Off Menu with Ed Gamble and James Acaster - Best of 2020

Episode Date: December 30, 2020

To mark the end of such a fantastic year for everyone, we revisit our favourite clips from the last 12 months of Off Menu.We'll be back for series 5 in the new year. Bon appétit!Recorded and edited by Ben Williams for Plosive Productions.Artwork by Paul Gilbey (photography and design) and Amy Browne (illustrations).Follow Off Menu on Twitter and Instagram: @offmenuofficial.And go to our website www.offmenupodcast.co.uk for a list of restaurants recommended on the show.Watch Ed and James's YouTube series 'Just Puddings'. Watch here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, listeners of the Off Menu podcast. It is Ed Gamble here from the Off Menu podcast. I have a very exciting announcement. I have written my first ever book. I am absolutely over the moon to announce this. I'm very, very proud of it. Of course, what else could I write a book about? But food. My book is all about food. My life in food. How greedy I am. What a greedy little boy I was. What a greedy adult I am. I think it's very funny. I'm very proud of it. The book is called Glutton, the multi-course life of a very greedy boy. And it's coming out this October, but it is available to pre-order now, wherever you pre-order books from. And if you like my signature, I've done some signed copies,

which are exclusively available from Waterstones. But go and pre-order your copy of Glutton, the multi-course life of a very greedy boy now. Please? Well, James, it's the end of 2020. And what a great year it's been. Everyone's flourished. The news has all been amazing. What a wonderful year we've had. So we thought here at Off Menu in the Dream Restaurant, we'd round out a fantastic year by playing a best of episode. Why not? It has been, as you say, a fantastic year. I mean, the only thing that has struggled this year is podcasts. It's been very difficult to make podcasts in 2020, for some reason. But we managed to put out 46 episodes, and we've got some absolute humdingers when it

comes to clips in this. I can't wait to just relive a little trip down memory lane, Ed. Memory lane. Oh, memory lane. There's so many brilliant clips. It's more like memory high street. Oh, memory boulevard. Memory boulevard. Let me say the high street, another thing that's really flourished this year. That's gone from strength to strength. God bless it. More like the higher street. It's gone even higher than we ever thought possible. I thought that high street couldn't get any higher, but it got even higher. It's even higher than Cheech and Chong. An excellent reference. And it's been a great year for Cheech and Chong as well, of course. Yeah, congrats to Cheech and Chong if you're listening, boys. Well, we

start this year's Best Of with another batch of food and drink inventions. That's how we started last year's Best Of, and let's do it again. Our guests, James, are food innovators. Do we hear from some of our food innovators? Yes, here's some of the wonderful recipes that our guests came up with themselves. They think outside the box and in your mouth. We've got Katherine Ryan, David O'Doherty, Reggie Watts, Simon Rogan and Joe Brandt to hear from. Take it away, guys. Let's say, then, I would have like a Don Julio white tequila, lime and soda. Oh, lovely. That's really nice. I don't like yellow tequila, but I like white. Right. Sounds like I quite like one of those now. I like a tequila, lime and soda. And

you can have a little chili in it as well. That's really nice. Like get a green chili and a green lime. Oh, I love this. There's a certain place that you've had this, or do you make them yourself at home? Oh, I make them at home. I have like a whole drinks fridge, and it is popping, but you can get it anywhere. Like, hold on, you got a drinks fridge? Mm-hmm. Talk about the drinks fridge, please. Yeah, I want to... My mind's been open to... My fridge is like normal size. Yeah. I've seen a lot of people with some pretty impressive fridges recently. My fridge? I have. I've seen like people doing like tours of their houses and showing like their fridge and stuff. There was a cart there, one of the Kardashians did it recently. Oh, yeah.

Did like a walkthrough of like, was it Kim Kardashian did a thing where she showed her fridge and it was just full of drinks and everyone was like, oh, she didn't eat food. Well, she's showing that she just has drinks. And then she's like, oh, no, that's not my food fridge. And then she's got just got like a walk-in wardrobe sized fridge. Yeah. Probably like she works in a restaurant. That's my dream. It's exactly like a restaurant walk-in fridge. It's really healthy fridge. You're a big admirer of the Kardashians, right? I mean, I admire anyone that everybody else hates. Yeah. And then I just think they're not hurting anyone really. Nobody really needs to be a billionaire. Fine. They're a bit vacuous. Fine. But I like to relax.

And when I watch the Kardashians, I see big delicious salads, nice green teas and juices. I see tasteful interiors. I always am kind of fascinated by how their makeup is going to be and how their hair is going to be and what they're going to be wearing. And they're always doing things that look like beautiful. And there's some like, I don't know, aesthetic satisfaction out of that. The same way, I don't know, people probably get satisfaction watching a sport. Yeah. I don't tell people, oh, what's it matter? It's only a game. It's like, no, you like watching football and screaming at the telly. So do that. And then I really like seeing how Courtney has like done her wallpaper. I like it. Kardashians are great. So I don't have a fridge like that. That's my

dream, like to have a huge fridge. Yeah. Although I used to work in kitchens and the walking fridge would never be very pleasant. No. Because they'd lock you in it and stuff. No, we would lock each other in the fridge in the freezer. Yeah. Well, you really, your dream is that you get someone in the walking freezer and then you lock that because you can't open that from the inside. Yeah. And then they'd be like, Oh God, please. And that was a lot of fun. But no, the fridge was just, just smelly. Yes, it literally smells in here. Literally stinks in here. Yeah. That's what I'd say in the, in the walking. But you've got a, you've got a drinks fridge and you've got a food fridge. You've got separate fridges. See, that's good. That's, I'd like that. It just feels very

adult to be like, hello, welcome to my home. Let's go over to the drinks fridge and like, what would you like? Oh, there's no wine left again. Whoops. Are we going with the tequila, lime and soda with a bit of chili? Yeah, that's the most sounds delicious. Interesting. Refreshing light and it gets you fucked up. Is that like a cocktail name for it? Is it just tequila, lime and soda? I think it's tequila, lime and soda. Well, you can name it here officially and people will listen to you as well because we've just had word that Greg Davis, who's a previous episode in his local curry house, he complained on the podcast that they've taken lime pickle off the normal condiments at the beginning. And you have to ask for it.

And he texted me the other day to say he went in there and they've heard the podcast and they've now put lime pickle back on the menu and they call it Greg's Pickle. It says Greg's Pickle on the menu. So if you want to name that cocktail now, some menus may take it up. Yeah. What would you call it? Well, I think the reason that I drink it, so this might help with the name and perhaps we can workshop is that I believe that like really clean white tequila doesn't give you a hangover. Okay. And like then soda doesn't like that many calories. And then lime's nice, it's spicy. I don't know. I was going to say like something like good morning, but then that suggests you should drink it in the morning. Yeah, perfect. Yeah. The good morning. Good morning is great

name. Good morning. The good morning is a great name for it. So what's your main course? So it's a large ironware, French-influenced, brightly colored pot. And it's chicken on all the veg. It's that one, right? And you throw it in the oven and you can leave it in for two hours, but you know what? Leave it in for four. It'll be even more falling off the bone. And this is the kind of, I'm like, you know the way Messi, Lionel Messi in football, probably the coach doesn't tell him what to do. Just goes out, go out there and do your stuff. Like I'm like that. You are wasting that on me and Ed. You know, Messi, guys. I thought you were referring to Mr. Messi from the Mr. Men.

He is the, so he's the most talented footballer in the, does this game call football? How far back do you go? He, he's an instinctual player and I am an instinctual chef, but where he is very good, I am very bad. So I fire things in. So we've got the, we've got the ironware pot and we sear, we do the searing where you put it on the hob with oil in it and sear the chicken, like full chicken we're talking here. And then the problem is I don't remember what I did. I don't remember the order. I remember I put various veggies in and potatoes and popped the lid on and put it in the oven for three hours, a bit of stock, some red wine, a selection, handfuls of various things from the herb garden, but I don't remember

what I did. And I don't remember what I put up the chicken's asshole. I don't remember anything about it. And I've been chasing that dream for three years now, trying slight variations on it. And every single time it comes out like boiled, you know, like children in the Second World War who had to move out of London and live in the countryside. It's sort of like the food that they would eat. That's what it always turns out as where the carrots are hard, even though they've cooked them for five hours and the fucking chicken is just like, you know, someone has just put it in a tumble dryer and let it just fall around on itself for a week. I love that you're approached to cooking. You're from a jazz dynasty. You take a jazz approach to cooking as well.

Yeah. Yeah, I try to, but I am missing the key element of jazz, which is to be highly musical. Like, you know, you know, the way they say about jazz, it's the notes you don't play that are more important than the notes you play. Well, the ingredients you don't use and the ingredients you use, they're all bad. But I'll still keep going. I'll still keep trying. I'll try to chase that dream. And that is what I would like the genie to make for me. Does the dish have a name? Is it Coco Van? It must be Coco Van, right? Yeah, it's, yeah, but like, what is Coco Van? It's, you put stock, you put red wine, you can put white wine as well. I've tried it with that. Maybe I put in white wine

and what temperature do you put it in at 170? Do you put it 130? Do you leave it in for four hours? I don't know. And so it's Coco David is what we'll call it. Amazing. Absolutely amazing. Your name is David O'Doherty and you call it Coco David. Absolutely incredible. Like, I like a starter to be flavorful and small. Yeah. So I would say because sometimes we get starters and really they're just, it's a meal. Right. It's like a meal before a meal. That's why I like starters. Well, okay. That's why he loves me. Yeah, but then you're probably like playing soccer for like six hours afterwards and then

you know me, Reggie. I'm always playing soccer for six hours directly after a meal. I'd be professional soccer players playing soccer for six hours. And they certainly wouldn't do it after they've eaten. Yeah. I would say something on a like a little Christina or something, like a little flavorful thing. I don't know what it would be, but because, you know, starters are weird. It's a non-starter. Why do they make you feel weird? Well, because like I know that I should probably just order a meal, you know, like I know when I do a starter, I like the idea of it. It's really cozy. You're with your friends and you're like, maybe we could get it for the table, you know, but I eat it and

then I'm kind of already full. And then I'm like, now I have a meal coming and then I have to pretend like I'm not full for the meal. And, you know, that's tough. That's a lot of acting. How do you, how do you pretend to not be full? What's the sort of You just, you just go like, well, I gotta eat this. I mean, sometimes we hit, you know, here in LA, you might be going for a meal with a casting director and you go, right, I'm going to pretend to be not full. And then at the end go, just so you know, I was full for that whole meal. Oh my gosh, the role is yours. Yeah. Yes. Is it right? Yeah, I don't know. I think that's how you have to do it. You just

have to eat it. You just have to be like, man, this is my first meal. I didn't have a starter. Yeah. This is good. Whoa. Whoa. Boy, I can't believe this, you know, a lot of that to yourself, maybe, or maybe look at the commenting on the color, the heat, whatever the temperature. It all helps. If you want to, you can just pass on the start. We've had guests pass on the start before. I'm going to pass. I'm going to pass. Ed will be upset because he's a star, a boy and he loves stars. It's his fate of course. Even when you were circling around crostini, I was like, that's too small. Oh, what's a crostini? Like a little crispy bread thing. You know, tiny, thin, crispy bread and then they put things on it. They put like a tapenade on

there or something. Yeah, like tapenade or a mousse. If you want, I can just give you the crostini and that's it. Man. Maybe I do a crostini with a pureed air sauce. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Don't fill up on that though. No, I won't. No, air sauce for sure. Air sauce sounds like an insult. Hey, get out of here. Air sauce. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know what that is, but the way you said it sounds like it's not supposed to be favorable. So I had a little bit of a little bit of a deviation away from gin and tonic. It was called the floor clearer. So if you pitch, we're finishing the work, going after work or if I'm off on a night, just going to sit at the bar and it's a pint glass. Lovely. Quadruple gin in there.

Right. Eight ice cubes and then just fill it up with a really spicy, hot, fiery ginger beer. And angostura bitters. Yes. So basically the effect was as I drunk more of this drink and went on to the next one, I got louder and louder on the floor clear. And that was it. Recorded the floor clearer. Quite handy at closing time, obviously, because there's no one left. I don't think anyone else anymore. But then she went back to gin. Don't drink it as bad as what I used to. Very sort of regulated now. Tanqueray is probably the gin of my choice. Drink too much of it. The W goes on the front of it instead of tea. Sure. Yeah. But yeah, that's my drink. And I think any drink that starts with, it has to be in a pint glass. Yeah.

Take a pint glass. And I've tried taking that, you know, to other pubs. You tried to ask people to make it, but then realized it cost 25 quid to actually drink it. And I thought, God, will these costs in 25 quid every time I drop any of them? In your own, in your own. No wonder we were a crapper. What do we do with shit? We lose huge loss every single day. You can't figure it out with salt. I love the reason you won't get it in another pub because of the price, not because you have to go, get a pint glass, quadruple gin. Yeah. I mean, every time I did it, explain it. I did get a few raised eyebrows. Yeah.

Where the quadruple gin was probably the first, first big obstacle to navigate for people actually pouring you ones like, no, don't be so stupid. Especially be going in there with a tray of dolphin ones. What side dish are you going to choose to go with that this is the smorgasbord? There's quite a lot going on already. Absolutely. Well, I would have sort of four or five different types of coleslaw. Is that loud? Because I love that as well. I didn't know there were four or five different types of coleslaw. If you could please take us through them, Joe.

Yes. Okay. Well, there's the normal one. Okay. Where you just have like chopped up cabbage, onions, grated carrot with mayonnaise. Okay. Right. And then there's a type of coleslaw that my mum used to make when we were kids, which had all that in it, but it also had grated cheese. And instead of having mayonnaise, because we didn't have that in the 1960s. I don't know if you know that. We had something called salad cream, which everyone on telly who's over the age of 60 keeps blaring on about saying is great. And everyone else who's under the age of 35 just turns their nose up and go, Oh my God, it sounds appalling. And it's great because I'm old. And so I would have that. I would have salad cream coleslaw instead of mayonnaise coleslaw.

But you've also got mayonnaise coleslaw as well. Right. Yes. Okay. And then you would have a type of coleslaw, which has got all that in and you just add sort of extra bits in that you feel like doing. So like a bit of raw cauliflower or stuff that people would go, I think you'll find that's not in traditional coleslaw. Well, once on this podcast, every episode of this podcast, we have a secret ingredient that we don't like. If the guest says they get chucked out of the restaurant. Is it coleslaw? No, it's not. Luckily for you. No, it's not. But like one episode, it was coleslaw if it's got raisins in it. Oh, because we did not allow that. Well, how do you, what do you stand on raisins and coleslaw? Totally anti raisin. I think it's the equivalent of having

pineapple on a pizza. Yeah, I completely agree. You don't. I like pineapple on a pizza. Oh, James. James. What's not? I feel depressed now. I do. Joe feels depressed about your food choice. And this is a lady who is currently halfway through listing 500 types of coleslaw for her side dish. Yeah, so we're dealing with, I mean, I would be offended if this was the most disgusting menu we've ever had. Well, that's good that you're not offended. See, what I can't believe is that I can't believe that people spend so much time thinking about and knowing about food and showing their food that they've just eaten online. That to me is a really disturbed behavior. That's my life. I couldn't give a shit what someone's decided for their dinner. Honestly,

I really couldn't. And the more expensive and posture, the worse, the more angry I get, to be honest. And I just eat it and enjoy it. We don't care what you're eating. Go away and just eat it yourself and put a cloth over it. I think you would be surprised, Joe Brand. If you sat down one evening and you had multiple portions of different coleslaw, if you took a fight with that and shared it with the public, I think people would care. I think people would be like, what is she doing? She's got five different types of coleslaw. She's sitting down to eat them all. Right. I'm going to put that on my Instagram and see what happens. I'll let you know how many likes it got. Oh, James, it's up to four. Oh, I think I've gone through the roof. And you could say to

people, based on just the photo, tell me which is which, which coleslaw I've got here, what types I've got. People have been throwing in suggestions, trying to guess which one's the salad cream. Now, I've got to say, we're only three deep in the coleslaw, though. I want to make sure we get to all five, because we've got normal coleslaw, we've got salad cream and cheese coleslaw, and we've got one that is both of those, but with bits of cauliflower in. So. Yes. Okay. And then also, I would get the one that's, that's what, that you have like fermented one made with fermented cabin, the one you get in Germany. What's that called? Like sauerkraut. Yeah, that's right. Sauerkraut, sauerkraut coleslaw. So basically you ferment everything to the degree that

the sauerkraut's fermented and just make a coleslaw out of that, really. That's good for the, that's good for the stomach as well, fermented things. Is it? Yeah, it is. It's a bit late for me on that front, isn't it, really? Anyway. What's the final, the final coleslaw, Joe? Not a question I ever thought I'd ask on this book. The fact, yeah, the final coleslaw. It is just what you might feel like putting in a coleslaw. That was a third one. On any given day when you. The same as the third one. The third one was coleslaw, but whatever you want to put on it. Yes, but I, the third one's sensible things and the fifth one is not sensible. Okay, so what sort of thing? I can hear the

distant sound of a curly whirly being. Well, I don't think quite that bad, but maybe like some chopped up Linda McCartney veggie sausages or, you know, a bird's eye potato waffle chopped up and put in it or, you know, anything you felt like on the day, a bit of rhubarb, whatever. Whoa, that coleslaw sounded insane. Yes, no. Our guests have often brought their own surprise special guests to the dream restaurant, James. It's not just them. They often, I'm going to let you know in a secret. Sometimes they're not special guests. It's just them doing some characters. Well, I don't know, Ed, because as you know, I always record our podcast with my eyes closed because I want to experience it like the listener does. That's correct. But I have my

eyes very much open. Here's the way I do podcasting. I open my eyes, I open my ears, and I often listen back to them. James, not so much. Close my eyes, close my ears, never listen to them. So let's hear from some of the characters that our guests have performed as. We think that there's definite movie franchises in some of these characters. And James, this year, I wrote a whole new standard pack. You did write a whole new standard pack. My favorite thing ever. I tell you what, my only appearance in that clip is me laughing my head off because I love Edwin Coffey. Well, apart from Edwin Coffey, let's hear from Louis Theroux, Emily V. Gordon, Anthony Head, Armando Iannucci, Louis Theroux, again, and then me. Aka a barbecue man, the bereavester,

Sheppy the Shepherd, the Diane Pigeon, the Swedish lawyer, and the coffee comedian Edwin Coffey. If you travel in the South places like Oklahoma and Texas, they have these barbecue shacks where they've got, and they look like they're big drums. Some of them might even be converted oil drums. And I guess they steam roast these, I guess, hogs. Well, maybe it's beef. I don't even know what kind of meat it is. And sometimes they go, that's been in there for 16 hours. Like this is very tender. That's been in there for 16 hours. Like I'm presuming on quite a low heat. And we got wood chips in there, tobacco flakes, and some herbs and seasoning. Herbs, they say, don't they? I was like, what's the secret? Like, secret is love, Louis.

