Off Menu with Ed Gamble and James Acaster - Ep 285: Sally Phillips

Episode Date: April 2, 2025

‘Smack the Pony’, ‘I’m Alan Partridge’ and ‘Taskmaster’ star Sally Phillips is this week’s diner, and she’s going foraging. Sally Phillips stars in ‘Austin’ which is on BBC One at 9.30pm from Friday 4th April with all episodes available on BBC iPlayer. Follow Sally on Instagram @sallysmack Off Menu is a comedy podcast hosted by Ed Gamble and James Acaster.Produced, recorded and edited by Ben Williams for Plosive.Video production by Megan McCarthy for Plosive.Artwork by Paul Gilbey (photography and design).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.

Huge news from off-menu towers, James. Big announcement! Big announcement. We are doing off-menu live, the tasting menus at the Royal Albert Hall. Yeah, we've been doing some tasting menu episodes recently. You may have remembered John Kearns' tasting menu episode. And that's the only one that's been out so far, to be fair. But that's when we give a guest the menu of a previous guest.

So it's a guest who's already been on the podcast and we give them another guest who's been on the podcast menu And we see what they think about that It's a reason to book fan favorites and we thought hey what better way to celebrate this wonderful new format than by doing it Live at the Royal Albert Hall Friday the 13th of March 2026 at 730 p.m. Saturday the 14th of March, 2026, at 7.30pm. Saturday the 14th of March, 2026, at 2pm. Saturday the 14th of March, 2026, at 7.30pm. That's two gigs in a day. We've got the energy. These go on sale 10am on Wednesday the 2nd of April 2025. Sign up to our mailing list at offmenupodcast.co.uk for pre-sale access tickets from royalabbotthall.com and ctickets.com Welcome to the off menu podcast taking the stilt and of conversation the Comte of humor the sharp cheddar

Oh, no of friendship adding the crackers of having a great time and the chutney of Cheering the fuck up James. Look at me. What what's your problem? You know what you've done. I guess we're having a cheese board today That is a gamble the son of a bitch. My name is James A. Caster. Together we own a drink restaurant and every single week we invite the guests we ask them their favourite ever star and main course is a cider chan drink, not in that order. And this week our guest is Sally Phillips. The wonderful Sally Phillips, James.

National treasure. So fantastic. One of my favourite comedians. So funny. One of our finest comic actors. I mean, obviously Taskmaster, series five. Yeah. I'm Alan Partridge, one of the greatest sitcoms of all time. And the greatest series of a sitcom.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Smack the Pony, iconic sketch show. Smack the Pony was part of a lineup on BBC two of shows on either a Monday or a Tuesday, I want to say. Smack the Pony was 9.30 PM and it was like a run of three or four things that when I was a kid, I was like, here we go. It was so cool.

This is my, this is my night of telling. Yeah. Absolutely fantastic. And now in Austin. Yes. Is a new Australian comedy series. The BBC have acquired it already a hit in Australia Coming soon from Friday the 4th of April starring Sally, of course

Yeah, that's why that's why we're talking to her about it Ben Miller and Michael Theo Yeah, who's one of our favorite guys from love on the spectrum? Yeah, we both love love on the spectrum, especially the two series that Michael is in and very excited to see his acting career that Michael is in and very excited to see his acting career take flight. So make sure you watch Austin, but of course James, however much we may love Sally Phillips, if she says a secret ingredient on which we have pre-agreed, we will have to remove her from the restaurant. And I hope to God she doesn't say it. Me too.

This week the secret ingredient is pony. Pony. It's about the pony. She's not going to put pony on her menu man. Well you'd think not. I mean. Or smack. But people can't secret ingredient is pony. Smack the pony. She's not going to put pony on her menu, man. Well, you'd think not. I mean, but people can't, it is edible. Well, there was the horse meat scandal, of course. Of course.

And there's some countries where, you know, they eat horse. Yes. And they do it properly, I guess. So, you know, she might have been to a country where they've made a pony steak or something. And it was really nice. Where people eat the horse and they know they're eating horse unlike the horse meat scandal. Yeah. I mean, look, you've got to let the horse meat scandal go. I'm just going I missed I wasn't on the week when the horse meat scandal was happening. Yeah. I was a

good week. I imagine good week. Good year. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's quite a while that the horse meat thing was going on. Yeah. But those ones aren't always the best ones. You know, you think are this is a huge story It's gonna be great. Yeah, but actually the internet for yeah, but the horse meat scanner was different man Be like, oh if this is the answer was the question three and you could be like how many horses are in opacity? That's good. Yeah. Yeah. I mean after that probably running out three how many of us on you how many horses? probably running out of three. How many horses have we eaten for breakfast today? How many bites did I take of a pasty before I realised it had a horse in it? Anyway, rest in peace to Mott the Week. I guess we'll just get on with the episode.

Yes please, this is the off menu menu of Sally Phillips. Sally Phillips. Welcome Sally to the Dream Restaurants. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Welcome Sally Phillips to the Dream Restaurant. I've been expecting you for some time. Well, thank you very much for inviting me. Did you enjoy that? I did. I did. I just, yeah, that's how you normally greet guests, isn't it?

It is. I did well not to scream, I think. Yeah. It was very exciting. Would you normally scream at that sort of stuff? Yeah, I do startle easily, yeah. Yeah. Not that people say startle these days, actually.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's good. Yeah, I've got startle reflex like a baby, you know. When was the last time you were the most startled? Well, it's the thing that both my sons and also Michael Theo from Austin, he likes to startle me because he thinks my response is funny. I do scream very easily and I'm terrified of snakes. So he comes up and does snake impressions and I scream and my heart rate goes through the roof and I think I'm going to die early and he laughs like muttly for about 15 minutes.

And the director gets annoyed because we're, you know, getting behind, losing the light. We should talk about Austin, but Michael Theo in particular, we're both big fans. Are you? We're so jealous. You need to get Michael Theo on a podcast. Oh, we would love that, obviously. Such huge fans from Love on the Spectrum.

Love on the Spectrum, yeah. He's just brilliant. He is, he is. I'll tell him that you, like he'll go, yeah. He's just brilliant. He is. He is. I'll tell him that you, like he'll go, they've heard of me? Yeah. He's completely brilliant. Yeah.

Yeah. He's fantastic on that show and I didn't know that he was going to start acting and he's acting with you, Ben Miller, it's an amazing cast. Wow. That's very kind of you. How did you get involved with it? Because I'm very excited to see it. Because it's very polite of you to say so.

That's not polite. That's not polite. He's not polite. He's not a polite guy. He means it. If he says it, he means it. Yeah, well, that's good. That's good. Yeah.

Ben Miller did a film in Australia called Razzle Dazzle, which is very big in Australia, turns out. He's still good friends with the director Darren Ashton. And Darren works with the company Northern Pictures that made Love on the Spectrum and Australia, well the whole world fell in love with Michael from Love on the Spectrum instantly. He was top hat wearing, heart on his sleeve, no defences, quite a lot of long words and Darren thought, I wonder if he can act and rang Ben and said, what do you think? Ben said, I think it's worth a shot.

So Darren got in touch with Michael, met him, felt that he was even more amazing in person. And so he and Ben came up with the idea of Ben being Michael's long lost dad. And then Ben asked me to write it and I said, no. But he sort of proposed to me as in, would you come and play my wife on screen? So then we discussed about how it might work and they got some writers on board who don't miss deadlines.

