Off Menu with Ed Gamble and James Acaster - Ep 168: Alison Spittle

Episode Date: October 26, 2022

Wheel of Misfortune podcaster and soup-erb stand-up Alison Spittle has a reservation at the Dream Restaurant this week. Listen to Alison's podcast ‘Wheel of Misfortune’ on BBC Sounds. Follow Alison on Twitter and Instagram @AlisonSpittleRecorded and edited by Ben Williams for Plosive.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? Hello, and welcome to the Off Menu podcast, chopping the stalk of bad times off of the head of great laughs. Using the stalk, but now what do we do with the heads? It's the Off Menu podcast. That is Ed Gamble. My name is James A. Caster, and we have a dream restaurant. We invite a guest in every single week. We ask them their favour ever. Start a main course dessert, side dish, and drink. Not in that order. And this week, I guest is Allison Spittle.

Allison Spittle, wonderful comedian, wonderful podcaster. Brilliant laugh. One of the best, one of the best comments from the funniest. Really excited to have Allison on the podcast. What an honour. If you haven't heard her own podcast, Wheel of Misfortune, you've got to get on that. It's such a great podcast. However, even though we love Allison, if she chooses a secret ingredient, which we deem to be disgusting, then we will kick Allison out of the dream restaurant. And this week, the secret ingredient is... Oh, no. Going to let the listener in on what's happened. It's the reason my intro is so bad as well, because I didn't really think about it properly.

Oh, the intro is a reference to treats of broccoli pasta. Yeah, but it also fell apart, didn't it? Benito's not here. He hit record because he had to take his dog out for a piss. Yes, the dog. So that's how much we need Benito. Toast to the dog. Toast to the dog. So we're going for a wee, and we're tight on time. Benito said, I'm going to do it.

I was going to press record and see you later, but we haven't decided what the secret ingredient is yet, but we've got to decide before Allison gets here. Let's go for... Plops. Huh? Plops. That's the kind of plops. I don't think Allison will pick plops anyway. Red currants. I mean, there is plops. I guess there's that coffee bean that...

I'm sure we've done that, though. An animal eats it and poos it out. Have we done that, though? Have we already done that? I don't know. Benito's not here. He's not here to check. Cross-reference it and see if we've done it. Red currants. Red currants.

He's coming back. Skimmed milk. Oh, skimmed milk's good. Yeah. Skimmed milk is mostly water. Right. Skimmed milk. Yeah. If Allison picks skimmed milk, she's out. Yeah. Great. Deal.

Hello, Toast. Toast is back. Benito's back with him. Toast doesn't just walk in and sit down. I go in. I tricked him. I've locked him out of the house. Like the Flintstones. Right. Probably start the episode. Yeah, I'm on tour at Gamble.co.uk. I think I'm on tour at this point. Go and check it out.

It's going to be great. Here is the off-menu menu of... Allison's Spittles. Welcome, Allison, to the Dream Restaurant. I've been expecting you for some time. Oh, my gosh. Amazing. I didn't think there'd be smoke involved as well. You don't see it on the podcast.

No, exactly. I'll pay extra smoke for you. Thank you. I thought you'd appreciate it. Good. No, no. Good. I'm glad you did. I'm glad you did. I'm very, very excited about being here because, like, I listen to the podcast,

and when you listen at your leisure, you're kind of thinking, oh, I'd have that, and I'd have this, and I'd have this, and I'd have this. And then I'm actually asked to be on it, and then it became scary, you know? Then I was like, oh, you must mention your childhood favourite stuff.

It had to be. And so I'm very, yeah, I'm very excited, but very torn, but I'm ready, I think. Good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is that what you've done? Have you decided to do, like, a menu that represents your entire life? I have you thought, oh, a menu that's just the one

I'd like to eat the most right now at this point in my life? That's another thing. I've never had a menu that represents your entire life. Now, at this point in my life? That's a big problem as well. I prepped real badly today.

I woke up and, like, I was doing stuff. Sorry if I'm just there. My bra's just broken, so it's adding a bit of... In the moment, just now. It's just right. It's slowly stabbing me in the armpit. Oh, no. They're paying attention to me.

So this will add, like, a frisson of danger. Well, as far as I know, it's a first for the podcast. Really? Oh, good. It might have happened before. A bra breaker. A bra breaker, but it might have happened, but they haven't mentioned it. We'll put a warning at the start of the podcast.

This episode is an official bra breaker. So people know. Unhook those bras. Let them free. We're going free rage, baby. So, yeah, look, I've broken my bra ready for this, and, yeah, it's going to be, like, a representation of a lot of stuff.

I told my boyfriend about it, and he said, you're taking the piss. And I was like, well, you're in our James for it. And, like, what he would pick would be, like, Old El Paso beef tacos for his main. Oh, come on. So I don't respect him. No, you can't ask him that.

Come on. Although there's a time and a place for Old El Paso, and I respect the Old El Paso now and again. Hey, there's a time and a place, but I'll tell you what, the time and a place isn't. It's your dream meal. Absolutely. That's it.

I think we're all on the same page. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no. It's a suck at Simon. Yeah, but I, yeah, I'm probably, I'm going to ask for a help of magic with this as well. Well, you have a genie here, right? Yeah, yeah, or happy to lend the magic there. How, before we get into your menu,

how often are these tacos coming up in your life? For him? Yeah. Well, like, because we live together, I'd say, like, oh, in lockdown a few times. Like, there was a lot of nostalgia eating in the lockdown. Yeah. So I'd say four times in one year,

which is probably more than I've ate Old El Paso beef tacos in a decade. You know what I mean? It's a definitely, it's a Haley's Comet of food for me. It's like, wow, it's here. But yeah, so recently a bit, but like since the lockdown, not so much. Yeah.

Yeah. What about you? I've not had them for a while. Oh yeah. What are we talking about? So they did the square shells. Have you had the square shells before? I have not.

No. I mean, I think Old El Paso do these, because obviously the taco shells are normally rounded and they flop down, right? They do, like little suns. But now, I think they do a flat bottom one, so you can put more stuff. So you can put more stuff for a start,

more surface area, and then just put them, they're like freestanding. Wow, you could write a song about it. You could be like, flat bottom tacos to make the rockin' world go round. It's great that they've kind of looked at it and meant it's structurally better. But I think, for me, the fun of an Old El Paso beef taco

was, you know, being proud of yourself that you didn't break it before it got to your mouth. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. You're taking that away. Yeah, I like to eat my tacos without stabilizers. You know?

I like to live a little. Yeah. So yeah, that's been, I mean, I don't know why I've mentioned that. That's Simon's thing now, and he's got his bit on. But like... No, I think we believe the words were suck at Simon. It was.

I don't think he's won in this at all. He hasn't won. He's suckin' it. He is. Go suck that taco. Oh, the worst way to eat a taco. It really is. It really is.

I wouldn't want to suck it all. No, it'd be like eating communion, like a really big communion. No, is that about... I mean, I was ex-Catholic. I'm saying ex-Consecretion, right? So it's a whole... What?