And do they always say Louis, or is that just when you're there? No, they don't always say Louis. I just put that in there. And then the secret ingredient is love. That should bring them in when someone dies of a broken heart. Yeah, it should. Those barbecue guys can save some lives in the hospital. If you knew how many goldfish we've saved, you'd be amazed. We're getting calls all the time and the time shirkers is in. When a fairground's in town, we're going to run off our feet. It's crazy seeing those little choppers going. And how do you, sorry, Texan barbecue man, I just wondered how you save the goldfish when they bring the goldfish into you and on death's door. How do you save them? We just get a little time. I think you know,

we get itty bitty bits of barbecue beef or pork and we just drop them into the, you can't, you got to be careful. You put too much in you. Fish can overeat. I don't know if they knew that and they die. The commonest way for a fish to die is over consumption of anything, not just barbecue. If you put, feed it, I've seen it my own fish. Honest to God. This is me, Louie, now talking. It exploded. We had a fish explode on us once. It exploded. Yeah. Too much bread before it's made. Well, we only think that that's what happened. But we know that when we went on holiday, there were three fish and we, we tasked someone with feeding it every day. And I think they overdid it. And when we came back, there were two fish and then tiny little bits of fish.

It died of a broken heart. It exploded from a broken heart. It didn't. It exploded from eating too much. So you can't, don't overfeed it, but just a little bit of, and then it tastes the love and it can turn it around like that. If you ever have a loved one who's lost his partner or her partner and helped meet soulmate, only prescription I know is one of my sandwiches. I will say when I, I was a barista when I was 16, which is like quite some time ago, and I was a barista in a hospital. I worked at like a coffee stand and it would just be like bereaved old men who were like, just gave me coffee. I don't want anything fancy. Like they were like, because there would be like latte and all this shit on the menu and they would be like,

why are you doing this to me? Mostly made like regular ass coffee. But I would make a thing for myself that was like a combination of every flavored syrup that was available to me. And I called it the Milky Way. Just a 16 year old, just drinking every flavored syrup. All the serips. Are you just drink all the serips with the coffee? A little tiny bit of coffee. Yeah. What the hell was wrong with me? Yeah. Also, I think the character of the bereaved man who has to order a complicated coffee is one of my favorite characters we've had on the podcast. Oh, that's great. That's a sketch that really needs to see the light of day properly. And I was supposed to push the fancy drinks on them,

but I would just be like, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. You can't try and upsell a bereaved man. No. No, you really can't. I don't want any choice anymore, please. A lot of men who's like also masculinity were threatened by. Of course. Yeah, options. And this was when I was 16. So it literally was like, this is like 1995, 1996. This is a long time ago. This is the initial sort of coffee, the coffee craze. Before Starbucks really took over as like a thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So people were just getting used to all those offices. Or not even slightly getting used to it. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, what a character. I can't get it out my head. Oh, Barista. I didn't know. Barista. Barista. You were a Barista.

You were a Barista. You won. You won. Do you, is food part of your life? Would you say you enjoy it? I do definitely enjoy it. Yes, I've been all over the place. And what's quite interesting is that we over, during my life, England has gone from English cooking to pretty much every, everybody's cooking. It's, it's adapted very well, I think, to, to absorb, um, palates from around the world. But, um, yeah, no, it used to be very, you know, Shib's boy and me and two vegans and all that. And that was it. And it was like, uh, no, we can actually do cream spinach, of course. You can't forget the cream spinach. I want to delve more into the character you're just playing. Cause I like,

I like the character. I like the character's name. The character who said shepherd's pie? Yes. Is the character called shepherd's pie? Oh, I'll see if I can invent him. Yeah. I like the character. What would his, what would the character's name be? Whoa, shepherd. Shepherd. Shephy. Shephy. Shephy. Shephy. Shephy's spy. Shephy, Shephy's spy. Um, what's Shephy's spy's job? Uh, oh, uh, is it a shepherd? Maybe he's a knight. Maybe he's a shepherd. Yeah. Maybe, yeah. He's a shepherd and he doesn't eat shepherd's pie. He's called Shephy's pie. You've got to marry a food. What, what food are you going to marry? It can be a whole dish or it can be an individual ingredient like salt, but you have to marry it. I have to marry it. Yes.

Not marinated. Very good. I think it would have to be that pigeon soup, because it was delightful. You could look at it. And it would bring back memories of my actual wife. You've had to divorce for the sake of the fun food, Marion. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry. Yeah, I was doing this podcast and I signed the contract. I didn't read the contract. And it does say I have to carry out all the ideas. We kept, they do have to be, it's, apparently it's a law thing. Yeah. So, but I think I can then divorce the pigeon soup and then we can, then we can remarry it. I think anyway, it's, it'll all be fine. It'll be fine. Would you name the pigeon soup after your wife? So it makes you feel more like she's around still? No, no, no. I think, I think I would call

it pigeon soup. Yeah. I mean, it's, it is, you know, it is what it is. What a pigeon soup. Who of your friends, do you think any of your friends would be quite accepting of the fact you imagine, you're married to a bowl of pigeon soup? No, no, no. Everyone would be worried about you, right? Everyone would be, everyone would be reporting me to the police. Yeah, yeah. Because I'd be saying his wife has disappeared and there's just this pigeon soup in the house now. I think something's. He's a racist, so it's paired over the top. Yeah. He's sat in, so it's like a jacuzzi. Yeah. I sort of put it on the telly, so it's just lying there on the telly, looking at me. Brushing my teeth, there it is, kind of there in the mirror. It's beak open, as if to say,

can I have some of that? Brushing my teeth around to the face. Well, be a fun joke, keeping a brush of my teeth. You know, we've got, got any teeth for the dead pigeon. Oh yeah. What fun. What fun. I mean, I know we probably have to move on, but obviously for me, the most fun bit is imagine that our man is married to a bowl of pigeon soup. I was trying to think of another animal that you could make a vegetable out of, and then my first thought was going to be horse, and I was like, well, we don't eat that anyway. Well, they do in France, don't they? And in those lasagnas that time, do you remember that? Do you remember for a while when that was the big story in England? If you remember, and I feel bad mentioning it, some of the meatballs were made from horse,

weren't they? Oh, so good. He knows he's eating. Run that past your legal team before you put that on air. You will get sued by a huge Scandinavian company. Who's this now? It's another character, the Swedish lawyer. I've spent many years building my brand, only to have it trampled on by a podcast, making false allegations. Oh, geez. We would like to ask you, Swedish lawyer, we'd like to ask you, what is in your meatballs then? If you claim there's no horse in these meatballs, you tell us what's in them. They're purely made of vegetables, fun you should ask. We don't advertise it. Oh, so I'm losing it. I'm losing it. I had it dialed in. He started going, I wish. It was advertised was the word that made you lose it there.

You really slid off there. I was listening to Des Island Discs this morning and they had a Swedish guy on there. It was the head secretary general of NATO. He sounded a bit Irish, so maybe I'm all right. This week, the secret ingredient is mocha. A mocha. Now, you're okay with mocha, aren't you? I love a mocha. Not me. I don't drink coffee anyway, but when I did, I was like, I even want a coffee or want a hot chocolate. I don't want those guys. When Starbucks came out, you're like, I don't know. What's all this mocha, chocolate, yaya, yaya stuff? I don't want a frappuccino, grande venti, mocha, chocolate, cinnamon roll, motherfucking white chocolate whipped cream, shit. I tell you what I want. I want a fucking coffee. That's what I was like. That's you,

isn't it? Yeah, I was like a mid-2000s comedy routine. Yeah, you know what? I don't want any of this shit. They gonna suffer me up some son of Halloween, cinnamon, gingerbread, latte, shit. Now, you got to bring your own cup. You're kidding me? These glass cups, these metal cups, say they're killing the animals with the paper cups. I dropped my glass cup the other day on Broca Dog's head open. That is pretty funny. I'm laughing at that face value. It's an actual funny comedy routine. I'm not even messing around. But we don't want Josh to say mocha. If Josh says mocha. No, if Josh says mocha, then that's it. But I'm kind of like, I'd be just saying mocha, so we're going to hear more of that guy. More of that character, more of that routine, please.

What would that character think about when they write your name on the cup? Oh my god, are you kidding me? I mean, it's like the government, they're trying to find out who you are. What's your name and they never got the name right, do they? What does it say on the cup? Fucking asshole. Oh, so help me God, if I pass a Starbucks. How big would you like your coffee? I want a coffee size. I don't want to have to get a bucket from the back. I know the fuck is the woman on the logo. I think she's like a god, isn't she? A fucking god? I don't know. She's like from Moby Dick. Moby Dick? I don't need a Moby Dick. The only dick in there is the guy behind the counter. Yeah, very good. Well, thanks, Edwin. You might want to slow down on the coffee,

actually. It sounds like you've had one too many. I love Edwin Coffee. He's my favorite comedian. We've got to get him on the podcast. Ed, do you think he'd do it? I know what he'd have for his drink. I genuinely think if we did a full length episode with Edwin Coffee, I think it would get a tenth of the normal amount of listeners, and they would all turn off halfway through. I think some people, and I'm pointing at myself, would listen to it for the first time. Well, it's not just a blockbuster movie franchises, which Benit has written in the script and seems to be obsessed with the fact we can do a blockbuster movie franchise. Yeah, good on him. The podcast has also produced chart-topping music hits, and I say the podcast

has produced chart-topping music hits. I mean, James A. Caster has produced chart-topping music hits because you have been obsessed with songs this year, James. I found my call in, and it's no secret. Any chance I get, I like to sing a song. Here I am, duetting with Paul F. Tompkins, serenading Roshin Connity, and bringing Josh Groban in for a collab. How are they cooked? Because, I mean, Brussels sprouts, I think, still in the UK are absolutely reviled because they're, like, they're boiled and they stink. They were roasted, and they are so good, and I've had them boiled, and yeah, the smell is a lot stronger. Pretty bad. I can still eat them boiled. I think they're my favorite vegetable, but yeah, roasted Brussels sprouts are so good.

Yeah, they're so good. And they're on every menu here. Yeah, they've really, in the last, I'm going to say in the last five years, they've really made this crazy resurgence where they are on every single, every place you go has Brussels sprouts. Do you take credit for that at all? Oh yeah. I mean, you know, I mean, it's something that happened here, and I'm here, and I don't know, that's the man. You've probably been putting in a good word here in there. I mean, I certainly, when I have them, I do make a point of saying, I really like these, and they're very good. Yeah, yeah. I say it the same way every time, which is how you establish a pattern. So it's easy for people

to remember. So by the time I'm saying to someone else, you know, I like these, these are very good. They don't realize they've heard it from me already. And they're like, yeah, I've heard that before. That's a saying, isn't it? That's a saying. Yeah. I really like these, and they're very good. Do you have the Brussels sprouts song here? We have one. Do you think it's the same one that you guys have? Do you guys want to start singing it at the same time? Yeah, sure. Well, you can understand. Three, two, one. Yeah, it's the same one. Yeah, very good. You said you like fizzy drinks earlier. Yeah. I'm going to crack open one of my own. Can you hear that?

It gives me a feeling that noise. Like it's visible. Like it's like the smell of the cinema. I'm like, oh, someone's got a fizzy drink. Love it. This is my favorite fizzy drink. What is it? My girlfriend ordered it for me the other day as a surprise. I'm extremely excited. 24 cans of it. Causton press. So you're familiar with causton press? Yes, lovely. Rhubarb, causton press. Not rhubarb. No. Yep. The rhubarb one's my favorite. I hate rhubarb. Oh, why don't I bury me with causton press? Causton press is lovely. I like that. Rhubarb. My mum, my whole life makes rhubarb crumble and then pretends that we've not had the conversation where I told her I don't like rhubarb. It's really, it's like, it's really dark,

actually. What have you got against rhubarb, mate? It tastes awful. It's like a bitter point of thick. It's disgusting. It has no bliss point. No one can enjoy that. It's a vegetable disguised as something. It's horrible. I hate it. You are so suspicious of food dressing up as other things yet again. Yes, it's awful. And in a crumble, it is dressed up. It looks innocent. If I have a crumble and then you get into this swamp food, this disgusting bitter, hellscape taste, you're just like, ah. Does it creep you out that it makes a sound when it grows? I knew there was something wrong with it. It makes a sound when it grows.

So when they force grow rhubarb. They force grow it. What are they doing? They wonder if it's in a bowel mood. They grow it in the dark. So it grows quicker because it's growing to try and find the light, but there is no light for it to find. And it's growing so quickly that if you listen to it when it's growing indoors, it's creaking. You can hear it. That's how quickly it's growing. That's the saddest thing I've heard in a while. I've got PMT and that has broken me. That is a horror story. I'm strolling down to the orchard via the rhubarb patch. Open a catacost and press.

Pour it down the hatch. I can't believe poor rhubarb. What a tale. And I'm judging it for not being a nice guard. You never know people's stories. I like it. I'm drinking it down. I really like course and press. They could do it a few more bubbles. No. I like the fact there's not many bubbles in it. And I love the rhubarb taste. When I die, bear with me with cost and price. I once went to Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber's house and we weren't working on anything together. We were just, he was a friend of a producer of mine and we went over there and I got to

play him a song. I was working on it. He got to play me a song. I've been a musical theater guy since I was a kid. So hanging at Andrew Lloyd Webber's house. Super fun and he was so nice. But at that level of wealth, you realize that it's like pouring us tap water. He pulled out a bottle and he says, oh, it's like a drink. And we said, sure. And he goes, we had a party last night and this was a real star at the party. It's drinking quite well right now. I'm going, great. I mean, this is two o'clock in the afternoon. So we're thinking nice little lunch wine, maybe a rosé perhaps, you know. And my friend, Marius DeVries, who's a producer in London, we took a picture of the label and we're like, oh yeah, that was a $5,000 bottle wine.

Pull that for lunch. Yeah. Wow. Also, I love that you played each other songs as well. Yeah, I'll work on this. What would you have done if you'd played him a song that you worked on? And then he would have been like, oh, that's great. I love it. I need to be drunker to hear that again. And then he sat down and went, okay, I'm just working on this. And he was just like, my name's Andrew. Hello, hello, hello. I have feet and I have to go. And he was like, did that. What would you do in response? In his house, you've just played him a song and he said it's brilliant and he loves it. And then he just does like the stupidest, worst song you've ever heard. How do you respond to that? Everybody. I am Andrew. Hello, hello, hello. I have shoes and I have to

go now. That's the next, that's the next chorus is I have shoes and I have to go. Because he found out that feet are not enough to leave. He needs to put something on the feet. I think he only writes for characters that don't wear shoes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, cats. Yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I just think Jesus. And the Phantom of the Opera in the beach blanket, Boogaloo. Oh boy. That one, that one directions I never expected. Yeah, yeah, right. Well, to answer your question, I would say, you know, that's really interesting and I can't wait to see how it develops. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We got a lot of people telling us that about the podcast. Wow, what a load of great songs there were there, James. And we're yet to hear from

Andrew Lloyd Webber about turning my name is Andrew into one of his musicals, but we've still got our fingers crossed. Give me a call, Webby. Now, at the beginning of the year, James, I don't know if you remember, we went to America, USA, to record some episodes. Seems like another lifetime away, pre-pandemic. I mean, it's crazy to think that it happened this year, but it was great. I mean, some of our US guests, let's face it, didn't know what a poppadon was. They didn't really know what we were on about half the time. There were some pretty odd moments. No, they were baffled and it seems also crazy to say we've still got some in the bank and we will be putting some out next year. The weirdest one, I think it's safe to say, is still to come. But for now,

let's hear some clips from Ronnie Cheng, Noah Schnapp, Catherine Cohen, Apana Nanchela, Anthony Jezelnick, everyone's favourite, Wyatt Sennac and Ronnie Cheng again. These people are confused. Yeah. First of all, this whole fucking thing, okay, why are you dividing it into goddamn, like, you don't go for, like, the idea of it must be a, what, first course, second course, third course, this is already in pre-real colonial mentality. Like, what if I don't eat within that? I eat, like, shared plates, man. Bring it out and then we share it. I don't eat fucking first, second first. So you're yelling at me about a poppadon. So we're whitewashing food, right? Yeah, right now, the whole concept of what the fuck you're doing is already, in my opinion,

is already flawed. Hashtag dinner so white. Yeah, dinner so white. Nah, I didn't say white. I didn't say white. Wait, if you're real colonialists, yes. Yeah. It's not about race. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not about race. Colonialism's not on the right track at all. Here's what you need to know about that sound effect is that James is a genie waiter for this. Okay. That means you can get your food from wherever, from whenever, from your past, from your future, not from your future. No, you don't have to pick anything from their future to be fair. Very difficult to work out. Wait, are you guys brothers or just friends? No, it's both from England. Just friends. Do we? Yeah, yeah, if we look alike. A little bit.