And yeah, and then we went from there. So the idea was come up with to base around Michael. Around Michael. Yeah, around Michael. Exactly. Yeah. So for me that I've got, you know, neurodiverse kids, I've got a child who's got Down syndrome and autism. And so it matters to me a lot, representation. I can see it makes a big difference to Oli. But also I think TV is great. You can get people into people's homes. And I think if you can get people familiar with people with disabilities,

then they're less likely to exclude them or harm them or whatever. And just a bit more understanding, right? Yeah, and also he's so funny. I mean, it strikes me that, you know, sitcoms in the 70s and 80s, people just pretending to be autistic. And so why not just get somebody? And he feels quite strongly that young Sheldon and Big Bang Theory are misrepresenting autism as, you know, people not caring and all the rest of it.

And so he has contributed a lot to the character. He'll sort of flatly refuse to do something or we use lots of things from his life like stirring fizzy drinks so that they're flatter and things like that. That's fantastic. It is amazing the oversight sometimes and stuff like that where they want to have an autistic character and then they don't even do the bare minimum of research. They assume it's just someone with no empathy. Yeah. Just do that and think that that, I don't know, is either funny or doing their job. I'll tell you what, I'm quite struck with Nordic noir.

They tend to make the women autistic so that they can just write men. Right. Wow. But yeah, it is fantastic to actually have Michael here. I mean, it's been great. And I think the thing that's been most telling is how exactly the same it is. You know, it's just no difference. We tried to have a neurodiverse crew on the British end of the shoot, and there was no

difference between a neurodiverse crew and a crew that didn't identify as neurodiverse. So either that tells you that all the tests just identify people who work in television, which is possible, or it's just not such a big deal. Yeah. You know? I also really like, what I really like about this as a parent is that often when autism or learning disability is in a drama, they will make that the reason the character is there.

So the character is there because they're autistic, and they will then be tortured and killed because they're autistic. You know, I was talking to Sarah Gordy, who's an actress of Down syndrome, and I said, what would be your dream character? And she said, a news agent. She just wanted to play someone who was just there as a person who wasn't being, you know, not suffering because she had Down syndrome. And so this is great. It's almost irrelevant, the autism. It's just sort of the way he talks and the way he approaches the world. It's just part of his character, but it's not a storyline. It's no surprise to me that he's brilliant in it

because he's clearly such a performer when he's on the screen, right? And apparently that's how he learned to talk. So he was nonverbal until four or five, maybe later. And his parents noticed he just watched animations. And I shouldn't tell you all of this, because you should just get him on, because he would be a great guest, because he does not lie. Yes.

Unlike you. It's quite harsh, unlike me. Of course, lie for money, no problem. But Michael, so last, you know, we've just been, just literally just come back and he says, I can't believe that I am so well regarded by the world's media. Look at this, look at this review. Michael Theo easily outperforms more experienced actors, Ben Miller and Sally Phillips. We're like, well, don't read us that one. Don't tell us that one Michael.

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Yeah. Yeah. I love him to bits. I mean, he's just great. Fantastic. So great. Yeah. Would you consider yourself a foodie, Sally? I wouldn't, but my partner is a trained chef, so I have been dragged into awareness.

I mean, I'm someone who a whole term at university, all I have was Snickers. Snickers all day every day. Yeah, like all the food, it's got protein, you know, for dairy. Yeah. Yeah. And when I was... Why was it Snickers? Is it above the other chocolate bars?

I just don't know. I guess it was the salty tang, wasn't it? Yeah, it's the salty tang. It's got everything you need. And then when I first started acting, I would just have sausage, beans and chips. That was like all the time. Wow. Did you, when you were just eating Snickers, did you notice any interesting things happening

with your health? No, no, none. That's the great thing about being young and at university. Yeah. And it's that thing where, you know, it's 2am, you think, oh, I may as well stay up now. Yeah. Have a couple of Snickers, go straight to a lecture.

But now I do know quite a lot about food. And we did set up in the pandemic or just before the pandemic, a secret supper club where we did these evenings. The idea being that normally if you have dinner theater, both the food and the theater is rubbish. But we thought, why don't we do performance around the food? So we did one called Fond of Mushrooms, which is a Tolkien quote. And we did that at the cricket club on Kew Green, which is where the fungarium at Kew Gardens have their Christmas party. And we had the curator of the fungarium at Kew come and do a presentation about mushrooms. And he's basically a stand up very, very funny.

And so he told us lots of like mushrooms,, it turns out, are the fastest things on earth. They fire their spores into the air at a greater speed than anything else. Oh, wow. Yeah, we learned about the stinkhorn mushroom, which is a mushroom that looks like a penis. And Charles Darwin's niece was obsessed with them and was worried they would corrupt. Anyway, lots of interesting facts about mushrooms. And we had a band, the Fun Guys, come in and perform mushroom-related mushroom-gathering songs. And then Ronnie Ancona and I did some mushroom-related material, none of which I can remember now.

And we read things like the mushroom-gathering scene from Anna Karenina and Sylvia Plath's mushroom boat. And it was really mad. That evening was unbelievably mad. We lost loads of money. There were five mushroom based courses. Was that a mushroom dessert? Yeah. Yeah. Chocolate and porcini. It was really truffles, dark chocolate truffles with porcini mushrooms. Absolutely delicious. So we did a few more of those. We did one based on gin and beer and one on stuff you get from the river. And then-

Oh, lovely. Trollies and stuff. We did a Swedish Midsummer thing. We haven't done one for a while, partly because we lose so much money. That sounds so funny. Partly because some of the people died in the Midsummer one. Yeah. They were frightened actually because Midsummer, the film had just come out. We led people

into the Swedish church in Marylebone and there were some Swedish mums, but dressed in their kit. They looked like Lederhosen, but with a dress. And they sang a cappella, slightly scary choral music in Swedish. And then we didn't give them drinks or anything. And then led them downstairs. And there was a Msummer dance, have you heard of this? The frog dance? No. Where there's a song and you go around, you dance in a circle and the Swedes sing a lot of songs around food. And this one was, the words I think were, little frog, little frog, you're such an idiot, you don't have a tail. And then they go little frog, little frog, you're such an idiot, you don't have

a tail. And then they go little pig, little pig, you're great, you have a tail. And everyone was quite afraid, but we gave them very strong, like Swedish, homemade Swedish alcohol. I think Midsommar like made people scared of all Swedish things for about a year. Yeah, it did. It did. I haven't seen the film actually. Oh, some bad. It did. I haven't seen the film actually.

Wow. Oh, some bad stuff's happened. If you'd seen the film, you wouldn't have done a themed movie. You wouldn't have done a themed movie about that. Yes. We realised that. It's not as fun as mushrooms. Mushrooms were fun.

Yeah. Yeah, we had a, it was really great. The Riverside one was fantastic. We had, Ronnie and Kona's brother was an admiral in the Navy. Yeah, and Kona's really getting involved in this show. Yeah, he told us about that. We had an actor who had rowed across the Atlantic reading from Jerome K. Jerome. Do you know, have you read Three Men in a Boat?

No. It's a completely brilliant bit where they've had a tough day and they're all feeling a bit grumpy and then they find a tin of pineapple and their spirits lift, but they haven't got a tin opener. It's just these three blokes trying to open a tin of pineapple without a tin opener. And was that dessert at the... There was a thing that was pineapple based dessert. We had a forager, George, no, Fred George. Fred and George.

No, I've got that, I can't believe I've got that wrong. Sorry, menopause, my brain doesn't really work. Flavour Fred is his Instagram handle. He showed us all the plants around the area that could kill you. This sounds great, Sally. I think you should have another one. It is great, apart from it's just a loss making thing. Well, let's do a collab. So it's just for fun. Yeah, we could do a collaboration. Yeah, we could. Yeah, it is great. Apart from it's just a loss making. Well, let's do a collab. So it's just for fun. Yeah, we could do a collaboration. Yeah, we could. Yeah, we'll

do one. We can't do mushrooms again. Benito hates mushrooms. But we'll base it. How about this? We do a collab that is the meal that you choose today. And that's what we do for people. We make it a real thing. Well, we should do you. Have you done your meals? Yeah. Loads of times. But like, you know, this is a collab with you.