Am I messed up? In Catholicism, you suck the middle out of a taco. You suck the wafer. Well, I did, but you were told it was rude to do that. Really? There's a lot of chat about... I used to... So when you receive communion,

you can take it by the hand or by the mouth, right? Yeah. And I would let the priest give it to me in the mouth, because I thought, I'm sorry. Don't be like that. I'll be honest with you, Alison. I was sat here going,

OK, come on, Ed, you're better than that. Don't make a joke about Catholicism and suckin' it. Yeah. And I thought, we're going to be really mature and avoid this. Yeah. There was a number of points.

There was one of, like, suckin' it. And I thought in my head, no, don't do that, Joe. You can take it in the hand or take it in the mouth. Don't say that. I'm not going to jump on that. I would let the priest give it to me in the mouth.

They're like, well, how the hell are we meant to leave this? It's because I'm left-handed. What? Because you're supposed to take the communion. If you're... So, I'm going to think of a way. If the priest places the communion in your hand,

you take it with your right hand and you pop it in your mouth, right? But if you're... I really have to think of a better word than take. Yeah, for sure. OK, you receive it. No! You open your mouth

and you place the communion in your mouth. Yeah. And then you're supposed to then... He says something to you and you say it back. He goes, Body of Christ and I go, amen, right? Yeah. And I close the mouth.

I walk back to my pew and then you're supposed to sit down, have a pray, and let the communion slowly melt away on your... Like a skip. Like a skip, exactly like a skip. But sometimes I would put my tongue up to the roof of my mouth, creating a glue, and then you're afraid,

because this is the Body of Christ. I am worried. So... And you're not allowed to chew. You're not allowed to chew. You're not allowed to chew? You're not... You're not supposed to chew or look too happy

while receiving the Body of Christ. It's supposed to be... You're not supposed to go... Yeah, because genuinely it does taste nice. Yeah. It's like a little... It's a little wafer if people haven't had communion. What do you mean, Christ?

You better taste nice. I know, yeah. Exactly. It's the original, number one son of God, you know? So I've had... Yeah, and it is like a taco. Like I have thought when I was receiving communion before, like it would be great with like a smear of like cream cheese

or something like that. So like that is a nostalgic food for me. That would be like my version of Old El Paso. But you can't really get communion wave first. You can't. Well, they must find from somewhere, right? Yeah, I wonder where. They must find from somewhere.

Imagine if you saw... No, I said I must do, not ask that. I'm sorry. I was like, wow. Enterprise. I've imagined seeing like a priest, like just like he's clearly just had a breakdown, walking down the street eating a massive bag...

Oh yeah, bit communion wise. ...of communion wafers on their chips. It's like straight into the mouth. People have definitely done that. Yeah. Like because as people that used to be servers, so that was like children who would like... There would be like the magician's assistants of priests,

basically, and state. So like, I used to do that. And then the kids used to steal the wine. Oh really? I could drink the wine. Yeah, but we never, never thought like wafers as well. Not the wafers. Even though we'd access to it.

What's the wine like? But we never. Well, it was about 11. So I don't know. Yeah. Wine's wine. Very heady Merlot. The priest just sips it.

Yeah, I'll have that. Thank you very much. Yeah, fill her up. Yeah. So yeah, I feel so afraid now that I've excommunicated. I mean, I'm no longer, I'm no longer Catholic. No longer Catholic. And I am mentally ill.

And I don't know if they're connected, but like you can do that. But I still love a candle like, you know. Yeah. And Catholics love candles. You can buy like fancy candles that deliberately smell like the Catholic smell. Can you like a Yankee candle?

Yeah. Well, it's even like. Like freshly consecrated. Yeah. But it's like you can buy that, that specific Catholic church smell. No. You can buy in like a really fancy candle.

And I love, I love that smell. I would literally buy that. Yeah. I would buy that. Swinging around in the metal ball. Yeah. Oh, you suited that. I used to do that at funerals.

Oh yeah? Yeah. I used to earn about 20 quid. It was great. Nice. I used to do that in funerals. Yeah. You know, you'd be sad that someone has died in your village,

but you would be like, oh, my shift's coming up next week. Breaking it in. Yeah. It was great. You can go bowling. I'll have it. That smell is great.

It is. That takes me back to my grandparents were Catholics. So whenever I went to my grandparents, we'd have to go to church. Yeah. And that, oh. Nice smell. Right.

Love it. I don't know what the smell is. Oh, look. I'll bring you sometime. One of my food bits is like, well, I'll tell you after. Well, when it comes up, I'll be quiet.

I'll let you take care of this. So we always start with still sparkling water. Alison. I'm going to go still. Right. I don't have strong, no, people have strong feelings towards sparkling. I'll have it if it's there and if I want it.

But like, one of us get a course, didn't like it, but I'm going to go for still, probably tap, to be honest with you. Yeah. Yeah.

Because I don't like, I don't like big bottles of cold, still water coming to you. It runs out and, you know, you just have to buy another one. But if you get in a tap, they can go back to the kitchen,

put on a tap and pop it in. I hate paying for water as well. Yeah. Yeah. It feels wrong, doesn't it? It really does. It feels like I'm wiping my arse of a 10 pound note. Just like,

I could do that. Yeah. I'm sorry. I'm so excited about going to the park. I've gone straight into the toilet. I'm so sorry. Well,

anything, anything's a swing up for him. I like, I like the breeze. Give it to me in the mouth. Yeah. Yeah. So don't worry.

Nowadays. Okay. Sorry. Yes. Yeah. Nowadays, I think wiping your arse of a 10 pound note is going to be harder

because they're like water resistant. Well, I thought that would be a bonus. You could wash it off and use it again. Rinse it off. That's true. That is true. Yeah.

It's actually probably cheaper than toilet paper. It's like a squidgy. Yeah. So you would like tap water. Tap water, please. Tap water, please. Take the region, because obviously tap water's different wherever you go.

I mean, not London, if I'm being honest. Probably my village, but there's, there was like, there was this cryptosporidium outbreak, which is like,

it gives you a terrible diarrhea. And that was there a couple of years ago. So from that time. You're trying to steer it back onto the clean. Careful in my village, it has diarrhea. You go overdrawn at the cash machine in your village. Yeah.

I'd love it from my village from now, and not when the lake is polluted. I'd be quite happy. Yeah. What's the village? Do you want to shout it out? Ballymore. It's called the town.

It's two ends and no middle. And that's because there is a pub at the top of the hill, and then a little pub at the bottom of the hill, and nothing much in between. But my house and estate is in the middle. I live in a place with no name in a way.

No, but bring me to Triangle. Yeah. Bring me to Triangle. No one knows where your place is. There's like a castle in my council estate. I come from a council estate with like a really big jack-o-bike castle. And we used to play like wars and stuff

until like one kid got a rock thrown on his head and then the farmer blocked it up so we couldn't go into the castle anymore. Blocked up the castle? Yeah. Not his head. It really sounded like the farmer blocked the kid's head out.

Right. You're not playing with that anymore. Such a twee lovely story for a second there. Yeah. We'd all play around the castle, and then a good lot of the flies happened and then like that's it. The farmer blocked the castle up.

What was your favourite pub? Top of the Hill or Bottom of the Hill? Top of the Hill was a bit more happening because there used to be a chip shop in a garage there and this chip shop was called Friar Tucks or Jackie Chips colloquially because the woman who owned it was called Jackie

and we called her Jackie Chips. Can she run a chip shop? I mean, I know all that. Exactly that sense of humour. Oh, that's perfect. There's someone called Jackie Chips who owns a chip shop. Also, I just love anything that has a name already.