I don't think anyone's ever said that before. Okay, maybe not. I was just, maybe you don't look alike. That was quite nice. You could be brothers. We could be brothers. I think we both like how each other looks. Yeah, I think so. So that's a compliment for both of us. I don't mind being compared to James. Sure, that was quite nice. That would be awful if you said that and then one of us was already offended and the other one wasn't. Well, thank God you guys aren't ugly. Yeah, yeah, exactly. That would be really scary. Also, I mean, you know, I guess it's quite nice. Family run restaurants are good. So if this was like our own dream restaurant and we're like the brothers running it, that's quite nice. Two brothers. Two brothers running a restaurant. Well, good to

know you're not brothers. Yeah, you're in good hands. Do you get drunk with your family? Yeah. Yeah, I get drunk with anyone. It's so fun, isn't it? Yeah, that was great. It is good. Um, no, yeah, we're like a fun, like we like to have parties and we're a fun group. Can't we in your toilet? Yeah, it's his about he pieces all of my bathroom or bring it to the award. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you very much. Oh, fuck me, right? It's such a good, such a good. You'll be able to hear it. Yeah, we're recording it. Yeah, welcome to New York. My apartment's very, for those listening at home. It's a huge apartment, but I chose to have the bath. James is such a good podcast host that he will wait for

guests to get halfway through saying something and they go, can I wear your toilet? Are you not going yet? Like, look, you're definitely going to hear it. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to have a sit down week. Don't be sit down and then you won't be able to hear it. Well, that's your worst guess. Now you've announced that you're going to put your bad butt on her toilet. That's a sign of respect. What rubbing your ass on people's stuff inside of respect. I celebrate whatever you want to piss in my house is beautiful. I respect you, so I'm going to pull down my trousers and pants and rub my ass on it. So beautiful to me. I'm going to put on, I'm going to show you guys what I'm talking about. In Japan, some of the toilets

play music, so no one can hear you go. I would love to go to Japan. You can pick the tune and everything. I would love to go to Japan. You guys are going to listen to me. What were we putting? If you've ever found yourself one evening wandering down a quiet street in the rain looking for somewhere to take shelter, you'll know what a blessed relief it is to find such a place as Reinde Antiques. Don't you love it? You all right, James? Oh, I locked myself in at the end. Don't say a word. Is anyone else around?

Wait, I actually have to pee. Is that the craziest thing you've ever heard in your life? Well, as soon as you put on the Reinde Antiques thing, I was like, I really need to pee as well. You're a guest, you go. All right, I'll go first. Yeah, you go, Ed. And then we'll all, yeah. I'm not going to do a sit-down. Honey, we should have brought the toilet in here, am I right? We all got to go. I'm actually going to do a really loud and proud one now. Now tell me. Sir is dominance is the alpha. Okay, I'll be right back. Go on. Very cool. Yeah, great, actually. Oh, I'm thinking if I hadn't gone first, I would have been a lot more relaxed about it. I know. Okay. Hey, what's up, guys?

Everyone's, everyone's... Hey, guys, we're back in the studio. Everyone's relieved themselves now. What is that? A donut? In my head? Yeah. On my head? Yeah. Nice. Now, I can't see what you're referencing, so you just suddenly out of nowhere said, what is that? A donut? And the partner didn't blip, she was just like, on my head. I don't know what to go over. I think I came in wearing a donut on my head, and it was only referenced at this point. Yeah, I could see it. Are you certain people could see the donut? Yeah, I had no idea. It just means, yeah, it means I'm not sensitive or something. I can't see the donut on my body.

Wear it like a little hat. A donut on the partner's head. No, it's like a hairpin, right? It's a hairpin with a donut on it. It's got a little pink donut on it. Yeah. Do you remember the bagel head trend in Japan where people would get plastic surgery to make it look like there was a bagel in their forehead? What? Okay, you're looking at me like I'm crazy, but if you Google it, it was a thing. They got surgery. They got surgery to make it look like there was a bagel under their forehead. Well, sitting opposite me is the great Benito. He just googled it. I've never seen him look more horrified in his life. He was absolutely like he's going to cry. It's a thing though. Why? Why did they do that? I don't know why. Was it like an advertising

thing for a bagel chain where they were like, I'm always thinking about bagels? I don't know. I could never really get an explanation for why it became... It would look like it was embedded in their foreheads. Yeah, that's the worst thing I've ever seen. What is that lady doing? I'm going to walk around and have a little peek. Yeah, I'm going to walk around the table and have a little look. Then I'll have Badaise in space. Yeah, that's true. We don't have those in England anyway. Badaise? No. They're not big here. Rich people have them. Have you ever tried one? It's unpleasant. It's not a nice feeling. I'm not into it. Japanese toilets, I like the idea of the spray in the water to wash, but it's not for me. I'd rather have just a slightly dirty butt, I think, and then

just give it a big wash at the end of the day. I don't like when people have the baby wipes on the back of the toilet. It's like, how filthy are you? You're acting like you don't own a blow dryer. Yeah, it's crazy. Have you ever had a Badaise steak? Pick a pardon, James? What? A Badaise steak? A steak that's cooked in a Badaise? Is that weird? Yes. You said about birthday steak earlier. No, I thought I'd do a funny little. Are you throwing a callback at me? Oh, yes. I just threw a little callback at you. That's the worst thing you've ever done on it. Yeah. That's so bad. That's a crime against common. As it is, he's got you so shook. It's brilliant. I'm absolutely terrified, and I'm off my game.

I'm not thinking straight. I've got no confidence in anything that comes out of my mouth. You shouldn't do if it's fucking Badaise steak. Why are you ganging up against me? Sorry. If I just talked about birthday steaks, maybe. Yeah. But it's been quite some time. Are you going to air this? Yeah. Did we just put a bullet in this one? This is perfect. This is perfect. I think this one is going out, but like... If you guys title each episode differently, I hope it's called Badaise steak. Yeah. Yeah. Who's from Badaise steak, maybe. I'm having anxiety attack. Oh, I'm loving it. In my head, it was good Badaise steak. I still, Joe, this is how shook I am. I still don't know why

it didn't work. Still in my head, it was the best idea I had at the time. Would you like me to explain it to you? Yeah. Okay. A callback, you got to have like the first thing in your head, you know, so it's like you remember that first thing. And so birthday and Badaise aren't even that similar. And it was so long ago that I talked about the birthday steak that, and even the way you said it, was without confidence whatsoever. I think you were looking at the table and it almost sounded like just the fact that the steak was made in a Badaise was the joke. Yes. I mean, it was a failure across the board. Also, birthday steak, we didn't really hang around on that for very long. We mentioned it once. Yeah. I forgot we talked about it at all until he brought it up. Just stuck in my

head because I thought it was a birthday steak. It sounded fun. What's like your normal job? Although now I'm also, you've just reminded me if I can go on a very quick other tangent. Of course. Just want to, want to, Uncle YY's weird little tangent. The tangent has to end with you saying your dessert. It'll, I'll get to the, you have to do the whole thing. And then at the edge, just say, just say, yeah. I did in Los Angeles. And when you get there, you'll learn this. They, two things about LA drinking, it stops at two AM, but also you can sell alcohol at grocery stores and not just beer, but you can sell hard alcohol. And I remember when I lived there, there was a woman in line in the grocery store at like 1 59 in the morning with a giant bottle of Jack Daniels

and a big, like one of the big leader things of Coke. And the clerk was like, I'm, I'm sorry, it's two o'clock. I can't sell this to you. And the woman was very angry and like, looked like she'd just gotten out of a nightclub and was just kind of like, come on, just sell it to me and was trying everything. And finally, as a last ditch was like, please, a friend of mine just died. And there was a part of me that was like, oh, what an interesting play. But also, I like the idea that a friend of yours just died and you were so upset about it that you didn't just buy whiskey. You bought soda to mix it. You're making mixers right now to like mourn the loss of your friend. So yeah, I, so that was very interesting to me, cinnamon rolls.

Welcome, Ronnie, to the dream restaurant. Welcome, Ronnie Chang. I'm an amuse-bouche for you. What? What was that? Yeah. Okay. Nice to meet you. Join us. Amuse-bouche. Amuse-bouche. Amuse-bouche. You gotta say it right. You know, this is really, we're really at the bottom, like, this is the end of podcasting, I think. Yeah. I mean, we're down to two British guys whimsically talking about lunch now. What more can we fucking do? This is it. Yeah. Thanks, Ronnie, but you were wrong. This is not the death of podcasting because we're still going. Go to hell, Ronnie. Merry Christmas. Now, we shouldn't forget, of course, that this is

a food podcast, so what we love is a mouthwatering description of food. Ah, I love an in-depth, detailed description of someone's favourite dish. So here's some clips from Sarah Pasco, Natasha Lajero and Moshe Kasha and Jean Grey. This is that thing, actually. I think it's about being a comic. It's because we do gig all over the place. If you love something from somewhere, especially as a vegan, have this gratitude. So Leon have a love burger and it's vegan. It has vegan cheese and it has vegan mayonnaise and it's got all the stuff of a normal burger rather than, like, you're missing something. And they're so nice. The first time I had one, I cried halfway through because it was going to finish. I was just so happy that it existed and existed somewhere

where I can get one everywhere now. And now I have a rule, I do not pass a Leon without getting one. That's difficult in central London. It's in a lot of burgers. That's how you show corporate gratitude. So you always have to go in and get a love burger. What is it about, like, so I've never had a love burger? Okay, so also, I haven't had a non-vegan burger for a long time. So you do forget what things taste like. But the really great thing about, especially if you want, like, fast food, it's the condiments, it's the gherkins, the cheese, the mayonnaise, the lettuce. It's the whole thing rather than just the patty. I think love burger is a combination treat, a very, very meaty, tasting patty. Right, yeah. And everything else just being like a Big Mac, kind of, like, it's delicious.

Yeah. So, the side dish. Okay, what was your side dish? Well, mine is the cream spinach that you order at Pacific Dining Car. They go staying in the same place. We're not moving. You don't want to leave. Yeah. It's really cool. You've not left California so far for your menu. And with most of us, we've been to San Francisco and Israel. And Israel. Yeah. Okay. I love California. I had, I had, I was unable to decide, this is cheating now that it's a competition. If this was just more of a laid back, what do I do here? Well, I'll tell you what, okay, I know what I'll do. I'll tell you what I couldn't decide between, and then I'm going to order the second thing. Okay, deal? Okay, yeah, I just thought it'd be cool because it's like, we're talking memory and stuff. Jews

have the worst food of any ethnic group, probably in the world. I mean, Eastern European Jews. Hummus. Hummus. That's how bad Jewish food is, that we had to literally colonize a region and go, our national dish. We invented it. And it's like, no, I'm pretty sure it's not from there. But, like, hummus is like an Arab food that Israelis are just like, no, we made it. But the one good food that Eastern European Jews make, it's you, it's mostly just like bad, standard, like Eastern European, you know, and I'm sure like sausagey, well, not sausage, but you know, meats and boiled chickens and sliced potatoes. But there's a dish called chullant, which is a rare dish. This is one of your favorite foods? One of the best things ever. The face that Natasha made.

You have to describe it. It's delicious. Tell them what's in it. Okay, it's a, it's a stew, basically, but it's made with mixed beans, like 16 hour boiled beef. So it's like just falling apart, kind of the tenderest beef you've ever had in your life. Little barley and like, like sauce, sauce kind of situation. And then in the, in, I'm not ordering this, in the middle, there's something called kishka, which is a kind of like wheat and beef fat paste, pasty, sausagey thing. It's like a starchy. It's not sausage, right? Because that wouldn't be kosher. Beef fat, but it's made of like starch and, okay, so what I will have tonight. Let's stick on the challenge. I mean, I just wanted to, I wanted to take a swing for my ethnicity,

but as I was doing it, I gave up. I've never had someone describe something so specifically in so much detail. And yet I still have no visual. What it would be and what that looks like. I have no The chicken, is it spatchcock? Is it like all flat? I've never done that before. How do you, how do you do that? I, I, it's the only way that I like to cook a chicken and also turkey on Thanksgiving really, really helps cuts down like hours. And it's, it's never dry because I don't fucking like turkey, except when it's done that way, except for the fact that I also am apparently not eating meat anymore because my body said no, but still like to cook it and think about it. So thank you for this show. You flip it over, you take a real sharp knife or

some sharp scissors and you cut the back bomb out and then you flip it back over and you smash the chicken down and you're like, who's your fucking mom? And, and then that's it. You just got to take that piece out and then it kind of just opens it up. So everything just cooks evenly and it's, it's really lovely. What you put garlic on it? Well, first I want to make a, like a garlic butter, like rosemary, lemon rub that you do all under the skin. Well, this is, and then do a really good marinade with like some citrus and some garlic and some herbs and lemon and let that sit for two hours. That sounds great. Also a question about, you said you do it with turkeys as well. Yeah. Is your oven massive? No. And that's why you have to spatchcock a fucking turkey.

Right. Because otherwise the height of it, you can't fit anything else. But how wide does it get? Not bad. Cool. So you can do it like long, long ways. Oh, okay. I see what you mean. Turn it and then be able to fit like other things or something like small alongside with it where, whereas before it was just like the turkeys in, that's it. We just have good luck with having everything out at the same time. I just imagine unfolding a turkey to the size of like a world map. Yeah. That's how big I'd imagine it would be. Yeah. It's like the height of a door. Yeah. Delicious description from Jean Grey there. Absolutely love it. Her menu was mouthwatering. But I'll remember more about that interview, Ed. On the day, we just interviewed

Noah Schnapp and he'd been talking to us about the Benna Gorgon, which of course, as we all know, is the Demogorgon, but mixed with the Great Benito. It's when the Great Benito becomes the Demogorgon. Yeah. Noah had been talking to us about that. Yes. He had brought it up with us. He had told us about the Benna Gorgon, which is the Great Benito who lives in the upside down. And we told Jean Grey about it and she did an absolutely amazing impression of the Benna Gorgon, but then it never made the edit. Because guess who edits the episodes? The Benna Gorgon himself. The Benna Gorgon. But finally, we can say an absolute exclusive because no other media outlet was brave enough to play it. Here is Jean Grey's impression of the Benna Gorgon.

Can you do voices? What sort of voices do you want? I don't know. I never heard you do a voice before. Here you have. Oh, yeah. You do the voice of the Benna Gorgon. Yeah. The Benna Gorgon is the Great Benito's other character name. You know, it's a stranger. What does it sound like? Yeah, I thought it sounded like something. I used to be a magician. And I tried to do it from magic and I changed from myself accidentally into a Gorgon. Oh, no. Shit. Yeah, so it turns out I can't do the Benna Gorgon as well as Jean Grey. Yeah, he took your impression. Yeah, and really, really up to it. Spot on. That sounds exactly like him. Now, sometimes we talk about fancy

food that you can't do at home, but sometimes we hear about recipes that you can try at home. Lots of listeners, for example, have already sent us pictures of their Thomasina Meyers potatoes, James. Yes, and we're going to hear Thomasina Meyers recipe again for those potatoes, along with a recipe that I myself had to write down in real time from Gok Wan. I made a Canton beef dish with with tomato ketchup, which is a real, which is incredible. And the minute you mix tomato ketchup with oyster sauce, you get this fusion flavor, which is so dynamic and delicious and simple. And you get the saltiness and the sweet and sweetness from the tomato ketchup. And then that with the charred beef and fresh plum tomatoes

and lots of onions. It's delicious. I've got tomato ketchup in the fridge right now. You should try that dish. You should try it. I will tell you how to make it. James, do you want the recipe now very quickly? Yes, he's only got tomato ketchup, though. Have you got any protein in your fridge? Uh, chicken? Chicken, that'll do. Okay, so you're going to boil your chicken, however it comes with its breast or something. Let me get my notes up. Do you have any soy sauce? Yeah. Okay, so you're going to put a bit of soy sauce in the water and it will color the chicken, but also add some salt to it as well. And then after you've bored it, you're going to need to go cool and then you're just going to

shred it with your fingers. Just put it apart. Yeah. Then what you're going to do is you're going to fry off some garlic. Have you got ginger? Yes, fry garlic. And if you've got ginger, okay, you're going to put in two cloves of garlic. You're going to put half a centimeter of ginger. Half a centimeter. Yeah. And if you really posh, you'll grate the ginger. If you're not really posh, you'll cut it up as small as you can go, James, but watch your fingers. Yeah. Yeah. Then if you've got any spring onions. Yeah, I have actually. Okay, so you're going to chop your spring onions up. You're going to chop up the green bits into three centimeter strips, and then the white part of the onion, you're going to chop into smaller bits. And that's

because a spring onion tastes differently. So the green bit is less acidic and the white bit is very acidic. Okay. Got it. So you're going to fry your spring onion, your ginger and your garlic, and then you're going to put in your chicken in a tiny bit of oil, not very much at all, and then you're going to put a squeeze, a good squeeze of tomato ketchup. Have fun with that, James. Yeah. Fine. I'll put fun down. Yeah. And then you're going to put in about half of what you've done with the tomato ketchup with oyster sauce. Yeah. And then at the very end of it, you're going to serve it on fluffy rice just with a tiny, tiny dash of sesame oil. And that's your basic Cantonese dish. That is great. And at no point do I have to use, oh no, you did say water.

At the beginning, I'm going to be absolutely stuck. Yeah. Unfortunately, you're not going to be able to get the water into the pan to boil the chicken. Yeah. And that's the first hurdle. So the side dish is really good. Okay. So you get some spuds. It's quite nice with new potatoes, this dish. So you boil them or steam them till they're tender, and then you smash them a bit, which is quite fun. The rolling pin or your hand or something. Depending on how angry you are. Yeah. Or jam jar. Throw them against the wall. Yeah. And if they stick, they're cooked. Is that how? That's true. Yeah. Yeah. Sounds good. Is that with all food? I don't think a new potato, a new potato sticks. You're wrong there. They're never ready. It's a fraud. And then you mash it,

and then you don't mash it. You just smash it a bit. You just squash it a bit. Yeah. So you break the skin a bit. You lean on them a bit. Yeah. This is not a full mashing, but I'm coming for you if you mess it up. I'm coming for you. Yeah. So you'd lightly crush the new potato. Yeah. Ben, my favourite instrument in the kitchen, you get your pasta mortar. It's a big one. It's none of these piddly, small ones where you can't do anything because everything's flying out. It's a really big, heavy one. And in the bottom of it, you put three or four really fat cloves of garlic, not the supermarket kind, but the stuff you get from a proper food purveyor, like a market or something. Big fat cloves of garlic. Smash them up with some sea salt, some peppercorns, loads of

thyme. You can put rosemary in there too or oregano or margarine. But thyme is for grapes. You can buy in the supermarket and smash all that up. Then you put lots of olive oil on, like masses, hundreds of mills, five, six, seven, eight tablespoons. Mash it all up to this garlicky thyme, black pepper paste. And you smear it all over the potatoes. And then you put it in the oven, really hot oven. And then you roast them until they're all crispy, crunchy, golden, garlicky, delicious. Hmm, that all sounded delicious. But if you're feeling hungry, feel hungry no more. Because let's talk about poo and pee. Poo and pee and poo and pee and poo. I'd say more often than we talk about food, we talk about poo and pee. It's a very rude podcast, Ed. Indeed. So let's hear from Corey

Taylor, Tomasina Meyers again, Sarah Millican and Arabella Weir talking about a boy buffet. Disgusting. I've had some stalkers over the years who have, they've sent me some weird shit, let's just say. Just a lot of weird, you know, letters signed in blood. Oh, so intense. I tell you what, dude. Okay, so the first, the first real weird letter I ever got was back in 99. And there was a P.O. box that we were using for a while that we then had to get rid of because just so much shit was fucking coming into it. We had to forward everything to our management. But before we did that, we would go down and we would finally get, was getting to the point that there was just like bags and bags and bags of that. And they would give me these fucking stacks of crazy fan letters. So I would read them

and, and, you know, every once in a while, I'd reply and stuff. But there was one that started out, it was from a lady. And she was telling me about how her husband were quite big fans, right? And now the first page, you know, this is all on like notebook paper and handwritten, very nice, very whatever. And she's like, you know, I'm a huge fan of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I was like, oh, this is very sweet. And I flip it over, dude. And it turns into a full on like, I want you to keep me in a cage. Okay, I want you to, I mean, for real, it went from zero to what the fuck, like that. I just was like, it was interesting. I still have it somewhere. In the whole buildup to you talking about that letter, I could see James was really annoyed

when it turned out to be from a lady, because he really wanted to make the joke that I'd written it. James. Yeah. Well, there were two things I was getting ready for. One was that I wanted to make the joke that Ed had written it, absolutely 100%. And I'm still not rolling that out by the way. Yeah. Classic throwing you off the scent. Ed Gable making out he's a lady in the letter. But also, in preparation for possible callbacks later on in the episode, because I'm not, I don't know about clutch as much as Ed does. So I thought I'll google the clutch albums. So I know, and I tell you what, there is not a single album by clutch, which wouldn't be a funny name for a toilet. Oh, I've just remembered Earth Rocker.