So it should be off menu X Sally Phillips. I haven't. So I haven't actually at the current time decided. By the end of this episode, you will have decided. We can just do your dream meal for everybody. When you say at the current time, you mean as we're recording the episode right now. I didn't think about it. Obviously. Like I say, I was, I was thinking about it and I was sort of planning with menus and all the rest of it and looking at a cookery book of Icelandic food.

And then I listened to Bob Mortimer's episode and I thought, it's all pointless. I just need to say jam. I want to eat jam. Jam in hell. I want to be fed jam by Bob Mortimer on a long spoon. We always start with still or sparkling water. Do you have a preference, Sally? Yeah, I think sparkling water since it's a dream menu because it's posh, isn't it? And if you're going to have mineral water, it seems, I don't know why, I feel I have a strong feeling that it's wrong to have non-tap still.

Yeah. Why is that? Really? I think I just, I just feel someone's making a bit of a point. If they have flat, I'm going to call it flat. Yeah, flat water. Yeah. They're selling you something that you have for free in your house.

Something you have for free in your house. It's not that they're selling you, you know, fresh air. Yeah. Exactly. So do you think people who have still water that's from a bottle are basically saying I'm too good for tap water? I'm too good for tap water, yeah, especially in their own homes. When they say I don't drink, I don't drink tap.

I'm like, ooh. Do you know how many people who don't drink tap? I do. Flavour Fred? I do. Not Flavour Fred. No, obviously he just, he drinks from streams. Here's something I've worked out about myself the other day. I drink tap water all the time at home, obviously, but if I drink it from the bathroom tap, I feel weirder about it as if it's different water than the kitchen tap.

But I think, is it not, is it not slightly? I don't know. I know exactly what you mean. It tastes more metallic from the... Yeah. I love the fact that we're both confess that we have both. Yeah, yeah. Drunk from the bath. Always have both.

Yeah. But it's convenient if I'm about to go to bed and I want some water or whatever to take, you know, I'm going to the bathroom tap, not going, but I'm thinking you're slumming in. But is it like, it's different from the sink and the bath? Yeah, very different from the bath. Have you ever taken from the bath? Well, the shower, the shower is the hardest one to get to. Yeah, yeah. Really got to be under there for a while to get a good mouthful.

Yeah. There is a website, Mineral Waters of the World. You know this, presumably? No, no. Where they rank the different mineral waters. Oh, wow. Someone's properly done it. Yeah, yeah.

What's to what's top? Well, I actually printed it out. Because although I haven't- Benito, stop goofing. Benito, stop. Sally's printed it out. Benito's taken away. Sally's printed out the website. I printed it out. Because although I haven't... Benito, stop, Google. Benito, stop. Benito's type of noise. I printed it out.

I printed it out on the website. Yeah. I was going to look at some of this, but then I... Just realised you printed out quite a lot of stuff. I printed out a lot of stuff. Well, now I printed out some of the stuff from the supper club in place, so it was something I could remember. And I thought I'd read it in the car, but then I got car sick, so I haven't.

Here we go. Top is a... Oh, I haven't got number one. Oh, yeah. Yeah, here we go. Number one, Topo Chico. Have you ever heard of that? Topo Chico. Topo Chico, where's that from? Does it say what it is?

17 votes, doesn't say. 17? I'm guessing 17 votes, not very many. And that's top, is it? Dorner, then, well, do you want to have a look at the thing? But the only, the first one I recognise is Badwa at number six with 40 votes. What? I don't know why number one, I don't know why number one out of five, it isn't all waters of the world. Check it. It's independent. Yeah. It's an independent thing. Yeah.

Sally, I hate to skip ahead, but I've noticed on another sheet, there's a paragraph with the subheading Chinese ghosts. Yeah. Yeah, this is all supper club stuff. Yeah. Did you know that Chinese ghosts, the reason Chinese temples have zigzag bridges over their ponds is because Chinese ghosts can only cross water in a straight line. I didn't know that. I mean, it's weird what sort of comes up on the podcast because we've recently had a conversation with John Kearns where he talked about Japanese ghosts not having any feet. Yes.

Wow. So I thought this might be where that was going. Yeah. No. Like, but obviously not. Yeah, they can't. They have to cross water in straight lines. They can zigzag on land.

Yeah. But not across water. But not across water. So they see that bridge and go. So if you're being chased by a Chinese ghost and there's only a straight bridge, you're ... Yeah, yeah, in big trouble. What part of the supper club did that relate to?

I just can't remember. Presumably that was part of the riverside one. Yeah. I love that it's still on the form though and you can't quite remember what. I can't remember what it was. Yeah. We haven't done one for a while, like I say. Yeah. Japanese water demons look like small naked men with a turtle shield and a water-filled bowl-shaped head. So that is how I would like my water served.

Yeah. I would like it served inside the skull of a Japanese water demon. Yes. They lurk in water for unsuspecting passersby and they drag them into the deep because this is a dream and I will be immune to their charms. And the way you escape from them is you carve your name into a cucumber and you throw it into the water. So I'll have cucumber, fizzing cucumber water from the skull of a Japanese water demon.

Yeah, that's very appropriate. It tastes good in the water and it subdues the demon. And it subdues the demon. And it subdues the demon. Absolutely ideal. And your cucumber has your name carved into it as well? Yes, why not? Are you going to go full name Sally Phillips or just Sally? Sally Elizabeth Phillips.

Sally Elizabeth Phillips. It's a long old cucumber. Yeah. Pop lobs or bread! Pop lobs or bread Sally Phillips! Pop lobs or bread! Basket of bread. Basket of bread. Breads of the world. Pachuarinan, obviously. Obviously. Breads of the world. Oh yeah. Peshwari

naan, obviously. Obviously. The bounty of breads. Oh yeah. And then, and then like some bread, and this, because this is the dream restaurant, all the bread is good for you. Yes. So very, very, like Mother's Pride, possibly. I love, I still love that. Just like slice wide. Rolling intervals, yeah. And then a Swedish bread with some kind of like citrus thing. Oh! Yeah, I like that. Like, you know, orange cardamom kind of thing with like nuts in it. Yeah, yeah.

It's probably got a name. Delicious. Is a Swedish bread quite a sort of heavy, heavy bread, would you say? Well, they do lots of different breads. They're very strong bread culture. So you can get a rye bread, but you say? What's the sort of- Well, they do lots of different breads. They're a very strong bread culture. So you can get a rye bread, but that's not what I'm thinking of. It has a bit of rye in it, this bread.

Maybe it's got a bit of oat in it, but it's also got, I think, cardamom and little, maybe little seeds and orange rind. Lovely. A little bit sweet then with the- A little bit sweet, yeah. Maybe a hot cross bun in there? Maybe a hot cross bun.

Well, exactly, hot cross bun is not a million miles away. So you started your day today for the listener? I started my day with a hot cross bun. Yeah. Maybe a hot cross bun in there. Maybe a hot cross bun. Well, exactly. Hot cross bun is not a million miles away. I started my day with a hot cross bun. It was huge as well, wasn't it? And it was brown. Yeah. It was a non-traditional hot cross bun. Yeah. It looked really good though. And you could peel the cross off. Yeah. That's if you're not religious. That's if you're not religious. It's a non-denominational bun. Yeah. Yeah. You can get rid of it, just have the bun if you don't want to. I always think of Jesus every time I eat that hot cross bun. You think of Jesus every time you eat anything though, don't you?

I was raised in the church. Yeah. So like, but like, yeah, I still think of, yeah, because of my upbringing. Every time I have a- Were you raised in the church? I was, little Christian boy. Which church? It was like a non-denominational, like-

So it's like guitars and... Yeah, yeah, rock band. Yeah, and were you in the rock band? No, but I learnt drums from the drummer in the rock band, because I wanted to be in that one day. So now when James plays drums, it sounds very religious. Yeah, it's tambourine. I like tambourines. Egg, shaky egg?

