Off Menu with Ed Gamble and James Acaster - Ep 72: Michael McKean

Episode Date: September 2, 2020

We’re cranking this episode up to 11 to welcome Michael McKean – star of ‘This Is Spinal Tap’, ‘A Mighty Wind’ and ‘Better Call Saul’ and all round comedy legend – into the dream restaurant.Watch Michael McKean in ‘Breeders’ on Sky One and NOW TV.Follow Michael McKean on Twitter: @MJMcKeanRecorded and edited by Ben Williams for Plosive Productions.Artwork by Paul Gilbey (photography and design) and Amy Browne (illustrations).Follow Off Menu on Twitter and Instagram: @offmenuofficial.And go to our website www.offmenupodcast.co.uk for a list of restaurants recommended on the show.Watch Ed and James's YouTube series 'Just Puddings'. Watch here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

which are exclusively available from Waterstones. But go and pre-order your copy of Glutton, the multi-course life of a very greedy boy now. Please? It may look like meat. It may taste like meat. But it's not meat. It's a podcast. Welcome to the Off Menu podcast, James. Hello. Yeah, James Acaster, you mean? Yeah, I mean James Acaster, but I don't ever refer to you. Just making sure you were talking to me. Look, there's no other James in the room. It's just me, Ed Gamble, you, James Acaster, and the great Benito. Oh, I thought his name was James. No, no, no, just the great Benito is his real name. Okay. Welcome to the Off Menu podcast, the food podcast, where we ask a special guest,

James. The favorite ever starter main course dessert, side dish and drink. And this week, from Los Angeles, California, as in like that's where we're recording. Yeah. We have got a very special guest, Michael McKean. So excited to have Michael McKean in the dream restaurant. You will, of course, know Michael McKean's work, James. Oh, he is a hero of mine. This is Spinal Tap. I've gone on record many times in many publications saying it's my favorite comedy film of all time, maybe even just my favorite film of all time. Well, you're correct. That's an objective truth. Yep. I've said it a lot. And I can't believe I'm Michael McKean. Oh, you've seen Michael McKean in loads of stuff. He's in Better Call Saul at the minute. Yeah. I mean,

I don't think he might even hold the world record for most cameos in TV series history. Do you think? Ah, so many great cameos by Michael McKean over the years. Well, we could ask him about that, but we'll be too busy asking him about his dream restaurant menu. Now, unfortunately, James, even though he is definitely a hero to both of us and had such a wonderful career, is an absolute legend in the game, we will be forced to kick him out of the restaurant if he says a secret ingredient. Absolutely, Ed. And this week's secret ingredient is goat's milk. Goat's milk. Goat's milk. It tastes weird. Yeah. I think I've had it that much. But I'd say, Joe, what? We're moving to what everyone's trying to be more eat less meat now,

eat less animal produce. Yeah. And milk. Why is it like, let's look at alternatives. Let's not have cow milk anymore. Let's have almond milk and milk. Do you know what? If that's the direction we're moving in, let's not start, let's not carry on drinking goat's milk. Yeah. And I think last one in, first one out. I think goat's milk is out now. Yep. I've had it a couple of times before. It's weird. I can't stop thinking of goat's when I drink it. It tastes like hay. And I know, no. Yep. So I can't stop thinking of goat's. If Michael says goat's milk, which feels unlikely, it will be removed from the off-menu restaurant. Also, big thank you to the comedy store in Los Angeles for letting us record there. This week

is a legendary comedy venue. Yes. They also have a studio there, and we were recording, and that's where Michael was coming to meet us. Yes, absolutely. So without further ado, you just want to hear the off-menu menu of Michael McKeen. Welcome, Michael McKeen, to the dream restaurants. Is that where I am? Oh, and the genie has arrived. Welcome, Michael McKeen. I've been expecting you for some time. He really did. He went right back to the script. We had a bit of a false start earlier for the listener. But first time ever, my mic hasn't worked. Yeah. But we're back on now, and I actually think the second take was better. Much better.

Yeah. The sad thing is that you can't do it as a blueprint. Yeah. We hadn't done enough times for it to get stale. Yeah. So it was just short of stale. Pre-stale. Yeah. Yeah. It was pre-stale, but we can't really show the listeners and go, oh, here's a blooper reel because you couldn't hear me. No. And neither of us said any bad words. No, it was just, that was it. Well, welcome to the dream restaurant. Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to have you here. It's beautiful. Yeah. Thank you. What can you say in the dream restaurant? Because it's all based on what

you enjoy in a restaurant, of course. Well, I'm at least 10 yards from the men's room. Oh, yes. When they do, you know, when they do that to you, they're telling them, it's a message. Is this all right, sir? Yeah. But you don't want to be too far. No, no, no. That's right. Yeah. But then you know what, you're so close, you can smell it. That's right. Or see everyone's faces as they're going in trying to work out. The only trouble is, you know, right posted right near the men's room is the Heimlich maneuver chart. So if you're too far from the restaurant, from the men's room, and you're choking, you're dead because no one's going to run back to the men's room. No, no, no. Have a little look.

Have you ever had to do the Heimlich? Yes. As a matter of fact, when my son was about six years old, he decided to eat a hobdog in one bite. Oh, the whole thing. Yeah. And I just, I grabbed him from behind. I gave him a, you know, he was a tiny kid, you know, so I couldn't give him the whole nine yards. And then the guy who was, there was a guy who was there, who was working with him, and he said, stick your finger down his throat. That can't work. So I stuck my finger down his throat, yanked it out. So it worked out okay. The whole hot dog came out. Oh yeah. It was like, there was one bite in it. And it was a bite that the hot dog would have healed from. It wasn't even that much of a bite. I mean, if it had come out

from the Heimlich maneuver, the idea of an entire hot dog shooting it out of a child across the road was pretty, pretty impressive. That's the kind of thing that you'd like to film in slow motion and yeah, to watch back as it kind of hoppers across. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No satisfying flights to it. Either a spiral or end over end, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Either way, yeah. You'd be happy. I'll rewatch that YouTube video. Yeah. The euphoria of your child not choking on a hot dog also probably matches the euphoria of seeing a hot dog corks growing through the air. There is a very, there's a very high, high, high. So this is one of our LA episodes. You were saying to us, this is your anniversary of being in LA. Yeah. These numbers are going to get frightening,