Earth Rocker, Psychic Warfare, Book of Bad Decisions, that really makes me laugh. Transnational Speedway, from Beale Street to Oblivion. Strange Cousins from the West, I don't know why that's my favourite. Strange Cousins from the West really makes me laugh. It works, it works though. Jam Room. Oh, Jam Room. Jam Room. It's really good. Hang on. Isn't it Slow Hold to China? Isn't that Rarity's album? How big is this pestle and mortar when you said it about it? I bath in it sometimes. Yeah, bubble bath. And the pestle, actually, which is the pestle, which is the mortar? Uh, good question. The mortar goes,

the mortar's the baseball bat. The smasher one. The baseball bat. Yeah. Okay. And the pestle's the bowl. The pestle is the bowl. Yeah. Pestle on its own is quite a funny word. Yeah. You never hear it on its own. No, I'm just going to just get me a pestle. Yeah, I've got the mortar. I've bought my mortar. It sounds like one of those things you put up your bottom. Huh? What is one of those things you put up your bottom? What's that called? One of the things you put up your bottom? What is it? What is that? Uh, there's loads of different things that you put up on. You've spoken to enough medical professionals in your time. You're a doctor friend. I'm sure you've spoken to some arse doctor. You've got many, many, many stories about all the people

they've got. Pessary. It's a pessary. A pessary. What's a pessary? It's men. It's men. They put something up your butt. I thought that was a suppository. What's a suppository? That definitely is something that goes up your butt, my thing. Yeah. But yeah, I guess. Stop saying that. Although, what we've learned is you can, if anything can go up there. Apart from your pestle, because it's too big, right? It's too big. You could fit a butt in the pestle. You could fit a butt in the mortar. Buttplug. She's lost it. Yeah. Tom said he's absolutely lost it for the list. No, she said buttplugging. She's absolutely looted it, laughing her head off. Absolutely looted it. I just can't stop

laughing now. We're doing well to get her back in this episode. Do you want anyone in particular playing the piano? Oh, there's a good question. Somebody who's quite good. Yeah, I don't want anybody playing something where I'm like, I don't know what that is. I want to be able to recognize the tunes, proper tunes. So somebody who, like mid-range, doesn't have to be famous, but better than I am. I can only play with one hand, which is limiting. You don't want to be sat at dinner and then not really listening to music, and then you just tune into it and you just hear it in the distance. You're like, that's the Rugrats theme tune. Is that the theme from Midnight Caller? Oh, you're both probably too young for that.

Every now and again, someone said something on the podcast that I know is going to end up on a no-context-off menu Twitter account. And when you said, I can only play with one hand and it's limiting, I was like, well, that's going, that's amazing. That's immediately been tweeted out. But I'm really good with that hand. Don't get it twisted, everyone. It's the same as an expert with that hand. Not an expert. Do you want someone in the distance doing that as well? Well, I mean, if I'm on my own, maybe I could be doing that to myself, couldn't I? It's fine. It's like, the food is, right? Yeah. And if I've got, like, instead of having cutlery,

if I just have, like, a spoon, I could keep the other hand busy. It's fine. And then it'll be, the pianist will be the one going to the waiters. Can you ask her to turn it down? Keep it down over there. It's too noisy over on that table, please. I'm trying to play the piano over here. I'll have what she's having. She's dropped in the Rugrats theme. Better than sex though. It's not on your menu. Yeah, but I'm old, so sex isn't that interesting. I don't like it. It's not like, you know, all fantastic sex or a mince pie. No, let's just go with the mince pie. A lot of foods are above sex now, right? Yeah. I mean, how do you get food gets higher up the thing? Yeah. The older you get, they sort of swap places. You know,

sex is everything when you're your age, isn't it? And then you sort of think, I want to talk about it all the time. Oh, yeah. I do another podcast all about people's favorite sex menu. Yeah. Do you? No. No, that would be a good one, though. It'd be interesting to see if you can get anybody on it. Boff menu. What is it called? What do you like on your sex menu? Boff. Boff. Oh, boff. Yeah. You've got a podcast right there. Just be interesting to see who you get on it. Yeah, she's called Boff Men. Yeah. That's good. Yeah. Boff Men. Yeah. Boff Men. Might quite be quite boutique, that podcast, but you might get a lot of listeners. Yeah, that's what I was talking about. So food is overtaking sex for you?

Yeah. I mean, that sounds like I used to have as much sex as I did eat, and that probably is true. Yeah. I've probably said more sex than I ate. That's cool. And then you sort of swap a bit, because you're not that interested as much, and also your opportunities diminish the older you get. Sure. Like it or not. And whereas you can eat where you like. I mean, you can go to a restaurant and eat what you like, can't you? Yeah. You can afford it. Whereas you can't go to a boy restaurant in my case and eat what you like necessarily. No. Especially if they have free will. If they have free will. She stopped calling places boy restaurants, though. Well, I mean, you know, the idea of being... Walking into a nightclub going,

I've arrived in the boy restaurant. Well, that's the sort of, you know, if there's a sort of smorgasbord of boys, which is, you know, I'll have one of that, a little bit of that. Not too much of that, please. Just a suggestion of that, a taste of that. I've only thought of this now, but that is basically what happens. Whereas you have more opportunities, the older and richer you get in many ways, but fewer choices in the love. Well, let's not talk about love in the sex department. Yeah. You're not in love with all these boys at the boy restaurant. No. In fact, you mustn't be in love with them. No, you can't. You must not be in love with them. It's just, it's a pick and mix. Yeah. And you don't want to invest too much. Sure. It's, you know,

it's a grab bag. Yeah. Well, James, what a year it's been for Willie. It has been an amazing year for Willie. Right at the start of this year, way back in March, Joe Thomas came on our podcast and he told us about his hero, Willie Harcourt-Cous, who was a chocolate expert. He inspired Joe to do something awful with a lamb. And then we interviewed the wonderful chef, Andy Oliver, who revealed that she knew Willie Harcourt-Cous. We used that contact and as a Christmas special on Christmas day, we released the conversation between Willie and Joe. We united them and bought them together for the first time. It's been a heartwarming story. This is also a dish that I'm going to prepare. Okay. It's something that I call 24 hour lamb.

24 hour lamb. And this is a lamb that you cook by burying it with a fire in a hole. And I did this. But burying it with a fire in a hole. Initially with a fire. So it's in there with the fire. Okay. You light a fire. Yep. You put the lamb in. Yes. Okay. Then you bury it. Great. Okay. Basically that's how you do it. Now I did this about 10 years ago with there was one summer where I was living with my parents and I sort of weirdly became really just like this. Just like once I'm like really genuinely quite good friends with like one of the local dads who lives in the village. So like he was like my mate's dad. It's called Neil. But it was a bit like that's my mate Neil. So like I suppose he's about 50. I was about 25. But it was a nice,

it was a, there was nothing, you know, I wasn't like a toy boy. It was a perfectly lovely friendship. Just friends with your mate's dad. Just friends with your mate's dad. And I'm my main friend with Neil now. Not as weird as being in love with someone. No. No. We've been quite nice actually. But yeah, mates with your mate's dad. So basically he'd wanted to do this for a while. And I'd seen or it's whose idea was it? It was perhaps even my idea. But I certainly, I remember seeing a program on television. I just started to laugh because I'm just remembering that this story is clearly building towards you and your mate's dad digging a hole in the garden and cooking a lamb in it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was, as I say, you know, it was, in fact,

it wasn't the summer. It was Christmas time because we went to, it was some sort of romantic time of year. Yeah. I'd seen a program on television that was called Willie's Perfect Chocolate Christmas. Now, the thing is, in which this lamb thing had been done, now the thing is, it wasn't really a recipe program. What's Willie's Perfect Chocolate Christmas? I'll tell you what it was like. It was like, you know, Kirsty, like, Kirsty's Christmas. Like, you know, feeling Kirsty, you do that, the property stuff. She does programs at Christmas where it's like, it's a bit of cookery, but it's not really like, it's not really a cookery. They're not that specific about the recipes. It's more like tips. And at the same time, it's like, her just like making a house look nice and like making

decorations. Decorations. So it was, the recipe was sort of that level of distance from like specifically what he was actually doing. And also I kind of, it was one of those programs that you kind of like catch where I was like, oh yeah, I think he, I think he was doing something like, and sort of this is me to Neil now. He dug a pit, he put a fire in it. And then he got a load of hay that he'd kind of, kind of made a bit damp. And he put that on top of the fire. So the fire wasn't too harsh. Then he put the lamb, which I think he'd seasoned or something. I remember them putting some herbs and stuff in. Again, I'd seen it. I was like, what's that? Could be rosemary, could be anything. And in a way, it's not really a base about Willie's family, really. So who's Willie?

Well, okay. So this is the thing. So having watched this program, I'm really identified with Willie. And it was the only thing I was like, I think I'm, I'm a sort of Willie. Yeah, you're a Willie type. I'm a Willie figure. Yeah. Like I'm, I'm, I'm a guy like that. I'm a guy. Who is he? I'm an affable guy. Yeah. Okay. He was a guy who I think this might be totally wrong. I think he might have been a sort of chocolate entrepreneur. I think he might have owned, you know, he might, Google Willie's perfect chocolate. I think what you'll find is that he set up, he set, he set up. What is he was a nice guy? Yeah. And he was having a big party for his friends and family. And also, does it even exist? Hardcore coups. Yeah, there you go.

Here it is about the show. Chocolate enthusiast, Willie Hardcore coups is back to show everyone that when it comes to chocolate, consumers deserve the best. Yeah. And doesn't say anything about lamb. Well, when it comes to lamb, some people deserve a standard of lamb. Anyway, so basically, fire in the hole, down pay lamb seasoned in a Hessian sack on top of that, fill it in. Everyone basically, in fact, so we actually, that is done the night before the next day, 24 hours later, people are starting to arrive. There's a lot of anticipation and Willie who's like an eccentric, but like, he's like, Oh, what's he done now? This is, um, yeah, this is mental. And his wife was like, Oh, there was a bit, so the neighbors call the police because they're

like, I was disposing of a body. So I was like, that's cool. So he's like a cookie, cookie, cool guy. Yeah. And, um, yeah. And then the neighbors came around and basically the lamb was dug up. It was quite sort of triumphant. And it was, um, I'm almost certain the phrase falling off the bone would have been used. And this, like it was fucking nice. Basically, it was fucking nice. And it looked nice. It looked nice. Was it actually nice? No way of knowing. Was that the focus of the show? No. Did he really tell you how to do it? No. Had I briefly caught part of that show? Yes. Did I know Neil? Yes. Yeah. Did Neil's sister live on a farm and could get us a lamb? Yes. Did we drive to the farm? Yes. Was it snow when

we drove to the farm? Yes. It was that night. It was about 2009. 2009. Yeah. Three decades ago, if we're using that fucking football podcast rubric. Yeah. I mean, don't get me about it. You're the one who introduced that. Well, I just think it's bonnix. I mean, I just, it's not, in the nineties, it's not four decades ago. It's just over two decades ago. Yeah. Well, yeah. It's like, it's a stupid tricksy thing to go. It's like somebody going to be, like, next year, your turn 38. You don't need to say that. Okay. I know it's true. That's not the six now. Sure. Okay. So you're basically, you're just getting another year and then you're using one year in a different way. Yes. Exactly. Yes. Exactly. Thank you. You're using it as a marker

rather than a. Exactly. You're saying, yeah, like, you know, there's a, there's a point of the year that comes after this one, numerically, where you'll actually be two years older. But you, in, you know, if all the people might think you're two years older than you are now, even that isn't true. Sure. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, decades and time and age doesn't matter. Yeah. Well, as I say, the point is, as I say, are you, you know, are you 50? Yes. Good. Do I know your son? Yes. Do you want any mates with a son? No, only mates with you. How was your son? My age? Yeah. I still would choose you. You chose him. I chose him. I didn't know it was a choice. I should. Yeah. Place and ever. I didn't. He's genuinely, like, genuinely a

good man. A good man. Yeah. And anyway, so we drove. So it was, it was, it was a snowstorm. It was like, you know, it was a year. It was probably 2009. It was snowing so badly that the rate we were moving out, this was the year where I don't remember, like people were having to, like, overnight in their cars because they were getting stuck even on quite big roads at the M2. Yeah. For example, for example, the biggest road I can think of. Yeah. I can't think of one bigger than that. If you don't know what a big road is, and me saying like the M2 also hasn't helped you, I'm just going to, just going to have to not understand that. Sure. Okay, fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We were driving to Neil's sister's farm.

But the way we would go. So it was just you? There's me, Neil, and also a 50-year-old man driving in the dead of night listening towards a farm. I think his daughter. Yeah. And also maybe her mate. How many of the people in the car had been briefed and told about Willie's perfect chocolate dress? One, one, Neil. Yeah, nearly. But the other two hadn't had that in place. Yeah, the other two were, I think they're both there. Anyway. So you got the lamb as well? We got the lamb. So this was a fucking mission. So basically, we were moving at the speed that, because it was so snowy, we're moving at the speed like Henry VIII moves out in Wolf Hall when he's on horseback. So like, we got from Essex to Milton Keynes in about like five or six hours. Like, it was a day's,

it was like a day's ride. But you know, Wolf Hall, where it's like, after a hard day's riding, they'd made it from Kent up to London. I don't know what you're on about. I don't know about Wolf Hall. Oh, not interested in the Booker Prize. Okay. Your reference points are all over the place, Joe. We've had the Premier League, Wolf Hall, and Willie's perfect chocolate Christmas. But also, as I've established, I'm only addressing myself. Yeah. So I know, I know. So basically, we were going at kind of medieval pace, the pace where you'd have to stop to like get fresh horses. So that added an element to it that, for me, made it better. You love time with Neil, basically. Yeah, yeah. More time with Neil. Ben Tommy, best mate. Yeah. He's our best friend. Got there,

got the lamb. Point is about lamb is that it's not really a lamb, it's a massive dead young sheep. Yes. Okay. So that goes in the back of the car. Did it smell? Yes. Well, did it smell of blood? Yeah. Did it kick up a bit? Yes. I can't remember whether it was... We overnighted, I'm going to keep using the verb overnight. We overnighted at his sister's farm. Then we drove back the next day. I think it was probably a bit of an easier journey back. Now it came to bury the lamb. The garden we chose to bury it in was not my parents' back garden. Garden? We buried it in a garden. In a garden. I thought you were doing it on the farm. No, no, that was to get them. No, no, because the point is about Willie,

he's a village character. So we had to come back to our village so we could invite... Well, you had to be like Willie. Yes. You couldn't just eat the lamb. You wanted the party like Willie. I mainly wanted to be like Willie. I wanted to party like... I would act like it's 1999. But I'm Willie and it's 1999. You don't just want to eat this. You see it go on the farm. It's not really about the food. I'd love to taste that. It turns out I'm more interested in preparing food for other people, actually, if we... It's about the display. It's about the display. It's about me having friends near. So whose garden did you bury it in? We buried it in the... So as I say, not my back garden, not the back garden house that Neil,

he was literally a homeowner, lived in, but just the back garden of one of the other local mums who was like known to be a bit of a soft touch. Like she was the mum where whenever there was a party with like... When we were at school where it was just like 20 adolescent boys, no girls, which was the only part I ever went to. It was always at her house because it was like... You don't even need to make a comparison. I think we all know the old phrase. You know her. She'd let you bury a lamb in her back garden. Yeah. Exactly. So I'm a 50-year-old man and his child friend buried a lamb in her back garden because they saw Willie's perfect child at Christmas. So basically, I could see... I mean, when we arrived with the lamb, I think we were basically late

with the lamb because of the snow. We got there. My brother was there. Giles was there. Giles is the son of the woman who was like... His mum was like... Soft touch. Soft touch. Soft touch. He was... Yeah. Soft touch. Yeah. So they're there ready to help you bury the lamb. So Greg and Giles is there. And we arrive and the fire's lit. The pit is ready. So they've done quite a lot of that for you. They've done quite a lot. They've dug the pit for us. They've dug the pit for us. But Willie would dig his own pit. He would dig, to be honest. I wasn't great. I was pissed off. I wanted to dig the pit as well. I wanted to... I was... Because we were late about from the snow and everything and like...

They dug the pit. They lit the fire and then they were putting that hay on. It seemed a bit wet, but it was like there was a steam coming up. But let's put that in. Then we put the lamb in. Buried it. In a sack? I think we did have a hessian sack. I think a genuine hessian sack. And it... You know, we put bits of rosemary in it and all the rest of it. Probably garlic. Yeah. I mean, just definitely would have done. Um... Fucking definitely. Yeah. Buried it. Came at the next day. So now there's Charles' mum. Soft touch. Soft touch is there. Soft touch lamb lady. Yeah. My mum's there. Neil's wife is there. Probably thinking Neil's spending a bit too much time

with that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's gone this far. But they're very, very mad together. My dad's there. You're jealous of Neil's wife, of course. Yeah, I'm like, what the fuck is she doing here? Why aren't you standing next to me? Why are you standing next to her? Why are you standing next to her at the lamb funeral? Yeah, sorry. What's this conversation about? Yeah. Sorry. No, I don't mean to butt in. Just what you're talking about. Yeah. Veg has been prepared. Roasted veg. Yeah. A lot of anticipation. I am basically like, I'm Willy. And we go to the lamb. I'm so Willy right now.

