananas by the time you got home. I was going to say, by the time you put them on your banana hammock, you'd be thinking about maybe having a peach instead, wouldn't you?

Oh, just a pear. Or even an apple. Well, I'm continuing to have fantastic success with my pink ladies. I tell you what, I've never seen such enormous pink ladies as the ones that come out of your bag every day. An apple a day keeps the doctor away and all that. And I've, you know how sometimes you just have, you just reach a really rich vein of form with a particular apple. And these are just superb at the moment. They do go on a bit. It takes you about half an hour to crunch your way through them. Are you aware of that? But I'm thinking the whole time

about the programme and about the podcast. I may appear to be just gnawing on Apple, but absolutely not. No, you nearly said we were on the wrong radio station today, love. I did lose it slightly today. I thought I was elsewhere. Previous employers. Now, Kay has a problem. I'm glad, by the way, that people are asking us to give them advice

because we are incredibly wise women. No, we're just nosy. We're also extraordinarily nosy with very limited success in our own personal lives. But nevertheless, it doesn't mean by any stretch of the imagination that we're not the best people to turn to if you need advice. Right, from Kay, who's all the way over there in New Zealand. HRT patches, Jane.

How do you get the glue off? I've tried a variety of soaps and cleansers but I draw the line at methylated spirits and nail polish remover. The guff with the box says don't irritate the skin and I find the skin gets a little irritated just by wearing the patches anyway. I wonder if theatre makeup glue might work. After all actors use false beards and moustaches in the theatre and they've got to have a comfortable way of removing them after a show, haven't they? Or should I just take it on the chin, though I think people might notice?

I suspect having a collection of slowly eroding, grey-edged, phantom skin patch marks is likely to play havoc with my love life if I ever have one again. Right, Kay. OK. in patch marks, is likely to play havoc with my love life if I ever have one again. Right, Kay. OK. Now, OK, I think I do totally get what Kay means. And I have to say, I've just used a loofah. I've just used the vigorous scrubbing with a loofah method. But doesn't that leave rather a nasty kind of raw patch after a while? Nothing wrong with that, love. Yes, well, it does a bit. But on the other hand or Kay you could just try the standing in a shower

for a slightly longer period of time and just going at it with your nails. Oh no. I'm just being honest. It's a hobby of sorts. Just clawing away bits of glue on your skin. Make sure your nails are not that long and then just go for it. Wouldn't

a little bit of baby oil or something like that work? Well, it might. Like when, you know, if you ever get home from a bad wax and there's quite a lot of wax left on you, always find baby oil wax. Or just do what I do, which is take the lozenges. Mine have a salted caramel flavour, so I have a quarter of mine.

Last thing at night, it's like a little sweetie. I think you'd be there in your bed jacket having just a quarter of mine. Last thing at night, it's like a little sweetie. I think you'd be there in your bed jacket having just a quarter of your tablet. Well, I can't take the whole... I did try and take the whole... Because you're so tiny. ...dosage. And I just couldn't work out what animal I was.

I felt like a kind of bovine... God, don't... ...lumbering camel of a thing. Listeners, I'm backing off. So I've taken it down to just a quarter, and that's suiting me just fine. Is it? OK. Well, I'm not sure we've solved that, Kay,

but I suspect that other people listening will probably have some of their own experiences that they can chuck into the mix. And also, Kay, can I say, in a rather pompous way, that if you do meet someone who you want to entertain, having a love life with, if they turn their nose up at the fact that you've got a little bit of kind of used skin,

then they're not worth having. Especially if they're male and they've got loads of hair in their ears. Yeah, and they'll have loads of, do you know what, they'll have loads and loads of body parts that they need to glue back on. So I really... I wouldn't. I'd just pass by them if they complained.

