Off Menu with Ed Gamble and James Acaster - Kate Winslet (Christmas Special)

Episode Date: December 17, 2025

Oscar-winning acting royalty Kate Winslet joins us for a Christmas Special in the Dream Restaurant. But can James keep his Eternal Sunshine questions to himself? Kate Winslet’s directorial debut ‘Goodbye, June’ is in cinemas now and on Netflix from 24 December. Watch it here. Watch the video version of this episode on the Off Menu YouTube on Thu 18 Dec. Off Menu is now on YouTube: @offmenupodcastFollow Off Menu on Instagram and TikTok: @offmenuofficial.And go to our website www.offmenupodcast.co.uk for a list of restaurants recommended on the show.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, and Pippa Brown.Artwork by Paul Gilbey (photography and design). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On off-menu, we always ask guests the big question, James. Still or sparkling? That's the biggest question on the pod. But imagine if the answer was just, neither. No water at all. Well, Water Aid of asks us to imagine a Christmas dinner without water, a shriveled up turkey, sprouts that turn into stones. And no gravy.

It would be a full-on gravy apocalypse out there. That wouldn't be dinner. It would be a goddamn culinary catastrophe. And that's the point, James. Everything at Christmas and all year starts with water. but one in ten people around the world don't have clean water. You can change that. Donate today at wateraid.org because change starts with water.

Welcome to the off-menu podcast, taking the ginger biscuits of conversation, leaving them on the fireplaces, leaving them on the fireplace. a hearth of humour and awaiting the Santa of friendship. Santa's going to eat some biscuits, leave some biscuits out for Santa, James? What do you leave out for Santa, man? That is Ed Campbell. My name is James A.

Castle together. We own a dream best time. Good chat. What do you leave out for Santa? And every single year, every single year? What do you leave out for Santa, John? Every week we invite a guest, do we ask them their favour ever. No, every single year we invite a guest in to ask them about their Christmas menu.

Yes. So you were right? And we asked for the favourite ever start and main course dessert, side dish, drink and Christmas dinner. Yes. Not in that order. Yeah. And this week, this year. He's had a nightmare.

He's too excited. I am, because our guest is Kate Winslet. It's only Kate Winslet. Holy moly. Holy moly, man. This podcast has got out of hand that now Kate Winslet's agreeing to come on. Add Kate Winslet to the list of people we thought we'd never ever meet, let alone interview. Yeah.

I can't wait for this episode. What is going on. I'm happy. I'm a happy guy. You're too happy, and I'm... Look, listeners to this podcast will know that your favourite film, is it fair to say? Yep.

Is Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind? Yes. So I'm worried because we've got the star of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind coming in. Yeah. And we've got to ask Kate her dream menu. We've got to ask her about her Christmas.

We've got to do all of this. And I'm worried that you're going to try and make this a podcast. It's exclusively about Eternal Sunshine. No. Brother, I'm a professional. You know I am. I'm going to stick to the format.

I don't believe you. When we've had actors on before, I don't bring up their stuff. That's all you do. And that's fine. It's fine to bring up their stuff. Kate's got an incredible CV of amazing things that she's been involved in. But I'm worried you're going to overfocus on one thing. What, turn us on transport?

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's Christmas, you know. Because we've got to talk to Kate about food because that's what the podcast is and we've got to talk to Kate about her new film her directorial debut Goodbye June which is in cinemas now of course

and on Netflix on Christmas Eve yeah Netflix December the 24th which colloquially known as Christmas Eve Just in case people don't know If I said Christmas Eve people wouldn't know when that is Oh well you never know The cast list of Goodbye June reads like if you were putting together

a football team for all the greatest actors in Britain. Yeah. Well, it's like, if someone read out the castist, it was like just these are the nominations for the best actors this year. Yeah. You'd be like, yeah, that makes sense. Tony Collette, Johnny Flynn, Andrea Reisbury, Timothy Spall, Kate Winslet and Helen Mirren.

And then you're looking at other cast members. Stephen Merchant, heard of him. Just popping up. He's not being on the point. Jeremy Swift, that's Higgins. Yeah, Higgins. Higgins is in this. Yeah, Emmy nominated Higgins.

Yeah, yeah. That's fun. That's crazy, man. You can also watch this podcast on YouTube. Why wouldn't you? No one's going to stop you. No one's going to stop you. Watch it on YouTube, listen to it, just do as many things as you can.

Yeah. You won't hear this bit on YouTube there? No, that'd be crazy. Here's the thing, Ed. We're excited that Kate Winsett's on the podcast. We're excited to talk about Goodbye June. But if Kate Winsler says the secret ingredient, no.

An ingredient which we need to be unacceptable. I don't want to do it at this time. We will have to kick her out of the dream restaurant. I'm afraid that is how it works. Oh, man. But what's the secret in creating going to be? Clementine, because that's her character's name

in a turn to sunshine and spot this mind. Stop it. That's... You've got to calm down. I won't speak about it again unless she brings it up. That's the deal. No, I think even if she brings it up, you should say we're not allowed to talk about that.

Oh, come on. Look, we are so... I don't know if you've worked it out. We're so excited to have Kate Winsett on the podcast. Yeah, just beyond excited. It's crazy. Yeah. Ed's moved his flight.

I'd move my flight to Bergen, of course. Because it's excited. I would move, you know, I'd move heaven and earth to interview Kate Winslet. Yeah, I'm very excited about this, Ed. This is, uh... It's going to be drink, come, do you dream to come, come, right? Well, let's get her on the pod. This is the off-menu menu menu of Kate Winslet.

You do it, I'll drink, I'll drink. Welcome, Kate, to the Dream Restaurant. Oh, it's very nice. Welcome, Kate, we sit to the Dream Restaurant, but it's putting you for some time. Kate, my throat is, like, knackard, and I was really worried about doing that bit, and I've got to shout again later on.

Have you? You must have good, like, throat tips as, like a... Throat tips? Yeah, to, like... I don't think actors call it throat tips. What? I don't know if they do call it throat tips, but then what would we call it?