Like, I can't see, like, obvious smoke or steam. But like, it's fine. We dig it up. Peer about the Hessian sacking. It's exactly the same. It's exactly, it's just raw. I mean, it's exactly the fucking same. It's just like, hasn't changed. It hasn't changed. So anyway, we, we, we get it out. Neil is in pieces. Neil's just literally like, we get it back into Elaine's kitchen with, oh, sorry, Elaine is soft touch. Soft touch, yeah. So I, I came in a way, I was like, I won't use a name, but then in a way, we just stopped calling us soft touch. Anyway, I think Elaine went away. So like, we, the Elaine is also a vet, which is

odd. So it was weird having this thing on the table. This dead animal. What I would say is that, what's the difference between the lamb we got from the farm and the lamb that we now dug up? I'll tell you the difference. Bits of the lamb we've now dug up literally stink of shit. That is the difference between the lamb. So basically in hindsight, there's three things I would suggest. First of all, when they put the hay on, I was like, that hay isn't damp. That's like what you'd put on a fire to put it out. It was just sweat, wet hay. Yeah, yeah. Sweat hay. So just put the fire down. Essentially dug a fire, put it out. Yeah. Essentially it was like, how do you raise

the chicken to turn the oven on? He had the oven to 200 actually probably 180. Yeah. Turn the oven off, put the chicken in. That was basically what had happened. Fire put out lamb buried. Two other facts. Um, soft touch told us that either the night before or maybe the following morning, quite a lot of the local squirrels and local pigeons had been just on the area immediately above the lamb being like, there's something going on here. What is it? There's something near that we're interested in. What is it? There's food somewhere. What is it? And then the third fact I'd say is that when we dug it up, one of Neil's sons said, it smells like museums,

which I assume means it smells like a mummy. It smells bad. It smells bad. Does Neil also then say, Dad, please come home? Dad, please come home. You finished hanging out with the Thomas boy. He said, first of all, Dad, I'm glad you're still alive. Can you just, we just want to know that you're safe. So is that your main course? That's the main course. A better version of that. Is there a version of that that was made by Willie? Well, surely Willie's one. Okay, Willie's making it. Willie's making it. We can't have your lamb zombie as...

No, we can't. No. Well, you can't have something that literally stinks of shit, probably. So, main course, roast lamb, 24 hour lamb. Long story short, you want a roast lamb, you make sure. Just please. Had that lady who buried the salmon see this TV show, Willie's Perfect Chocolate Christmas? No, I don't... Why does he do that? Does Willie do that on that? I know him. You know Willie?

Yeah. Andy, this is huge for the podcast. This is absolutely huge for you though, Willie. I'm so glad I brought up the Joe Thomas episode. And you know what? Just now when I said, Sam Richards, don't text me now, because I'm busy, she's the woman who made Willie's Perfect Chocolate Christmas. She's the producer of that program. What?

This is perfect. Because there was me in my head going, I'm going to ask if someone saw Willie's Perfect Chocolate Christmas, and that's really going to throw Andy, and you were like, oh no, she didn't see that, but the producer just messaged me, and I know Willie. And I know Willie. His chocolate, that's some really good chocolate he makes. Did he bury something in that? I don't remember that.

Did he, but what did he bury in that? Buried a lamb, apparently. Joe Thomas, he buried a lamb in Willie's Perfect Chocolate Christmas. Will you only hang out with Willie if he's been in the fridge? No, because I'm not liable to try to snap him and eat a bit off. So many questions right now. What is Willie like, and how did you meet him? Do you know what, I actually, the first time I tried to meet him,

I tried to meet him in Thailand, because somebody said, I was going to Thailand on my own, they said, my mate Will's there, you have to go and say hi to him, and I got there and he'd already left. And I was like, oh, that's a shame, so I missed him. And then when I came back to England, Sam, about two years later, was making a, this TV show, Willie's, what's the whole series? What was it called? There was a whole series. Well, I can't remember Willie's, something.

And said, oh, you must come and meet Will, because you guys are going to get on like a house on fire. Was I in one? I might, I can't remember whether we were in it, or whether I just met him down there. But so I met him down at his farm place, with all his millions of children and his lovely wife. And then occasionally I would see him in the Portobello Road. Before the Portobello Road got really crap and boring.

And what kind of a guy is he? What's his vibe? He's lovely, quite posh, very nice. He's good, he's funny. He's really into what he does. He's really like, you know, he's one of, because to do that, obviously, to suddenly start doing a sort of making a Peruvian chocolate business, you've got to be fairly obsessive. So he's fairly obsessive about it, because he has to be.

But he makes a really brilliant thing. And I love it when people are like that, when they just, one thing is their life. And that's what they're, you know, sort of their main focus is his children and the chocolate. That's going to solve so many, so many mysteries and questions on the podcast. You should get him on.

Yeah, we should. Do you want me to hook you up? Do you want me to hook you up? Absolutely get him on these contact details, obviously, after this episode. And we're going to try and get him on. You should get him on. We need to have Willie on.

I mean, it was funny. You dig a massive hole. I put lots of rocks inside the bottom. Yeah. And then built a, when I say big fire, it was six foot wide, the pit, six foot long, at least, and up to my chest, filled it with rocks, built a massive fire, got it going.

It was pure embers, almost level to the ground. And then I had to pull out with a spade on a shovel on a long stick, a lot of the coals. And then I stuck inside the lamb. I had branches of rosemary and big bunches of garlic, which I smashed up. And then I wrapped it in calico, which is a kind of canvassy white material.

And I was worried it was going to burn. So I wet it all, wet the calico. Very important to wet it all. And then I whacked in the lamb, and then I pushed in all the embers over it. So I had a good, I suppose, a couple of feet of embers on top. And then I put the earth on top, and it looked like I buried somebody.

Now, Joe, yours didn't go as well as that, did it? No. From Willie's description there, can you work out what went wrong with yours? Yeah, I can. I was there, but little bits and pieces were jumping out of me there. Do you want to tell Willie how you did it?

Did you do the stage, Willie, where this was a stage that we added to your method as a slight improvement, where after you've lit the entire fire, you and your brother and your brother's mates basically just pour so much water on the fire that the fire just goes out. And therefore, when you bury the lamb,

there's not actually any heat at all. Because that was a stage that we did. Were you drinking? We weren't drinking. No, because he was hanging out with his mate's dad. I've realised you were younger. I was younger. How old were you, Joe?

No, I'm 37 now, so I was 27. Oh, OK. And just a quick reminder, how old was your best friend? He's about, well, he's in his 50s. What a wonderful story that was, James, one for the ages. Ah, it brings a tear to my eye. But is that tear still or sparkling? We've learned a lot about people from such a simple question,

but even we were shocked by these two answers from Claudia Winkleman and Ovi Soko. Did it all spark some water, Claudia? Neither, thank you. I don't like or believe in it. I don't... I won't have it. I won't have it. If you're walking towards my table and there's a water glass on there

and you lean forward, tap or spark, you know, it's a solid no. I've never knowingly had water. I don't like it. The whole thing is arrogant and smug. There's just a whiff of, check me out. And I don't... I won't have it. I won't have it around. Claudia, you're sounding dangerously like

one of those anti-face mask people at the moment. I love... No, it's not true. I love a face mask. I'm always in the face mask, but I don't... But then when people drink it, like my husband drinks water, great amounts of water. And I really like him, but it is... It's problematic.

Don't touch me, Claudia, take your bra off. Don't think so. That was disgusting. You should be ashamed of yourself. I'm a glugger. I get all my... Like, my day's water, I'll just have it by the sink and plug it all down in big pint cups.

Like when you open your throat. Yeah, just pour it in. Like a raw egg in Rocky. Like, yes, ah, this is going down. Yeah. Why? I mean, am I an old prune? Sure, sure, sure.

But I'm never thirsty. I've never been thirsty. You know, there are people who are thirsty. I've never been... I'm 48, I'm entirely made of spray tan. I've never... You know, people are like, oh, I'd do anything for a drink. That's because they've gone down the route

of giving their bodies liquid. And so then they want more. The key is none. That's a really interesting theory you've got there. Sure. People are thirsty because they've drunk water. No, I don't know why people are thirsty. Maybe they've been outside.

I don't go outside. So, sure, there are things that can make one thirsty, but I don't want water anywhere near me with it. Let's like yoga or hummus. It's just all check, you know, look at me. Look what I can do for you. I'm not sure you can lump all those things together. I think water has probably more of a back story

than yoga and hummus. Listen, I know that water... My little one is doing the water cycle now. You know, evaporation, precipitation, whatever. I get it. I like the sea. I like looking at a river. Do I want to drink it?

Do I want to ingest it? Do I want to hear myself swallow? It's a solid no. So, thank you, lovely water waiter, but it's not here. Not on my watch. No, I mean... Move along. I will accept that you don't want water.

That's fine. Did I go in too hard? It's because I'm excited to be here. I think we're skimming over your reasoning a little bit too much at this point, because you are talking about water as if it's a fad, as if it's a new thing that people have got into

that you think is ridiculous. No. All right. Can I expand on this? You can, but also you're going to have to expand on the fact that you think the reasons that you don't like... Well, you claim that you've never been thirsty and that the reason for that might be because

you've never been outside and you never want to hear yourself swallow, which you think is limited to water at this point. I think one gets warm and thirsty when they are either doing some form of movement, which I don't do, or they're outdoors, you know, and suddenly everyone's in the sun, they're wearing flip-flops,

they're holding massive bottles of water at the size of my nine-year-old. Oh, I'm so thirsty. Do you want some? Oh, we've got a straw. Oh, yeah, it's made of bamboo. Oh, I'm so thirsty. I don't leave my bed, but if I did leave my bed,

so I don't really build up a thirst, you know what I mean? That's A. B, I don't like the taste of it. Sparkling is too much of a shock, right? Well, it is if you never drink water. I can imagine it is. Yeah. It's like a slap around the face of bubbles and liquid.

There's too much going on. Oh, my good bubbles. And then it comes out of people's noses. I'm only guessing here. And then all there's just pure water. H2O. Look at me. How do you stay so beautiful?

Oh, I just drink water. But I think this is James's point. I feel like we've talked about it for too long. Well, no, not at all. Whenever you characterize someone who drinks water, you do it like it's a hipster thing, like it's only started, you know, since 2010. My parents don't drink water.

They're completely anti it. Right. No, they're not completely anti it. I don't know if I've ever seen them. Oh, my dad had a glass of water the other day, and I questioned him about it. Why would anyone see anyone else drinking a glass of water and go a few questions?

All right. Imagine you're on a date, right? I mean, I've been at the same man for hundreds of years. But imagine you're on a date, you go in, he's all sort of twinkly and a little bit, you know, he's wearing a fisherman's sweater with some paint on it because sometimes he paints. And he's sitting there and he's like,

I don't know what to have. What are you going to have? Maybe we should have the same thing. And somebody comes around and they go, would you like some water? And he goes, yeah, sure. And they give him like a pint glass of water and he drinks the whole thing.

Are you going to want to kiss this man? Or more? Are you going to go into what? No. Lovely white mouth. A white mouth! With a big, fresh tongue that's covered in liquid. I want to like a dry, shriveled up little man.

I want to sleep with Mr. Burns. He doesn't drink water. I want him at the table. Oh no, I don't have water. And then just sits there and nibbles on some crusty bread. So, we come to your dream drink. Dream drink, yeah. Yeah.

You know, I had to think about this one and this one might be a bit on the boring side. But I honestly, I only drink water, guys. I genuinely, genuinely only drink, like I drink water. Sometimes, you know, I'd have a, I'd have a beer or a night out or something like that. But yeah, I love water, man. Like it's...

You drink, drink his water. That's my dream drink, man. That's my dream. That's my dream drink. You already had that. You had sparkling water and now you've somehow you drink, drink his water. We can double it on him still.

We can double it up and still. I'll take one of those little sachets that you can get. A touch of fruit in there. Just a touch of flavor in there. And we'll just go. Your dream drink. Cleanse the palate.

Let me get this straight. Your dream drink is still water. Still water. After choosing sparkling water. Fresh, fresh spring water. Don't try and make yourself more excited by saying it's fresh spring water, right? That is way more exciting.

You can't taste the difference. Yeah, there you go. Can you taste the difference between spring water and normal tap water? Yeah, I think I can taste the difference. Probably, yes. Yeah, man. It's fresh.

The best quencher. This is what your body's made. Like your body's what, 67% water or whatever it is. Yeah. You need it, man. I love you. I bet you've never heard that one before.

No. There you go. It's the first. I love that you guys. Oh, this might be a bit on the boring side. And I was like, oh no, it's definitely not going to be. He's just a bit worried that his drink should. Oh, no, it is water.

He's picked water as his dream drink. There was a long pause that you left after saying it was going to be boring. And I literally, in that pause, thought to myself, what's boring? Water. We're not going to pick water. Maybe it's going to be water.

It's definitely water. Thanks, Ovi. A wonderful drink still all sparkly and water-sure. But the king of drinks, as we all know, is Diet Cola. Since the very beginning of this podcast, James has told the most boring story of all time. About how he stopped drinking normal Coke and then started drinking Diet Coke

and it tasted like normal Coke to him. He gets it into every episode record. It very rarely makes the edit. But we will be playing one version of it here. It's a Panna and Unchirlers. Ed, do you want to tell a Panna and my Diet Coke story? Yes. James stopped drinking all caffeine a while ago.

And then, including Diet Coke, because that's got caffeine in it. Yes, yes. And then after many years, he decided to start drinking Diet Coke again because he needed to wake himself up for something. And because it had been so long since he drunk any Diet Coke or Coke, Diet Coke now just tastes like normal Coke to James.

Yes. How's that for a life hack? Now, what's that story more exciting when Ed told it? So I've told it many times on the podcast and it always gets nothing and the guests hate it. I thought I would try it this time with Ed telling it. Was it better? I think because you told him to tell it,

I thought there was some element of shame for you. Yes. So I was automatically invested in it. Right, yes. There's a bit more like, oh. Yeah. Yeah. Someone's gone on here.

Should, next time I tell it, should I add a more shameful element to it? So I say, and then he drank Diet Coke again and he immediately shits his pants. Yeah, I do think if someone gives you permission to tell their story, you have full license to hear from the facts. You can do what they like, like Tim Burton, Remaking Planet of the Age.

Yeah, exactly. Okay. I liked your version of it, Ed. It was nice, but I would say just some feedback. Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure. You missed out. You went as precise and specific about some details. Like you said, like James just cut out all caffeine,

but you didn't say like it was like how long ago it was. 2013, I usually pinpoint it. No, I definitely made it less boring. It was five years later. You said some years went by. It was five years later and then I started drinking. Because I bring sort of a natural element to the storytelling. Sure.

You know, people don't care about dates and things like that. You know, I'm more of an anecdotalist than James and he's more of a sort of science guy. Okay. Apana, would you like to have a turn at telling the story? I know you've heard it once. Yeah. Okay.

But like, I can try, I can try. Okay. So James, you stopped drinking caffeine at a time in your life when you really didn't want to be awake. Yes. And then five years later, all of your relationships started falling apart. Professionally, you were off track.

So you decided you had to add some caffeine back to the mix and you went for Diet Coke. Uh, the regular Coke was there for you, but you couldn't handle the impact. Regular Coke at that point, because you were weak from the lack of caffeine. And so now Diet Coke gives you the same kick from regular Coke. And at this point, a regular Coke might in fact kill you.

That was the best I've ever told you. Quite easily the best has ever been told. Brilliant. Loved it. Couldn't have said it better myself. Thank you. Now it often winds James up if his Diet Coke story gets cut out and people have really cottoned on that winding James up

is a very fun thing to do. And we've got a list of clips here as long as you're armed. These bunch of punks. We've selected from the bunch of punks Jembrister, Ivo Gray, Terry Hansen, David Cross and Dolly. So we arrive at your dessert. Are you, uh, much of a dessert? You are, aren't you?

I love them. You love a pudding. Do you know what? There are days where I'm like, I'm totally down for this, but mostly not bothered. I don't like, if we go out, if I go out for dinner, I never have a dessert. I will have a dessert wine.

Yes. Or I will have the cheese board. More bread. We are in. Yes. We're no, well, what are you about to say? What kind of territory are we in here? What's your actual, oh my God.

This is. This feels tense. I don't know if this is coming across in the podcast. What's your choice? What sort of attitude is that you're choosing now? Well, I guess it'd be a cheese board. No! Yes!

Ah! Ah! No! Fuck you, Jem! Fuck! Yes! How dare you! Oh!

Ah! Da-da-da-da! Da-da-da-da! Da-da-da-da! Da-da-da-da! Da-da-da-da! Da-da-da-da! Da-da-da-da!

Da-da-da cheese board! I bet I'll try it! I'm sensing. I don't know where I'm getting this from, but I'm sensing some kind of competition here. And I'm sensing, James, that you may have lost. Yeah. Oh, I've lost everything.

James can't bear the idea of anyone not having a sweet thing for dessert and having a cheese board. Oh, really? And that's what I do on a regular basis. So you wouldn't have to hear that? We went out for lunch at Tom Carridge's restaurant, and I picked the cheese board,

and James was genuinely angry with me. What did you pick? I sat here with you. I asked you about your hits, who won? I had fun with you about Fizzy Wines. Oh, man, I feel like... Had a real laugh with you. This isn't really tricky one.

I opened up about my psoriasis. Are you sit there? Are you choose a goddamn cheese board for dessert? Jeannie, be quiet. I want to talk to Jen about what the cheese is she likes. What's on the cheese board, Jen? Um, I love a mixture of the soft and the hard. Excuse me, James.