Right. Now, today, of course, was the day that England and Wales started their World Cup campaigns. Well done. Now, we're not crystal ballers, so we can't give you the Welsh result. But I've got... I'm optimistic about Wales' chances against the USA. OK, so your predictions in the office this afternoon

before the England men's game were what? I said defiantly after ten minutes, it's got nil-nil written all over it. Final score? 6-2. Grace Dent is an award-winning food critic, columnist and podcaster. Comfort Eating is now in its fourth season. That's the podcast where Grace throws open the cupboard doors and chats about life through food. She was our big

guest today and we asked her if she was a guest on her own podcast, what would she choose as her comfort eating treat? Well, it used to be oven chips with powdered gravy made in a mug with some mint sauce on it which gives you all of the joy of the roast dinner on a sunday with none of the arduous tasks of making any of it i've changed it recently i'm eating a lot of cauliflower you know that riced cauliflower leap there i'm making cauliflower leap there i'm making i'm making riced cauliflower into rice pudding with wheatabix you what i wish you hadn't asked that question for you i know look look i i advise you to follow me as a food expert it kind of gives you all of the snuggliness of a rice pudding um but with cauliflower so you're keeping those carbs down take it from me okay i don't know about you some pushback yeah i've got a little sicky burp actually at the moment just the thought of weeterbix and cauliflower well let me prevent

that from developing uh i just what i will say grace is that oven chips we haven't got a lot to celebrate in life but oven chips have significantly improved in my lifetime. They start, do you remember the originals were dire, but now you can get some really properly decent oven chips, can't you? Yeah, they've started to make them very oily and, yeah, oily and, well, salty and delicious. All the bad stuff, all the bad good stuff. and, well, salty and delicious, all the bad stuff, all the bad good stuff. And then they just freeze it, and then you can have them in the freezer,

and then you get your air fryer. Don't start me about the air fryer because having given up almost all of the vices in my life, I now walk around parties telling people how quickly you can air fry things. Oh, dear. My kind of girl. No, I like that. I like the air fryer myself. Comfort eating is an interesting thing, though, isn't it, Grace? On your podcast,

do you find that most people, you know, when they start thinking about a comfort food will automatically reach for something in their childhood, almost irrespective of if that childhood might not have been great? We remember the food, don't we, as being That childhood might not have been great. We remember the food, don't we, as being possibly better than it was. I think it's really telling how many people choose the thing that reminds them of school, school dinners, because I think that a 60s, 70s, 80s school, especially the comprehensive school day was horrible and it was it was relentlessly mean and then at 12 o'clock a bell rang and you got some sponge pudding with some pink custard yes and I think that that stays with people what's happened to that combination of chocolate sponge and pink custard? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Jay Blades was on the podcast recently and he was talking about that. He had a horrible time at school. But when at lunchtime he he used to, you know, have this amazing sponge pudding.

He would he was his eyes just came alive talking about everything they had in in the school you know those those amazing ladies in tabards serving up love yeah it's funny i mean look people come in to do comfort eating and they think they're going to talk about toasties and they end up talking about their relationship with their dad and their divorce and uh yeah we go deep we go deep. We go deep. You know what it's like. You do the same, ladies. Well, not so much these days, Grace. We're here for a little, we're here for a good time, not a long time. She lied. Tell me about the first exotic food that you ate. Oh, gosh. The first exotic food. I think the first time i ever saw absolutely posh food it

was what it was my grandmother's 50th wedding anniversary and we went to a proper slightly fancy restaurant and they had as a starter as an an option, a Florida cocktail. Ooh. Which means what? Is that chunks of pineapple? I think it was just segments of orange and pineapple. I mean, this would never happen. No, this was like 1982 in Outback Cumbria. But, yeah, I think that was – and I always remember that one of my aunties who was – you know, you've always got one of those posh aunties.

He's just a little bit posher than everybody else. And she turned up and she ordered it. And I just thought it was the epitome of glamour to to sit there and just pick a piece of a piece of grapefruit. Yeah, I had an interesting my first exotic experience because I knew you were going to you were going to ask me what mine was, Grace, was my posh auntie who wore a boiler suit, joined the SDP and gave me my first olive. Oh, word. But I'll never forget it. That's a triple whammy, isn't it? I honestly think that the first time you put an olive into your mouth, it's an absolute, it's a cornucopia of emotion, isn't it? It was a lot.

It's an absolute, it's a cornucopia of emotion, isn't it? It was a lot. It looks like a big grape and it tastes satanic just for a while and then reveals itself as something delicious. Do you think that the human palate changes through time? I mean, does the modern kind of seven-year-old offered an olive have the same experience that you would have had if you were offered an olive? Oh, gosh. I don't know.