Training? I don't have any training, so I don't know. Vocal training? No, I've never done any of that. I've never done any of that stuff You just sort of make it up as you go along Yeah Yeah

Look after your voice What if you're doing a film And your voice goes like this You must be like I need some lemon, sugar I just don't know I mean I wish I could tell you

That I had all these like Clever things I do But I really I really don't You just make it part of the character You sort of have to just kind of Yeah You just have to kind of go with the flow

I don't know I mean you have to look after yourself Because the hours are really intensely long But not shouting at people always helps and I certainly don't do any of that. Yes, that's good. That's good to hear. What of all your roles is the most amount of shouting you had to do on camera? Oh my God. So I played a character called Elena Vernon and she was a sort of a fictional

chancellor in a fictional country and she was pretty vile and she did a lot of screaming at people. Yeah, so that was pretty hilarious. I actually did kind of quite love it as well. Yeah. Yeah. What was the film? It was a TV series for HBO. called The Regime and it was my foray into comedy and I just absolutely loved it. She was outrageous and vile and, you know, treated people very badly. It's nice to have a sort of sanctioned reason to do that, right? You can just have a good old scream at people. Well, I've never really played a character like that. Yeah. And I just thought, well, you know, this is something new.

I like to kind of mix it up and take risks and do things that might be a little bit unexpected, hopefully, you know. Yeah, yeah. Got to stay in the game. Keep getting invited back to the party. So I hopefully that will continue because I do love it. It's crazy because in the really early death, so yesterday just coincidentally, there was this thing came up on my algorithm of James Cameron talking about all of his films.

And he talked about casting in Titanic and the whole corset Cape thing before that, which I didn't know about that. Because for me now that seems bananas. Bananas. That you would have been called that because you've done so many different things. It was the first time I'd heard it. Well, people do like labels and

I think, you know, starting out in some of those great early things I was able to do like sense and sensibility and things like that. Yeah, people do like to sort of pigeonhole actresses and they don't really like it if you step outside of that framework that they have chosen that you're going to exist in. And so no, I'm, yeah, weird, corset Kate. It doesn't make any sense. And you were so young at the time. I think it's a lot of jealousy from other people. Probably. Giving you a nickname like that. But then like, I just think like for me, you're just someone who's always done so many different things. It's really weird to watch that and go like, when did that happen?

I know, it's bizarre. I think something that helped me kind of move beyond that was Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which I remember thinking, okay, this is, okay, this could be good. I could be stepping outside of that and, you know, doing something completely wild and different. And that whole experience, actually, of making Eternal Sunshine was so amazing. I mean, Michelle Gondry, who directed it, he's just avant-garde and funny and bonkers and it was a great experience. I loved playing that character. There's a lot of improvisation in that film.

I'm glad you've brought this film up, Kate, because I had to message James when we confirm that you're coming in and say, don't only talk about Eternal Sunshine in the spot as mine, because he will talk about it for a whole episode with a guest who's not been involved in the film at all. Oh, it is a good one.

Why? He's gone quiet. Yeah, because he's excited. He can't wait. It's my favourite film. We can talk about it as much. I love talking about it. It was an amazing shoot. And yes, there was a lot of improvising. I remember there was one night when I was at home asleep.

And it was 2 o'clock in the morning. And the phone rang. And it was Michelle Gondry. And he was like, you have to come. You have to come. I said, what are you talking about? He said, there is this circus. He's coming into town.

And they have all this elephant. All these elephants. They are coming down 5th Avenue. You have to come. I said, okay. Okay. When are we doing that? He said, now it's happening.

Now, right now. you have to get in the cab and you have to, I was like, oh my God, and of course you get in a cab, and of course you turn up and then improvise an entire scene with a load of elephants coming down Fifth Avenue. And it was really amazing. And that's one of the lovely things about making films is that sometimes you do get to work with people

who are brave enough to do these kind of crazy things. I thank God it was a great film, right? Because imagine it was just a crazy guy, and the film was awful. Yeah. Like it up at 2 o'clock come and improvise with these elephants. I know. But you watch it as well, yeah, it was all a bit of a,

It was all a bit of a mad risk, but, you know, that's what life's about, I think, isn't it? Well, let's talk about your latest film, because you're directing this as well. Your debut as a director, a goodbye June. Yeah. First of all, a lot of sadness for a Christmas film, and I like that. But you say that, I mean, you say that. And the thing is, it is also, though, it is very warm and there's a lot of humor. And I think it's just such a real and relatable story.

about family really. It's less about a woman who's sort of slipping away and much more about a family coming together because of that event. And I think it doesn't matter what family looks like to you. We all have to deal with loss at some point in our lives. And actually, I think in this country, we're not very good at dealing with it and talking about that stuff. And I remember when my own mum passed away, sitting with my dad and thinking, what do we do now? And actually googling coffins. Like how do you, I mean, and there's no manual for any of it. And so, I don't know, there's something about the kind of messy navigation that this family

of disparate people has to process in order to kind of come to terms with, A, what's happening, but B, how they're all going to stick together and put aside past grievances and make it okay. And there's something to me that's just very, very real and human about that. Totally. Those discussions don't, is it something British, do you think? Because, like, I've been in those situations before where, like, my mum or someone will go, well, here's what I want. And then you go, no, no, no, we don't talk about that sort of thing. We don't need to.

That's, you're bumming me out now. Well, I think, I don't know. I mean, I think, I don't know if it's a British thing or just, is it a culture, is it a Western thing? I mean, I think when you look at other cultures, there are so many ways in which they process loss and even letting that person go and what they then do afterwards. And I just think in this country, there's a very, there's a very standard way of dealing with when you lose a parent or a loved one in particular. And I just, I don't know, I think making something that perhaps ignites a bit of conversation around that stuff, I think is, I think it's helpful. How was directing for the first time? Because obviously you've worked with some incredible directors.

Did you like draw techniques and little tips from them, the people you'd work with across the? for years. I mean, to wake everyone up at midnight. Yeah. I definitely didn't wake anyone. Definitely didn't wake anyone. There's an elephant at the hospital.

Yeah. I'm not falling for this again. I loved, I honestly, I loved every single, a second of it. I loved being with the actors. I loved all the prep. I loved every day of the shoot.

I never wanted it to finish. I loved sort of pulling people together and creating a story that, you know, felt resonant and humorous and warm. And even the edit and the edit and the sound mix and the music and the great, all of it, I just, I loved every second of it.