So I would have, like, a really, I don't know, a really stinky camisola or something like that, or like a brie or a camembert or something, and then maybe, like, a harder cheese like a Gruyere. Yes, nice. I also quite like a cheddar bomber. Oh, okay, nice. Now, just in case the listener doesn't know what's going on,

every time Jen mentions a cheese, James blows a raspberry like an orangutan. And does something with his thumb. Okay, and then, yeah, so I'd have a mixture of those. Tell me, tell me, Jen. Yeah. You say you like a Gruyere. Have you dipped your toes into the waters of Comte before?

I have, and I love a Comte as well. I love a Comte as well. I love a Comte. A little bit nutty. Very nutty. Yeah. A very well-aged Comte. Yeah, very nice.

Delicious. But what I insist on whilst the genie dry wretches in the corner is that will there be enough crackers for the cheese? Because there are never enough crackers. There'll be as many crackers as you like. You could even... There's only enough crackers if your kids haven't been at the oat crackers.

I don't, they're not here. They're not here. That's the only way I can enjoy this meal. They are not here. Lucky, lucky for them they're not here. I hate them to see their mother make such an awful decision. And we arrive at your dessert. The greatest dish of all.

I think I'm going to disappoint James with the dessert. Because I do like desserts, but I just don't have dessert sat off. I don't know what... I don't like what this is about. I don't... And I don't feel good. I feel great.

We have... And I told you we'd return to the Graham hearth, and we're back at my parents' house. And my mum will occasionally make some lovely, like, crumbles, apple crumbles up there, really nice apple crumble. But I think what I'm probably going to have is just a banana cut-up in Yo-Val-y-yoghurt.

What the fuck? Ah, ah, ah! Oh, what? I was all over stealing myself a cheese and biscuit, and it's somehow worse. A banana cut-up in Yo-Val-y-yoghurt. You absolutely trash, man. You're trash, man.

We're a trash family. The Graham hearth! The Graham hearth! The back of the Graham hearth! The Graham hearth! What's going to be the Graham hearth? A chopped-up banana. Chopped-up banana in a Yo-Val-y-yoghurt.

Yeah. Well, because my dad... That's his favourite thing. What? What? Who is he? How is that his favourite thing? Because my dad can't really...

He doesn't cook. No, no. Oh, no. That is clear. No, he barely eats full of sound effects. He doesn't barely. He has a lovely... So, it's either that or Petty-Falloo.

I mean, Petty-Falloo... What? Why not a sound? A Petty-Falloo on its own or with a chopped-up banana? No, no, no. Which means you're... No, no. A loads of different Petty-Falloo's all over the world.

No, no, no. There's no banana with the Petty-Falloo. The Petty-Falloo's just on its own. If we don't have a banana, we do have Petty-Falloo. We buy! No, I'm 29 and my dad's 48. 58. Doesn't matter.

He... So... But because it's his... Usually, you know, it'll be my mom or, increasingly, my brother who cooks a lot, who'll put a lot of effort into a big main, usually a lovely carbonara, and then pudding will be a bit of a bits and bobs afterthought. So, there will be some cheese and biscuits, some grapes, but my dad's...

And his sort of eyes light up and he says, he wouldn't chop a banana into some yogurt for me, would you? And I would say, no, I wouldn't. But now I'm afraid I've spent the last two decades of my life drinking that good. No, we eat the Cratchits. Bob Cratchits family on Christmas Day. And you put brown sugar on, if that's one you're back over. Brown sugar elevates its swine.

Yeah, and also, you watch the brown sugar sort of dissolve in such a lovely golden way. I'm aware of how brown sugar sinks into a yogurt. It looks lovely. I'm familiar with that visual and it does not save any of this. And a bit of squeezy honey as well. Okay, fine. Oh, are you coming around? Squeezy honey and brown sugar just made it better.

But like, still, this is the absolutely... Also, Yo Valley makes me angrier. Which doesn't have to be Yo Valley. Chopping up a banana into a sweet, natural yogurt. And having some brown sugar and a honey in it to... Why are you even bothering me? Because I think... The way your dad asks for it, as well,

oh, you wouldn't mind chopping up a banana. Oh, no, no, he doesn't say that. He's having a trouble, you know. He says, you know what I like. He just told Tony to say that. Everyone goes, yes, the most boring thing in the world. No, it's not the most boring thing in the world. It's something sort of simple and rustic about it.

And from a very young age, I was able, as a man... Simple and rustic. I knew that something like... You were the most simple and most... I knew something like it hit you in the face. You were Tony and Oxford graduate. I knew something I could do that could make my dad happy. And that was to cut banana into some Yo Valley yogurt

and sprinkle some brown or muscovado sugar on top. And I'd have it, as well. And everyone else would scoff much as you have. But it's basically my dad, particularly when he's spending like... My mom's not around for whatever reason. We'll live very much like a divorced man who's got no idea how to fend for himself.

So I have beans on toast and I have banana yogurt for pudding. And those are two of my favorite things. Well, of course, we've got two alumni of the Great British Bake Off sat in front of me. It sounds like we had very different experiences. Yeah. James, do you want to talk, Terry, through what happened? Oh, yeah, I'd call it an experiment.

I was just very jet lagged at the time. I just come back from here, actually. Terry, did you travel from here? Yeah, I traveled from here, so I'm not quite sure. I've traveled from here, so I'm not quite sure. Yes, but go ahead. I'm not sure to show you up for anything. I probably did a different route back.

Right, okay, yeah, yeah. You took the long way around here. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I had what I think is commonly... I think this is a baking term, but what is referred to as a waking nightmare. And everything fell apart. My flapjacks were just like a porridgey mess.

I had to do a cream horn for the technical, which is, I think, a bit too hard for the technical. We had the cream pie. Yeah, how did that go? How did you do on that? I finished mine and helped other people. Well, I did neither of those things. Yeah, Alan Carr didn't know how to make custard,

so I helped him make his custard. And then one of the other girls had an issue with her hand, so she couldn't pipe her whipped cream, so I went and did that, because I was finished. Wow, that's how you do it, James. I don't know how you did that. I couldn't even think in normal... My brain was all over the place.

No, I will say the technical is hard, because the way it works with the directions, the very minimal directions they give, if you don't know what you're doing, it doesn't tell you what to do. So you're right. If you don't know how to do it, it's not there, and that makes it very hard.

They knew what they were doing with us. They just completely gave very little direction. Cream horns, like pastry and creme pat. There's a lot of stuff going on there. So you had to make the custard, and then you had to make the corn, and then you had to pipe it in? Yeah.

And I couldn't do any of that. No, that sounds like a lot. It all fell apart. That sounds like a lot. I'm sorry it was stressful. And then the next day I had to make my special place out of what it meant to be, I guess. Like cake and stuff, but I just did it with sweets.

Oh, meringue, that was it. Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. But I had to make, I run my mouth off and told them I could make a theme park out of meringue, but I couldn't. So I didn't go well either.

It went so badly, Terry, that it became a meme. Really? It became a meme. Wow. That's how badly it went. It came known as the worst baker in Bake Off history, and that's included, but that's not just the celeb one. That's like all of them.

Oh, I'm sorry. That's not good. It was the best day of my life, Terry. Yeah, I had a great time. Did you like the show before, though? I mean, is that why, yeah. I've not watched an episode since. Oh my God, it's like trauma, like PTSD, you can't do it.

I've not been able to watch it since that time. I was such a huge fan, and this was back, a couple of years ago, at least, and I think I was one of the first people in the States to be a huge, huge fan. Because when the offer came to me to do the thing for charity, it sort of came to me in a way of like, you probably don't want to do this,

but here's this thing. And I was like, what? Of course I want to do it. Oh my God. And I went over there with two big suitcases, packed full of 30 pounds worth of flour, and all my own tools, and all my... But you're wearing flour?

Yeah. How did that look at customs? I know, I really... I was sweating it out on the plane. I thought I am completely getting arrested for this. Unmote bags. But the producer called me like the day before I was supposed to leave,

and she said, you know, it just really dawned on me that our flour is different than your flour. And if you've been practicing with this stuff, like, it might not work with what we have here. So you better bring... So I brought my own food color dye. I brought my own... Yeah, I brought a lot of stuff.

Wow. Yeah. I was probably... Sounds like you really prepared for it as well. I did. I might have been doing it with different flour. That was your problem. Yeah.

At home when you practiced. When I made my flapjacks. Did you practice at home? Once, yeah. I had one run free with my sister. It was easy. Because your sister did it? Yes.

But it looked very easy when I watched her doing it. I thought, this is going to be great. I'm going to nail this. Wasn't it pretty, though, the tent and the whole thing? No. No, okay. I just kept saying, I can't believe I'm in this tent. I can't believe I'm in this tent.

I really loved it. I said that as well, but not in that tone. Also, when I did it, it was a very cold day. I don't know what the weather was like. Yeah, it was cold. Yeah, so I was like... It was cold and rainy. Stop trying to make excuses.

Terry also flew from LA. It was also a cold day. She finished and helped everyone else. She probably could have finished and then come to your episode as well and helped you. That would have been good. I would next time if you ever feel like you want to confront your fears or whatever. I could be your sous chef.

Yeah, well, that would be good. That would be quite the team, actually. I'd like the worst and the best who have ever done it. I think team up together. I think your team is probably stretching the term. You just didn't practice. I bet you would. Yeah, I didn't practice and all the so many things.

I guess cream pie is a bit easier than cream or... I agree. I think you're right. I think you're right. What did you do for your showstopper? So we had to do a rainbow cake. And it had to have at least six layers that represented all the colors. Wow.

And it had to be at least two tiers. But so then I did 12 tiers. It's all over a cheever. So I did the bottom layer I did with the cake being the rainbow. All the different six colors. And then the top layer, I did a white cake and I made lemon curd as the filling between the layers. But I changed the color so that the curd was all the different colors. So that when you cut into it, it was white cake with the rainbow in the filling.

And then the bottom was rainbow cake with white filling. Absolutely incredible. I iced an egg. I piped some icing onto an egg so it looked like Sandy Tox thing. That's what I did. Yeah, I'm a sweet savoury guy. Okay, I can work with that. That's good to know.

It's going to be fine. When it comes to dessert, almost every single time, either I don't have dessert or we'll get the cheese plate. Yes. Cheese. I'm a cheese guy. The moment I met you, David, I knew you were one of my people. This is incredible.

Fuck you, David. I quit. Is that what you're selecting, David? Are you selecting the cheese plate for your dream meal? No. Yes. I'm not going to select the cheese plate. God bless America.

I'm going to say, you know what, I've got, I'm just going to use logic here. I have enough room for dessert. I don't need a whole lot of dessert. And desserts usually slice a pie or whatever. But I do have some room for dessert. And rather than the cheese plate, because then I'd have to switch to wine. And I've had too much beer at this point. Too much beer.

I mean, we're at like seven pints at this point. So I don't want to switch to wine, so forget the cheese. So I'm going to have some more poutine. This is great. Oh, I thought, I thought, oh, it's okay. For a minute there, for a minute there, I felt like when at the Oscars, when they said La La Land won. And I was like, no, it's like, yeah.

But now it's like they went, La La Land won. Oh no, sorry, we made a mistake. La La Land won. What was great about that is the look of glee on David's face when he said that. Because he knew it was going to upset James. B, because just the idea of just more poutine, please. Buck ended it with poutine. That's a wonderful choice. You know, comes full circle.

Yeah. We come to this as a very exciting, the headliner of the meal for a reason. It's the best. Not for me. So if I'm hungover and I want to get the 12 pounds cheese cake slice, that's the only time I'll ever have a wheel hankering for sweet stuff. I haven't got that much for sweet tooth. So if I may, am I allowed to have cheese instead of pudding?

Yes! Oh no. He's left. James has left the Zoom call. He's literally left the Zoom call. Loyal listeners, you'll know what happens when people order cheese. It's the first time it's happened on a Zoom episode, and I wondered what might happen. And he simply left the Zoom call.

This is an order that has made him scream in an elected MP's face before. Okay, we've just taken a quick pause there just to explain what happened. When Dolly picked her cheese for dessert, which is perfectly reasonable to have for a dessert, James got really angry, slams his laptop to leave the Zoom, and messed up the recording. So we've had to come to another website to record the rest of the podcast, because James ruined the whole recording by being a little angry boy, and getting all pissy about cheese, didn't you make? No regrets.

Don't regret it. Stand by it. Completely stand by it. You're lucky that I bothered to reopen the laptop. I didn't throw the laptop out the window. Also, I really like when you can really cost out the price of a joke, and the cost of that physical gag, I think, was totally worth it. Also, you call it a joke, but I think he's quite serious.

He also normally gets a shout at the guest, and he gets to get all that anger and aggression out towards the cheese. But now he's slammed the laptop, and you can still see he's seething. He's bubbling away there. Well, I thought by slamming the laptop, I didn't have to listen to the awful chat that now has to follow, where Dolly lists a bunch of disgusting cheese and biscuits that she wants instead of a delicious pudding. But now I have to still listen to this bit.

Oh, James, you didn't play it cool that day, did you? Those people. I do not regret shutting my laptop on Dolly Alderton. She absolutely deserved it. And all those people, by the way, now have IBS. Thank you, Sam and Millican. I don't get wound up as often, James, but when I do, oh boy, I flip my lid. So let's hear a couple of clips now from a couple of people winding me up.

But I'll let you in on a secret. Sometimes it's you two that wind me up. Me and the Ben and Gorgon. Proud. Here's Diane Morgan and Harry Condobolu. Ed, you deserve everything you get. Starter, Diane. Yeah.

Oh, right. So first thing, I don't believe in starters. Oh, no. I never, I never, never have a starter. What is the point in starters? Yeah. Just give me my main meal. Oh, all right.

What is the point of a starter? Well, how about a bonus, a bonus mini main before the main main? No. No. Yes, Diane. Pointless. Captain, my captain. It's just more ways of getting money out of it, isn't it?

Yeah, it's a swizz. It's a swizz. You can't, yeah. Do you want a smaller meal before the meal you actually want? No. You're the one who's just eating marmalade on a popper, Dom. Yeah, to be fair, that was weird. You forced me into it, though.

I didn't actually want it. You said you were a shredhead. Did you ate the whole popperdome before the marmalade on it? So anyway, no starter for me. Thank you. It's a pass. It's another pass. I love it.

What do you mean another? Greg Davis did this. Also, here's what my interests do, because I'm getting the heebie-jeebies now. You might be able to see, I've got goose bumps and my hairs are standing on end. Greg Davis chose popperdoms. Greg Davis said that his favorite thing to have popperdoms with was lime pickle, and that he loves lime pickle. To the extent that, he complained that his local curry house has stopped doing lime pickle,

and they put it back on the menu and put it Greg's pickle afterwards after the podcast had gone out. And he also said pass on the starter. Here's the only person to have done that. You are the second person to have done it, and you like the lime pickle, but this is very exciting. That's amazing. I think we really get on.

What do you do, though, on a night, if you're eating out with people and everyone else orders a starter, what do you do? Don't have a starter. So you just sit there while everyone else eats their starter? Yep. Yeah. How do you like that, Ed? I try and persuade them not to have a starter.

Oh, you're the worst. Dian doesn't have to worry about passing the starter, and everyone else having their starter. Should be chatting to Greg Davis. They're both not having starters together. Probably splitting a jar of lime pickle together. But surely, has there ever been a starter on a menu that you've thought, oh, actually? Yeah, I have.

I have. Actually, sometimes the starters are nicer than the mains, aren't they? So I like two starters instead of the mains. What is this? It absolutely flipped around. No, I thought I'd flipped her around, and then she came back and said she'd have two starters instead of a main. Oh, you do your own impromptu tapas.

You change the restaurant. Yeah, I won't be pushed into having a starter. Am I right in thinking we'll just pass on the starter and go straight to the main course? Yes. So always so disappointing. Don't you think it's the way that life's going, though, isn't it? Everyone's getting so greedy for stuff. No, it's not funny, Ed.

Am I allowed to take a bite out of this rugula that you have brought? Yes, absolutely. Is that what that is? Yes, I bought it along with me, Ed. I got it from Vustin and Daughters. Vustin and Daughters. Less said about that, the better, James. And you, I wanted to go there, and you weren't there without me.

It's chocolate and risotto. Ed, we could go together. I don't want to go with you. I'm going by myself. That seems to be the way people do things around here. I'm going to go and get a bagel by myself, and then I'm going to eat some Toadies Choco Lonely. Oh, no.

Eddie Choco Lonely. Eddie Bagel Lonely. Eddie Bagel Lonely. I'm not organizing any more food trips during this. I'm not choosing any more restaurants for all of us together. I'm only going to places by myself from now on. It's a single bagel. Well, it's a single bagel that you knew I wanted.

You could have had it. We want to go again with you. Well, bad luck. Why? You will not be getting my list of restaurants that I was planning on. I don't understand. I'm going by myself. But can't we, we can be with you.

Like, do you have to be there when we have it for the first time? Yes. Oh. Because we're here together. But there's not. I will say Terrace Bagels, which is a block away from here. It is fantastic. If you do.

Is it better than Russ and Daughters? I can't tell you. I don't know. Why did all your friends go to Russ and Daughters without you as well? Isn't Russ and Daughters a chain? Yeah, there's a few of them around New York. Oh, they've been to all of them. They probably went yesterday.

No, we just went to one. Me and Benito went to one. We had to leave early at the end. And we didn't have to. We thought, you know, oh, Benito was like, I'm so hungry. And we're like, let's look for a place. And we're like, oh, there's a Russ and Daughters over right there.

So we just went to the maps. And then we just thought, we'll just go there and get one. And you knew as soon as you made that decision, I bet someone said, Ed will be annoyed if we go there without him. No. We didn't say that. We didn't think that that would happen. You should know me better.

We thought it would be OK. Sorry, Harry. I don't like that you have to witness it. Eddie Bagel lonely. What is this? It's a Ruggler. But what does that mean? I thought a Ruggler was rocket.

Yeah, that's a Ruggler. This is R-U-G-E-L-A-C-H, is that right? R-E-G-E-L-A-C-H. That's right. Correct. Five points to Harry. Isn't it? It's like a Jewish cookie, right?

Yeah. It's like a little like, it's like a Jewish Swiss roll. It's lovely. From what I can see. It does look very nice. It's very nice. Full of chocolate, raspberry, apricot, depending on the different ones there.

It's an assorted one. Pastry that goes around in the spiral. I'm very hungry. Of course, because I haven't eaten today. Oh, dear. You'll be happy to know that the next day I went out and got one of those bagels and I bought James and Benito one

in an act of what I like to call passive aggressive kindness. Yep. And guess what? We just liked the bagels and that was it. He thought we were going to feel bad because we hadn't invited him the day before. But all that happened was

we got two bagels and it had paid for one of them. Yeah. About $18, ridiculous. It was brilliant. I love it. I love it in mustn't daughters when you see the man slicing up the salmon in front of you.