ladies and gentlemen. Last night, yesterday was the 50th anniversary of my arrival in Los Angeles. When I came here, I had 800 bucks. Yeah. You know, I thought, man, this is going to stay here for a couple of weeks. But I, you know, when I got off the plane and my friend's wife picked me up in her car and she stuck a joint in my mouth and it was 11 degrees when I left New York and it was 68 degrees here. And I said, I think this is where I live now. You choked on the joint and she had to give you the harmonic maneuver. You see, you're conflating. That's how rumors get started. I didn't eat marijuana back in the day. No, but, and I, I, my first, the first place I lived was not far from here. It was just off the Sunset Strip. It was a street you can't even get to

from, you know, most places now it's just been stored up right at the corner of La Cienega and Santa Monica used to be a very famous place called the Tropicana. It was a motel that was owned by a guy named Sandy Kofax, who was a great Dodger pitcher. And he bought this, this motel and that is name on it. And there was a, the coffee shop was called Dukes at the Tropicana. And my first week there, they said, well, you should go to Duke. She got a good sandwich down there and there's cool people hanging out. So I went down there and there's Iggy Pop sitting there with no shirt, you know, because in those days, no shirt, no shoes, no problem. But, but he, and so I met him. Tom Waits stayed there for like months on end. I never met him then

or now, unfortunately, but it was very cool. It was like really a neat thing. And so that was fun because it must be like, since your time here, how much is like dining and restaurants changed in life? Well, there used to be a play on La Cienega Boulevard. If you go down further south, there was a stretch called restaurant row. And there's in every city that you'll find those places. But this was really an interesting place. There are still nice restaurants there. There's the garlic restaurant, the stinking rows. I don't know if you've ever been there before. It's, you know, places like that, but there was a place called Ollie Hammons, which was a steak joint, but it was open till two in the morning. So it was like this great kind

of, we're done here. Let's go eat something. There are places like that. And there are a handful of renaissancees happen every decade. And it's not really, really my thing. I'm not that kind of foodie who has to go to the same to the opening night of a restaurant. I didn't ever even heard the term foodie until someone called me that and I slapped it. No, it's okay. It's a compliment. It sounded really ignorant. You did, you did warn us of that when we were talking to you about doing this. Just to let you know, I'm not a foodie. No, I can slap people. I didn't say that. That potential was there. I'm not really, I'm, you know, my tastes are, you know, fairly pedestrian, but I like a great specimen of something that I've had before.

If somebody says, this is a new kind of cake, I'll say, or I'm in, you know, or I've done something different to the chili or the spaghetti sauce or whatever. So that's something you can measure it against? Kind of. Yeah, I guess so. Yeah. New kind of cake is a very intriguing sentence to say. I know. Well, my wife is a big baker. All of my wife and both my daughters are big bakers. And so that's why I have to watch my weight because if I ate everything they made, it would be. They're constantly trying to invent new kinds of cake to tempt you. So we always start with still or sparkly water in the dream restaurant, as all restaurants. I'm not going to make how it's done. We came up with that.

I'd go bubbly, I think. I'd go sparkling. Yeah, yeah. There's something kind of medicinal and medicinal about it. You know, it seems like you're kind of cleansing the palette actively rather than just throwing some liquid by it. Just eroding something on the mouth, hopefully. I'm all for mouth erosion. How much of your mouth would you erode in one go if you could? I don't know. You're asking an old Amarica player, of course. That is the audible mouth erosion is Harmonica players. You're just wearing it away with every solo. Yeah. Do you know John Popper? You know who that is? No. He's the guy that's sung Run Around by Blues Traveler. Oh, maybe I have heard of him. It's a really cool song. Great

Harmonica player. He's like the best guitar player, the best Harmonica player alive, I think. And I met him a couple of times, worked with him a couple of times and he's a great guy. But he has a mouth. You look at him, he's this big guy. He's got a great big face in this little bitty mouth. It's like a medical instrument or something. Because he can find each of those individual holes and just turn them inside out. It's just great. I was never good. But you know, I do play Harmonica a little bit in Breeders, which is on FX here and on Skye in the UK with Daisy Haggard and Martin Freeman. And it's good. Yeah. Simon Blackwell wrote on it. Yeah. Oh, fantastic. Yeah. Are you often trying to find ways of putting your musical talents

into different roles? No, no. What happened was, started on a show called Laverne and Shirley. It was my first TV stuff. And my character played the guitar. Always trying to get this rock and roll band started in the story. So, knowing that I can do that and play guitar and stuff, people kept saying, well, here, you can do this. And maybe your character plays as a guitar. Or maybe he's write songs or something. And it's like, it's not the thing you can kind of fold into what you're doing. And a lot of times, I mean, after Spinal Tap, people wanted me to play that shell-shocked aging rocker. And I just, you got to say no to those things. Just like someone who is built like me and has my hair color must

not respond when they ask you to play Trump. Because then your life is going to be that. You might as well have it tattooed on your friggin' forehead. Sure. Yeah. I've been offered three different, you know, kind of straight ahead acting. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. And it's creepy. I mean, part of you must think just make that hay while the sun shines. All those Trump roles. They ain't that much hay. In Kansas, there isn't that much hay. Anyway. So you're going sparkling water. Go sparkling water? Yeah. Plans the palette. Bit of mouth erosion to help the home. Cold. Yeah. Yeah. Cold. Not like a nice chill to it. Yeah. No ice. Ice. No. No ice. No ice. And no lime. And that stuff. That's just lame. Yeah. The lime is lame. You've always said that.

Yeah. Everything becomes a bumper sticker. Pop it up with some bread. What? Pop it up with some bread. Michael McKean. Pop it up. Pop it up with some bread. Well, pop it up right now, even though it goes with nothing else I'm going to mention, but I'm trying not to eat so much bread because I am trying to lose a few pounds. So. Okay. Yeah. But I love bread. I love. Oh, I'm sorry. You know what? I have to cancel that. Cancel the poppidums. We're going with Mary Louise's Hot Rolls. My mother-in-law's cousin, Mary Louise, created these rolls and we have them on Thanksgiving and on Christmas. And there is nothing better to eat than these rolls. Wow. It's crazy. And everybody

always says the same thing. You know what? If the turkey collapsed and wasn't edible, these rolls would be fine. If nothing else was on this table, these rolls, because they're that good. So Mary Louise's Hot Rolls. Are they like white bread or like? Yeah. It's like really downy, buttery. They're little folds. They look like ears, you know? Nobody in particular is ears, just generic ears. But she's not there yet where she can design a roll that looks like everyone's ears are on the table. Oh, that would be spectacular. Well, if they were so good that you could recognize yours, that would be amazing. You wouldn't need place settings. No. So yeah, that's my bread. That's my bread. Lovely. Is it a crusty bread as well? No,

it's real soft and it's downy and just brilliant. Did you put butter on it? You can if you have, no goodness in you. No, they're delicious on their own. They're very buttery on their own. And the next day when you got all this turkey laying around, you make these little tiny sandwiches. You make about four of them. They're like little turkey sliders and you use that stuff. And then the next day you can toast them and oh, it just gets better and better. Wow, shout out to Mary Louise. Yeah. Do you think if Mary Louise didn't make them one year, she'd lose a lot of friends at Christmas? She would have lost her home. Mary Louise is going to go right out on her talented ass.