Oh yeah, shaky egg, of course. I've got a shaky egg knocking around the house somewhere. Yeah, of course. All of that. I do actually still have the tambourine that that drummer gave me. It's covered in stickers that say how cool Jesus is. So I've got that in my house. Do you think there's quite a lot of comics? There's quite a few, aren't there, who had vicar dads? There's a few vicar dads.

Was yours a vicar dad? Vicar dad or just like a member of the church? No, I'm a vicar dad. But yeah, I've met a few who do have Vicar parents. Hugh Dennis, I think. Yeah, he's definitely got a Bishop Dad. Yeah. None of you. None of you. Tash! Yeah. No, when I was a teenager, I went to a Christian festival called Greenbelt and you were there. That's the first time I ever saw you do anything.

Yeah. You introduced a band, I think. Probably. I was like, that's a comedian. That's the only time I've ever been to Greenbelt. It was exciting. It was it. Just once. Yeah, yeah. Champion of Racecourse. I was like, that's a comedian. That's the only time I've ever been to Greenbelt. Just once. Yeah, the Chapman Racecourse. I thought I really liked it.

It's great. I really liked it. They had Peter Tatchell and I'm talking to him very respectfully. I was like, thank God this is a place where Christians are not rude about homosexuals. Yes. It's one thing that looking back at when I was religious, that was cool actually. I liked that. I liked Greenbelt. Does it still happen? It does. And now it happens even closer to, it's literally like two minutes from my parents house.

It happens now. Do I go? No. You're setting yourself up for them to email you to try and book you now. You've absolutely set yourself up for it. Well, yeah, but they know I'm such a bad boy now. Yeah. They couldn't book me for Greenville.

But you're not that bad. What? What do you mean, Sally? You're a host of food podcasts. I'm a bad boy. In what sense? How are you bad? I'll tell it like it is.

I don't care. I care about anyone's feelings. That's just not true. Rude man. Rude. I'm rude. Yeah. You're not rude.

Yeah. Bad manners. When are you? When? When I'm on stage. Notude, I'm rude, yeah. You're not rude. Yeah, yeah. Bad manners. When are you, when? When I'm on stage.

Not now, sure. When you're on stage, not now. Yeah, they put me on that stage, they'll be on the receiving end, I'll be on the business end of some opinions. They won't like it. Off my new, from Greenbelt. Yeah. Ed wouldn't do it.

He likes heavy metal. He would, like, I think if you set foot on that holy ground, he would go up in flames. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just steam would start rising off of him. You wouldn't be able to do it. I don't really know what it's like. But it's supposed to be pretty open minded, isn't it? Yeah. But not to Satanist like you. Are you a Satanist? I don't think I am. No, I like heavy metal though. Yeah. But you know, I don't know how they feel about that at Greenbelt. I think the guy who directed the shack, one of the more Christian films ever, is really into heavy metal. I don't think it's incompatible. Is it? Unless you, is it all,

it's not all, I don't like heavy metal. Is it all about Satan? Some of it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Satan, I love you. Yeah. That sort of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.. Some of it is. Satan, I love you. Yeah, that sort of stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Satan, I love you. Yeah, that's one of my favorites. You've got to be careful with songs like that. You can't go green bouncing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Satan, I love you. Yeah. But I guess they love everyone, right? So they have to love Satan. Well, I think that's a really interesting theological point. Yeah. Yeah, that's a, you've got to.

No, it is. Is that the logical end point? That all Christians become Satanists. Even Satan should be forgiven. Yeah. interesting theological point. Is that the logical end point? That all Christians become Satanists. Even Satan should be forgiven. Where is the line? It seems arbitrary. Interesting. I mean, this is quite a boring point I'm going to make,

but I think a lot of Satanists don't actually believe in the notion of Satan. Satanism is about self-worship. Listen to that, spoken like a true Satanist. Is it about self-worship? I thought it was about like outsiders, like being outside the thing, or is it about making yourself as... I think a lot of Satanists would say it's about self-worship and Satan is a representative thing as being anti-organized religion. Wow. I love disorganized religion. It's my favorite. Yeah. I was going to say, like whenever I've been to church, it doesn't seem very organized. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

She was more organized than most. Yeah. To be fair. Dawn French wasn't organized. She was more organized than most. Yeah, to be fair to her. Let's get into your menu proper now, your dream starter. So I really like the idea, this is a dream restaurant, right? Yeah. So I really like the idea of being able to get your own stuff, like find your own food.

And now in reality, that would be me swearing, traipsing along the banks of the Thames with a spade, looking for a Jerusalem artichoke and only finding something polluted. But in this world, I love the idea of just going to be able to, you know, going to collect a load of stuff. Is this like the age and stage I'm at? Like I think it is probably a sort of post-menopausal stage in a woman where you want to forage and gather and weave things and find like wild garlic flowers and

I want to eat chervil. What is chervil? Yeah, monk's weed and hagwort and things like that. So, in the dream environment, I want to forage for a load of stuff. Like I want to eat flowers that are not poisonous. Like last time. Yeah. In terms of the dream restaurant, we can guarantee that you're not going to be poisoned by anything that you find. The dream restaurant, I guess, are you thinking we're like on an expansive plane?

We're like in the countryside and you can just walk around and find things and there's a bounty out there. Let's say, starter in the countryside, at Exstead, have you ever eaten there? No. So it's a Swedish restaurant and they cook in iron bowls and they infuse things with it, they burn hay under the thing. And it's like the thing, it's the most beautiful meal I've ever eaten. I've only eaten there once. It was just unbelievable.

Things sort of arriving on bits of moss with tiny flowers. And it was the first time I sort of, we'd been doing these supper clubs and I was like, oh, let's make it look nice and let's do art around the food. And I went, oh, okay, sorry, I get it now. This is art around the food. This food is so beautiful and it smells so amazing. You could see them cooking it. So an iron bowl came out red hot and by the time you got to your table, it was black again

and then the thing was cooking in it. Where is this place? Exeter? There's one in Stockholm, but I think there's one in London, Exeter at the Yard. Wow. Nice. And it's really amazing. That sounds really good. Like the chef's tasting menu, nine courses we had. And I was like, okay, I get it now.

Having been, you took to Snickers, girl. You know? It's like, okay, I understand. This is absolutely amazing. Yeah. I guess out in the woods, like nomadic dinners, that kind of thing. And we've gone and got a load of things. And then someone actually more skilled has made sure you don't burn it. But I did have cooked lettuce. Have you

ever heard that? No, I've had like grilled lettuce before like, you know, baby gem lettuce done on a barbecue and stuff like that. No, it's well, I don't know what it's called anyway. It's a slightly different kind of lettuce and then it's sort of, you sort of grill it over hay with some smoked butter and then put it on a plate, surround it with a load of edible flowers, which you don't have to eat, but they just, they make you feel special and beautiful. And when you're past your prime as a woman, there's nothing nicer.

So you would like the grilled lettuce with the butter over hay with the edible flowers around it. Smoked, yeah, edible flowers around it. And you'd like that in the, in a field or in the woods? Don't mind. Just around that area. Outside, yeah, outside. And maybe, you know, I'm a sucker for those sticks with lights that hang off them.

You know? Sorry? Do you know what I mean? Like a lamp or a torch? Yeah, but it's like a string of lights. What's it called? Festoon. Festoon?

Festoon Garland. Benito didn't even have to Google that. He didn't even have to Google it. It's Festoon Garland. Fairy lights, candles. Set up with no joy whatsoever. Like a nice music festival where there's like a glade. Yeah, glade, nice music festival, exactly.