Friar Tucks, I imagine Friar spelled like a chip fryer. Yes, yes. Lovely name. They spent a while coming up with that. They're probably really proud of themselves and everyone calls it Jackie Chips because the woman who runs it is called Jackie.

In the chip shop, there's a menu. There's like a computer printed menu on it and then she wrote a handwritten... What did I call it? When you make an extra meal, she made this extra meal called the Bull Box because there's this man called the Bull who wanted sausages and chicken

and chips in a sack. So, like, she created a new meal for him. The Bull Box. The Bull Box. He could come in and go, the Bull Box, please. I need to know a bit more about the Bull, to be honest. Okay, why do you call it the Bull?

I think it's probably because of his, like... He's quite a tall, muscular... Like, he would tear you apart. He's very, like... In a fight sense, you know? But I don't think he needs to. But he does need chips and sausages. And chicken.

Yeah, chicken. He wants all of his protein. And he would also... Like, the way you would have a conversation with him, you'd hear me say hello, Bull, and I'd be Bull. Hello, Bull? Yeah. How are you?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. How's the Bull Box today? Uh-huh. And, yeah, you know, I, for me, I don't understand. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, that's the Bull.

He just sounds like he's full all the time, to be honest. Yeah, he's full of Bull Box. Yeah, the Bull Bull. He's having a Bull Box today. Yeah, so it was quite a... Yeah, Jackie Chips was quite a place. What was Jackie Chips like as a person? She's good.

Do you want to hear it? She doesn't own the chip shop as close down because of the pandemic and everything like that. So, Jackie Chips is still Jackie Chips. Yeah. But she no longer has a chip shop. Oh, that's heartbreaking. Yeah, yeah.

That's tough for us. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But she's just Jackie now. What's the Bull doing for food these days? I don't know. I just want to draw attention to the fact that Benito's dog has been sat at the window watching the whole record for...

I mean, we can let him in if you want, but, like... It does tend to... He's been quite good at designing... No, of course, he's absolutely fucking chaos with his sister. Last time, he finally got to sleep on James' lap, and then James screamed, Pop It Ones Up Bread and Woke Him Up. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. Speaking of which... Pop It Ones Up Bread! I'm going to go... I've had to think about it. I'm going to go for prom crackers. Oh, yes! You've been waiting for this.

Someone's finally done it. I'm going to go for prom crackers. I used to work in a Chinese takeaway when I was a teenager, and the first job they gave me was I had to bag up the prom crackers, and the boss said to me, Alison, you can eat as much as you like.

You don't have to worry. Like, don't ask us. Have as many prom crackers as you like. Now, I was a fat teenager, so I really took them up on that, and I destroyed myself. I absolutely... I just had to sit myself at a corner

and have a word with myself. I absolutely destroyed the prom crackers, and I never ate another prom cracker for as long as I worked for him. So I would bag it up, and it would be nothing to me. I think he did that with everyone who worked for the prom cracker station.

I think he did. I think he knew what was going to happen. I think he did. I love a prom cracker. For me, it's the best part of the Chinese takeaway for me. Sorry, I just burped there. Oh, my God.

Brass break! I'm not making it on purpose. Some people would pay top monies for that. Did you ever burp after the priest to give it to you in the mouth? That's when you're thankful for your meal, isn't it? I think they prefer silence. Thank you, brother.

So, like, when I would have the Chinese meal on my lap in the back of the car, you know, it's a half an hour to get to my house from the Chinese takeaway. My sister would put her hand... She's sitting in front. She would put her hand around the back of the... the back of the seat and kind of mime to me

in a way that's, like, one of those, like, a hook. And we would call it the prom cracker tax because she knows I'm eating them. So I would give it to her, and she would eat the prom crackers in silence and then Mum would get out of the car and go, We tricked you, Mum. So the thing I love about prom crackers

is you put them in your mouth and they melt. It's a Chinese communion way first. It genuinely is. It genuinely is. I look at it, but it's way tastier. If Jesus tastes like prawns, I mean, that's what you're getting. The prom crackers.

It is great. And what I would have, like, you know the way with bread and with the poppy-dums and bread you have dips. So what I'm going for the prom crackers is we're going to have small little bowls that are in the size of, like, sauce bowls, but with actual Chinese meals in them. So I'd pop them in there.

Is that taking them in? No. Oh, I love this. Is that, like, so I'd, like, use it as a spoon, pop it in. It's, like, genuinely prom crackers. So, like, Chinese mini meals. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what are the little bowls got in them? Well, we got one, right? We're going to have, like, oh, okay. Like, a big bit of pineapple in one of them, right? So, like, it's a sweet and sour chicken mix, I'm thinking, like, crispy chicken, but a big bit of pineapple, some peas,

a bit of, like, egg fried rice. You pop it in, you break it. The first bit of your mouth is just touching off prom cracker. You're like, what's this? And then you break it, and the cells of all the pineapple just blast all over your mouth. And it's beautiful. Like, it's an acidic hit that's, oh, getting me every time.

So I'd have that, right? Yeah, yeah. And then I would have, like, dan dan noodles, even though they wouldn't go over prom cracker, but I'm just feeling it, right? I want it. Then we're going to go, like, curry. I don't care about meat.

Like, I'm a meat eater, but for me, on a menu, it's the stuff that goes with the meat that, like, makes me order something. So I'm going to go for, like, a bit of curry and a barbecue sauce. When I worked in the Chinese takeaway, I was vegetarian at the time, except for the prom crackers. And the guy who worked there would be like,

don't eat the barbecue sauce. And I was like, well, at least I just don't. So I think there's meat in it, so I'm going to have that. And it's going to be beautiful. And I had a great time working at the Chinese takeaway, because they would make meals, especially for me. And, like, it was very stressful, though, because the first day I was working there,

a man came up to me, and he goes, the usual, please. And I was like, ah, it's my first day, and he goes, would you fuck off? And I was like... So this man really wanted his usual. Yeah, and refuse to elaborate on what the usual was. So when I went back into the kitchen, I was like, there's a man asking for the usual.

And the woman goes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Hot curry, garlic sauce, right? So this guy wanted a hot beef curry with garlic mayonnaise dripped in it. Oh, my God. I would be... I know. That's the unusual, I think.

Yeah. Who ran the Chinese takeaway? Who ran it, a guy called Han. It no longer exists. What? I know, maybe I'm a curse on stuff, but it doesn't like... Maybe it's time for Jackie to buy a new restaurant. Maybe it is.

I'm Jackie Noodles. I'm the Jackie Noodles. Just go back to the... You said one of them would be curry. Yeah. Now, the only reason I'm pressing on this is because my favourite thing to have prawn crackers with is Thai green curry.

I think it's delicious. Do you...? So now that's why I wanted some specificity on the curry. But are you talking about the Thai prawn crackers? No, just like even normal prawn crackers, I like them with... I love the Thai prawn crackers, but I'd say just regular prawn crackers,

I like them with chicken, Thai green curry, is delicious the way they soak it up. I'm going to go for the Chinese Irish style curry, which is full of corn flour and very thick. Yeah, like the gloopy curry. Oh, the gloopy-est thing. The guy who would be making the prawn crackers would just get almost like a butterfly net

and just put it into the deep-fried and then flick it. Like, and I'd have to avoid the hot spills and stuff and just back it up. And he would flick it into the air out of the fryer. Well, like, you know, it's thick as far as me to you. I'd say. Yeah, that's pretty irresponsible. Like, flipping it out of the fryer,

some distance across the room to you. Into this pit, into this, like, straight pit that I would like. Probably have you ever left this place? Unless you're going hot oil tossed over yourself, you'd get a massive rock flying at your head if you walk past the castle. You could leave under, like, cloudy circumstances. Oh, yeah?