And I think I have been lucky. I have worked with some incredible people and, you know, some directors are really all about the actors and others are more about the visual side of things and perhaps don't necessarily have the language available to them to be able to communicate something with an actor. And I think having learned a lot over this 33 years of this career that I've been so lucky to have, I've certainly, I've certainly observed and felt myself, you know, what is helpful to an actor and what simply isn't and could actually kind of fuck people up. And so staying away from the things that I know don't work

was something that I kept at the forefront of my mind. The cast is bananas. Bananas. Like every character that walks on the screen, you're like, oh my God, it's another national treasure. Yeah. It's insane. I know, it's funny.

We sort of didn't. We just thought only of, when I say we, I mean myself and Jo Anders, the writer who, happens to be my son, but he so didn't, he so didn't really believe that I was serious that we could turn this into a film, this script that he had written, having never written a screenplay before, I kept saying to him, right, okay, let's sit down, we're going to put together our just dream list of people who would play these parts, which crew we would go to and everything. And we came up with this list of extraordinary actors, and we never thought that really any

of them were going to say yes, and they all did. So the trick then was casting people of that caliber in these amazing roles and making them disappear and making it feel like a family. And I think a lot of that is helped by the brilliant children that we had. I was going to say as well, like on top of all of these incredible actors, you've got quite a lot of children involved in the production as well. Seven kids, which I was never, actually it was eight, because the six-month-old baby was identical twin girls.

But I've never been afraid of working with children. and actually as an actress, I've always really loved it. And interestingly, back to that thing of like how other directors handle things, a lot of directors are scared of how do you direct children. And the reality is you can't really teach a child unless they're very gifted. You can't really teach a child how to act. You can just encourage them to be. And so I did spend a lot of time trying to work out

how I could create an environment that the children just sort of felt like they were all on a play date with their friends. And so that started with we have two five-year-olds in the film and one of those children is a little boy with Down syndrome and beautiful little boy named Ben Shortland. And Ben's character was actually called Benji. And it was just really fortunate that we found this child. So I never had to teach him how to think of himself as a different name

because that probably just would have been too many things for him to have processed. And so I thought, well, hold on a second. This is a great strength. we've got this gift, we have this child whose name is Ben, everyone else should just think of themselves as their character names. And so all of the children, I just very gently said, particularly to my two teenagers, I said, look, let's just all call ourselves in our character names. And that's what the children did. They introduced each other to one another as the characters that they were. So there was never any, A, confusion, but B, it meant that when we were

on set and in this sort of very playful environment, they were completely. off script and would be calling each other in character names and everything then therefore for me was totally usable and when I never forget an extraordinary thing I thought my god this really did work when the little boy who plays tibbolts we still all still call him tibby his name is actually Elias but when I walked him on to set to meet Helen Mirren for the first time she started a couple of weeks into our shoot and we were already into a flow and she was there in the hospital room and I said do you know who that lady is and I fully on absolutely thought he was going to say

that's Dame Helen Mirren or the queen or something like that and he said yes that's Nana June Oh wow and he was I was like okay and my work is done and so it just meant that I was able to roll the cameras without the children knowing and we

as adult actors would be established in a state of make-believe and they would just fold into and follow along so it was really about playing for them and that definitely helped in terms of bringing the joy, because children bring the joy, and in everything, in every situation in life. And it made a really big difference in terms of just them feeling relaxed and being able to improvise very freely. With the children, we pretty much abandon any scripted lines.

And I would say, don't learn anything, please. And they'd be like, what? You know, the older ones particularly, having been very studious and learned all of their dialogue really well. And I said, and please make lots of mistakes. We love mistakes. Okay, go. And they were like, mistakes? because then it's just giving them permission to be and be really free

and all of those lovely natural things that they came out with were captured and made it into the film. And I mean, are you ready for this to, like, be brought up to you once a year when it's Christmas time? I mean, you've got that with the holiday already. I still get it with the holiday. Yeah. So now you're going to get to? I have no idea.

I mean, it's such an amazing feeling that we even made the film and so special to have gone through this with my son, And, you know, he's always written all of his life. I mean, our fridge is still covered in poetry that he wrote when he was seven or eight years old. And so I think it didn't really surprise me that he declared that he was thinking about maybe writing script. And he got a place on a film writing course at the National Film and Television School and was asked to write a screenplay. And he was encouraged, write what you know. And so he took inspiration from the most significant thing that happened in his life, which was the loss of his

grandmother when he was a teenager, my mum. And he was so struck by how everyone in this huge family of ours was able to come together and just geographically how unusual that was to all be in this same space. And we gave her a really great passing that frankly she could only have dreamt of. And he remembers thinking, my God, we're all here because we all somehow came from this one woman. And he took that as his emotional backdrop and from there created this fictional story about a fictional family who are going through the same thing. It was amazing, really. It was such a, if I never get to do it again,

I just feel so proud, actually, that in this 50th year of my life, when it is much harder, I think, for actresses to transition into directing than it is for our male counterparts. I just feel really, really proud that we've done it, and we're very proud of the film. We all start with still sparkling water on the podcast,

of your dream meal. I'm tempted, though, because we've already bought up a paternal sunshine. to start with dessert and go backwards and forget each one as we go on. That's fine. I think we should do that. It's good to mix it up. Benito looks absolutely gutted.

He doesn't want us to do it, so we won't do it. But just so you know, if I have things my way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, all right. That's what I did. Okay. But still I'll spark them more. It's going to be still.

Yeah. Still every time, yeah. I don't like, but I don't like bubbles with my meal. I feel like my stomach starts to feel full before the food's gotten there. And I want my stomach to be full of food. Yes. Yes, that's fair enough. I don't want it to be full of bubbles, unless it's champagne, in which case, it's a whole other conversation.

Sure. Oh, my God, I'm really sounding like a wanker now. No, you can have any been in two minutes. We've had much bigger wankers on the podcast, don't you worry, Kay. Yeah, us too. Yeah, us too, for a start. You're dealing with two wankers to start with. When we did our menus, Jesus.

Disagree. We've done our dream menus, and basically we do it every hundred episodes, and you can plot the timeline of how much more pretentious we've become every couple of years. this guy started on. He was salt of the earth when we started this podcast. Total wanker now. Covering Michelin stars. Oh my God.