I don't know. I mean, you definitely get modern seven-year-olds now. I mean, I go to fancy restaurants where they're still sitting up at the table at 9.45 at night eating foie gras. That's unnecessary, isn't it? eating foie gras so it's unnecessary isn't it that's he goes to somewhere like where should i say nobu for example nobu shoreditch and you go downstairs and you get the guests there who they've obviously came into britain for the evening and they've got 11 or 12 children all just sitting on one big table by themselves and each one of them's got a huge iPad and they're getting through thousands of pounds worth of sashimi. I wonder if nobody will be

annoyed at me for saying that, you know I don't care. Well done Grace, no why should you? But you started, let's talk about restaurants because I read your review, I think it was in the Guardian, was it your most recent review in the Guardian, in which you go out for a meal in Brighton which is, well it's an Italian meal that I have to say is less than satisfactory, Grace, but you're there to review the food and that's what you did. But you also say that you can't really believe that people are out there eating in such numbers, that we know that we're in recession. We know some people are having a tough time, but the people are still out there, aren't they? They absolutely are. I mean's there's a massive discrepancy between the doom and the gloom that we hear that we're all involved

with they're all telling each other these stories every day about how we're cutting back what we're cancelling how christmas is going to be tighter and smaller than ever before but then you go out on saturday night in um across the country and it's really, really busy. And it's the chains that I think are still thriving. You know, the places, you know, the Pizza Express and Wagamama's and all those places that are dependably good, you know, they're really, really busy. Look, I think it's going to be a different story in January and February.

It really will be. But right now, because we are British, we're drinking through the pain. Yes. You don't drink anymore, though, do you? I absolutely don't. No, I stopped drinking about 18 months ago. I stopped drinking.

I just, you know, I felt like I'd had enough drinks in my life. I've been drinking since I was 14. I'm from Carlisle. Well, yeah, we should say, I just, you know, I felt like I'd had enough drinks in my life. I've been drinking since I was 14. I'm from Carlisle. Well, yeah, we should say, I mean, and you drank Snakebite, Grace, notably. Look, I used to love a Snakey B, as we used to call it. Yeah, Snakebite. I was talking to Adam Kay on my podcast about this the other day, the ultimate goth drink.

Yeah, look, I'm from a background where, you know, I was drinking from an early age. I got to, I'm in my late 40s now and I decided to make some lifestyle changes because I'd had a thing and I didn't want to die of gout. That's a great line. Make that, put that on a T-shirt. Stop drinking, don't die of gout.

That wasn't what I was expecting at all. Just a cliche. Such a cliche, you know. What did she die of? She died very slowly of gout. You're listening to Off Air with Jane and Fi and we're talking to the very entertaining award-winning food critic, columnist and podcaster Grace Dent. Now we asked her for more information about buffets, buffets being the subject of her new documentary coming soon on Channel 5.

Well it comes from my deep love of the buffet. I think it's one of the happiest things known to man to open a door and find a groaning table of a choice of food. And that can be the breakfast buffet at a hotel, or it can be that buffet that you go to after a funeral where everything has been very, very, very sad and awful until that moment. And then the grief kind of changes shape slightly when you get the pile of vol-au-vons, I always think. That's when I can kind of move into the next stage. I started talking about this with Channel 5 and they said, well, do you want to go and look at some of the most high-end buffets known to man? Because it's this massive industry, especially across America.

So we started off in Britain and we started looking at places where you can go and spend, you know, £150 a head and get absolute top end bed until you're stuffed to the brim with lobster and uh seafood and caviar and then we went to vegas uh and to rhode island we were just we it's just a really joyous happy show looking about looking at how buffet brings people together and uh and makes people happy but also how do you do it? How do you actually, like the science of buffet is actually really, it's really precise. There's an algorithm of how much you put on a table so it looks like too much, but there's also not waste. So, you know, it's a show about food and me eating my way

across America and Britain, but also a show about how they do it. Sounds genius, Jane. Can I ask, is it in the very coveted Channel 5? Is it 9 o'clock at night or 8 o'clock? Because I love those Channel 5 documentaries. It's a world of wonder. It really is. What I would like is 9 o'clock.