Great. So my job was to be front of house, do the prawn crackers. And also my job was to put rice into cartons. So they would do the cooking, the three people that were in the kitchen. But there'd be a big vat of boiled rice or egg-fried rice. And one day, the lady asked me for a rice carton. So I gave her the foil one,

because I thought that's what she wanted. But through miscommunication, I didn't understand that she wanted the plastic case, which would be for special fried rice. And she used to have a stick, and she hit me with the stick, and she went round carton, and then I left. Because I...

So that was... I've took that as, like, I've been sacked, obviously. Yeah. Yeah, so that was... I mean, you said I loved working in this place. I did! Or we've heard so far, someone's told you to fuck off. You've had a hot oil thrown over you, and someone hit you with a stick.

Buy all the prawn crackers that I could ever want. That's true, yeah. Yeah, that's true. All the prawn crackers have never been flugged at you straight from the fryer. If you manage to eat any of them, congrats to you. Extreme prawn crackers. I was saying this as you want, Allison.

Here, come in! Trying to catch him out of the air like I don't want to frisbee. Like a mistake or something. Getting hit with a stick, like... Yoda, tree... Yoda's training Luke in the bin. Rock, box, bang! Luke just walking off.

I don't know, for me it's short film, wouldn't it? Come on, R2. Your dream starter. My dream starter is soup. So I'm going to go for soup. This is where your magic comes in. Yeah. It's going to be mystery soup, and I don't know what I'm getting

until it's in my mouth. There's the magic behind it. Yep. If this involves a priest, I'm going to lose. Yeah, he would part the soup like the Red Sea. What's he parting it with? So... What I'm going for is like...

So my granny, Minnie, she is a woman... She's a woman that like, she's not the best cook in the world, but she would make soup and sometimes the soup would be incredible and sometimes the soup would be like leftover lamb stew with a can of tuna

thrown in on top of it. Because my granny's a hard worker, but she's not the best with reading and stuff, right? So she would just like... Once she used Tabasco as like a tomato base sauce and like the kids... This is a story that's passed down

generations of like a child receiving a full spaghetti bolognese with just all Tabasco in it and they're coughing and she thinks that they're pulling a prank so she's just turned to anger and they've had to eat the whole Tabasco. So instead of tomato,

it was all Tabasco. It was all Tabasco. It was all Tabasco. Horrific. Do you know what? I was taking all this heart and story and then I was like, no. No, it was like chemical warfare. The kid was lucky to be alive.

So... She's a powers back kid. She's like... She's a great woman. Reading isn't her best thing, right? She used to work in the Typhoo tea factory in England and because she was so small they used to throw her in a big

vat of tea and then she would have to find like bugs and stuff and pull it out because she was such a smart lady. And let's just get this straight. Her name's Minnie. Granny Minnie. She used to get thrown in a big vat of tea. Yeah.

To fish all the bugs out. And she would get bonuses for all the bugs. And... One time she thought she'd make more money and she got like a butterfly from the garden. No, Alison, please.

Please, Alison, no. No. And she was brought up to HR because they were like this butterfly is not like indigenous to the country that this tea came from. So obviously, there's been lies.

You brought in your own bugs, Minnie. Yeah. I don't have a butterfly in the tea. Yeah. Oh my God, I love that. So she would make different types of soup and me and my cousin, Antony, would have some soup and we would like

push each other and have it, have it. Because if it was good, it was real good. But someone had to be brave enough to try the soup. So the mystery soup could be different soups from our life. I got loads of the favourite soups. Funeral soups is a big one. And I said no.

In Ireland, the catering of a funeral is very important. And one of my favourite things at a funeral, apart from like celebrating someone's life or whatever, is the opportunity for a funeral soup, which is just mass produced vegetable soup that you get from Boolean or whatever.

But it's so salty and it just hits you. And it's that kind of thing of like, when you're crying, it tastes like tears. It's so salty and it's good. So you drink it and you're like, like that and you can feel your whole mouth dry. It's like a disrespectful sound to make it if you don't...

LAUGHTER LAUGHTER Like a big Coca-Cola had for it. What was it? And like, what I would do is like, one of my favourite things is to get like one of those petite pans that you often get with a soup

and I would like bite the top off like a grenade and I would get my tongue in and I was like... I would manoeuvre my tongue around to take away the soft bit of bread from the hard bit of bread see, it's almost like a tropical fruit

but this is bread and then I'd have like a whole mouth full of bread I'd hold that out and then I would... You'd take that out of your mouth. Take the soft bread out of my mouth, have that in one hand and then I would fill the crusty the crusty dimmy baguette

that's been like just... It's a husk now at this point and I'd fill it with vegetable soup and I would call that like a... It's like a savoury kind of rarache You're just... Enjoying all the textures Now, I completely understand this

Good, good You've got the crispy bit and then you fill it with soup The bit I question is the technique Okay! I'm pretty sure you could do that with a knife 100% you could get a knife or a spoon or whatever, any cutlery cut the inside out of a bread roll

and then fill it... You've licked it out Held it in your mouth, not swallowed it I would have just... Or if I was using my mouth, I'd just eat the middle But you reach into your mouth you take it out and you just hold it in your hand while you're doing the rest of it

Yeah, it's for dipping then after You dip your big goby bread ball It isn't that goby My mouth is dry from soup Sorry, your mouth's dry because you drank all the funeral tear so it's... So like, it's a good soup I love it

There's another soup that I like I mean, you've got French onion, that's alright That's good, sorry I mean, it's great I went to Morocco and I was there for a month doing a film and a thing and in the garages

like in Ireland our food culture is quite garage based I feel like it's been talked about before where you get chicken rolls and stuff like that and that's like Irish food and in Morocco there's currants of lentil soup

and it's beautiful and you have a bit of lime and they have it for breakfast and stuff and I think there should be more soup for breakfast I think soup all the time would be quite good Yeah, yeah I've tried to make ramen myself and I made it with like a pork based kind of stock cube and it smelled like piss

so... but that's my fault, do you know what I mean? You can't blame the Japanese for that No, no, no, no, it was a piss bully on it was like a urinal cake that's not interesting at all but these are my mystery soups I don't know what I'm getting until I get it

and we're also going to pop in the lamb and tuna thing just to keep it alive keep it in your toes so you might get something rubbish yeah I'm imagining that for your dream meal you would like to know that that is in there but not to get it

that would be great wouldn't it but I can't know that I'm not going to get it either you know what I mean, you have to threaten me I like to eat with Fred so you want to know it's in there you might get it but you ultimately don't and that makes it even better do you want loads of pots of soup

all in the same pot with leads on on like a lazy Susan and then you spin them around I was thinking right because I did think about this we've got genie technology here and there was a doll that I used to have as a kid called My Baby All Gone

you make it all gone and it had a special spoon in it with like three cherries in the spoon and you'd pop it against the doll's lips and it would pop away so I think the technology is within the spoon that I'm getting like a spoon

of nice soup I'm just really trying to work out what this has to do with My Baby All Gone I haven't thought about My Baby All Gone for years is that the doll that would do like a shit in a piss no, it would eat the food I remember My Baby All Gone and the three cherries on the spoon

and the theme tune I haven't thought about it since I was like how do you get the cherries back do you want the real answer like the technology so I think the spoon is quite thick at the arm bit so I think the cherries are hiding in the arm

and then you press a little button the cherries come out you're pushing back against the cherries and it pops back in it doesn't go into the doll at all it's like a trick knife yeah, I was going to say a dog's penis but yeah

better trick than trick much better so yeah, it's a mystery soup I still don't see what My Baby All Gone spoon has to do with what you were saying do you know what, I'm saying this magic right? so James doesn't know