So we come to your starter. My starter is Kenny Shopsen's Cashew Tomato Cream Soup. Okay. My friend, the late Gary Goodrow, was a lovely guy and the only person I know who was in the committee, famous improv group from which came a lot of wonderful people. And he also took a saxophone lesson from Charlie Parker. So this guy had major cred and he was a lovely guy, very funny again. And he was also the guy, and this is probably politically incorrect now, but fuck it. He was the guy who said, you know, so many comics do a funny gay character, and we can't really do them just everywhere. There should be a gay bar that's for straight

men who do gay characters. I think he had a name for it, but I can't remember it. I still think that's a totally viable. I feel like there's so many straight men who had taken the roles that gay people could have. You're saying you can turn this into a revolution rather than just a faux pop. Gary Goodrow took me, I said, what's a good place to eat around here? So, okay, I'm going to take you to Kenny Shopsen's restaurant. It's called Shopsen's. He says, you're going to like it. It doesn't even look like a restaurant. And it doesn't say restaurant anywhere. It says Shopsen's general store, groceries. Because that's what it was. It was

a little corner store in Greenwich Village. So he took me there, and this menu was insane. The guy who runs the place, Kenny Shopsen, was a real amazing character. This big guy always wore a headband, always had a t-shirt that looked like it hadn't been changed in decades. Is this kitchen much smaller, about half the size of the room we're in. So it was like, it was a phone booth. And the menu had something like 300 items on it. And no one knew how he did it, but he came with the stuff. So I'd scanned this and I said, oh my God, cashew tomato cream soup. And I had, it was like the best soup I'd ever had in my life. And it had cabbage in it. I don't like cabbage, but it was delicious. It was insane. So I got that every time I went there.

Every time I went there. And so it got to be where Kenny would say, he'd see me come. Hey, Mikey, sit down. He'd say, you're going to have this soup. I say, I'm going to have the soup. So one day I ordered the soup and he says, I'm not going to make it for you. I'm tired of making you the soup. I'm going to make you something else. No, Kenny, I really, I'm going to make you something else. It's freezing outside. I'm going to make you a turkey sandwich. I get a turkey sandwich anywhere. And he says, all right, if it's not the best turkey sandwich you ever had, you don't have to pay for it. It was easily the best turkey sandwich I've ever had. This guy was amazing. He wrote a cookbook called Eat Me. Give you an idea of this guy's thing.

There was a film made about him called I like killing flies. I've seen that film. It is incredible. That's my man. Kenny died about a year and a half ago and just rocked everybody's world. His kids, who I watched grow up there, they would come in at three o'clock and do their homework at the tables. Now Zach and Minda are running the place. And Tamara is an author and illustrator, but she comes in, chips in on the weekends and stuff. And it's just, it's an amazing place. And there have been four locations. The first one in Morton at Bedford. Then there was one on Carmel Street. And then he moved into the Essex Market, a little tiny corner of the Essex Market, which was pretty decrepit back in the day. And they just built the new Essex Market.

And it's amazing. So we went there on Saturday. My wife and I. I came in about two months after Kenny died. And Zach says, oh, I got something for you. And he comes out with this spoon, this really nice old fashioned serving spoon, about a hundred years old. He says, this is Kenny's favorite spoon. It's yours now. Oh, wow. So that's, that lives in my New York apartment now. I'm looking for some way to enshrine it. But anyway, Kenny was a very important guy to me. And this was the best soup that had ever existed. So sounds delicious. I have read that menu online many times. I am obsessed with that menu. Yeah. Well, it's slimmed down. It's about 60 things now. But there, you know, blisters on my sisters is still very big. There was a

thing called the Savannah, which was just this mound of brown stuff on rice. And it was like, you didn't want to know it was in it because it was just too delicious. It was like that, you know, in Albert Brooks' movie Defending Your Life, that brown stuff that Rip Torn is eating. Right. I should know you wouldn't care for this. It was that thing. It's like, you know, it's like when you're listening to, when you're listening to music that you know everyone else in the room hates, you go, yeah, no, no. You're almost saying this is kind of for people like me. I understand this. Yes, I understand. Oh, yeah, Pear Ubu. Yeah. Well, here, Crocus Behemoth left in this briefly. I mean, you get into that shit.

Is the soup still on the menu? Is it one of the items that's still on the menu? You know, no, there is a really good tomato soup on the menu. They, I haven't seen the cashew tomato cream these days now. I don't think I've heard of a cashew tomato soup anywhere. Yeah. It's crazy good. Like bits of cashew and like, is it like? There are no whole ones and bits, but they're kind of cooked. So they're almost like a bean, you know, that just comes alive. Oh, well, and bits of cabbage as well. So it's like quite a

And the cabbage isn't listed in the name either, is it? No. The cabbage was, it was a surprise cabbage. Yes. It was a surprise the first time. Oh, I'm not going to like this, but it was really good. And do you want some more of the Christmas rolls like held back for the soup? Yeah. Oh yeah, absolutely. In fact, I would probably abstain until the soup arrived. Right. Yeah. Then say, bring me that tray of Mary Louise. Yeah, yeah. And the head of Alfredo Garcero. I can't say that right. Garcia, that was such a good joke. And I put my foot through a Rembrandt, ladies and gentlemen.