Yes. I think 9 o'clock, I think you've had your tea. Yes. You're already wearing a loose pant. Absolutely. It's like you're in my house. You've got your feet on a poof. A cat has maybe joined you.

You've maybe got a cat with you. And you're thinking, and you flick in the channels. You go past Susan Calman or whoever else it is. And you go, oh, I quite like Grace Dent. I quite like her. i quite like her i quite like her and then you stop and you're watching me just consuming large amounts of food and you're learning something along the way about buffets well in the coveted channel 5 8 o'clock slot last night it was oldie and they were testing christmas puddings i just love honestly if any

if you're ever bored at eight o'clock or nine o'clock at night and Times Radio isn't satisfying you at that particular point, stick on Channel 5. Superb. We've got an email here. It really celebrates Britain, though. Oh, it does. It kind of, it shows us that the infrastructure of Britain is actually quite solid. It's like, here's how Greggs get past these homes. And you're like, it's quite exciting. pasties out and you're like it's quite exciting uh johnny says uh i'm not a fan of funerals in general but i do love a funeral buffet like a quiche lorraine a potato salad and those chicken

satay sticks you could even chuck a vegetable spring roll on that he says and i'd be completely happy that's nice i'm never sure though because the volvo is just not the snack you want to have in your mouth when you're trying to convey the deepest of emotions about the passing of somebody it's a feathery little thing isn't it so i mean the pastry might you might be spraying pastry yes yeah in difficult times i think it it depends on the nature of the death really i think if it's somebody who's had a really really long life um and it's a very old person that's okay but I would still reach for a sausage on a stick in that occasion always actually uh do you have some ready to rumble quotes up your sleeve when

you're writing your restaurant reviews you said this about a restaurant in London BB it's an Indian restaurant isn't it I've never been there myself I'd happily bathe in the peanut sauce, splashing it about my armpits and behind my ears before dressing without showering. I write my restaurant columns right at the last minute at about five o'clock in the morning. I wake up at five. I pour myself a pint of gold blend i open up a word a blank word column and stare at the abyss rocking for a while wishing i'd began two days early and and and it's

just the madness that comes out like i i don't i don't have anything up my sleeve and i always say that to be a restaurant critic it isn't't about being, knowing so much about food, but more being able to just sit down and describe a white room that serves pasta at least 12 times a year while still retaining your job. And then not giving it to somebody else. That's the job. And it's hard. I mean, you do it brilliantly, but as you describe, it's not easy. Here's a confession from a listener who says, I used to visit Holland regularly for work. We were always accommodated in a particular hotel with a good breakfast buffet.

Why do people do this? One of my colleagues took great delight in depositing raw eggs in the baskets full of boiled ones. He just liked to watch when somebody broke one thinking it was cooked what a weird way to get your kicks that's very strange isn't it that's very childish that i'm not sure about i can't condone that i can't i can't he's breaking the trust of the buffet isn't it what is your strangest buffet combination out of all of those international buffets that you've sampled? Some two things that you've put on your plate that you never thought it was humanly possible to see on the same piece of crockery.

I think it was at the Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, the Bacchanal, where it costs about $130 to get in there. And they have about 200 types of pudding. They have desserts, sorry, desserts. They have all these tiny little desserts. They're absolutely amazing. But they also have, they call it the steamship, which is this enormous Wagyu beef. So I think somebody in the end served me Wagyu beef

and sticky toffee pudding. Are you still battling to give up Twitter? Or have you decided to, having written a rather successful book about giving up Twitter, have you decided to abandon giving it up and you're sticking with it? I feel like if Elon Musk ran that site into the sea tomorrow, he would be doing me a favour. I'm not saying that he would be doing the world a favor. I'm sure a

lot of people get a lot of joy out of it and it does have its uses, but I don't think I'll ever get Twitter fully out of my life. I mean, I don't know. I don't know if you feel the same. It's like I open up the door to the, to the room and I scan through it and I look at it all. And, and I immediately start to feel anxious and elated and titillated in equal doses. And then I think I'm not going to look at that anymore. And I might go through a couple more weeks, but then I'm back again. And that has been going on since 2008. Wow. Yeah. And would you not be attracted by something that did everything that Twitter did, but just could guarantee that the, you know, the bad faith stuff wasn't on there no it's never going to be like

that though is it i mean it's not i don't i've said that if i if i switch on twitter at some point in the next couple of weeks and twitter's gone i am not bringing any more social media into my life i'm this this is going to be a whole new me you heard it here first i'm not going to be sitting up at three o'clock in the morning being cross at a person in Milwaukee for not having the same opinion as me. That was Grace Dent. We loved talking to her.