Even that is like a delicious mini meal before the main meal. That's what I like to call some things. No, that's what I call a starter. Don't you, you're winding me up as much as Richard Herring wound us up. Oh, I remember Richard Herring winding us up the whole time.

Richard Herring was so ridiculous on the episode that one of my girlfriend's friends genuinely said to her that she felt sorry for us in the episode because a competition winner from the public had got on and didn't understand how the show worked. But it was actually a professional comic. And then Richard Herring.

Let's hear from the professional comic, Richard Herring. I don't want to eat anything I can eat now. And this is something I would, again, this is something from my past that is genuinely my favourite. And you won't know what it is because it's called Bella's Pudding. And it's named after my grandma's friend

who's called Bella, not Pudding, Bella. She's called Bella Pudding. She made a, now, I didn't like the top part of it. The top part was like meringue that you get on lemon meringue pie. I wasn't that bothered about that, right? But the bottom bit, the bottom bit. You didn't like the top part of it.

What are you doing, Richard? I didn't really eat the top part, but the bottom part. In every course so far, there's been a bit that you don't want to eat of it. You sometimes have to put up with something you don't want to get to the thing that you really love. Not in your dream meal! You do!

Well, I could say don't put the meringue on top. But it was this like set caramel dessert, not quite a mousse. I can't even describe what it is. My grandma could make it. Bella, presumably, could make it. I never met Bella. So my pudding comes in three parts,

but all parts are Bella's pudding. I would like to have a Bella's pudding made by Bella, which I never got to taste to see how my grandma did. I would like a Bella's pudding made by my grandma, which is the most delicious pudding I've ever eaten if you scooped up the meringue. And just like a really nice set caramel. Just, I love caramel, but it was just incredible.

And I'd like the attempt that my mum and my sister did after my grandma was no longer making it, which wasn't anywhere near as good. And I'd like to taste all three, blind-tasted, and work out and be able to identify which was which. It reminds me of my grandma, who's no longer with us. It was a unique and amazing dessert. And I like, I like ice cream especially.

I love caramel stuff. And it was this just amazing, like cooked caramel, I think. So, because it had meringue on the top, so it must have been cooked somehow. But was it like a creme caramel? Was it like a wobbly kind of, or was it like a toffee cinder block? Or what are you talking about?

It was, it was somewhere, it wasn't like, creme caramel is one of my least favourite desserts because I don't like the texture of it. So it wasn't that sort of weird texture. That you get with creme caramel. It was more like a mousse, but it was not quite, it was sort of set, but you know, you put a spoon in and you wouldn't,

you didn't have to dig, it would come, so it was mousse-like, but set like a, like a C. It was, there was, there was some bubbles in it, I don't think. I think it was just this brown caramel. Again, I don't really remember much about it. That's why I would like to have it again. Yeah. So, two of your courses so far,

you've demanded different versions of the same thing to test to see which is the best one. Look, I'm going to make the most of this opportunity. Do you not listen to the thing I said about desert island discs? I have the opportunity to travel in time to get meals that I've forgotten about, to get meals that I know I will never taste again. And people aren't here choosing bloody pizzas

and McDonald's and Nando's. No, Bella's pudding. Who else has chosen Bella's pudding? No one. Thanks, Richard. So many great stories, anecdotes and food-based revelations have been on the podcast, James. And those are my words.

Yes, I even taught everyone about the origin of crisps. I'm a very wise and learned man, with some great stories, anecdotes and food-based revelations. It's Sam Carter, Suzy Essman, Amy Hoggart, Michael McKean, Russell Howard, Roisin Connity, Romesh Ranganathan, and myself, James, the origin of crisps acaster. Talking to Catherine Cohen.

I used to hate sparkling water. I used to despise it. When we were touring in Europe when we were younger, I was not about it at all, but it was just all that they seemed to have. So you'd be on stage and be like, oh, I'm so thirsty. You go and pick up a big bottle of water,

go to down it, and be like, whoa, what's happening here? Not on stage. No, you'd be burping and worse. Terrible, terrible to quench your thirst. Yeah, but now, over the last two, three years, I think, yeah, I've got really into sparkling. Would burps quite help, though, in metal, though? Maybe, that's a new style.

You can really do it. I was listening to, now I'll get the name wrong, Thurgofen, Thurgofen. How are you spelling that? It's a funeral dune. So, T-H-E-R-O-T-H-O-N. Right, yeah. Thurgofen.

Amazing album, but he does sound like he's burping. Yeah, a lot of that black metal that he's doing now, where there is a real sort of low, sort of like, it sort of sounds like they're not really making much of an effort, or they're really sound about the fact that they have to sing like that. It sounds like he's doing that thing when you used to see how long you could go.

Yeah, yeah. Mayhem, like that, there's a band called Mayhem that just sounds like the singer's burping. Yeah. But really nasty. I've only had done a little bit of baking recently, but you've got to leave it until it's then twice the size, and you're trying to work that in what twice the size is.

Let it rise, which is kind of fun, because then you get to beat it. Yeah. You get to beat the crap out of a thing of dough, which is fun. Would you think about anything in particular while you were beating up the dough? Well, it depends. You know, I get asked this question a lot about,

you know, how I work up my anger for my character, for Susie Green on Curb. And there's always, now my trigger is so easy, you know, because I have this asshole in chief here that I could just use him. But, you know, there's always something. I mean, I brought up teenagers. It was always something.

Yeah. Is it? Yeah. I was thinking about who the asshole in chief was. I was like, oh, yeah, it's Donald Trump. Yeah. We don't say his name. We don't say his name.

While I was like, oh, Larry seems to get nice. No, it's not Larry. It's not Larry. I love Larry. I was like, what? Larry's one of my best friends. I love him. Yeah.

Yeah. So you find the character easier to access now? She's always been easy to access for me, because it's so much fun. Yeah. You know, you just scream and yell and tell everybody to go fuck themselves. I show up to set.

You know, they fly me to LA. The other thing about when you're on set, they feed you all day. Yeah. You know, this craft service. You know, a craft service. It's just like deliciousness all day long and choices. And then catering.

We always have a great caterer. And I love when you don't have to think about your food, when it's just provided for you. Because to me, every night it's like, all right, what are we going to do for dinner? It's like the stress and the anxiety of it. Yeah, yeah. And when I had kids at home and the meal prep,

and then, and now they're all in their late 20s and they all live on their own, but they come home and it's, what are we doing for dinner? What am I? The meal preparer or the rest of your life? I have to prepare your fucking meals. You figure it out. Here's money.

Go to the store. Do we talk in a mues bouche? Yeah, go on. Whang over. Absolutely. And what is it this time, James? Peas in a pod. Peas in a pod.

Oh, nice. I love peas. I better remember that for all the food stuff in a minute. Do you love peas? Amy loves peas. One day, I ate marshy peas three times and then I had peas for dinner. On my way back from a festival, no one could believe it.

On your way back from a festival? Yeah. Like I ate marshy peas at the festival. So they serve marshy peas at the festival? Yeah, it was like a breakfast thing. I don't know, I can't explain it, but I ordered it. And then we went on a ferry or something. We was on the Isle of Wight.

We went on a ferry and they had marshy peas on the ferry. I had some. And then we got to a service station and I thought it'd be funny to get them again just to make my friends laugh. And then when I got back, Mum had made peas for dinner. Just peas? With other stuff.

Yeah. I mean, that is incredible. It's a lot of peas. Just to think, Amy, you were worried about coming on the food podcast because you didn't think you had enough food-based material. The first food that's mentioned, you've got a whole addict out about it.

A whole addict out about the time you ate loads of marshy peas and then peas. Yeah, that's my only food story. Well, thanks for coming on the show. Oh, expand on it. Thank you, thanks for having me. Very exciting. James has only started doing the Amuse Bushes recently.

I really like it. It went very well for my perspective. Every time he does it now, I can see him suggest the Amuse Bush and then panic because he's not thought of what it's going to be. Did you have it pre-planned? No. I did not know I was going to say peas in a pod. So it was amused even to me.

I was amused by it. You were amused by it. Yeah. But worked out quite nicely. It did work out well from an anecdote perspective. Yeah, straight into the marshy peas anecdote. I mean, you didn't say marshy peas. Now, that being a Amuse Bush, I really, really, really like.

Yeah. You love them. But I just tweaked it a bit. I wouldn't have thought that you would like marshy peas. Why? Because Amy is immediately on the offensive. She's really on for you. I mean, we don't know each other very well.

Obviously, you and Ed, brother and sister, it's fine. But I don't really know you very well. So I just had, but when I've been around you and you've been eating food and talking about food and talking about your day-to-day routine, sounds very healthy. Right. And so marshy peas is what I would not, I would not regard it as that. But I guess it's a bit of a, it is a healthy food that you've kind of cheated and made it.

It looks like it's unhealthy, but it's actually quite healthy. I don't know if it's healthy. I mean, it's peas, but like they add stuff. They add stuff. But I don't even know if it, is it peas? Because sometimes it's like it. I have two, I've just realized I've got two more marshy peas on it. Yes.

That was just impossible. You know, Edinburgh Fringe Festival? Yes. I've been very stressful. Very stressful because it's an unpleasant time. Yeah. And so one thing that got me through the last two years was if I couldn't sleep in the night or whatever, I would get up maybe just any time of day actually or night.

If I was stressed, I would comfort eat marshy peas out of a tin from Lidl. Out of the tin, cold. And that would relax you, would it? With salt. So if you were a bit sad, you'd eat marshy peas out of a tin and that would make you feel okay about your life? No, it didn't make me feel better. No, no, no, no.

That would have really made you spiral. I mean, it probably happened like a few times, but one of my friends came up in London just because I was struggling and I said, this is my weird habit, one of them. And she, she did it too and she really liked it. So you dragged your friends down with you? Up, yeah. You inspired her?

Yeah. So she wasn't like, oh my god, I do that too. No, she was like, that's rough, but I'll do it with you. Like, you know, we're in this together. And then she liked it. Joanna, Joanna Fleck. Joanna Fleck just does whatever you say. She came up from London because you were having a bad time.

Yeah. So she just dropped everything and came to London and came to Edinburgh. She really loves me. And then she ate some marshy peas with you because you were doing it. Yeah. I don't really do that anymore. Right, so that's anecdote number one. Now that's number two from the promise three.

Yeah. Mushy peas, annie dokes. Yeah, the other one's actually quite sad. I don't know whether to tell it, but it was when I moved. The last one was sad, by the way. All three of them. I'd say the first one wasn't happy. No, I liked the first one because you were eating it to make your friends laugh.

You're trying to make your friends laugh. Was Joanna Fleck one of your friends on the trip from the Isle of Wight? Oh, yeah. That's good to hear, though, because otherwise I would have hated it. Tell her lie, she wasn't there. Oh, she wasn't there. Oh, okay, back to sadness again. Fleck's on your mound for the bad times.

That's what's sad. You don't evolve Fleck when you're having a laugh. No, she doesn't get a good day, mate. So, mushy pee addict, number three. He's sad. When I moved to the States, I was really worried about it because I didn't really want to come. Sorry, America. And my boyfriend at the time was trying to be caring and sweet, so he made me mushy peas.

But it was just like peas and cream. What? Which is not mushy peas. So the one I remembered it was because you said it was healthy. That's creamy peas. It's creamy peas. It reminds me of the far show, Cheesy Peas, which I wouldn't eat. No.

No. And I didn't have any food the next day, so while I ate, it was creamy peas. Oh, she did eat it. She did eat it. The house. Gary Goodrow took me. I said, what's a good place to eat around here? Okay, I'm going to take you to Ken Shopsen's restaurant.

It's called Shopsen's. He says, you're going to like it. It doesn't even look like a restaurant. And it doesn't say restaurant anywhere. It says Shopsen's general store, groceries. What? Because that's what it was. It was a little corner store in Greenwich Village.

So he took me there and this menu was insane. The guy who runs the place, Ken Shopsen, was a real amazing character. This big guy always wore a headband, always had a t-shirt that looked like it hadn't been changed in decades. Is this kitchen much smaller, about half the size of the room we're in. So it was like, it was a phone booth. And the menu had something like 300 items on it. And no one knew how he did it, but he came with the stuff.

So I'd scanned this and I said, oh my God, cashew tomato cream soup. And I had, it was like the best soup I'd ever had in my life. And it had cabbage in it. I don't like cabbage, but it was delicious. It was insane. So I got that every time I went there, every time I went there. And so it got to be where, you know, Kenny would say, he'd see me come. Hey, Mikey, sit down.

He'd say, you're going to have this soup. I say, I'm going to have the soup. So one day I ordered the soup and he says, I'm not going to make it for you. I'm tired of making you the soup. I'm going to make you something else. No, Kenny, I really, I'm going to make you something else. It's freezing outside. I'm going to make you a turkey sandwich.

They get a turkey sandwich anywhere. And he says, all right, if it's not the best turkey sandwich you ever had, you don't have to pay for it. It was easily the best turkey sandwich I've ever had. This guy was amazing. I would also have my nan there. I'd bring her back with all her lovely surprises. And me and her would make flapjacks because there's a thing we used to do

when we were kids, when I was a kid, not her. And we'd make flapjacks together. It was like this weird thing we did. And then we'd put them in the bin because we didn't really like flapjacks. And Jenny did this and it used to drive my mom insane. Like she just couldn't get her head around it. What did you just say? Yeah.

You and your grandmother used to make flapjacks together and then put them in the bin. Yeah. Just it was so much fun. Like, I don't know where it started. It's a weird tradition of like just there, there you go, put them in the bin. And just we'd show it to mom and she'd watch us doing it and just go, this is getting ridiculous now. It's just this lovely little game we had.

At any point did you think, we like cooking together. Let's make something we like. We liked the anger it produced from my mom more than we did the cooking. We cooked to get to the exasperation. Because we knew that in about an hour and a half's time, we were going to see my mom eat from a bin. That's the game we were playing. My big television idea.

Bear in mind, you have a very successful sitcom already, Roshin. This is your big television idea. It's called Animals Meeting Animals. And it's just animals who wouldn't have met other animals. And we just watched them meet. Four hours on a Sunday. If you're hungover and you just watched a horse meet an owl. You watched a donkey meet a fish.

You just watched, you bring them to places that they wouldn't have met. And a mouse meeting a bat. Yes, I want to get up for that, thanks. A donkey meeting a fish. No, maybe not a fish, but like a dolphin. Also, you gave examples of animals that could quite possibly meet. A horse meeting an owl, that completely makes sense.

Being in the same meeting each other, probably. Okay, I'll rabbit meeting a goat. But like, meeting each other. That's still going to happen. A bear meeting a bear meeting a sheep. Yeah, sheep's dead. The end of that episode is that the sheep is absolutely dead. And the bear is destroyed.

This is the problem why I haven't actually made this show is because of the dead. You're going to have a bunch of dolphins pushing around a donkey corpse in the water. Just passing a donkey between themselves as it floats slowly on the top of the surface. A tiger meeting a tiger. I feel like I've got into a hitch meeting.

It's gone really fast for me. Yeah, well, you stop, stop, stop naming predators. Stop going a tiger. Learn from the bear thing. Okay, a bear. No, not a bear. Okay, a rabbit meeting a lamb. Yeah, that sounds nice.

Right, that sounds nice, yeah. But they could meet in the field, though. Yeah, but you haven't seen it. I haven't seen it. I presume they do meet. I'm just saying, let's capture this. Let's see them meet and see them going. I just want to see the first time a lamb's like, what's that?

I really love the vegan donuts from Crosstown Donuts. Now, I don't know if you've tried these. They're pretty phenomenal. That's one of the places where I would opt for the vegan choice, probably, anyway. Because it's just as good, if not better. They are so delicious, man. Because sometimes with donuts, the sweet filling

plus the sweet dough is too much. But Crosstown Donuts, they do this thing where they'll put rhubarb in the center, and the tartness of the rhubarb cuts against the sweetness of the donut so beautifully. I absolutely love it. Oh, God, they're so incredible. I think Crosstown got me into donuts

because I don't think I was a massive donut guy before that. But Crosstown Donuts, I'm all over that. Absolutely love Crosstown. Really good. Well, I think the problem with a lot of donuts is they just think more is more. So they add like shit on the top of it, and they make it like it is kind of monster confection.

But actually, what you want is something where the flavors complement each other. And Crosstown, absolutely now that. It's so, so good. I had an awful situation where I was doing a writer's day and one of the people that were there had sort of heard that. Or I think they were the ones that introduced me to Crosstown. Anyway, they turned up with a box full of Crosstown donuts,

and they'd got like six vegan ones. And they said, Romesh, I've got you vegan donuts. And I was at that time trying to, I was sort of hoping to get some of myself as an expert. I'm trying to restrain myself from eating that kind of stuff. But because they'd gone to the trouble of doing it, I felt like I should eat these vegan donuts. So I ate quite a few of them.

Yeah, I hate to point out to you, Romesh, but you have ordered something else that's just another deep fried thing. Oh, God. Do you know what that pause was? It wasn't even, I genuinely felt Blake. Yeah, I saw it in your eyes. I saw you go, because I knew you felt bad about that anyway. Well, we were talking about the Gobi 65, but you've just ordered.

Yeah, but you know, the one consolation I have from the college, but it's at least a tango. The ice blocks look deep, right? Yeah. So I'm not a haven. It's the only time on this podcast. We've done a lot of episodes of this podcast now. It's the only time on this podcast where a guest, I've looked at a guest,

and the look of their face literally says, what have I done? I've never seen that before, but Papa like, what have I done and regret like it's real. Because you came into this all like, oh, we can't wait to give some of my opinions on food and show off what a foodie I am. Deep fried chicken. Deep fried chicken, the starter. Deep fried cauliflower. Donut.

Do you know what? Do you know what makes it even more disgusting? The sort of connoisseur-y way I describe the rhubarb going to the donut, like are some sort of fucking corn on blur. Distinguished prick. No, it's just another deep fried thing with sugar on it, actually. Mr. Brown, you know Mr. Brown? No.

Headteacher at St. Andrew's Primary School. Oh, yeah, of course. That wasn't Brown yet. Gets up, and this is the whole assembly. He goes, once back in the 20s or something, a man went into a diner and he ordered some chips, which is, you'd call them fries or, and the chef makes them and he brings them out and then they send them out and the guy's like, these aren't crisper enough. I want them crisper.