I think the soup is the cherries it's within the arm of the spoon if you get me so you don't, there's no big soup bowl it's just the spoon I'm getting a soup injection in the spoon what? oh no, it's even more confusing what's going on

I've got a spoon that has the handles loaded with soup and you're going to eat it yeah, you're going to feed it to me and I'm going to eat it and I press it against your mouth, what happens soup comes out but with My Baby All Gone you press the cherries

the cherries are on the spoon and when you push it in the baby My Baby All Gone's mouth it's a My Baby Still here the cherries go into the handle My Baby Still here yeah, yeah, I can't be putting an empty spoon to your mouth when it squirt in soup

do you know what, I thought about this too long that I fought myself out of the logic of this podcast haven't I but that is what I want so if we can make that happen I mean, look I love soup I'm in a soup WhatsApp group, do you want to have a look?

I want you to describe it to me first just when, I think well let's move on to the next one well clearly we're not letting this guy she's in a soup WhatsApp group there's a soup WhatsApp group called soup share now it's been suggested to the originator of this soup WhatsApp group

that we should be called soup group and someone suggested that and she kicked him out he was a very strong leader I've been in it for five years this soup group so is it people when they make soup they update the group

yeah, when they make soup, when they order soup at a restaurant they rate it, it was originated because this lady wanted to do a golden soup week which was where she would eat soup five days of the week in different places and I was inspired by that and she was on Twitter and she asked if anyone wanted to join her soup WhatsApp group

and I went in full whammy you don't know this person I don't know her that well I've met her a few times you just saw her on Twitter she's more of a Twitter friend but she lives in Dublin I met her a few times

she was very nice, she came to a play that I put on and if I see her I'll say hello but I feel bad about calling people friends and they might go where were you when my mum died or whatever

I'm not that close well you should have gone to the funeral you would have been straight there you were wearing soup earrings I've just realised your earrings are bowls of soup 3D bowls of soup they're bowls of soup

yeah I got them off a website I've got a chicken nugget hair clip as well but I thought that'd be too much today absolutely love it yeah I was like I don't know overwhelm these people

how often is the group where you talk about the more I say it the crazier it is that it's not called the soup absolutely ridiculous funny that she kicked someone out the logical thing it was really really active for a couple of years

I'd said slow down a bit now people have just got over lockdown and are living their lives a bit more they're always there and also if anyone on soup group David or that are these in the soup group but he's very silent in it he barely contributes

he's not making soup kind of thing to Donalds is always going to join that as soon as possible but then go I've got nothing to contribute to this I'm just happy to be here if anyone, there's a guy who's like a chef and sometimes he goes on TV and there'll be a little message in the soup group

going I saw super marcus and we call each other supers and it's like a little it's like being in the Freemasons I think but with soup yeah I feel like we support each other and obviously if you have a soup are you taking a photo of that

and sharing it on the soup group and then they could rate your soup they could look at the crew on and go I like that I like what they've added toasted almonds whatever we will often say TUT which means talk us through the details about how the soup was made

or where they got it I don't hate it I kind of love it but I don't love it actually the whole thing is like I barely know anyone in it like it's great has anyone ever posted a picture of a soup that they had that they were proud of that they made

or had at a restaurant where everyone's just laid into them oh no we're very supportive it's supportive yeah it's supportive if you want to get in if you want to get in absolutely I don't know how supportive it's going to be

when Ed joins because Ed will speak his mind we'll say like change it to soup group the first thing I do there's going to be some changes around here changes it to soup group somehow makes himself the head admin there's a soup

there's a soup coop like our coup it's your coup I don't know your dream main course okay so I'm going for a pasta cream bean dream which is

a real you get kicked out of the group for that pasta cream bean dream is actually a recipe from Harry at cookbook called meals and minutes and my mother used to have that cookbook and my family I've come from a family of like four kids

well I got I got four sisters but one sister I don't know why I'm explaining to them one sister lives in England was brought up with my dad and his wife and she's lovely and she probably is going to listen to this so hello Ellen she has pasta cream bean dream as well but in her own house

like she's I'm really talking myself into a family but what I'm saying is shout out to Ellen but the memories I'm talking about is like when I was a kid and there was like all my little sisters they were all fussy in different ways they all had different food

problems and whatever and then there was this meal that my mom made and we all hated the idea of it because the recipe is it's pasta you cook it bacon and lardons onion and you cook the onion like really soft and infinite it's trapped up quite nice

then when the pasta is nearly done you throw in some green beans on top of the pasta and then you cut up some lettuce and you put in some vegetable stock on top of the bacon and the onions cook it up a bit throw in some crème fraîche

and kind of cut it on a low so it's like again and then you throw the lettuce on top and then the pasta on top and oh sorry I was just burping there all the cheese and I was like I should not have drank a fizzy drink

do you know why it is because I just didn't want to pay for one I was like oh freak out but I'm being hindered so like it's a it's a recipe that we all thought would be disgusting and then when we ate it was incredible

it was like so so good and all of us liked it every one of us liked it like my dad, my mum it was like a lot of us at the time this is painting quite the portrait but like this is the one thing we all agreed on because this is probably the one

podcast my dad will listen to because he's heard a few and everything a lot of stuff I've achieved in Ireland and he's like oh I don't know what that is like do you know what I mean but it was like a pasta crème bean dream was a great kind of family recipe so that was and then that was also taken over

your dad took he took that to his new wife and child hello darling Ellen, they're great we're very happy as a what do you call it a family yeah we're two branches

that share in the love of pasta crème bean dream did he when he was living in Ireland was he making the pasta crème bean dream or was someone else making it and when he moved he learned how to make it himself or he got someone else to make it for him

my dad is like a bit of a modern man in a way so I was born in England and I moved over to Ireland when I was six years old and when I moved over to Ireland I had quite an English accent and everything and quite like English kind of cultural stuff I know