She had lovely manners right at the end and was incredibly kind about us. But also she was properly entertaining. So I think we'll have her back soon. Very much. I like her confidence. So everything she says, she doesn't appear to be kind of, you know, thinking it through it's just there in her head isn't it and she did look incredibly well

tell you what on the not drinking not drinking it's made me rethink yet again my decisions around alcohol consumption because grace did she say how old you think she did mention how old she was. She's 43. Right, OK. She looked incredible. And yes, she was just... Almost every word she said was pure gold. And what was it she said about gout? Giving up drink because she didn't want to die of gout? Yes, which was just a lovely line. And not, I mean, as we said in the interview, not what we were expecting at all, really.

No. No, I enjoyed talking to her. She is from Carlisle, and that's a long way up north isn't it it's even further north than liverpool so it must have been quite exciting for you to speak to somebody like grace jeez jenny sends an email saying hello jane and fee i realize your topic about favorite loos was a while ago but i'm only just catching up with and loving your new podcast i need someone to rant to about the loos at motorway services that does happen elsewhere whoever designs them seems to think that if the door doesn't catch on the actual loo, it's fine.

Often there's barely a centimetre between door and loo as the door swings open. I don't know how they think anyone is going to get into the cubicle and close the door without climbing onto the seat. To add to my contortions, they usually fix a massive loo roll holder on the wall just in the place I might otherwise have been able to squeeze myself. I can forget carrying a handbag of any size or wearing anything remotely flowing. I tend to seek out the one at the end that often has the door opening outwards or the one next to a pillar that's a bit wider.

Rant over. I'm surprised it's not a more common complaint. So I wonder how other people cope. I don't think they do. They're probably still in there, Jenny. Yeah, they probably are. For some reason reason that reminded me of when you when your children you have to take your children into the loo when they're little oh yeah my youngest daughter used to finish her business and then as soon as she was able to she'd simply open the door and leave me often on the loo exposed to everybody at the National Trust property. And I'd just be sitting there, you know, all my business around my ankles, and just sort of say, oh, hello, hello,

while she'd be busily washing her hands. Just extraordinary. I would have thought they'd have a wider toilet facility at the National Trust property you'd be visiting. I haven't been torn recently. It's funny how you... Are there any up north, Jane? Oh, she's a silly old cow. Ask me who I saw at Warrington Bank Key Station.

No, I don't want to, Max. You've been very rude. You've got a whole... It's only Monday. I'm going to ask you that tomorrow. I'm not going to ask you now. Right. Well, it was a miserable encounter

with a well-known personality at a location where I would not have expected to see her. Do you want to just give a little bit more of a clue? Because it is quite funny. Tennis. More. Ego. Oh, no, I've given it away now.

It was Claire Balding. It's just that we both found ourselves at Warrington Bank key station at about 10 to 8 on Saturday night. We were both trying to get back to London. She'd been to the Rugby League World Cup final. I'd been to see my parents in Liverpool. There were all sorts of problems with the trains on Saturday night. We were both trying to get back to London. She'd been to the Rugby League World Cup final. I'd been to see my parents in Liverpool. There were all sorts of problems with the trains on Saturday night,

as there often are. And I was at the far end of Warrington Bank East Station, which is right opposite, I think it's a chemical plant. Just fade it out. There was all this billowing smoke coming out of a chimney and walking down the platform with a retinue of supporters, no lesser person than Claire Balding. Right, we're back tomorrow. Jane and Fee at Times.Radio.

Please save me from this. You have been listening to Off Air with Jane Garvey and Fee Glover. Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler and the podcast executive producer is Ben Mitchell. Now you can listen to us on the free Times Radio app or you can download every episode from wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget that if you like what you heard and thought, hey, I want to listen to this, but live, then you can. Monday to Thursday, 3 till 5 on Times Radio. Embrace the live radio jeopardy. Thank you for listening and hope you can join us off air very soon.

Goodbye.