Ridiculous. Oh, my God. Is there a particular still water you would like? Is it bottled? Does it tap? If it's tap, where's it from? I don't know. I do usually, I have to say I do usually go tap.

Just because I don't like, I don't like plastic or even glass wastage if you don't have to have it. So, yeah, I'm often the one who says, well, tap's fine. Straight out of the tap. Yeah, I think so, yeah. Where's got the best tap water in the world? Oh, my God, that is asking. Oh, I don't know, really. Probably Cornwall.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, I think so. Although a lot of Cornish people, I'm sure, would beg to differ because rumour has it. There's apparently quite a lot of tin in Cornish water from all the tin mining from years ago. Really? Apparently so.

I really have no idea if that's true or not. It's pure speculation, and I'm sure my publicist is sitting there. Please don't keep that in. Maybe you've just got to taste for tin. Yeah, because if you like it, if you like the tin water. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe it must do something for you, right?

Yeah. If it's your dream meal, if you like, we can add some extra tin to the water. I don't know. I don't know if I want that to happen to me. I don't know if I want to have added tin. I'm not sure I feel about added tin, actually. Thanks for tin. We'll get you the Cornish water, though, and we'll test it for tin beforehand, just to make sure. Thank you. We'll filter it or something.

Poplar on board! Poplar bread! Kate Wies let pop it on bread. Quite loud. Yes. Bread, definitely. It was a bit loud, wasn't it?

Yeah. Love bread. Love it. Oh my God. Love it, especially with butter, thick butter. Love. How thick are we talking? In terms of proportion to the bread.

Well, if it was a piece of cheddar cheese, just imagine the thickness of that slice. Yeah. That would probably be the thickness of the butter that I'd put on the bread. Fantastic. Yeah. I think, you know, when I'm in public,

I'll have to just calm myself down with the amount of butter I'm putting on stuff. I sometimes feel actually I have to slightly hide it from people, especially if I'm in America. Oh, really? Yeah, particularly L.A., where people are not too crazy about the amount of fat that they eat.

But I quite like eating fat. It was delicious, that's why. Especially in the form of slabs of butter. It brings me great joy. Yeah. Yeah. On warm, crusty bread. At home, all bets are off for me. At home, I'm just standing up in the kitchen.

thicker butter than the bread. Sometimes I love breadsticks and sometimes I will just stand with a packet of breadsticks and just stab it straight into the butter and scrape it off. That's good. Shove it in. And you're standing as well, I like that. There's no time to sit down and enjoy it. No. Just get in there. Just get in there, absolutely.

That could be your bread course. We can add some breadsticks if you like. That would be nice actually. You just put a big thing of butter on your table. Yeah, that's it. You've got your warm, crusty bread and breadsticks. And you can just like go between the two of from sitting, standing, sitting, standing. Which I would. I would very much go between the two.

Yeah. Yeah, my kids would be fighting me for it. And we're talking like a baguette kind of bread or? Oh, God, you can't go wrong with a baguette, can you? I actually remember when we were little, my family never really had any money. So holidays were usually driving in cars. And usually it would be a secondhand car that was borrowed from somebody

because we were a family of six, but our car was never, ever big enough. So, and I do remember holidays where we'd, we'd get on the ferry, Dover to Calais, and then drive through France and camp. And it was absolutely brilliant. And it would always be the middle of the night ferry at sort of three in the morning because it was the cheapest. And I think at one point kids could go for like a pound.

And I remember going into tiny French markets and just being over the moon. My mum would be able to, you know, get us all a huge French stick and we'd split it between us. And, oh, heaven, the best. That's great. It is. I mean, we always ask this question on the pub. baguettes come up but if you're buying a baguette you're taking it home are you biting the end off before you get home i've bitten the end off before i've even paid for it yeah 100% it's gone

i get strange looks from the women on the checker yeah yeah your dream starter okay so my dream starter and i have thought long and hard about this it's going to have to be i think a sort of a pastor with truffle and a big mound of shaved parmesan on the top, which I think is probably controversial the amount of parmesan but the reason I have opted for that

is that when I was in my early 20s living in North London and Titanic had come out and my, this is the story that you're hoping I was going to tell probably and my life changed overnight in many, many, many great ways but in also some ways

that were quite alarming for Kate from Redding, who never expected to be a famous person anyway. And I suddenly couldn't go out. I mean, I really couldn't leave the house, whether it was photographers there or, you know, just fans. It was mad. And this was just my little two-bedroom flat in N7. My neighbours, who I got to know very quickly and were very, very kind, were Giorgio and Plaxi Locatelli. And Giorgio Locatelli, wonderful, very well-known, highly regarded.

Italian chef. And at that point, he ran a restaurant in South London, but he didn't have his own restaurant. So he wasn't the Giorgio Locatelli of who he then later became. And they saw very quickly that I couldn't go out. So their concern was how is she going to be able to go to waitrose. We have to feed her. And so they would call me and they'd say, okay, so listen, Georgia's just come back from work

and he's managed to bring back some leftovers or some extras or whatever it was. And there was one day when they called and they said he's got a trust. and he's made some fresh pasta and would you like some and are crying into the phone I was yes please yes please and they'd say okay well in about half an hour we'll just put it on the wall and it'll be there for you and I would go out into the little alleyway that ran down the side of my house and there was a very high seven or eight foot wall that would divide our two properties and there on the wall was a steaming bowl of the most beautiful delicious linguini with truffle and a glass of red wine

and I felt fitter for things let me tell you and I have never ever forgotten it and then later on I've remained very good friends with them to this day and later on he he showed me how to actually make that and so that is why that would be my dream starter oh wow I mean you're like that was the story

we're hoping that is incredible I don't know if I'd leave a bowl of pastor on a wall in London not these days this was back in yeah But it was all hidden from the street. Yeah, okay. Between their sort of side gate and my side gate, we couldn't be seen. Not hidden from foxes, though, Kay. Foxes or stray cats.

Yeah, I know. Maybe it was trying to ruin the story. Sorry, sorry, but that was most of the story. It was a beautiful story. And then you were just putting in the war for Foxx eat it. It was a nice story. If you're going to walk into the other way, there's a Beatrix potter type fox, eating it, just standing on its high and legs with a waistcoat on, eating it with a fork.