I loved like picnic food like Scotch eggs and stuff which in Ireland at the time no one had heard of which craft and like you know and my dad used to make me my lunch and he would make like tomato sandwiches with a bit of salt and a tomato with butter and

bread and like my Irish colleagues well school colleagues with school friends children you're really suspicious of calling people friends hello my colleagues hello colleagues good to see you my colleagues

how are you nice I trust you enjoyed your weekend I'm just enjoying a Scotch egg don't mind me so but the kids used to be really freaked out by the lunches that I had and they would be like

what the hell is that so I was always very used to like kids thinking that everything I ate was kind of disgusting and everything so like anytime my friends would come around my mum would have to have like chicken nuggets in the freezer for my mates because like because we would cook mad food

it would be like it was the 90s it was really like the world was our oyster my dad used to make curries and stuff and what I used to love about my dad is like sometimes he loved it so sometimes when dad felt that he wasn't being like

respected or like he felt he'd done too much work within the house he'd go oh we're just going to put a brush up my ass hahahaha and that was his little catchphrase oh what a catchphrase yeah

and when I think of it now I'm like what brush what was that what did he think was happening there yeah so is that to suggest that he does so much work he may as well put a brush up his ass and brush everywhere he goes right that makes sense oh yeah

that makes sense I didn't think you were both thinking that it was bristles first I thought it was a a brush from a dustpan and brush and it was bristles first with a little handle poking out his bum hahahaha well I just do that

I just do that shall I never mind actually yeah it's got a broom yeah it's a broom that's very clever up his ass so wherever he goes he's brushing up yeah yeah yeah yeah my mum would cook as well but like that was a big family recipe

that they would all do together and it was nice it was great past a cream bean dream and for Christmas my mum bought me an Ainsley Harriet cookbook of meals and minutes because I like that recipe and I now cook it for my boyfriend so it's like a real

like a real throwback from the 90s does it sound tasty to you yeah the lettuce is a curve ball basically the name past a cream bean dream sounds bad sounds like that won't be tasty yeah a few things in the

the lettuce on top so a few things made me think I'm not sure that sounds tasty but then when you said you don't think it's going to be delicious and then it's delicious I was like oh well cooked so far I've thought this doesn't sound very nice

but then you're like most delicious well I'll trust that no it's good it's real good it's really really tasty and you have to have it fresh like all good food yeah sure so you've got to kind of have a fresh fresh past a cream bean dream

and yeah we really really liked it but none of my mates liked it I remember once my friend we were about 15 I introduced my friend to hummus and she loved it and I felt great like I for somehow just felt like wow I'm really spreading

this hummus around like as if like it was you were really yeah because she asked me she was like what's in it and I was like I actually don't know yeah I definitely brought hummus to Westmead I think also well done for calling

your friend just now we can oh I definitely consider her a friend I got in a fight for her like that's a friend did it all kick off on the hummus group well no no she kissed someone's boyfriend and then they got a bit aggro

sounds like you're on the right side of history they got a bit aggro you really said it as if there was a person's fault there they got a bit territorial you picked one friend a bit selfish as a boyfriend I think it's the boyfriend's fault

yeah sure sure yeah she kissed someone's boyfriend they got a bit aggro and you beat up the you just hospitalised the woman I didn't hospitalise them but I did what did I do I'm very good with like I'm short and I'm quite stocky

and I could feel like they tried to knock me over and it's like knocking over like what were one of those dolls that have like another doll my baby stand up you never fall down you throw cherries at them and they never go down

we're just like nice try yeah they tried to fight but it was just they couldn't knock me down so like they just stopped after a while I think we have to get to the bottom of what doll this is like oh it's um okay

so it's like shaped like a skittle like a bowling skittle but it's got like a big round arse on it like instead of like and it just like is it a weeble is that a weeble that's a weeble that's it

you're like a weeble yeah I'm a weeble your dream side dish if we were being logical a side dish for past the cream bean dream would be like garlic bread but garlic bread is not even in my top 200 side dishes I would say

like it's fine but it's so much better than that so I'm going to go for a stewed red cabbage because I really like stewed red cabbage and uh and lamb skewers that's what I'd have hold on what I couldn't decide between lamb skewers

I've had these like lamb skewers in London my friend Farron who I did a podcast with like she's introduced me so number one she messaged me to ask us where she's okay with booking a place for two weeks in Dublin

for us to eat food like she's very like organized she knows what she wants and the first place she brought me was this place that I can't remember but it's in London and it's a it's a Chinese place with lamb skewers and they're incredible they were like the best things I've ever eaten

in fact also this is another thing I really love to bring to the dream restaurant condiments like for the whole thing your own condiments? yeah well the dream restaurant I haven't there but they're on the table so I'd like some white maosu

ryu which is like um it's a type of like keynote sesame seed oil chili based jar and it's very tasty you can have it on rice and you can have it on like scrambled eggs or avocado I'm gonna I'm gonna try it on my past

degree bean drink and I'll see how we get on the perfect condiment for nothing that you're having yeah I love them on a brown cracker I've had an Ainsley Harriet recipe from 20 years ago the book is all stuck together and everything the Ainsley Harriet one from from the 90s but

any time that there's red cabbage on a menu no matter the meat or no matter what it's served with I always order it and it's normally disappointing but like I like to dream and I like to be happy dreaming dream and I love that kind of I love that

flavouring I was nearly torn between having so because I'm from well I would consider myself to be from Ireland because my accent and stuff like that and I hate um English sausages and so I feel like my have you had Irish sausages

yes yeah I think so little pink lads they're good they're really tasty but here your sausages are like overly herbed quite coarse the meat and the the thickness of your skin is just like I don't know what you're trying to protect the pork from it honestly

is like minced meat in a Johnny like it's disgusting to me I love English sausages do you love English sausages I just don't like a prophylactic with my like you know I've never noticed the thickness of the skin oh you will now put it to your teeth I swear it's very it's very thick but what

the thing that I love from Britain that I brought over to Ireland that the Irish couldn't uh you know stop me from loving was tin tomatoes on my fry up now I am in a I'm in a WhatsApp group for fry ups as well

is it all the same people from the soup group some of them there's a definite Venn diagram have you ever thought of maybe combining the two groups I don't know yeah I mean look could you combine soup and a fry up it's called come fry with me better there's definitely more

criticism within the fry up group yeah people get very defensive over that sort of stuff yeah yeah I love airport fries and stuff like that ask James what he has on this fry up James what do you have first first thing see what you think of this okay what you having your fry up okay don't look at Ed for it okay I'm going to tell you

do you want me to look away or do you want to do the same order as you said give me feedback on what you think okay scrambled eggs uh huh what do you think about that compared to what like compared to the just any other that's the only egg

I have scrambled eggs on my fry up what do you think I'm thinking what do you dip your sausage into thank you thank you what you're dipping your joining into yeah you're bringing in just sausage and beans that's what you're having scrambled eggs sausage and beans and hash browns very good very good I like it

crispy bacon very good I like that fried bread now my dad my dad likes fried bread once my granddad and my dad got into it like an actual very big row on Christmas over fried bread because he wanted fried bread and my granddad was like no even though like

he had the frying pan so like then my dad went up to silk for about an hour frying pan up his ass and went upstairs seconds away seconds away for me saying he's put a pan up his ass legging it there in the punch

scrapping it around um so what you having as a kind of wetness where's the wetness the beans the beans yeah my mum's husband calls English people beanos because they like beans with their fries well I mean

you're in cream bean dreaming what are you talking about he doesn't eat it he eats potatoes like genuinely he's a very big spud man yeah I would go for if you're talking to me about fry up I would bring the elements of Britain and Ireland together so

it would be like the good Friday agreement of breakfast good Friday yeah good Friday we're scrapping for the same ones all the time this way um I would go for the Bubbling Squeak I love Bubbling Squeak I would have one fried egg I wouldn't be arsed that much

the fried egg to me is a condiment and that's it our sausage is crispy bacon and then I would go for half a tin of tomatoes that have been boiled up so much that it's almost become thick and you have loads of Worcestershire sauce on that that's my favourite element of a fry

it's like that tin of tomatoes and I nearly had it as my side dish because I like tins of tomatoes now I've gone on record before saying yeah no tomatoes in my fry up don't want them but the way you described that just then sounded delicious putting the Worcestershire sauce in them