I'm pictured, because the other week I went to a premier screening of the first two episodes of Bridget Christie's The Change. That's all in the forest of Dean and there's like all that kind of- That's about the moment of pause. And that's, to be fair. Have I just described Bridget Christie's sitcom? No, but that's what I'm imagining. That's my dream environment.

Because I've got it so fresh in my, I've got it so fresh in my mind. Yes. And you're saying about the foraging and that's a big part of that show as well, and nature and all of that. And because they talk about the menopause and you just talk about it. Right, okay, well, yeah, maybe that's it. I mean, it's always struck me that women have a kind of more creative midlife crisis where we get into weaving and distilling things and collecting things and men dump

their wives and buy a Porsche or whatever it's just. One does sound a bit more idyllic, doesn't it? Yeah, I don't know. It feels good to me anyway. I don't want a Porsche. It feels good to me. The only thing that can happen is I think women can get into a babying primates kind of stage like babying puppies, like when their maternal instinct goes supercharged when you hit 50. Even that sounds better. So you know what, let's, this is a dream restaurant, let's have a whole load of baby baboons wandering

around some little chimps like a spider monkey. Spider monkey that loves me. They can play the banjo. He's there too sitting on my shoulder. Is he playing the banjo on your shoulder? Yeah. And he loves you. Tiny, tiny banjo. What's he playing? Rainbow connection? No, he's playing Nina Simone. What's the word? Montage. Like Medley. Oh yeah, a little Medley. A little Nina Simone. What's the word? Montage. Like Medley. Oh yeah, a little Medley, a little Nina Simone. Nina Simone Medley.

Is he eating as well, the spider monkey, or is he just playing? Yeah, I feed him petals. Little petals. This is lovely. And he claps whenever I tell a joke. Like rolls over backwards. Puts up his shoulder laughing. Pops his banjo on his back and starts clapping.

Yeah. Yeah, something like that. Yeah, I'm a good guy. Yeah, I'm a good guy. Yeah, I'm a good guy. Yeah, I'm a good guy. Yeah, I'm a good guy. Yeah, I'm a good guy. Like rolls over backwards. Falls off his shoulder laughing. Pops his band-writer's back and starts clapping. Yeah. Yeah. What a good guy. Yeah, something like that.

Your dream main course? Um, yeah, jam. Dream main course. You started very well by the way, so I'm excited to hear the rest of the menu. This is the setting, the food. Well, I mean, what I was thinking before I listened to Bob Mortimer's episode was I would, I'd really like a tagine. It's a bit boring though.

That's not boring. It's delicious. Dates and apricots and all of that in it. Yeah. It is a bit dull. I don't think it's dull at all. I think tagine is lovely. I mean, if you think that's dull,

you should have heard some of the things that people have said. What's the dullest thing you've had? Oh my God. What fish fingers? I'm glad you never hear anyone pick a roast dinner again. Yeah. Oh really, yes.

No disrespect to all the people you have. And I understand it as well. I love a roast. Yeah, we had a roast last night. My family over for a roast. Let's talk about it. Let's talk about the roast. Yeah.

Well, roast potatoes, I mean, they are great. They're a classic, aren't they? They are just brilliant. Depends who does them and how they do them. Depends on how do you do yours. Do you shake them in there? Do you parboil them? If I rarely do, I rarely do a roast at home. I'm just not cooking a lot at the moment, but I will do the parboiling and shaking when I do. Yes, exactly. Me too. Cause I like all the crispy stuff on the outside. Yeah. Do you do the squashing still? Yeah, I still do the squashing. I've got to try the squashing. My friend Joe and Kate, I went to Joe and Kate's house recently and they did Nigella's roast potatoes and they were incredible.

Some of the best roast potatoes, so crispy and flavorful, but also they'd left the Nigella cookbook open on the side on the roast potatoes page. And I was looking back and forth. It's looked identical. I was like, you've nailed this. The photo of the roasties in the cookbook is like you've taken a photo of my plate and you've put it into the cookbook. I couldn't believe it. This is what it's like having James over for food. He will be so enthusiastic about the weirdest stuff.

But were you like, have you been foodies then, both of you for a long time? Yeah, I think so. I mean, certainly as long as we've been doing this podcast and probably a few years before that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Add longer than me, I'd say. Yeah. I love it.

Absolutely love it. I used to be more about quantity over quality, I'd say. Yeah. Well, you had to grow, didn't you? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And once I cut down on the quantity, I started focusing more on the quality. And now I like quantity of quality.

I mean, I genuinely like healthy food, which makes it, which is a bit so boring, but I think that's from having had three boys who really just want to eat, you know, flying saucers and toxic, what are they called? Toxic waste. They literally want to eat toxic waste all day if they can. And I've got my son with Down syndrome who will go downstairs. We have to lock the kitchen because They call it toxic waste. They literally want to eat toxic waste all day if they can. And I've got my son with Down syndrome who will go downstairs. We have to lock the kitchen because he goes downstairs in the night. We used to say, he'd go downstairs and he used to make brownies, go downstairs and eat all the brownies. And we called him the brownie fairy and then we stopped having brownies. There was a thing where he started to smell and I was like, what is this? He smells really weird. And

I found that he'd stolen the rest of the roast chicken and hidden it at the bottom of his cupboard and it had been there for about 10 days. That's great respect. All his clothes. Yeah. And we're always digging like food wrappers out from under his, it's a genuine worry like how to stop him eating so much all the time. No off button at all. And he says, my body, my choice, mum. Good on him. Checkmate. Check. Worst day of your life when he learned that, I'd imagine. When he found that phrase somewhere. My body, my choice.

It's not really what people use the phrase for. No, exactly. He's got you there. Yeah, he has got you. I have my own consent. Do you want that roast chicken as your main course? Old roast chicken for the bottom of my son's cupboard. Now I think I probably would go for a tagine. My partner makes a really, really, really good one. Yeah. And I love butternut squash. Again, that's very strange. Only babies, me and babies love butternut squash. I do love butternut squash.

I think a lot of people do. My mother hates it. The rest of my family don't really like it. But I love it. I've got one at home waiting for me. I'm going to roast that. We've talked about this before, but I wouldn't buy butternut squash because I find chopping it up daunting. Yes. Because they're quite hardcore, aren't they? They are. But you're a man who's into death metal.

Yeah, I should be fine as putting some death metal and go to town on it. I have to draw a face on it first. In your robes. Sacrifice the butternut squash. Yeah, there's that bit at the top, it is a pain, isn't it? Yeah. I've got a cleaver though, so I'll use the cleaver. Exactly, use the cleaver.

Yeah, I get you though, it is a bit daunting. A karate chop in half. You karate chop it in half? Yeah. He's a bad boy. A bad boy. Yeah. Just karate chop it in half straight away, one hit.

I just swear at mine. Yeah, yeah. And it just falls apart. Does what it's told. Yeah, does what it's told, yeah. So what else is in this tagine? You see you've got the dates and apricots and butternut squash. Is there meats within it? Doesn't need to have meat in it. Yeah, I'm not a vegetarian, but I'm completely happy

with it without meat. That said, on Austin season two, the director and the producer of Vegetarian, without telling anyone, they decided to have a vegetarian set. Oh yeah, I'm not telling you. That's unbelievable. I'm walking off. Ben Miller, he was relentless. Every day he would do a sort of protein breakdown of what we'd had to eat and eventually broke them. We were having this really delicious vegetarian food that wasn't enough protein in it, so you were just knackered by three o'clock. Yeah, so by the end we would have, it was pretty much chicken every day, like bad tempered

meat, you know, butter chicken every day, like bad tempered meat, you know, butter chicken every day, where the vegetarians continued to have their salads. And it was a vegetarians only. Oh, wow. Yeah. Divided set. Divided set. Yeah. So I'm fine if it doesn't have any meat in it. And where do you want this? Are you still in the glade?