So Ed does a lot of reading of menus online. Yeah. I read more menus than I read books, I'd say. Can I tell you the saddest menu story? Yes, please. My late brother-in-law, bless his heart, he was always looking for a way to make a buck. Now, he was a guy, he was a bass player in a band. He was a pro band collapsed. He started selling cars and he did very well as a sob dealer, you know, and he for decades, he was doing fine,

but he really kind of had this thing. He was like, there's a score out there. I'm not getting. So when I started, when I started on TV, he decided that I must know everybody in show business. So he told me about a scheme that he had whereby I would contact my famous friends, which must have numbered, you know, five and contact them and get them to pose for pictures for a calendar that we could sell. And, you know, we'd keep some of the profit we'd do for charity, of course, but we just, and it was just like to prove that the guy was really going to publish, really going to publish this calendar and to show he was on the level, not my brother-in-law, but his friend who had this scheme. They sent me a box of books of menus of Long Island restaurants,

just Long Island restaurants. And it was kind of stunning. And they were really kind of cool because there was the whole menu just reprinted. So the book cost nothing, cost no one anything in money or anything else to make, but he had addressed them with like, you know, sticker, with the post-it notes saying, send this one to Linda Ronstadt. Seriously, it was just amazing. So you were supposed to send menus to these people to convince them to do this? Convince them that it would be, it will be legitimate when someone contacts them to pose for a calendar. They had the means to print. Yeah, a calendar was basically a menu of days. And those things sat in that garage for, well, until we moved.

Ed would love them, though. I would read that. That's the perfect coffee table book for me. I don't think I can find you a copy. Sorry. Linda Ronstadt's got her. Clearly. She's still trying to decide what to order. So your main course. Well, okay. This goes with pretty much everything. It's a lot more tomato, but which I shouldn't eat because I have arthritis in my joints and they say don't eat tomatoes, but is that true? Tomatoes bad for... I've heard that. I've heard that. Yeah. You'd think they'd help. Yeah. You'd think I care. And I don't really. Are you thinking of it like you think they help their squishy because they like,

you could actually use them just to exercise their hands. Yeah, you could do that. Grease up the joints a little bit. Like a stress ball. Yeah. I think Michael's talking about eating them rather than... But now I'm thinking about squeezing them. Yeah. Power of suggestion. Now, I have to go with my wife's chili. I love a really good chili. She is from Texas, but it's not particularly a Texas chili. It's just a really good turkey chili with kidney beans. I don't know exactly where she got the recipe originally, but I'll put them online. I'll put them on Twitter. Sounds like a friend. I'll do this. I'll stand up to you.

Not in my house. Not in my house. Not in my kids. But it's really... It's a stunning chili and you can have it over rice or you have it just on its own. She also makes... And this would be a kind of either or with Mary Louise's hot rolls. She makes the cornbread, which is as good as any cornbread that's ever been made. And she's recently, in the past year or so, she's found out that she's gluten intolerant. So she's no gluten anymore. So she finds these alternatives, which are better. So the way that she makes her cornbread now is different than the way she used to make it with wheat flour and the cornmeal. And it's better. It's like it's brilliant and it's not sweet. A lot of people put sugar in

cornbread and it's wrong, wrong, wrong. But anyway, it's great with the... I think with Mary Louise's hot rolls, that would be too much. Too much pleasure. The most English thing I ever read, and I've read the Pickwick papers, there was a jar of blueberry preserves that we had gotten an import from England. And it says, in rather stern letters at the bottom of the list of ingredients, a pleasure food, use sparingly. It is a pleasure food. Yeah, you can't have too much pleasure in your life. You can't chug a lug, blueberry preserves. We put that warning before our podcast every episode. A pleasure lesson. Yeah.

I've noticed a running theme in each of it. So in the bread and your stories about kind of shop sins and also the chili is turkey. Yeah. We haven't had... I don't think we've had, as turkey, a heavy episode. Yeah. This is the most turkey. And we've done Christmas episodes. Yeah. It's turkey on every anecdote so far. Turkey's popping up a lot. Is this your favorite meat? It's a meat that does really well with me, I think. And when I got married, my second marriage, which is now, and it's going into its 22nd year pretty soon, I realized that the red meat was kind of out. We weren't reading a lot of red meat, just because, you know, our hearts and all that stuff. So the synonym for doing a gig for the money

became bringing home the turkey bacon, which we still use even though we eat all kinds of stuff. But she just makes a turkey chili because it's lighter and slightly better for you. Her beef chili is insane. Her beef and pork chili, amazing. But there's something about her turkey chili that just hits on all cylinders. It's just awesome. So that is the top one. If you were like the judge at a county fair, all three were there. Yeah. And I've eaten chili at county fairs. There was a Catholic girl's school down the street. I know everyone's. Now what? Hollywood Catholic girl's school. In their parking lot, they would have a chili cook-off. And I had some really, really good chili there every year. And once there was one down in Malibu,

just beyond the sea. And they had rattlesnake chili, which was pretty good. But the thing is, if you cook any meat dark enough, it's just meat. It's just meat. It's just extra. Meat ash, pretty much. But it was a very good chili. Can you remember anything about the rattlesnake that had a sort of different sort of flavor? You know, it's hard to separate it from the emotion I felt. I think I'm tasting something interesting and unique, but more I'm going to tell people. Maybe on the radio or if they have something better than radio. With the rattlesnake chili, when they serve it out, is it like good luck if you get the rattle? It's like the king baby, you know, about the king baby.

We've only found out about king cakes and king babies this trip. Yeah, really? We only just learned about this and still can't really wrap our heads around it. It's good to hear you say it, but I think I thought the first person was winding the up. No, we have in the silverware drawer, in the back of the silverware drawer, we have the little baby waiting there. She's only made the king cake maybe once or twice. But Southern people know about this stuff. Do you know about Black Eyed Peas on New Year's Day? You're supposed to eat Black Eyed Peas on New Year's Day. And do you listen to the Black Eyed Peas at the same time?

You can, certainly you can. What's the name of that guy? This is the guy, the other guy, the other singer who doesn't really seem to do much. Will I Am? Not Will I Am. No, Will I Am is like a creative guy. There was another guy. He's in the Black Eyed Peas. Yeah, he was just arrested for loitering in front of a band. But now I'm in the comedy store, don't you get it? I have to haul out this old crap. The only other time I was in this building was to meet the Smothers Brothers. Seriously, I came here to meet the Smothers Brothers. No, wait a minute. I saw Richard Belzer here one night. Do you know Belzer?