Well, that would be nice. I'd like that. Yeah, I'd like that. That's a nice comforting image, actually, if it's a fox in a waistcoat. Yeah. And that fox probably hasn't seen Titanic. Yeah. Do you know what I mean?

Just treat you like a normal person. Yeah, that's right, you see. It's good that it was hidden, I think, because with all the paparazzi, it would have been awful if there'd been a shot of you taking some pasta off a wall. Well, especially when at the time they were all talking about, you know, what recent diet I was on. Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, it was really not good. Yeah. She's eating wall pasta.

Well, that's exactly. She's eating glue. I mean, they were sometimes, I mean, anyway, let's not go into it. go into it, but that was a pretty weird time. But that is a beautiful, that's a beautiful story. What a lovely, what a lovely thing for them to do? Well, I think it just also, I mean, for me, you know,

as I go through life, food becomes increasingly more important, whether it's just simply because you're hungry and you have to remember to sit down and eat something, but aside from anything else, it can be, it's comfort, complete comfort, and sometimes it can also be getting to know someone or connecting

and, you know, when I'm really, really busy. I love nothing more than going, okay, right, on this Saturday or that Sunday, what are we going to eat? And there'll be a conversation about the food that we're going to plan and who's going to cook which bit of it and who's going to come for lunch. And, you know, it just, there's something, you know, endlessly grounding for me about sitting down with a good meal. Your dream main course? Well, look, I know this is a Christmas episode. And I know that we're talking about Christmas food anyway at some point today.

But I have to be honest, my dream main course really would be Christmas dinner. Yeah. I do love Christmas. My favourite meal of the year. I love it. My mum used to make the best roast potatoes. To this day, I sometimes reach for the phone to go and ring her and say, Mum, remind me how long do you do the fat for before you tip the potatoes into the pan?

And it's the great sadness to me is that I can't call my mum. and say, how did you, how did you cook this, how did you do that, how long for, what temperature, blah, blah. So I do love a really amazing Christmas dinner. What are the essentials in the Christmas dinner for you? Red cabbage. And every year I make it to my mum's recipe and every year I cry because of the smell. I'm like, she's not here anymore. And actually my older two children know that it's going to happen. So as soon as they start to smell the red cabbagey smells, they hover in the kitchen. She's kind of good.

And she's crying. And so I would never be able to go without that. How's the red cabbage made? What else are you putting in the red cabbage? Apple, red onion, cranberry sauce goes in as well towards the end. A little bit of brown sugar, plenty of cloves, cinnamon sticks, things like that. I love red cabbage on Christmas Day. It feels so Christmassy, but I'm not eating out the rest of the year.

No. I would never touch it the rest of the year. It's weird, isn't it? And I do always think, why don't we eat turkey throughout the years? It's so, it's so extraordinary. I have taken to brining mine. Oh, yeah. Great.

Which I think I could never go back on now. It's the way forward for me. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. So you're wet brining the turkey or dry, yeah. Yeah. So you've got a huge tub that you're putting this in? I've got a huge tub that I'm putting it in.

This is correct. And the whole thing gets submerged into there and it always looks very alarming. Very, very alarming. It's sort of huge thing floating in a bunch of you know, sort of autumnal leaves and rubble from the gutter.

But no, it's not rubble at all. So, yeah, God, there's so many things that go in. Oranges, clove, cinnamon sticks, always, of course, bay leaves, mace, tons of things, tons of peppercorns,

salt, lots and lots of salt. And about five litres of water. But it's become a bit of a ritual in our house, the brining of the turkey. And are you doing this all by? yourself? No, my kids usually help, particularly my son, Joe. He loves to cook as well. So he tends to get involved now as well, which is fantastic. You can make him do so much more this Christmas. You'd be like, I directed your bloody film. Yeah, I directed your bloody film. You're doing

the turkey. But I do always, I do always get roast potato fear because my mum was so brilliant at her roast potatoes. Luckily, my mother-in-law, Rosie, she is a fantastic roast potato queen. So if they're joining us, I always, that's always her job. And I'm very grateful for it because they're delicious. I was going to say how many people are over for Christmas? How many people are you thinking of? It's usually a minimum, it's usually a minimum of about 10, but it can be up to sort of 14, 16, depending on who's around.

Any of the celebs ever tagged along for the Wednesdays at Christmas dinner? No. Jack Black? No. You've had Jack Black around one year. Yeah, I haven't. I haven't at all. You want that to be true, right? Yeah, I want to be the holiday for real.

No, we're not really, we don't really, we're not really like that as a family. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I've got some really great friends from the work that I've done over the years, but we don't really have celebrities come for Christmas. Christmas is not for celebrities coming over. I don't think it is. If you were told one year, your Christmas dinner was just you and the cast of the holiday, that's it. Oh my God.

Who do you want to sit next to it? God, I'm quickly thinking, I'm like, okay, don't make the answer controversial, okay? Who would I want to sit next to? I definitely want to sit next to Jack. Yeah. Because he's just gorgeous and hilarious and, you know, he's great fun. Also, loves food. How much has that changed the Christmas season for you since that film came out?

Like, every time it's Christmas, are you going, okay, people are going to come up and bring that up a lot more now? Yes. So Christmas is a bit different. So I do have to slightly pick the time of day that I go to waitrose from a bad. Now, mid-November onwards, which is mid-November that we're actually recording this podcast. From about now on-wards, I do have to choose my time of day. Because if I go sort of early evening or kind of middle of the day, people will stop me. And it is actually lovely.

And it's something very unexpected. So it's mothers and daughters and teenage daughters or grown daughters. They will come to me and they say, oh, is it you? And I'll say, I think it might be me. And then they say, And then they just say, we have to say, we just have to say our favorite film. And I'm thinking, bless you,

you think that you're the only people for whom this is a ritual. And actually there's this ritual that has emerged between mothers and daughters. And at some point over Christmas, they send everyone off to the pub and they sit down and they order a takeaway and they watch the holiday and then they have a big box of chocolates. And it is a thing.

Yeah, yeah. And it is so lovely. I have to say, it's very gratifying and heartwarming that that happens, yeah. But you still can go to waitrose. It's not like the old days. I go to waitress all the time. Nobody's putting a brine turkey on a wall for you.