Well, it's weird to have tagine on top of a mountain, but like, why not just do the world thing? Yeah. Why not tagine on top of a mountain? Be warm on the top of a mountain. Are you going to be like wrapped up? Wrapped up. It would be drawn Everest or? Probably not because it'd be hard to breathe. Yeah. Breathing visibility, that sort of stuff.

Breathing visibility, that kind of thing. And there'd be loads of tourists around. Yeah, like a simple, a simple Alp will do. A nice Alp. Matterhorn, on the matter. A simple Alp will do. A nice Alp. Matterhorn, on the Matterhorn. On the Matterhorn. On the Matterhorn.

Benito getting excited there because it's a Disney ride. Is that where you're from, Benito? He loves Disney World, Disneyland, and all the roller coasters. And the Matterhorn is the OG at Disneyland. So he'll get excited here in the same way. But you need to come with us because I've got special needs kids. We can get to the queue. Oh, there you go. But you say you're gonna be happy with that. You're funny. Your choice. But you want to be up the actual Matterhorn, not the Disney matter. I want to be up. Yeah, definitely

not the Disney matter. Yeah. Is the spider monkey going to be on the Matterhorn with you? No, no leaving it behind Well, now you're getting me. So why not? Let's have a Heidi themed rest Hi, did you an aspiring themed restaurant with with baby goats? and Peter the Gold Herd I was a kid that book but there was Peter the Goat and the grandfather Yeah, I love this theme with the food. So like a Heidi themed restaurant, you're having a tagine. Yeah.

Having a tagine, yeah. Well, you know, Heidi, yeah, after going to Frankfurt, she then went to Morocco. Yeah, exactly. People don't come through. She's very old now, Heidi. She's massive. More to Heidi. The size of the Matterhorn herself.

Yeah. And then on the side, I want toddler veg. Okay. So is this your dream side dish? More to Heidi. The size of the Matterhorn herself. Yeah. And then on the side, I want toddler veg. Okay. So is this your dream side dish? My dream side dish. Vegetables grown by toddlers. They can't wait, right? So they have to be dug up. So the carrots are just the size tiny. And the potatoes are miniature. So toddler, toddler veg. It's a thing. Yeah. It's a thing where you don't know about this yet. Well, maybe you'll never have children and maybe

you don't want children, but growing children, growing children, growing, one of the things you do with them is you grow, before they go to school, you grow vegetables with them. So you have your little bucket of soil and you plant some stuff and it's just adorable. And they always just dig them up. Yeah, they can't wait. So they dig it up. And you have to persuade them to put it back. So putting the carrots back so they get slightly longer than like three millimeters.

But they're so sweet, these little things. And they taste delicious. Yeah? Yeah, completely delicious. Yeah. Okay. I would say the peas that my son grew were the best peas I've ever had in my life. Wow. Yeah. Are they smaller than normal peas? No, those ones grew full size because they were above so he could check on them all the time, but it's the root vegetables that are tiny, tiny carrots. You can't be constantly checking in on them, can you? Yeah. The potatoes, tiny.

Yeah. It's sweet though. Happy memories as well. Yeah. Yeah. So you want them all mixed in together, little bowl of toddler veg. Little bowl of toddler veg. And like, are you having butter on that or anything? Yeah, why not? Yeah. But actually they're really, really sweet. So you don't actually need much. Yeah. So on a cheap non-organic carrot, I might put some honey, butter and honey on a cheap carrot. But on a toddler carrot needs nothing. Needs nothing. What toddlers do you want making this? Well, I'd like my kids to be toddlers again.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Make them toddlers again and they can make you, make the veg. So if your kids are toddlers again for the main course, what's the spider monkey thinking? Because the spider monkey was a stand in for a child, wasn't it? Spider monkey, well that was the start of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we've gone to the top of Matterhorn.

Yeah. Yeah, it's okay now. That spider monkey is gone. Yeah, he's fine. Yeah. He's had his fun. Yeah. That sounds great.

I love that. Are your kids as toddlers going to be there or you just want to know that they've made the veg? Yeah, it'd be nice if they were there. Yeah, have them there as well. That would be great. I feel like I've chosen the wrong place for the wrong thing because I would quite like to burn things on a beach at some point. Maybe that was the... But you wouldn't have hay on the beach like that. Do you mean like evidence?

Yeah, like barbecue something on a beach. That's good though, isn't it? That's just fantastic. I mean, yeah, you are right. Probably the starter, isn't it? Yeah. Would be barbecued on the beach. Well, it depends what your dessert is going to be. That needed to be in a forest. Yeah, that did need to be in a forest. Depends what your dessert is going to be, doesn't it?

Yeah, maybe I should swap the tagine, okay? I'm swapping the tagine out. Oh, yeah? Axe the Matterhorn. We're now on a beach and it's a fresh fish on a beach. Fresh fish on a beach. Cooked in a fire. Does it matter what kind of fish it is? Not that much. No, don't mind. No, not that much. I once had sushi straight out of the ocean.

Wow. And that was unbelievable. My ex-husband caught it, chef cut it up and we ate it like within, within half an hour of its death. Right into the microphone, say that bit. Yeah. And what fish, what sort of fish was it? I don't even know. And I don't care. It was unbelievable. It was amazing. It was so different. Nothing like your waitress sushi lunch pack. My waitress has a sushi bar. Yeah. I don't know how I feel about that. Really? I don't know. I mean, it's, I don't know how I feel about that. Really? I don't know I mean, it's I don't know. I feel sorry for them like trapped in the sushi pen

What the people working there or the fish? Yeah, people not the fish I should probably have more compassion for the fish. I don't I reckon working the sushi bar in a supermarket is the best Bit to work and I don't think they're trapped It's better than working out on the floor in a supermarket. Don't you? No, the movement. I'd like to, I'd like to go up and down. I like to get a bit of resistance pushing on that big trolley.

You know, the big, big trolleys they have. The big trolleys. Yeah. You get to appreciate the shelving. You need to, yeah. Whereas the part from, I quite like sushi art. Have you seen sushi art? There's you, there's quite a lot of sushi art where people make different pictures with the sushi. That's quite fun, but they don't

get to do that in Waitrose. I haven't heard of this. Haven't you? What kind of podcast is this? Have you printed out a picture of this sushi? Your dream drink. Dream drink? Well it depends on which of the locations we're in. Well I think we're now on the beach for the main course.

Now on the beach. So some kind of cocktail. A cocktail. Yeah, some kind of like girl drink. Do you ever see that sketch girl drink drunk? No. Like a massive great vat of rainbow coloured alcohol with glitter in it and a bendy straw and an umbrella and it's brought to me by monkeys. The monkeys are here.

Oh the monkeys are back. The monkeys are back. The monkeys are back. They feel the cold. They weren't good on the matter. Who did that sketch? The Canadian all-male sketch troupe called Kids in the Hall. Oh yes. Kids in the Hall. Oh yeah yes. Kids in the Hall.

Oh, yeah. Love them. They were cool. I'm crushing your hair. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They're good, yeah. Is there some of your sketches from like the Smack the Pony days that you get said back to you?

Do people bring them up? A bit, but we didn't have catch phrases. No. So, yeah, I mean, people do talk about some of them. What's the most common one that you get? The most common one is the singing match, was me and Dune doing competitive singing in the back room at the warehouse. Classic, right? Do they want you to do it with them?

No, they don't really. They just go, oh that's singing match. No, yeah, they don't really. They tend to sort of shout things from sitcoms or films instead. It's a godsend to not have catchphrases from a sketch show, though, isn't it? Yeah, well, we just felt really strongly about that. Because I remember thinking it was cheating, which it isn't, of course. And also, if we'd had catchphrases, then we could have like sold a load of merch and we'd be wealthy. But instead we had no catchphrases, no returning characters.