Just find some YouTube on Richard Belzer, especially 70s, 80s. The guy was red hot. He's an actor too. He's on Law and Order. He was on Homicide. A lot of murder shows. A lot of murder shows as a kind of straight actor, but very, very funny man. Did you ever get to do a cameo on one of those Law and Order CSI kind of shows? I was in two episodes of Law and Order and one of Special Victims Unit. Wow, bringing home the turkey bacon. Real gigs, yeah, yeah. Well, the first time, it was actually a part, they were parts written for my wife and myself. Her friend Lynn Mamet was a writer on the show for a couple of seasons. And so she wrote this episode for the two of us.

And we play this celebrity kind of self-help guru type couple who are, of course, homicidal. And we are the most evil couple in New York. And my wife, I'm proud to say, is much more evil than I am in real life and in the show. Yeah, so I've actually done that stuff. Oh, because you've done that, do you think you could now solve a murder? No. In one case, I was the guy who'd done it. Another case, I was just an asshole who, you know, kind of made it happen. And the third time, I was a child molester. So I don't, no, no. Oh, yeah? I wasn't the guy who said, we're done here, counselor. I'll tell you what. That's a bit of sweet casting, isn't it, for any actor.

I like the work, but you came straight to me. I didn't have to do an audition. Also, like, what an absolute slam on Trump that you've taken those plans. That's right. I played a child molester, sure. I'll do it again. I'm never playing that guy. People would think wrong things about me. When you say, like, it's not a Texas chili, what is a Texas chili? What's the difference with a Texas chili? Well, Texas chili is sort of competitive, where you're kind of, you shorten the time between the tasting and the trip to the bathroom is basically it, because there are certain chilies that are sort of prohibitively hot. And they're doing, it's that kind of muscle flexing,

you know, cracking walnuts with your ass is the way Sam Peck and Bob used to put this kind of behavior. You know, it's like being more macho than the next guy. We went to a taco place last night and I ordered the spiciest taco on the menu and the lady working at the counter went, no, you don't want that. Told him not to. Told me not to. And I followed what she said. Where was the place? So it's a place called Guisados. It's on Santa Monica. It's just like a, you just go and order at the counter and they'll bring it back, but it's, it's based on more like stew based tacos. So yeah, really, really delicious stuff. But yeah, the chili toriados was banned for me. Wow. She said that. We just put that up there for a joke. Well, last time I was in London,

I stayed around the corner from this little place, which was probably called Taj Mahal, because most of them are, and I went, it was really, really nice. And I wound up going there a lot. But the first time I went there, it was a similar situation. I said, yeah, this, this lamb vindaloo here. And he said, okay, how spicy do you want? I said, hit me, you know, do, no. I said, no, no, listen, I think I can take it, you know, and it really was way too much. And so the next time I came in there, I went a little milder and it was really, really delicious place. And there was an American couple who knew me from TV and they sat down, they said, we all said hello and all that stuff. And I heard them ordering and I heard the guy

doing what I did. And I told them, I said, you ordered the vindaloo, huh? I said, yeah, I said, okay, it's a couple of stops past my station. But it might, might work for you. And I didn't stick around to, to see what happened. How many walnuts did you crack that whole bag of them? Oh man, I could have, yeah, from across the room. So you seem to like spice, but not like, but yeah, I do, I do. But when it's appropriate. Yeah. And I, there was a chili that I had at the Ivy, the famous, you know, very shishi celebrity heavy Ivy in LA. I know there's one in, you know,

the one in London serves cool stuff. But the Ivy here is like, you know, that's all right, it's fine. I just don't go there. But I had a chili there that was too much for me. And it was, it was because it tasted like Thai food. It wasn't, it was that kind of spices, really hot, kind of okay, but not chili at all. And it's just not the, that thing. I will make chili on a regular basis at home and always make it too spicy for my fiance. And she's like, she's, now she's just like, she won't have it. Because even when I try to not make it spicy, I then go into the zone when I'm cooking it where smoked paprika, cayenne chili powder. It's your cayenne. Yeah. So we have that over rice or just in a bowl and the cornbread or,

boy, now in my dream restaurant, it's Mary Louise's Hot Rolls. Yeah. I think you can definitely like, with this chili, have some cornbread with it. I won't even count that as your side dish. Yeah, that goes with it. I think that's fine to kind of like have all that together. And your wife's made it all. So it comes from the same kitchen. That's right. That's exactly right. That's fine. Yeah. Also, all of your dishes so far have memories connected with one person. So within the title, it's Mary Louise's Hot Rolls, Kenny Shopson's Soup, and then your wife's chili. Annette O'Toole's Chili. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, can I, should I have one that's

kind of more freestanding for my side dish? Because I don't really, Oh no. If you want to keep it rolling with the Ronald Reel. Could a salad be a side dish? Yeah. If it's your dream side dish, it's the best one. Yeah. It's troubling. Our daughter Anna is the salad queen, and she's kind of brilliant at it. And it's always different. It's always something she's kind of like ad-libbing. And it's always brilliant. You know, I've had pear salads that I've loved. I love a caprese. Tomato and the buffalo mozzarella. Yeah. And my wife has pointed out when I talk about lunch, I become Jewish. And when I talk about dinner, I become Italian.

So what did you have for lunch? We had the tuna. It was bad. It was not good. But and then at night, it's all hand gestures. Yeah. Lovely. But you know, the side dishes, because I love, you know, I love a good potato, a baked potato and stuff. And I really should have something that's more green and leafy. I had a pear salad one time, which was fabulous. It had walnuts on it, which I can't eat. So I shook the walnuts off. It's the only thing I'm really allergic to. And I'm not terribly allergic. It just gives me, you know, little holes in the inside of my mouth, which I don't need. Yeah. Can't play the harmonica at all. Yeah. Too many holes.

Also, you don't trust how, how they've been opened and cracked those walnuts. No. You don't want them, especially. Yeah. Hold on. Let's get them up my plate. I know what goes on. Peck and paw. Peck and paw walnuts. Brand name. Inside joke of the century. So would you, at the dream restaurant, would you like to put walnuts on and then immediately take them off? Oh, but I will have a side of gluten. Yeah, if I can. No, I'd have a nice fresh pear salad, because they do like a fruit. And I love a peach more than anything else, but the pear salads are really kind of something. What sort of pear are we talking? Because I've had pear salads with those Asian

pears before, which are like more crispy. Yeah, really crispy and quite light. And I can't find them anywhere to use them, but it's in restaurants. If I see it on a menu, I'll go for it straight away. You can't find them at like greengrocers and stuff. No. The Asian pear hasn't really made it over to the UK. No, it's not. It's like a heavy British pear. You bite into it, it's like a jar of jam in there. Yeah. No, you know the Kiwi fruit. Oh, yeah. I had, the first time I saw a Kiwi fruit, it was back during the hippie days. And I was in a food store on Second Avenue in New York, and I picked this up and I said, what the hell is this? And this hippie chick was shopping. Next to me, she goes, oh, that's a Moby Grape. There's a band called Moby Grape. That's a Moby Grape.