No, no. No, believe me. I go to waitrose all the time. I do everything like normal. Take the tube, get the train, do all that. Personally, for me, I just like having something to do at a dinner table. If it gets a bit quiet, I can do the napkin. Mr. Napkin.

I can do Mr. Napkin. Do you do Mr. Napkin? Yeah, of course. I do Mr. Napkin head, especially when Bear, my youngest, who's about to turn 12, when he was little, we've got lots and lots of lots of videos on phones of us doing, my name is Mr. Napkin all over the world in various different places whenever I was filming. And, no, it's a good one.

That was a Jude law improvised. Was it? Was it a riff? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That's full of, that's, that's, that's... He's got to be pleased with that. Yeah, yeah. Great life skill, Mr. Napkin.

Yeah. Yeah. So we'd normally now ask you your dream Christmas dinner. Yeah. But that is your main course anyway. It is really, I mean, I think if I was forced to kind of go. off-piece and really think of a main course that I'd go for. I mean, I do love a pie. Yeah.

I do love a bit of pastry. I'm more pastry than filling, actually. So when people eat a pie and they leave the crust, I just say... Well, it's crazy. You're just eating like a castle off. Are you mad? I mean, I would take a crust off a stranger's plate if I thought it was going to end up in the bin. Yeah, I've never been more serious about anything.

Why? Yeah, they're sitting in a castle. Yeah. Just so dead serious. You're not eating a pie then. No. It's not. What's the point?

Might as well have soup. Yeah. Might as well have soup or kish. Absolutely. So. They probably wouldn't eat the crust of the kish either, these people. They're just eating scrambled egg. See, and I would take the crust of a stranger's plate of the kish as well.

Do love it. So, yeah, I love a good old pie. I'd always reach for that in any restaurant. What's your preferred filling for the pie? Well, it's probably sort of a chicken and veg type vibe, something like that. I don't eat a huge amount of meat, actually. I'm talking about all meat things, but I don't really eat huge amount. I mean, my husband, Ned, is completely vegan.

And so I have had to become really good at doing lots of interesting vegetable dishes, and I don't think I'm actually very good at it, and I could certainly be better. So at Christmas, I do do a pie day, actually. And so for Ned, I always make a lentil and mushroom and walnut Wellington, which he's very covetous of. and yet everybody's like, oh, what are you having? And he's like, mine, mine, mine. I might need it for tomorrow and the next day and the next day.

You don't know what it is, don't ask me what it is. He can get a whole week out of that, Wellington. But yeah, huge fan of pastry. And it also reminds me a bit of my grandmother, my mum's mum. She was a brilliant cook, and she was back, she was that generation of, like, you know, dripping, bread and dripping. And if she got a cold, she would just eat half a raw onion,

and then she'd be absolutely fine, stinking, But she'd be absolutely fine. And she used to go to the fishmonger every Friday. You know, back in the day when you would have meat once a week and you'd have fish on a Friday and the milk was delivered and the cream on the top was thick and the foil and oh my God, I loved it. But she would get fish on a Friday and she would make, sometimes just for herself because it was a moment of Zen for her,

a beautiful piece of fish. And she would make five fat chips, just five, always five. don't know why. Maybe it was because she could get five out of one potato. And I do have a memory of that. And then she'd always make a pie, usually some kind of pie over the weekend. And there would always be shortening in that pastry. And God, it was the absolute best. And I certainly can't make pastry the way that she did. Definitely not. Well, we can have the pie that she's made the pastry if you want for the dream. Yes, please. And would you like your mum to have made the red cabbage as well for the dream?

Yes, and the potatoes. and the potatoes. Yeah, definitely. But I would do my turkey, which is controversial, because to say out loud, I think my turkey is better than my mum's turkey. But she would almost cry. She'd slice into that turkey. She'd go, oh, it's dry. That's part of the ritual. It's dry again. It's dry again. Roger, it's dry again. It's dry again. I'm going to have to give you leg. I love that. What are you doing with your leftovers? I think this is a big, this is a big Christmas question. So I am not a fan of a turkey curry. I do love curry, but I'm not a fan of a turkey curry. Somehow that seems very ad hoc and doesn't make any sense to me. So I slice it all off.

I don't leave it sitting on the bone for days in the fridge. I slice it all off and I usually freeze some of it. And typically I will make some sort of a big huge vegetable soup, vegetable and turkey soup. I'm a big fan of stock. or the more popular name now is Bone Broth but I'm a huge fan of a stock so in fact not very long ago

I did just make a very big soup at home using my frozen turkey stock from Christmas so I freeze big batches of it and we'll use that a lot especially if someone's feeling not very well I will often just cook up a big soup and that will go in there yeah got any

you having Christmas pudding you're having a dessert for you your Christmas dinner? So my, we're very, very lucky in that since my mum, since we lost my mum, my dad met someone else. And he has a wonderful relationship with a great lady named Chris Gale. She's a gorgeous, gorgeous jazz singer. And she used to bake. And she had a little cake stall when she was younger, and she makes an extraordinary Christmas cake. So her contribution now is that she brings a Christmas cake. And actually, I've started doing Christmas puddings less, because I want for Chris's beautiful cake to always take a special place on the table.

So we lean more towards Christmas cake now. I'm so into Christmas cake now. You used to hate it when I was a kid. Sure. Christmas cake, Christmas pudding. I could not understand it. No, I couldn't either. Now.

What's with the hiding of the money that you just know has been dropped a million times in the street and weed on? You just thought, why? No need. No need for that. But I tell you something in our house, though, that we really can't go without his mince pies. Because my husband, Ned, he starts. eating mince pies. I think at around Halloween, actually, if he can find them.