Yeah. Nothing we can exploit. You had the running things of like the dating. Yeah. Video things. Yeah. But that was having to write a new character. That was a new character. Yeah. We used to have like a hot seat where you'd do, we'd have three or four written and then they just block the day out and you could just run in and do whatever you wanted. Yeah. Hence video dates like, a work has been solved after a moment. Oh, Apple sticker. That explains a lot,

which is not a great sketch. It's just us going, who's like your turn. You just run in, do something, run off. And if you'd agreed on catchphrases, you could have done Apple sticker like every episode. Apple sticker. I could have done Apple sticker on the Matterhorn,

Apple sticker in the forest. Apple sticker that explains a lot, Apple sticker in the forest. Apple sticker that explains a lot could have been the end of every single shirt. T-shirts, key rings. Apple stickers, you can just sell Apple stickers. Sponsored by Apple companies. Do you get a lot of people bringing up Alan Partridge to you as well? Yeah. When you get the giggles in it, that's my favourite Sally Phillips, Alan Partridge moment,

when you get the giggles. That was all I did. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was a bit, I mean, I was quite young at the time, but I was really not because I was fake laughing and everyone just thought I was laughing at Steve. Yeah. Like being really unprofessional at work, which now I don't mind, but at the time I was like, no, I am acting. Yeah. I gave myself at Steve. Like being really unprofessional at work. Which, no, I don't mind, but at the time I was like, no, I am acting.

I gave myself a headache. Yeah. So what's in this cocktail? Do you not need to know? I don't even need to know. I mean, I'm really happy for like homemade, I mean, this stuff we served at the Midsummer thing was lethal. It was bright colours,

Flavour Fred's own alcohol. Apart from there's a lot of like poisonings I read. By Flavour Fred? No, no, no, not by him. He knows what's poisonous, what isn't. But like there's a, it's called fake alcohol, but it's not fake. It is alcoholic. People brewing their own alcohol and making it out of different things. And there's an increase in poisonings from fake alcohol. I follow a lot of Instagram accounts who make that sort of stuff. You make like wine out of Mountain Dew and stuff. What?

And do, there's a mead guy, I follow a mead guy. Wow. He makes different- What does he look like? You never see him. I love that. I love that. He makes loads of different meads. So it's alcohol from honey. I love that. I love that. He makes loads of different meat.

So it's alcohol from honey. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But he'll make loads of different flavors and stuff. And occasionally do like Mountain Dew or Dr. Pepper. Yeah. I love the idea of having, have you seen those beautiful copper gin like things? The stills. Yeah. Yeah. What are they called? Gin stills, I think. Gin stills. Yeah.

I think you've called them that. Yeah. I mean, I'm, I can't hold my drink at all, but in this world I can. And in this world, as well as having a forest full of edible flowers and all the rest of it, I would have a whole cellar full of gin stills. This is beautiful, isn't it? Like a whole, I'd just love to say,

come, welcome to my house, we can have dinner. This is the- This is the gin room. This is the gin room. It would be great, wouldn't it? Yeah, yeah, you should have a gin room is the gin room. This is the gin room. That would be great, wouldn't it? Yeah, yeah. You should have a gin room in this world. Everyone should have a gin room. So in this cocktail, you don't want to know what's in it.

You just want to drink it and... Yeah, I'd like it to be an entirely new alcohol made from a surprising non-poisonous ingredient that is delicious. And it's got glitter in it. Yeah, I'm just joking about the glitter. You know what? I was in duty free thinking, or coming back from Australia thinking, oh, what shall I get for people?

And they had a lot of, you know, alcohols that change color when you pour them and things like that. And I looked at it and I thought, oh, that's great. And I thought, oh no, that's not great. That's shit. I'm too old. I'm too old for fun alcohol. Yeah. Yeah. It's a thing, isn't it? It's like, uh, I've not heard of alcohol that changes color when you pour it.

Nor have I. Weird. And it had glitter in and all the rest of it. And I was like, no, awful. I don't want any of that stuff. I want it to taste nice. I want it to taste nice exactly. And, and, and also be a nice color, to be honest, that matters to me. I remember Goldschlager used to come up quite a lot in my youth when I started drinking. Goldschlager? What's that? It's like... Lager with gold?

No, it's not lager. It's like a very strong spirit, but with flakes of gold in it. Oh. Yes, no, I remember that. I do remember that. I remember that from Superbad. Oh, really. No, I remember that. Yeah, I do remember that. I remember that from Superbad. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. The girl that he fancies wants him to get that vodka that has gold flakes in it. Yeah. So it's very important that he gets that for the party. Yeah. It's such a gross

idea. It needs to be something that puts you in a good mood though. I remember like one of the drinks I most appreciated ever was someone bringing a bottle of espresso martini to PTA drinks. Completely transformed the evening. Oh, I bet. Yeah. Who was it who bought the, was it a parent or a teacher who bought it? Yeah, parent. What other parent?

Parent, yeah. Got messy. PTA got messy. Is that the one, is that like parents evening where you have to go and speak to all the teachers individually? Yeah. Racing through those meetings. No, that was the PTA. It was like when the parent group and the teacher group, they talk about how the parents can help the school. Right. And raise money and yeah, do the reading with the five year olds and all of that. And you're just all completely off your head. Going, it's not our job guys.

Nick is on the roof. Yeah. We arrive at your dream dessert. Are we on the beach still? No. Are we crossing a river? Let's do Matterhorn then. Yeah, we're back up Matterhorn.

Let's do Matterhorn. We'll go back up the Matterhorn. As soon as you got rid of Matterhorn, I knew Matterhorn was coming back. Yeah, yeah, really cosy, open fire. Yeah. Mass coming back. Yeah, yeah. Really cozy, open fire. Yeah. Massive Heidi. Yeah, yeah. Heidi's back. There she is.

Huge. She thought she was out of the picture. Yeah. And maybe hot chocolate fondant, but with the mushrooms in, because that was great. That's nice. With those truffles. Yeah. So the inside bit maybe has the porcini mushrooms in it.

And then all around the outside of the plate, there's wild strawberries. Oh yeah. Smollett. Love this. Have you foraged these? Yeah, okay. You're into foraging. Yeah, okay.

Yeah, why not? Wild strawberries just make me feel guilty. I remember being a little kid and my mum took so long to, she was growing wild strawberries in the garden. It was very important to her. Yeah. It took ages. And you ate the whole lot. Yeah. It's so nice to, she was growing wild strawberries in the garden, it was very important to her. Yeah. It took ages. And you ate the whole lot?

Yeah. That's so nice, aren't they? She got enough for a little bowl. Toddler fruit. So it's a little, yeah, toddler fruit, but by a grown woman. And she put it in a little bowl, she put some of her natural yogurt that she liked on it. And she was like, today's the day I'm going to do it. And everyone else had their, we had our own desserts. And she was like, I'm so excited

for this. And she said to my dad, do you want to try some? She got spoonful for herself, which is basically all of it. She went, do you want to try some? And he went, yep. And then she put the spoon to him. And as a joke, he pretended like he was going to eat the whole spoon and then he just had a little one. Yeah. And I was sitting there going, that would have been funny. You missed a gank there. And then she said to me, do you want some? I went, yep.

You ate the whole thing. And as soon as my lips closed around the spoon and I had all of them in my mouth, I remember looking up at her and seeing her face and realizing that was an error. This is the worst, but I now can't reverse this. You're a bad boy. My then just slid off of the spoon, all the strawberries. She was like at the time, she listens to this podcast every week and she knows that I know that she has since taken this back, but she said, that's the worst thing you've ever done.

It was bad. Has she taken it back or have you done just much more worse stuff since? Oh yeah, I've topped it. But they do taste so great and they don't taste like strawberries, they taste like sweets. Well, I can't even tell you what it tastes like. Because you just swallowed them all in one. Because I just felt so awful. You swallowed them like aspirin.