So I've always referred to them as Moby Grape, nobody else I'm talking about. And then soon, everyone knew. For a nice name for them. Yeah, I like it. Yeah, yeah. Kiwi is kind of like a massive culinary grape. That's right. So that was the first time you saw the outside of a Kiwi. Do you remember the first time you saw the inside? Yes, I do. It was the same day. Because someone had sliced one open to show these idiot New Yorkers where the Kiwi fruit was like inside. So there was one kind of sitting on a plate kind of saying, here, check this out. That's got to blow your mind even more because the outside's weird. And then the ins, you're not expecting that inside. No, it is like a gigantic green grape or something. And yeah,

they're good. Yeah, I'd probably go with that, you know. So you go with the pear salad, the crispy pear salad. And like, what else? Because your pear's in there and lettuce. Yeah. But is there like any much else going on? Well, you know what, you can add a little cheese. You can add little squares of something, a gruyere perhaps. Yeah, yeah. I don't know what, you know. And do you want your salad free styled by your daughter? No, actually, she's never made a pear salad to my knowledge. She's made salad with fruit in it with little mandarin orange slices and stuff. Um, no, I just got to be in my bond at about a pear salad and I better have one soon. Yeah, yeah. So is this your, this is you now officially telling your daughter you want her to make

you a pear salad, right? Uh, yeah, yeah. I'm going to ask her to remember this, to listen to this show. And when her name comes up, do the rest, Anna. Yeah, yeah. Drop in hints. So I did a food show on the cooking channel for four seasons. And it was about food mythology. It's called Food Factor Fiction. And we, uh, my other daughter, Nell, was a writer on the show. I mean, she, she and I did a lot of rewriting of stuff and she, she was a writer and pitcher and stuff on the, on the show. And Anna was, is, is a set decorator and designer. And so it was a real family affair. That's really nice. Yeah. Had my wife was on the show once as, as was her mom. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. So what would happen on the food show? Well, you have to see him. We would say, uh,

you know, just things like, was it, is it true that, uh, that carrots help your night vision? Right. Yeah. And then they tell the whole story about the victory gardens in, uh, in, in Britain when they say you got to plant, uh, because all the, the, the night fighters, they need, you know, your, your vitamin D that you get in your carrots. So it became kind of a watch. So it's about what's mythology and what's not, you know, is it true that chili was invented in a whorehouse? Yes. Uh, who, who really deserves, who, who really invented the French dip sandwich? Yeah. You know, we narrowed it down to two restaurants in Los Angeles, you know, and, uh, things like that. You know, the chili thing. Yeah. What's the story there? What do you mean?

Oh, I don't remember. Geez. I did a hundred and ten of these things. No. I just remember the, yeah. I know there was some kind of a, uh, some kind of a connection there. Would you test the things out on the show? Would you, so for the carrots, would you all have a carrot and then turn the light off? I wish we had thought of that. No, we would, we had some experts on the show and we had some, you know, kind of, uh, a man on the street type tasters and stuff like that. Uh, but we'd have people who would, you know, refer to as dessert mavens and they would, you know, talk about the, why the, there was a thing called the blackout cake, which I thought was really interesting.

And it's just a double chocolate cake with chocolate icing and chocolate inside. It's very, very chocolate cake. And it was called the blackout cake. And it was called that because during World War II, there were, we had blackouts. We, I wasn't quite around that long, but, uh, where the cities would, would go dark to prevent, you know, bombers from seeing where they were. Now you guys took a couple of hits, you know, and so the blackouts are very serious things. But in Brooklyn, New York, where, uh, there wasn't as much, uh, Nazi activity, unlike now, unfortunately, they just kind of made it part of the campaign. Right. Okay. When you're like, when they hear, when you hear blackout, turn your lights out, all your lights out. And the

cities really would go black. And the blackout cake was something you could enjoy even in the dark. There's nothing to see, basically. So that's, yeah. And it's still cold. It could get to the extreme, isn't it? It's like, you have to eat very dark food. Yeah, yeah. You can't eat, no cauliflower. Yeah. And don't leave it in the fridge, because as soon as you open the door, yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah, cauliflower was the worst thing to eat in a blackout. Oh my God. Yeah, yeah, yeah. As soon as you, like, get that cauliflower, you just hear like, don't fire till you see the whites of their cauliflower. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Originally when. Also, it's so not worth it, is it?

Wow. It's so not worth drawing enemy fires to have a bit of cauliflower. Vanilla ice cream, at least you're going, well, this is the last bite for all of us. Mary Louise's hot rolls. Yeah. Here we go. Imagine, like, you know, the last things, last things someone ever heard was, anyone wants some cream? Oh. So, we come to your drink, your drink. Yeah, well, I don't drink alcohol because drinking makes me thirsty, if you know what I mean. So, I was one of those guys. Yeah, I had to pull the plug on that. I quit actually for 30 years when I was 25, and then 30 years later,

I was on, I was doing a show on Broadway, and I thought, well, this is great. I mean, I've grown up now, all that stuff is behind me, a little wine with dinner, and then I'll have a little more wine, and then, you know, it just, it kind of started snowballing again, and so I quit for good. And so it's been about 15 years since I, yeah. So, anyway, that's why there's no alcohol involved. So, I got to say either a really good root beer, and there are a lot of really good root beers in the United States. Capmila is really, really good. All the basic brands, your A&W, your dads, they're all good. There is a ginger ale made by a company called Sprecker, and I think they're in either Milwaukee

or Chicago. I first became acquainted with them in Chicago, but they make a ginger ale that is phenomenal. It's so good. It's like, it's like food, you know? It's not, it's somehow it's more substantial, and it's just really, really brilliant. A drink you have to chew. Yeah, yeah. It's real, real good. So, I'd have to say that, you know? Yeah. Sprecker ginger ale. Sprecker ginger ale is a really, really good ginger ale. Also, some people sometimes ask what the difference is between ginger ale and ginger beer. Oh, vast. Yeah, I mean, it's huge. Yeah. Yeah. I was surprised that really good root beer wasn't available more often in London. Sure. Well, I've never, I've never had root beer, Michael. Good root beer is really good.