He's just, yeah, addicted. He sees it as his, yeah. Yeah, when you first see him on the shelves in shops, it's very exciting. It's mince pie season. No, he, well, I just, I start as finding them in the shopping basket. I'm like, I don't know if I said, not that we go shopping together actually, because that makes it sound quite sad,

but we don't, but it's not sad. But if he does do the shop, which is often, actually, we're very good at sharing those jobs, he'll always come back with mince pies and I'll be like, what are these doing it? It's the 2nd of November and he's like, yes, I know, I know,

but it's cold outside and it's time for a mince pie. And he's definitely had one on the way home as well. A thousand percent, if not two. Yeah. Like Christian and Guru Murphy with the custard tarts. Yes, he eats them in the car. Yeah. So his wife doesn't find out. Your dream

side dish is the next question, but obviously Christmas dinners are. hard one to add a side dish. You're sorted for sides on Christmas dinner. I feel like we're pushing more food on you. Yeah. Well, I do love, I do love bread sauce, so that's a side, but that's not really a side dish as it. It is sort of something that you just kind of have to have. But a side dish, I mean, I don't know, are we allowed side dishes that could also be considered starters? Yeah, I think of thing. Yeah. I think so, because we've got pasta to start. Yeah. So I do love an oyster. I do love it, but only only the little ones.

And I have two stories around my consumption of oysters, which is that forever I would think, oh my God, way too gynecological looking, can't be doing that. And then I was lucky enough when I was about 30, 31, to be invited at a dinner. It was a small dinner in New York, because I lived in New York for 10 years, and it was a small dinner with a group of people

who my husband at the time, Sam, Mendez, he had just worked with. Paul Newman and Tom Hanks. Wow. And somehow I found myself at having a meal with them. There were maybe seven or eight of us. And Paul Newman ordered 24 oysters. And I was sat beside him and they were passed around the table. It's a very, very generous man. It's the only time I met him. Yeah. Passed around the table. Would you like an oyster? Would you like one? Would you like one? I'm thinking, oh God, he's going to offer me a buck and oyster. And I'm going to ask an oyster. And I'm going to have to say no. The plate came to me and how about you? Would you like an oyster?

And I said, no, thank you. And I looked at his eyes and I went, actually yes. Because I thought, if I eat this oyster, I will always be able to say, Paul Newman gave me my first oyster. And I had the oyster and I loved it. And so on occasion, I will order oysters and they're just delicious. Do you think about Paul Newman every time you have an oyster? I do actually. I do. And then I tell them. the story that I just told but I don't think I've ever told it on a podcast so

Yes Road to Petition Exclusive Road to Petition exactly right That film yeah sorry There's a point in the video

where people will see that you mention that they work together and I go like this I don't want people to think watching it that I wasn't interested in what you were saying

It was slowly into his mind house to remember what the film was It was right to petition It was a great great film Really really great film Real good film And then years and years

and years later in 2011 And at the beginning of the next chapter of my life, which I'm currently very, very happily immersed in, I met my husband Ned. And again, we found ourselves in New York. And it was at the very beginning of our relationship. And Chelsea Market is a great market in the city. And there's an amazing fish shop in there, really spectacular. And Ned and I were just having one of those kind of early romantic.

days out wandering around New York City and I said, oh, should we get some oysters? And he said, I don't know if I've had oysters before. And I'm sure I then told them about the Paul Newman story. And we bought these oysters and we took them back to the flat where I lived at the time and I know how to shuck oysters. And so I shucked all these oysters and we

had the oysters and had some champagne and then we're still together. And moving on. You've got to say that is. So I do. That's a baller move on a date. Yeah. If I was on an early date with someone and they were like,

I'm going to shuck you an oyster. I'd be like, right, well, we're getting married. Yeah, yeah. That's absolutely brilliant. There was no question as to whether or not we were going to be together forever. I knew that as soon as I met him. I was like, oh, it's you. Mm-hmm.

Oh, it's you. I know, it sounds super soppy, but I really did, yeah, I really did think that. That's nice. Good old bed. Well, you've mentioned champagne a few times, but your dream drink? To me, there is something very special about a glass of champagne. I don't drink champagne all the time. I actually am not, I love a drink, but I'm not a really big drinker.

I don't like getting drunk. I just, I don't know, the feeling of being out of control and probably the fear that someone's going to take a photograph of me falling over and showing the world my knickers. Although I feel like I've shown the world my knickers a million times doing all the different parts that I've played. I don't know what I'm worrying about. You're in control of that, right?

That's wardrobe's knickers. It's not your knickers, that's wardrobe giving you those knickers. So it's not as personal when they see that one. They probably were mine, actually. Oh, okay. That's the scoop. Spontinate.

They were always Kate's knickers in all of the films. Knicker flashing. But I do like a glass of champagne, and I'm not a fan of, what'd you call it, Proseco. I'm not a fan of Prosecco, I have to be honest. it's just not the same. But I do love a glass of champagne, not fussy, love a bit of verve, love it, love my way.

I mean, but I, yeah, there always has to be, there always has to be a reason to have it. Like, yeah, are there people drinking it on the daily or is their regular drink? I'm sure they're all, it would lose all sense of occasion. It's really funny actually, because as I'm hearing myself say this, I can hear the voices of a couple of my friends saying,

Kate, you don't drink champagne on occasion, you drink it whenever you're offered. it. And actually to be perfectly on through, that's also true. I would imagine, yeah. So that is your dream drink? It is my dream drink, yeah. Yeah. What sort of glass do you want it in? Oh, mate. I'm not fussy. I'm not fussy. It could be a clean jam jar. It could be a plastic tub. I don't care. I'm no, I'm not. I'm not in the brining tub. You can't have it at the brining tub. No, but you could have it in a sort of a plastic picnic cup. Don't mind about that.

My favourite glass is done now. What? My favourite glass is done. Broken. Not broken. The boiler man used it to put all the sludge in it. Didn't even ask me. That's very upsetting. Didn't even ask me. The boiler was acting up.

I was like, let me know if you need me. I'm in the other room. It's like, yeah, it's all done. It's like, yeah, basically, those are sludge. You got to empty the condenser. I've done it. And then I looked in my favourite glass, just full of grey, disgusting stuff. It got out the boiler.

Oh, no. And I was like, that's it. Brother, just ask me. Just shout in the next room. Hey, I need to empty the store. sludge, you've got something that you're not going to drink out of every day. Oh my God. Just use my glass.

That's really upsetting. Yeah, really upsetting. That's done. One thing I will say, I'm not precious about glasses because they get broken. They do all the time. And if people ever come to stay or they're staying in our house, if we're away, I'll just say, don't worry about breaking anything. Nothing's precious.