As soon as I'd done it, I was like, oh my God. So you'll never be able to eat them and enjoy them. I'd never be able to eat them and enjoy them wild strawberries. We've grown them at home. My partner's made wild strawberry ice cream. Oh wow. And they taste like sherbet. They taste like, not like toxic waste,

but they taste as good as something that's terrible for you. They taste as good as something, so they taste like sherbet. They're just absolutely delicious. I love how big toxic waste is in your household. The first and only time I've had a toxic waste, I was driving back from a gig and I bought

some because I was like, that's funny. It's like in a radioactive drum. Got back in the car, 70 miles an hour on the motorway, popped a toxic waste in my mouth, nearly went into the central reservation. Screaming at the top of my lungs. No one should drive a car and eat a toxic waste. No, it's crazy. Like the Delorean all of a sudden. Why toxic waste so big with the youth? I think it's like a, you know, who can handle it.

Yeah. Isn't it? The toxic waste fairy. Macismate. No, Ollie can't do that. Ollie can't do spicy and he can't do toxic waste. But he can do out of date chicken. Well, I like the sound of this dessert a lot. And it's like something you haven't had. You actually haven't had the actual fondant, chocolate fondant with the porcini mushrooms in it. No, I haven't. No. They were really, really good. These truffles Ian made. Amazing.

So this will be a new experience for you, the fondant version of it. Heidi knocking around. Massive Heidi. I think Peter the Goat Herd has been dead for a while. Oh, he's dead now. He would have been alive if we'd gone there when she first opened the restaurant. RIP. RIP Peter the Goat Herd.

But still his recipe for cheese remains. A recipe for cheese. Goat's cheese with ash. Would you like some goat's cheese and ash ice cream? No. Okay. Have you had cheese ice cream? Yeah.

Have you? Good. What's that like? Delicious. So I obviously hear your adverts and I know how keen you are on cheese, the pair of you. Are we keen on cheese this month? We're keen on whatever pace is the most. Yeah.

Quite right. Well, we have our ethics. We don't say anything. You have your limits. So toxic waste, we're going to sponsor the money. We do a toxic waste tap. We're cutting that story about me nearly crashing my car. We'll cut that and then I'll be like, oh, I'm going to get a new car.

I'm going to get a new car. I'm going to get a new car. I'm going to get a new car. I'm going to get a new car. I'm going to get a new car. I'm going to get a new car. I'm going to get a new car. I'm going to spunk. We're doing toxic waste. We're doing toxic waste. Yeah, if toxic waste get in contact, we're cutting that story about me nearly crashing my car. Yeah. We'll cut that out. We'll re-record it and say it helped me drive better.

Yeah. It got to its destination. Yeah, yeah. So much focus. Yeah. And I drove at the speed limit. It was fantastic. I love toxic waste.

I'm going to read your menu back to you now, Sally. See how you feel about it. Okay. You want fizzy cucumber water served in the skull of a Japanese water demon. It was a strong start. Great start. You would like breads of the world. That's Peshwari Naan, mother's pride, Swedish bread with citrus, hot cross bun.

I find it so sad that in breads of the world, the British representation is mother's pride. Well, what should it be? I don't know, but it's just funny to me that all the other breads are like these wonderful artisan delicious breads and then Mother's Pride. But you could say tiger loaf. Could say tiger loaf? Could say tiger loaf.

I mean, tiger loaf's appropriate in the skull of a Japanese water deer. Oh no, that was the water, wasn't it? That's the water. I haven't said how the bread should be presented. Oh yeah, yeah, how do you want them presented? You said basket, you did say basket. I did say basket, and a basket woven by my enemies. Yeah. Yeah. How do you want them? You said basket you did say I did say basket and a basket woven by my enemies

Name some of the enemies I don't have any enemies really Nish that I know of no, I love Nish He was a rival. He wasn't really a rival there was he because that was what's so brilliant about Nish was he completely failed and every single task Any points did he get any points. Did he get any points the whole series? I mean, there was such a big gap. He did, but he didn't deserve any of them. No, no. Yeah. Pitchy points.

And it was so great because I only, I didn't know Nish and I only discovered afterwards that he was incredibly clever. It was this incredibly clever and quite political satirist. Yes. But when he's identified he can't do something, he will sabotage it as much as possible. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. He Oh really? Yeah. He was brilliant. Yes.

Oh yes. What are the all-time great awful task master contestants? Your dream starter, grilled lettuce with hay and edible flowers outdoors in the glade with the spider monkey on your shoulder playing the bow-jump. It's grilled over a hay, not grilled, but sort of over a hay fire. So I'm not eating the hay. Not eating the hay smokes. Confusing.

Maybe I wasn't clear. No, no, you were. I'm not a horse. You're not a horse. Put that on the menu. Sully's not a horse. Main course, you scratch the tagine and you would like a fire cooked fresh fish, any fish doesn't matter, on the beach.

Side dish, a bowl of toddler veg. Yeah, that'll do. Drink. They won't be near the beach, but it's fine. They can. Yeah, yeah. Toddlers might be near the beach. The drink you would like, was it a girly drink you said?

Yeah. Big girly drink. Big. Cocktail. Bucket of girl cocktail. In a bucket, we're going with a bucket like a sort of Thailand full moon party. Yeah. Yeah, why not?

Yeah. I'd just say you want hot chocolate fondant with porcini mushrooms and wild strawberries. Yes. Heidi's Matterhorn. Heidi's Matterhorn house. Yeah, yeah. The Matterhorn house. Yeah.

Big Heidi. Big old Heidi house. See, if this was Smack the Pony days, you could have done that and gone, let's do a catch phrase. Big old Heidi's house. Big old Heidi's high house. Yeah, yeah. The high house on the Matterhorn.

That would have been so much merch. So much merch. Yeah. Heidi's got an apple sticker on her forehead. She has. And she is the same shape as the Matterhorn. Yes. Yeah.

Exactly the same shape. With a massive apron. Hahahaha! That menu sounds absolutely delicious. It is probably things that I've not had before. Yeah, I haven't had a lot of that. And look, I'm glad, I was hoping that it would get out of control, go all over the place. Thank you so much for coming to the Dream Restaurant, Sally. Thank you so much for having me.

Thank you, Sally Phillips. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you, Sally Phillips. There we are. What a great episode with Sally. A fantastic episode. That menu took us all over the place. Yes. To mountains, to beaches.

To mushrooms. Mushrooms in the woods. Thank you so much, Sally, for coming on and Sally's series, Austin, is on BBC One from Friday the 4th of April at 930 p.m With all episodes available on BBC. I play and also thank you Sally for not saying pony and not putting pony on your menu Yes, thank you. I have to kick you out. Yes, even though I had loads of jokes lined up Yeah, what's gonna do horse meat scandal jokes? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I remember that from the horse meat scandal It's a you know, funny time simply simpler times

It's a time since then, you know The news has been a lot darker than just that we didn't know we're eating a whole we thought that was dark then we thought I was pretty dark. That's the biggest thing that happened. There was that's horse meat and stuff That was the biggest thing since World War two the horse meat scandal. Never forget Never forgive. Never forget. Never forgive the people who did it. The supermarkets. The jockeys. The jockeys. The horse whisperers. Everyone who was involved in that. Binito wants us to wrap it up. So, you know, for the listener who wants to carry on riffing on that bad luck, Binito said stop. None of it's going

to be in. Also, tickets are on sale today for off menu live at the Royal Albert Hall We're doing tasting menus live where we get a fan favourite back and we give them the menu of a previous fan favourite That's double fan favourites for you. So you get tickets now OffMenuPodcast.co.uk. Thank you very much for listening. We'll see you next week. Goodbye Bye!