I've never been convinced before I don't like the half a tomato or whatever that's been fried in the frying pan garbage I don't like it don't want it in my fry up that then sounded pretty cool it's great like a bloody Mary I feel really safe like having a bit of

bolognese I'm not into it I just feel really safe having loads of tins of tomatoes in my house because it makes me feel like whatever happens you've got tins of tomatoes ready for a nuclear winter nice fry up for my nuclear winter just stick a sausage

out of fork and put it out the window and bring it back in how's this for a weird egg story my mum's family all like different bits of the egg so my auntie only likes the white and my mum only likes the yolk so whenever we've had breakfast as a family

they just make the eggs and my mum sits there with two yolks and my auntie sits there with a pile of white and it's never mouthful of shells crunch crunch that's great working in tandem I hate, the thing about scrambled eggs

for me and it's probably been discussed on the podcast before is do you ever see like it's the juice of the scrambled egg that I don't like and that's why I don't like poached eggs that much either watery, with a fried egg

and I can make a boiled egg myself at home really well thank you it's my specialty happening just so proud of you I can make a boiled egg at home all by myself my baby so I'm pretty passionate

when it comes to eggs but if I'm at home a fried egg isn't, I don't care about it but if I'm out I'll have a fried egg because you can't mess up a fried egg that much so you're already having two sides here you've got the lamb skewers and you've got the cabbage

you said you've got the lamb skewers in a Chinese restaurant have you ever had lamb skewers in Chinese restaurants before and it's so much like cumin on them and stuff like that, it's so good and they're like szechuan pepper it hits your mouth and then you breathe in a few times

and it gives a different element of heart it's like numbing I've had lamb skewers from this a Uwega restaurant called Etles in Walthamstow which do amazing like thin lamb skewers just covered in like and then they dust it with cumin afterwards

that sounds great I'm kind of like quite tempted to let you have the tinta marti with the Worcester sauce as well could we pretend it's a condiment? round it off you basically use it as condiment right? I do, don't I?

I just think that's quite appealing and I'd like to let that that would be amazing yes your dream drink so I don't really drink alcohol anymore I get very bad hangovers

so I do drink alcohol but as much as like a normal person would take ecstasy so like once a year kind of thing and I'd make sure I've got no work for the next four days after if my dream restaurant if it was an alcoholic beverage

Bacardi Breeze or Watermelon which no longer are in stock but I love them, it's a great taste I went into a Waitrose a couple of years ago to buy them because I'm quite my dad lives in England, my mum lives in Ireland so when I come to England

Bacardi Breeze or Watermelon is an absolute treat you don't get them in Ireland so I went into the Waitrose and I was saying can I get a Bacardi Breeze or Watermelon and the lady laughed at me and I was like what is this I just want the best drink known to man but yes

so if we could go to the past and get a Bacardi Breeze or Watermelon that would be amazing but if it was realistic that I got work the next day dream drink would be a tango ice blast in a very silly elaborate plastic thing

now Romesh Ranganathan chose I don't know if it was a tango ice blast but it was an ice blast for his dream drink and he said what he would love more than anything is an ice blast machine in his house in the garage, do you think you would like that

or do you think it would make it less of a treat if you had it on tap all the time well I live with five people I don't really have room for a tango I don't have room for I don't have room for a dehumidifier in my house so I don't have a tango ice blast but an ice blast machine

would do a lot of the work let's play a little game then you've got to get rid of one of your housemates for the ice blast machine who is it going to be, talk us through why do you want me to say no talk us through thank you Benita

I would first tell us who they are before you tell us who you're going to choose are you friends with them all or is this more of a housemate arrangement sort of flatmate thing it's a flatmate thing but they're all friendly and nice, Jamie is a teacher Alistair is a guy who

does engineering and Amy is a journalist and this is very hard and then your boyfriend I get rid of Simon I've heard so

teacher doing great work engineer if the tango ice blast machine breaks down they can help journalist good for your career gets some good reviews boss feed bang suck it Simon he can suck the tango ice blast

from a distance from a distance yeah I'd get rid of Simon because I think Simon would be he is my undying love yeah he doesn't need anywhere to live keep him warm at night I can have that arrangement where

I have my boyfriend living me but I just say that he's coming occasionally Alistair every night with his toothbrush you know that's what I'm going to do so I'm not breaking the lease agreement but if you asked me about all flatmates it would have been another person that lived with me

during lockdown and didn't believe that lockdown existed he believed the lockdown existed but we had big rows he didn't think he should he listened to a lot of Joe Rogan tango ice blast tango ice blast

but watermelon flavoured of the Bacardi Breezer let's do it we need to pour the Bacardi Breezer in it the texture of an ice blast a boozy tango ice blast so it's not orange tango flavour a Bacardi Breezer watermelon ice blast

yeah let's do it and we want a silly a silly shaped vessel for it as well you can pick, surprise me what vessel do you want I love Minions they're so wise

they've got all the you can see on facebook and there's like just sad Minions love can't hurt or whatever and you're like who's telling these Minions it's a knowledge like it's crazy yeah drink that one's head

I'd say that's one of my favourite things that someone's made up on the podcast that would be delicious a Bacardi Breezer watermelon in fact I would prefer that to both a tango ice blast or a Bacardi Breezer watermelon

I prefer a Bacardi Breezer watermelon ice blast could you imagine just walking around nice and drunk with a tango Bacardi Breezer watermelon you know it's falling into a canal we had that great drink when we were in New York at the Korean pub

it was a whole watermelon and it was like soju watermelon so the Korean spirit and then they'd obviously cut all the watermelon out of the husk and whizzed it up with the soju, load of ice poured it in there it was like a punch and you ladled it out that was great

I think about that a lot I've forgotten that completely did it have any like a bit of lime on top of it or anything I can't remember yeah maybe it did it tasted perfect wow my mouth is watering we arrived at your dream dessert

brilliant, exciting it's just like a restaurant-y one though because I've gone for a lot of like homemade stuff but now I want you to know that I've been to a restaurant so so this is a place in Ireland called Greenhouse which is like a Dublin base it's a fancy restaurant

and it was a place that like so the way that I treat fancy restaurants is I can't really afford to go to them often but when I get to go it feels like a real achievement and it feels incredible it feels like going on like a weekend holiday or something like that it feels like something that I should be allowed

to treat myself to and I do and I love it there's this place, there's two restaurants one's called Chapter 1 in Dublin and the other one is called Greenhouse and I've been to those once my boyfriend cycled to Chapter 1

and he swatted on in his t-shirt and he didn't want to wear his t-shirt in but it's like a really posh restaurant so he just wore a hoodie with laughing underneath it to be posh like a magic mic person and they were so nice that they treated us

no different to anyone else and it felt great so I like going to those places because it has the drama in Chapter 1 they have like this special Irish coffee which they wheel it to you on this big brass trolley and they'll get some mace and they'll grate it into the

into this big bowl and then put the coffee in and so sorry Jesus Christ I love it every time it happens cause it feels like I'm getting passing for emotion got some tears

like I'm at a moth fucking storyteller night and I really felt that when he put the mace in that Irish coffee and then they flambé it and they put it into a cup and it feels incredible to have that done

but the Greenhouse has this souffle which is made of passion fruit with a white chocolate and ginger saucy and it's the greatest thing I've ever had in my life it tasted so good and I'm going to add to that

a scoop of Murphy's sea salt ice cream which is from an ice cream shop in Dublin and they make their own salt themselves and they make the ice cream themselves and it's the greatest ice cream I've ever had in my life something to have