Could you try and describe the taste to me? Someone's tried to do this with him before. Yeah. It was very difficult. Well, there is, there is, the sassafras root is one of the roots that's in root beer. There are several. There is a straight sassafras root drink called sarsaparilla. I've heard of sarsaparilla. Sarsaparilla is close to root beer. It's, it's a really good root beer is kind of foamy because it's, it's brewed rather than just aerated, you know, because there are, in fact, Spreckers makes a very tasty root beer soda, but they say root beer flavored soda. They don't say it's root beer because it's not. It, there's something really kind of foamy and creamy about it. The taste is, it's just that kind of like, there's a, the location in your mouth

that's kind of unique. It really just, well, this is almost sweet, isn't it? Ooh, what the hell was that? You know, it's just, it's, it's got levels to it. Okay. So the sassafras root is really the key to understanding the flavor. I think so, but there's also pepsin involved, which is also a digestive, you know, which kind of helps you. Right. Yeah. Right, right, right. Which is where the pepsi and pepsicola comes from because that has pepsin in it too. Oh, really? It's just kind of a little edge to it. Yeah. I didn't know that. I'm learning so much. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, you think you're playing with kids? Yeah. So a nice, uh, ginger ale. A nice Sprecker's ginger ale. Don't have Spreckers, I'll go with Werner's. Also, also very good. Well, this is the dream

restaurant. We can get you Spreckers. Okay. Absolutely. Don't worry about that. Cool. Come to your dessert, which is always the one I'm most excited about. Well, like I say, I live among bakers and they make amazing desserts. But most of the desserts that I associate with my wife and my daughters and their cooking, it's mostly birthday related. Yeah. Because everyone has a go-to cake and then, but Annette always says, what do you want for your birthday cake? So I got to put those aside, you know, and they make great stuff. They make brownies and blondies. My wife makes blondies that are amazing. It's from Amy Sideris' cookbook. Oh, wow. Do you know Amy? Not personally, but I'm a big, big fans of Amy.

She worked with her four days ago on her show. Yeah. She is as awesome as you would assume she is. Great. Yeah. So she has this book called I Like You and there's a brownie recipe and they're brownie and a blondie recipe in there that she still uses. Great. Sensational. Blondies, when blondies came along, that was a, you know, that was a big thing. Oh, it was great. I was a bit cautious. Sure. Why, you know, why riff on the brownie? The brownies are a wonderful thing. That's, oh, it's a great thing. But a blondie is, oh, that's something, that's like stealth. Yeah. Laura, Laura Linney, we did, I did a play with Laura Linney a couple of years ago and she just referred to them as crack. Every Sunday, every Sunday, I'd bring a

new tray from Annette who, when she was in New York with me, she would always make a tray of blondies for the cast and just, you know, Laura said, this is cracking. But anyway, I have to put all those aside and I have to go absolutely family free, except that my daughter did take me to this place. It's a place called Becky's Cafe and it's in Prospect, Oregon. My daughter was working at the, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival there, which is kind of the town she grew up in as well. She's my stepdaughter. Yeah. She said, well, you got to try this, the pie here. And I said, okay, I'm up for a piece of pie. It was, I stood, and there was like maybe 10 choices and they all looked really, really good. I got a slice of blueberry pie

there that literally brought tears to my eyes. I'm not, I'm not kidding at all. It was really the first bite. It was like, I'd like to be alone with the pie. It was just, and I really do, I have thought about that pie, just not even when I was hungry. I just remember that time we transcended mankind one bite. It was amazing. So anyway, if you're, if you're in Prospect, Oregon, you probably know, if you live there, you probably know about Becky's, but if you're visiting Crater Lake on the way up or the way down, you know, check out that, that, that blueberry pie. So whenever you have like, in England, that blueberry pie is not really as much of a thing at all. Yeah, like sweet, sweet pies feel like an American thing. So I love them when I come here.

But this blueberry pie, is it like, is there like whole blueberries in there? And like, yeah, they're kind of, they're kind of stewed. So it's like, if it's just right, it kind of keeps its shape. Yeah. If it's a little runny, it's still delicious, don't get me wrong. But a really good blueberry pie will kind of hold the wedge, you know, the size of the way. It will not push the envelope. It's just, just kind of perfect. And Becky's, Becky's delivered there. There are a couple of really good pie places here. The four and 20, which is in the Valley, which is across from Gelson's there in the Valley, if you're, if we're talking food. Yeah. And the four and 20 has a great, great peach pie, crazy beach pie. Yeah. A peach pie, not a peach cobbler. No,

but a peach cobbler is a wonderful thing. Yeah. Oh yeah. You said peach was your favorite earlier. Well, it's my dinner parents in the menu. No, but it's, it's my favorite kind of standalone thing. Yeah. And there's also something kind of, it's kind of exclusive about it because peaches are only good for about two months. Yeah. You know, you got mid-August to early October, really. That's when you get your peaches. Yeah. And they're not always great. And there's that thing you got to do. You got to put them, somebody told me this one time where I read it, maybe it sounds more pretentious. So I probably read it. You take your peaches and you put them in a cushioned bowl and turn, and this was the phrase this person used. You turn them

three times a day like a sick lover in bed. I thought, my God, you have brought, you've brought erotic poetry into this. And so I, like an idiot, I did exactly that. Yeah. And you take my three peaches and it's like, and I'll be off doing something. I was like, yeah, hope I get home before six. I got to turn it. I turned my sick lover. Yeah. And it doesn't always work. Yeah. You know, because still you can get a crummy peach. How do you cushion the bowl? Just put a towel in it, you know, like a tea towel, kind of water it up, you know, and kind of make it, I mean, you don't have to pamper the things. You can't buy like a specific cushioned bowl. It's kind of like a dog bed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's a hundred

dollar idea anyway. Playing the music of these peaches. That's right. Yeah. Massaging them and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Can you remember where you found that out from? Because I think someone's having you on there, Michael. It was a pretty sincere piece. Yeah. I think, but I just think somebody just kind of went a little while kind of sat tapping the pencil. Yeah. I know what, all right. It sounds like something someone would say in a Christopher Guest film about peaches. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. With a cushioned bowl and turn it three times a day. Like a sick lover. Like a sick lover. That's kind of, that's kind of Catherine O'Hara. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Catherine O'Hara is, I love her as much as everybody and I've known her for a very long time.