He sends them back, he cooks them for a bit longer, he sends them back out again. He goes, until not crisper enough. I want them crisper than this, and this goes on for ages. The whole assembly was this back and forth, and every time the chips came out, he said, these aren't crisper enough, I want them crisper. And eventually, the guy was like so angry with this customer that he put them in there for ages, and they sent it back out again, and the waiter said, the chef says, you want them crisper? You got them crisper, and then that's how crisps are invented.

Because he made it, he put the chips so far in the fry for so long that they just got so thin that they were like potato chips, as you would call them. And that's how crisps are invented, because he said, you want them crisps, you got them crisps, and that was a whole assembly. Sure, he sucks. Oh, James. And it's so moved. What was that?

Well, we were talking about the- Also, the origin story of cold cheese. Cold cheese, and it reminded me of the origin story of crisps. But do you hear how Catherine did her origin story, was apparently someone didn't want to burn the roof of their mouth because they were so hungry to put the cold cheese on. Bang, done, in and out. Yours, very long. And also, it was the worst story to tell in America, because chips mean crisps, and crisps

been- Yeah. What was the worst episode to have to tell it on, because I had to translate it as I went along? Oh, I shouldn't, I really shouldn't be here. What an amazing story that was, James. Ah, and I think it's true. It's definitely true that it is a story. But that's not the biggest news that's occurred this year. Of course, we're all aware of the biggest thing that's happened this year.

It's affected everyone. Yes, that's right. Someone was kicked out of the dream restaurant. Finally, it happened. People thought it would never happen, but it blindsided everyone. And then, personally, it blindsided the most was Jade Adams. Ah, the secret ingredient. That day was hundreds and thousands.

We thought, surely, no one's going to pick that and to Jade and her friend Babs. We come to your dessert. So, here's the question about dessert. The issue I have here is I could go with like fancy restaurant dessert here, because I have a favorite of a fancy, like, you know, like fancy, just like a nice dessert you'd get at a restaurant that I always enjoy having. However, I'm lying when I say that. I'm just trying to keep this facade that I actually have a refined palette,

when in actual fact, if I wasn't massively over full, say, like, I had an ever-expanding stomach and I didn't get full up, the thing I would actually have, the thing I would actually have is school dessert with mint custard. Oh, just school dessert. You know, like the sponge, the sponge with icing and hundreds and thousands on top with mint custard. This is incredible. Jade, Jade, this is the first in the dream restaurant. Now, first of all, what I would like to say is that sounds like the school pudding sounds nice.

The mint custard is a bit of a, we didn't see that coming. Fine, but we don't need to talk about that. I don't know if you're aware of this, Jade. Every episode we do, we have a secret ingredient that if the guest mentions it, they get kicked out the restaurant and don't get any dinner. It's never happened before. No one has ever said it. On the first episode, we did Scroogey as Pip said it,

but then agreed to not have it on the thing. But that was only because it was the first episode. We wanted people to know what the format was. We would have been confused if we put it out and just we kick a guy out. And that's the whole podcast. And so we said we'd never allow that again. This week, the secret ingredient is hundreds and thousands. Jade Adams, please leave the dream restaurant.

You are not getting any dinner. You are not getting any dinner. No dinner. You are out on your ass and leave the pants behind. Leave the pants. They stay here now. All the posts that was delivered to the restaurant stays with the dream restaurant. Pants are ours.

Put the pork in the bin. Pour that jungle bird in the sink. Yeah. No dinner for Jade. Oh, I can't believe it's happened. I can't believe it would be hundreds and thousands that did it. Wait there. Wait there.

Going away again. Oh, man, we've done it. We've actually kicked someone out. We've actually done it. And it was right at the end as well. It was a perfect time for it to happen. She got to say all the things she wanted and now we're going to put it all in the bin. Oh, my God.

I feel so alive. So excited about our menu. I've always wondered how we would feel when someone says it. And I always thought that we would feel awful. And I thought one day when someone says the secret ingredient, I'm going to feel really bad about chucking them out. And I felt so excited. Oh, what she got here?

She's genuinely got a bag of hundreds and thousands in her house. That's a whole bag. That's a massive bag as well. No one has hundreds of thousands in their house. What the hell? She's currently eating them out of the bag. Yep. She's eating them out of the bag. You can eat them on the bus on the way home from the dream restaurant

because you are out of here, Jade. Yeah. Fuck you both. Hashtag Jade bag hundreds and thousands. Jade bag hundreds and thousands. New hashtag. I can't believe I've been kicked out. What are the chances?

What are the chances? I'd say hundreds of thousands. And so happy it's just when you've talked about everything you want and you're so excited about the whole menu and now we get to say you don't get any of it. Well, I get hundreds of thousands because I've got a mirror. Eating them. That's Jade Adams post-workout routine.

A cigarette and a bag of hundreds and thousands. Well, Jade, normally at this point we say thank you very much for coming to the dream restaurant, but we don't need to be polite to you because you picked hundreds of thousands. Oh, how does it feel, Jade? Do you know what? I feel fucking great because I'm the one person who got kicked out. So, yeah, that makes me punk.

I'm like Liam Gallagher right now. I love it. Yes, bitches. Come outside with me, guys. Fuck this podcast. Fuck them. I'm going to do a podcast about hundreds and thousands and you guys pebble on your fucking dicks.

Thank you very much for coming to the dream restaurant, Jade. It's a shame that you couldn't get any dinner today. Oh. Oh, I feel so alive. Do you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to take my James Acaster Best Show Short or Comedy Awards 2019 award that I have in my house because you haven't picked it up yet. I forgot you've got that.

And I'm going to... No, don't pick hundreds and thousands. Don't come at hundreds and thousands. No, don't pick up my award in hundreds and thousands, Jade. I've put hundreds and thousands all over your award. There it is. I'm going to take a little... You're using it like a plate.

I'm going to take a picture. Yeah, take a picture of it. I absolutely love it. Come in my award with the secret ingredient. Well, I'm going to put that out there. That's the weirdest thing that's ever happened on this podcast. Also, not many guests have in their house an award that was meant for me.

I've got two. And a bag of hundreds and thousands. You've got two awards that I wasn't there for. You and Mitch picked them up. I won there. Rich was. Mitch picked it up. Well, Jade, normally we read the order back to you,

but I'm not going to do that today. Oh, no, I am going to read the order back to her, actually. Oh, OK. Water. Nothing. Pop a dom's of bread. Fuck all. Starter.

In your dreams. Main course. Zilch. Side dish. As if. Dessert. You can cram it forever. None of this.

You're getting none of it. In the bin. In the bin. In, in, in. The bin, bin, bin. You're not getting any. Or you're not getting any. Thank you very much for coming to the Dream Restaurant, Jade.

I'm sorry it didn't work out for you this time. Fuck you, both. We were absolutely reeling after that, James. Well, on that bombshell, thanks for listening, guys. Yes, I hope you're made the most out of 2020. We'll be back in the new year with series five. And to end.

Well, Ed, how about we do, what say you? Are annual pop a dom's of bread compilation? I would love that, James. Thank you so much. Thanks to James. Thanks for the great bonito. I've had a lovely time. You know, it's been a great year.

I've really, I've really done great this year, as everyone has. Thanks so much for everyone out there. I think I've made the most of all my opportunities. And just thanks. Thanks so much. Thank you, Ed. You've been amazing. And thank you for me too, the bitter gorgon.

I just want to say, guys, it's been a great 2020. I'll see you in 2021 on the upside down. Fuck you, bitter gorgon. I'm gonna get a coffee. Pop a dom's of bread. Pop a dom's of bread, Susie. Pop a dom's of bread. Pop a what?

What is he saying? You guys have bastardized the English language beyond all recognition. Pop a dom's. What's pop a dom's? Why don't you call me later? Do a video call later and I'll take you through it. Okay. Okay.

Thank you, Ed. All right. Right. So we've got spot. Pop a dom's of bread. It's so hard. I think we can all agree the worst time to hear what's for dinner, mummy, from a stranger is on a creepy service station bridge.

Pop a dom's of bread, mummy. Pop a dom's of bread. Fuck you. It was just, it was, it was a little bit of gold. That's incredible. Yeah. Pop a dom's of bread. Pop a dom's of bread, David.

Pop a dom's of bread. Pop a dom's or bread? Yeah. Yeah. Uh, pop a dom's. Yeah. Pop a dom's of bread. Pop a dom's of bread, Jett.

Pop a dom's of bread. Uh, bread. Yeah. Like you, lemon. It's disgusting. Pop a dom's of bread. Pop a dom's of bread, Paul. Pop a dom's of bread.

I'm going to say bread. Pop a dom's of bread. Pop a dom's without a doubt. I think that might be the quickest response we've ever had to that. Don't know. Lost touch with him. Yeah, I should imagine so. Pop a dom's of bread.

Do what? Pop a dom's of bread, Diane. Oh, pop a dom's of bread. I thought you said problem's of bread. Ah, I love farsha goss. I know we sound so rock and roll, don't we? Yeah, Paul. Pop a dom's of bread.

Say that again. Pop a dom's of bread. Oh, bread. Pop a dom's of bread. Pop a dom's of bread, Gene. Pop a dom's of bread. Pop a dom's. Yeah.

Wait, now. Pop a dom's of bread. Pop a dom's of bread, Wyatt. Pop a dom's of bread. Bread. Straight away, bread. Yeah, it's something like that. Pop a dom's of bread.

Pop a dom's of bread. Anthony, hit. Pop a dom's of bread. Anthony, hit. Pop a dom's of bread. Anthony, hit. Anthony whipped a steak out there. Yeah, absolutely.

Just shat a steak out. No, you just shat that, please. Pop a dom's of bread. Pop a dom's of bread, Sarah. Pop a dom's of bread. This is the bit I knew was going to happen. Saucy, eh? Pop a dom's of bread.

Pop a dom's of bread. I'll take… I'm going to go with bread. Pop a dom's of bread. Oh, bread. Bread, for sure. Still on sparkling water, Joey? Sparkling water. Pop dom's of bread.

Pop dom's of bread, Joey. Pop dom's of bread. Bread please. House water, whatever they left in there. Pop dom's of bread. Pop dom's of better, Adam. Pop a dom's of bread. Actually, bread.

Pop a dom's of bread. Pop a dom's of bread. A painter. Pop a dom's of bread. See, I'm ready because I listened Yeah Didn't scare you proper Pop it up, it's all bread

Pop it up, it's all bread, Emily Pop it up, it's all bread I'm gonna go bread, I'm gonna go bread Oh, look at what you're farming at, Hans You're genuinely sad, like, I thought he was gonna cry Oh, no Pop it up, it's all bread Pop it up, it's all bread, Catherine

Pop it up That was a big swing from James because you're about to take a sip out of a can But I'm ready for anything It could've gone very badly I only realised it at the last minute I was like, I'm about to get vanilla coke all over me Listen, I'm cool as a cucumber

Yeah, it's quite clever Pop it up, it's all bread Pop it up, it's all bread Pop it up, it's all bread Right, what's all that? I eat an absolute shed load of bread Did GD swim? This GD does

Lovely Pop it up, it's all bread Pop it up, it's all bread, Ivo Pop it up, it's all bread Um, what a moment He jumped What was the noise? He did jump

I was pleased with that Well, I like the podcast and I've listened to it a lot and I've thought, I'm not going to get a bamboozled by this Pop It Up, it's all bread business But obviously you're a master of your craft and what you've made me do is you've made me picture you swimming in the stretch

and I was having such a nice time picturing that logo Pop it up, it's all bread Pop it up, it's all bread, Reggie Pop it up, it's all bread Ah, bread, because Pop It Up sticks to the roof of my mouth Pop it up, it's all bread

Pop it up, it's all bread, Sam It does catch you off guard and I thought today I thought I was out and ready for it I'm going to be ready But it does get you, it does get you Thank you so much, but I think Pop it up, it's all bread

Pop it up, it's all bread, Claudia Winkleman This is very good Not Pop It Ons Texas toast Big ass toast Is it just big toast? Right, okay, just Pop it up, it's all bread

Pop it up, it's all bread, Catherine Pop it up, it's all bread What the hell, what? Pop it up, it's all bread What's Pop It Up? Nice Pop it up, it's all bread Pop it up, it's all bread

David O'Dockety Pop it up, it's all bread I even though I don't even know what your water order is I'm seeing the count down here on the screen and I'm scared What is the smallest

smallest unit of British currency? Up in there That was all I wanted to know Pop it up, it's all bread Bread Pop it up, it's all bread Pop it up, it's all bread I think

so I've got another question Are there repercussions in the dream restaurant? For example I have a slight lactose and gluten intolerance which I just ride out I just eat what I like

and drink what I like and I just deal with the consequences which are sometimes horrific Pop it up, it's all bread Pop it up, it's all bread Thomasine and Myers Pop it up, it's all bread Bread

Robbed in garlic Chards Black C Hud And, olive oil Pop dog in Spain Delicious And now眼 Sometimes I like to be fancy

Yeah Yeah It sounds okay Yeah Pop it up it's all bread Pop it up it's all bread Pop it up it's all bread Pop it up it's all bread Pop it up it's all bread

Pop it up it's all bread D follows the numbers Pop it up, you gotta think Pop it up it's all bread Pop it up, it's all bread Here meet me Look at her ій

Pop it Yeah, tell me. You can have a charcoal filtered water. Yeah. Pop it on some bread! Pop it on some bread! I love this! Pop it on some bread, Poppy! Pop it on some bread... Pop it on some bread! Pop it on some bread, OV!

Pop it on so bread! Pop it on some bread! Uh... An excellent, excellent reaction shot from there, OV. Pop it on some bread! Pop it on some bread, Corey Taylor! Pop it up for bread I'm gonna go I'm gonna go bread

Pop it up for bread pop it up for bread buddy pop it up for bread. I Love Ben and the corner of my eye making notes as we talk try and decide what to keep in what not to give Yeah, you gotta know you gotta not look at him during this is the equivalent of the audience response Yeah, yeah, it's pretty demeaning sometimes when you tell an anecdote and then you look over and he's scribbling away Yeah, yeah at a point. Yeah Yeah, I mean honestly we talk about Melbourne food I mean for white people high eating Melbourne's pretty high up there But I mean I'm Singapore, you know Singapore and Malaysia for me kills the food game

There's no there's nothing that you can like in Melbourne You can't anyway, you can't find that cuisine anywhere else Singapore and Malaysian food you there's no no one has done it well outside of Singapore Malaysia, right? Yeah, yeah, definitely not the UK, but I mean even you know Australia or Even in America your hard-pressed to find good Singapore like The it where it tastes actually the way it's supposed to take right. Yeah, you'd shout out to Ronnie for completely ignoring the pop it up Pop it up for bread. Pop it up for bread. I didn't know what you were saying What is that what is that pop it up for bread? What is that? Is that like a pop it up for bread?

Is that a pump pop it up so pop it up for bread. I think you're saying pop it down is A bread but pop it down pop it up for bread is Technically a cracker. I think pop it up for bread. Yeah, I don't know what that is pop it up Oh bread. Oh, you actually did say pop it down. It's our bread. Oh, oh, oh bread. Okay But where would you yell that? Oh, you're asking me? Harrod Pop it up for bread. Must be changed. Can we move on now? Pop it up for bread pop it up for bread Terry pop it up for bread saying pop it on pop it up

So Indian thing. Yeah. Well, let's see. Um, I had to see that slipped your mind Pop it up for bread Well, I thank you for your question James If I was a listener of this podcast, which I've established I'm not I Would think well done James. That's really good knowledge Pop it up for bread pop it up for bread Harry I'll have bread pop it up for bread pop it up for bread got one Pop it up for bread even though you've already said pop it up. So yeah, interesting

You're the first guest to ever pip us to the post with that question and get in beforehand It's for a pop the dog. I haven't got the first idea. But anyway, I could team up with someone knowledgeable Ed Gamble pop it up for bread a Pop it up for bread Joe brand pop it up for bread I'm gonna show myself up yet again as a Philistine, but bread moving right along Pop it up for bread pop it up for bread Josh pop it up for bread And I couldn't give away the sandwich. That's my time Pop it up for bread pop it up for bread. I'm sorry. That was the response to your heckle

Yeah, that was a question. What would you like us to put it into when we remove it like? Sparkling please Pop it up for bread Louie pop it up for bread Pop it up for bread. I think I'm gonna go bread. Oh, here's the thing usually At this point the podcast after it's taught by the water. I'd shout pop a domes or bread at you really loud Ed Yeah, I'll say this to you that I find Anthony is like I I'm more afraid of him than I ever guess we've ever had

It does seem like a guy who wouldn't take any shit This is true. And so far I feel like if I don't expect you to shout at you. I'm gonna be in trouble Yeah, I would I would definitely control the sound of your voice. Yeah I didn't feel like it would go well now if I yelled at you suddenly out of nowhere I mean I did it to do it to so many people. Yeah yelled at Tammy Hatcher. I didn't give it a second thought Yeah, but you have a natural authority as well And I also don't think yeah, if he shouted at you, I don't think it would affect you at all. No, I wouldn't be thrown by it Yeah, but whatever you're gonna say next I would write it down

Yeah, pass me a piece of paper. Yeah, just to be safe. Yeah, you built it up too much Would you prefer that he did everything through me at this point? Yes. Yeah, okay, cool. Yeah, that'll be great Can you ask Anthony? Would you like Papa Dom's or bread? What is a Papa Dom? Papa Dom's or bread? Papa Dom's or bread machine? Papa Dom's or bread? Hello Hello, it's me Amy Glendale. You might remember me from the best ever episode of Off Menu where I spoke to my mum and asked her about seaweed on

mashed potato and our relationship's never been the same since and I am joined by me Ian Smith I would probably go bread. I'm not gonna spoil In case get him on James and Ed, but we're here sneaking in to your podcast experience to tell you about a new Podcast that we're doing it's called Northern news It's about all the new stories that we've missed out from the north because look we're two Northerners sure But we've been living in London for a long time. The new stories are funny quite a lot of them crimes It's all kicking off and that's a new podcast called Northern news We'd love you to listen to maybe we'll get my mum on. Get Glendale's mum on every episode. That's not the news

When's it out Ian? It's already out now Amy. Is it? Yeah get listening. There's probably a backlog. You've left it so late