I've gone for a bit of texture cause it's quite eggy and ice creamy well I've thrown a few communion wafers on time the sweet ones just some sweet ones little scoopers I love a sweet souffle it's been sent on the podcast before

I think if ever there's one on a menu I will order it cause it's not often on the dessert menu you get a souffle on there I think last one I had was a really nice sticky toffee souffle which was delicious and what I love about ordering a souffle is that you feel like graced in

on MasterChef where you're like waiting and you're like I hope I don't fuck it up I know in my heart of hearts I'd eat it anyway do you know what I never say a word if it just comes to scrambled eggs um num num of course you people know better than me oh so he's scrambled eggs I'll have yours, I'll do that as well

delicious but I'm not like a massive fan of desserts but that was like a really good dessert I'm not a massive fan of wines taste and menu I'll go for that cause you might as well and they're pouring the sauce into the souffle so it's like a whole

yeah you get it in a jug and you control your own destiny with that jug and like I've eaten the souffle and I will look out the jug as well yeah of course you've got to yeah you've got to don't use the spoon no you act on instinct

the tongue is nature a spoon isn't that yeah I guess so yeah it is a utensil I am on a constant souffle I really do love licking out stuff out of food mullercorners, everything

I'll go for it I'll breathe it in, I'll use every element of my mouth to intake food what are your favourite mullercorners what are your favourite things I have in the corner the cherry one like a step up from strawberry in a way strawberry

strawberry is like the prettiest girl in your village you know there's better out there they're available but you know they do see it they're never going to go further you're going to reach those cosmopolitan heights of cherry I know that's why you think you like cherry

but I think it's cause my baby all gone I think that's why it was planted in your head as a child you've never eaten a cherry cause it pops back into the spoon with the corners you flip it over

put it back, it appears again can we try to put it in the yoghurt do you like crunch corners as well, just fruit corners I'm not a big crunch person I'd add my own crunch you know I've thrown in when I was a kid

I used to microwave over as originals and make a sugar craft out of it and eat it, would you not do that no as a kid I would not microwave where the originals make sugar craft out of it and then eat it I thought I did when Princess Diana died what are you talking about

I was trying to it's just the memory I had I've never heard a sentence where I didn't know where it was going as much as that but also like already a weird thing has been introduced to us so microwave were was originals and do sugar craft out of them

we've already got a lot of questions and before we even started to ask the questions is what I did when Princess Diana died but I just I just I was a kid so what would you do, you would put the were was originals in the microwave

let's deal with this first okay the were was originals unwrap them of course, it's dangerous not to unwrap them so I would place a naked were was original on a little plate pop it in the microwave 30 seconds it's going to melt down

how's it looking like toffee sauce if you put it in for a minute, you're going molten and it's going to burn the sugar smoke you really get in trouble with your parents at that point because it's just your whole house smells of burnt sugar

but do it 30 seconds you've got that kind of sauce element then you take it out it's almost like you're looking at it and you can see it solidifying in front of your eyes I put a fork in it and I give it a twist and it makes little curls up into the air

and you can make a full you can make sugar craft like little shapes and stuff, you feel like a Michelin star chef that's cool making little shapes what do you mean you did that when Princess Diana died? as in like I knew my dad would be upset

why? because it's English I didn't know I was very young I was up trying to watch cartoons it was on a Sunday there were no cartoons the news was on and it said

Princess Diana died and I didn't know who she was but I knew that my dad liked her so I went into the kitchen and tried to make my dad some sugar craft before he woke up and then I told him the news and he was quite upset

he didn't eat the sugar craft so that didn't take the edge off at all no this has been quite a dad heavy episode I'm sorry Dad as you said it's the one episode he's going to listen to most feature heavily

I had a whole TV series and Ireland sent him over to DVDs and he didn't watch it for two years and then I asked him one day have you watched it? and he goes yeah yeah I have love and he goes well it's not really aimed at me is it? and I was like everything is aimed at you

but yeah the sugar craft is like just there when you want to jazz up something so you presented your dad with these nice sugary shapes and said I've got some news Princess Diana and then I'd imagine he took the sugar craft

and shoved it straight up his ass straight up there make some room, push the brush and the fry and bang to one side the sugar craft right in there ass absolutely full to the brim it's a queen of art it's what she would have wanted

he did say not her and not now and I've never asked him what was that about but he was very upset not her not now on a rigid menu back to you now see how you feel about it

you want tap water from Ballymore you would like prawn crackers with Chinese mini meals on the outside starter you want mystery soup main course Ainsley's pasta cream bean dream side dish, stewed red cabbage lamb skewers

and tinned tomatoes with Worcestershire sauce drink, watermelon Bacardi Breezer ice blast in a minion cup dessert, a passion fruit souffle from the greenhouse and a scoop of Murphy's sea salt ice cream yes

I'm happy about that I'm just thinking about me walking around with a minion cup sucking out its thoughts drinking it its wisdom I'd say it starts bad with mystery soup and pasta cream bean dream I know

I think the side dishes sound nice individually and then the drink and the dessert sound great cool I feel good I like the sound of pasta green bean dream Alison thank you so much for coming to the dream restaurant thank you there we are

thank you goodbye it flew off in some directions I was not expecting absolutely but I enjoyed all of those directions very very much I've enjoyed great directions and more importantly Alison's people did not say

skimmed milk which is the worst of the milks it is the worst milk I don't know man I drink oat milk I drink it now Yeah. No, it's too sweet sometimes. And, uh, but you know, that's it now. I'm an oat milk boy. Maybe I'll try and switch to soy milk or something.

I'm an almond milk boy. Are you? I like almond milk. Maybe I'll try that out for a bit. I think I'm due to change. I'm a bit, I'm a bit sick of oat milk. I think also, oat milk is really going to remind me of lockdown. Once we've moved, because, you know, we're moving soon and the flat, like I only started drinking milk at the start of lockdown. So it really reminds me of it now, I think. And I think I need to do a switch and then I'll feel like I'm out. So once we've moved, we're not in

the flat anymore. We're not in lockdown flat. New milk. New milk. New house. New home. New man. New milk. Yeah. That's the catch. That's, James is the new man. He's not moving in with the new man. My manager.

Well, who knows? Well, you know that, right? Yeah. I've said, I've said to them, keep it a surprise while I'm moving. Like the mystery soup. Yes. So thank you very much to Alison for coming in. Do go and listen to Will of Misfortune. Do go and see her show. It will be very, very funny. Thank you very much for listening. We will see you again next week. Bye-bye.

Goodbye. Off menu. 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 relationships never been the same since. And I am joined by me, Ian Smith. I would probably go bread. I'm not going to spoil it 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 Northern 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.