In Best in Show, we have a scene together where me and my boyfriend are meeting Catherine and Eugene. By my boyfriend, I mean Higgins, of course. Yes. Best boyfriend I've ever had. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The two of you still hang out in that gay bar for actors? That's exactly right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now, the way we used to refer to our relationship in that film is, he's the kite, I'm the string. Oh, yeah. You're the responsible adult with his feet on the ground. But he's an amazing guy. One of the greatest improvisers ever and like brainy and brilliant. And he's one of those guys who can say, I'll take anyone, I'll you make amazing harmonies, you know, because he did all the vocal arrangements for the New Main Street

Singers. But he's such a fascist about it. I mean, it's crazy. I mean, he's just, he's working with these people and he's just, the veins are standing on his forehead. He takes it very seriously. But that's how it got good. Yeah. And he's also the silliest man who ever lived. So it's, it all evens out. It's a New Main Street Suga song that I don't think even made it into the movie that I listened to just over and over again without any, I wasn't doing it for a joke. I absolutely loved it about the good book, doing the good book song. I used to listen to it all the time. My boy was so good at his parts when he was the expression that he put into his solo parts. He's doing the Bible stories. Yeah. Very funny. Yeah. I wrote that with Harry. Oh, Harry, sure.

Fantastic. Yeah. Yeah. But Katharine O'Hara. Katharine O'Hara. Yeah. So we have this scene and Chris, as he does, he shoots things twice or maybe three times, you know, and kind of, no one ever has to match anything really, maybe positioning. So it was me and Higgins meeting Katharine and Eugene and a guy walks up as the running gag in the movie, everyone has slept with Katharine's character. So a guy would come up and go, Hey. So every take was three takes and every take I watched as her skin went bright red. When the guy approached, I said, this woman's a real actress. And she would say something incredibly funny that she didn't say in the last take. Yeah. And she would live the exact scene in the same way, but she'd like,

and it was amazing. She would blush on cue. That's a phenomenal phenomenon. Yeah. Not many people can blush on cue. No, I don't think that's what I said. Mark Twain said, man is the only animal who blushes or needs to. So we're going to read back your order and see how you feel about it. So you said, sparked in water to start off with, then pop it on your bread, you picked Mary Louise's Hot Rolls starter Kenny Shopson's cashew cream soup, main course, your wife's chili with some cornbread, side dish, a fresh pear salad. You'd like some Sprecker's Ginger Ale and dessert, Becky's Café's blueberry pie. That's it. That's it. Sounds delicious. You're right. I would make one correction. It's actually cashew tomato cream

soup. Yeah. Yeah. Cashew tomato cream soup. With surprise cabbage. With surprise cabbage. Unintended. That's a wonderful menu. Well, good. I'm glad you liked it. And I don't, you know, like I say, I'm not, I'm not a snob. Yeah. You know, my stuff is pretty basic. No, but you, you clearly enjoy it. And you know where everything's coming from. And that's, that's exactly the sort of thing we like to chat about. Michael, thank you so much for coming to the Dream Restaurant. Thank you. There we have it. What a great menu that was, James. Thank you so much, Michael. What a lovely menu. And thank you even more for not saying goat's milk. Yes. Thank you, Michael. I never thought I'd say this, but thank you, Michael McKean,

for not saying goat's milk. Really appreciate it. What a lovely menu. Lovely stories. Lovely guy. Such a personal menu as well. Every dish had someone's name attached to it. Mary Louise's Hot Rolls. If you're a true off menu fan and you're listening to this and you haven't got Mary Louise's Hot Rolls tattooed on you by now, go and get it done. You've got to go out. If you're a real fan of this podcast, you would go out and you would get your favorite dishes from people's menus tattooed on you in like one big long menu down your arm. And you need to put Mary Louise's Hot Rolls on your arm immediately. You said that if you haven't done it by now, why not go and get it done? Were you stressing they

should have paused at the bread course and gone immediately to get a tattoo? Yes. And then come back and listen to the rest of it. Yes. Michael is starring in Breeders, which is a show also starring Martin Freeman and Daisy Haggard. And that show is on Sky in the UK. You can probably get it on now TV as well. And in the US, it's on FX. So go and check that out. It is absolutely wonderful written by Simon Blackwell. Fantastic. That is very good. Very well memorized there, Ed. Thank you, mate. At Off Menu Official on Twitter and Instagram, if you want more details of our podcast, I guess. Yes, it's a podcast. Yes. And also you can go on offmenupodcast.co.uk. That's the website. And there's a page on it, my favorite page,

Restaurants, and all the restaurants that we mentioned on the podcast are listed there. You can click on them, take you to their website. If you're ever going on holiday, perfect. So you know. But if you're a bit worried that that's out of date, tweet the Great Benito to check. Yeah, just to check. Just tweet Great Benito and say, sorry, where was that place in Oregon that Michael McKean mentioned because I'd like to go and get the dessert there, please. But thank you very much, Michael McKean. You're a wonderful guest. Thank you, everyone for listening. Goodbye. Eat loads. Or no, eat, eat. Please eat responsibly. Leave all that in there. Hi, I'm Gina Martin, a campaigner and writer. And I'm Stevie Martin. I'm a comedian and writer,

and also we're sisters. We are sisters, and we're doing our new podcast, Mike Delete Later. It's a podcast about social media, about going back, looking at your embarrassing ones, things you like, things you don't like, and we're talking to all different types of people. So many different types of people. We've got writers. We've got comedians. Maybe we'll get a politician. Maybe we'll get a dog. Maybe I'll talk to a plant. Deal with it. Who knows? It's like a little snapshot into people's social media lives. Yeah, and hopefully it will make you think more about how you use social media and how you feel about it. So do subscribe on all of the platforms that you usually get your podcasts on and visit at Mike Delete Later pod on Instagram because we're

going to be putting up really fun videos and the things that you didn't see in the podcast episode. Exciting. Thanks, dudes. Hello, it's me, Amy Gladhill. You might remember me from the best ever episode of Off Menu, where I spoke to my mum and asked her about seaweed on mashed potato, and our relationship's never been the same since. And I am joined by me, Ian Smith. I would probably go bread. I'm not 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 Gladell'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.