There's nothing out that, you know, is too important not to be broken. because I just don't think you can live like that. I don't want people to ever come into my house and feel like they can't touch anything or... But you'd say if you... Oh, if you're coming over to maybe put sludge in stuff... Yeah. Maybe I'll leave out a sludge glass for you.

I'll leave out a sludge glass for you just in case you need to put some sludge in it. Yeah, I'd be clear about that. A friend of ours, Stuart Laws, who's a comedian, had a routine that was quite jealous of about the glass that you used to catch a spider with and then you always remember that that's the spider glass. It's a spider glass.

And then you give it to guess that you don't like. We used to have, when we were growing up, we used to have what we would call a silver fish dish. And they were these kind of terrible little sort of 20p from a jumble sale, sort of small metal boat type dishes that, you know, my mum would put, you know, a blob of ice cream if we were lucky into. And I remember that there was actually, you know, this little silver fish that crawled around the skirting boards. It would always be silver fish that would sit in these dishes in the cupboard. They'd just hang out. Yeah. So that would, they would become the silver fish dishes.

And that was also your ice cream dish? It was also the ice cream dish, yeah. But there was no backup, so we had to just plow on and continue to use the dish. Wouldn't stop me for meat and ice cream, you know that problem. Yeah, yeah. If it was crawling with silver fish, I'd still be eating it if it was all over the scoops. Did you have a sick bowl at home? Yeah.

We had a sick bowl. Yeah. Actually, it was a sick bucket. It was orange and it lived under the sink. That's better for sick, I'd say, because like the bowl situation, you're like, are you going to use this bowl for anything else? I just don't know if we had any bowls that were big enough, quite honestly. the only bowl that we would have had would have been

the bowl of the salad spinner that might have been big enough and that was brown you don't want to be sick in a salad spinner though you definitely don't don't want to be sick into a salad spinner no but we had an orange sick bucket

with a white handle remember Stuart Laws who I mentioned a minute ago yeah guess where he went recently and sent me videos of this whole trip there oh god and now I'm going to pronounce it wrong even though Montauk

Montau The place in the saddle sunshine that you go to. He went there and he was really excited about it because he knew I'd like it. So he sent me videos of his whole trip. He was at the station that you guys were at. Oh, yeah. Went to all the different locations.

It was absolutely, it was brilliant out there. I loved it. And it was very, very cold. And it wasn't meant to snow. And, you know, there's that scene in it. I don't need to tell you. Yeah, I don't need to tell you. Where they wake up, they wake up in a bed on the beach in the snow.

Okay, wasn't meant to snow. And we got there, late one night, the whole crew and Caspwood all traveled out there, woke up in the morning, literally three foot of snow everywhere. So I called Michelle and I said, oh God, what are we going to do? He was like, what do you mean? It's fantastic. We are going to shoot in Zat. And then there we are, you know, on the beach, in the bed, in the snow.

Completely, I mean, I don't think you'll ever see that again anywhere in a lot because one of the chances. And it was freezing, but yeah, completely amazing. I loved Montaulch. There was a cafe that. that I would go to on the way to work and I would always get a coffee and a really delicious, thick doorstop-sized.

It was in a sort of like an oatmeal raisin cookie with loads of lovely ground spices in it and nutmeg and things. And yeah, see, I love food. My kids always say to me, you always remember the places we went by the food that we ate. Quite right.

Absolutely true. I really do. Yeah. I went on David Cross's podcast and I really annoyed him by asking him how many times a week because he think to himself, I was in eternal sunshine to spotless mind. And he was like, never.

I don't think that. Carrie, I'm making a birdhouse. I quoted that to him on his podcast. He did not like it. He remembered it. He wasn't impressed by me for shouting that. I did exactly what you've just done. And he was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was like, come on, man. What a line.

It's a funny line. But have you seen such brilliant scenes as well in waiting for Guffman? You've seen much, please tell me you've seen wait for Guffman. Oh my God. That's one of our favorites. There's that scene. I've been coming. coming out to this landing site. The temperature is always the same.

So, yeah, he's genius. He's so, so talented. Well, he doesn't like his genius being brought up to him. I'll tell you that much. Oh, okay. But it's fun, fun to wind him up. He's a commodging. So it was really fun.

You know, winding up on his own podcast about how much I love Eternal Sunshine. He was not happy. Not happy. Not happy. I would ask you how often you think I was in Eternal Sunshine, but I imagine probably not much. Well, it's been coming up a lot recently. And what I think is amazing is how that is turning into a bit of a cult classic And there's a whole other, a little bit like Titanic

You know, there's another generation of young people who are discovering it largely because of the music Because the soundtrack is so incredible But that's, I just, I never would have expected that, you know, And people will quote to me that line, I'm just a fucked up girl who's looking for my own peace of mind It is a great line written by the great Charlie Kaufman She was such an extraordinary character, incredible. And those wigs, I mean, my God, they were all wigs. Oh, were they?

Yeah, I did get to keep a couple of them, which is pretty cool. Yeah, it was just an amazing character to play. And I really did feel like I could be quite free and experimental and learned a lot about myself as an actor through that process and sort of being brave and just trying stuff. That thing of like, you know, just making mistakes. That was positively encouraged by Michelle Gondry. Was there anything in particular that you did?

It's been my last Eternal Sunshine question. I don't believe you, but okay. Now I can see why David Cross cut you off so quickly. He was furious. I'm not going to cut you off, darling. Go. Go on. Is there anything particularly that you did that was taking a risk that made it in the film? And you were like, I'm really glad that I did that. Yeah, I think there's that line when in that hilarious sequence where the memories are erasing.

And there's a bit where the Joel character is being based in the kitchen sink by his mom. And then there's that perspective set where he's under the day was so genius. And when I went, my crotch is still here, just as you remembered it. And I flashed my knickers. That was definitely spur of the moment. Yeah. Your knickers? Your knickers or wardrobes?

No, they were wardrored. I soon remember they were pink. I don't think I'd ever wear pink knickers, not in real life. Actually, I've got one more question. But it links to another. film and stuff. Does it link to food, which is what this podcast is supposed to be about? Come on, come on. Did you and Elijah Wood

talk about being directed by Peter Jackson at a completely different time from his career? No, because he didn't, he was just about to go away. He hadn't done it yet? No, he was just about to go and start shooting Lord of the Rings. From memory, from memory, he hadn't gone yet. Because you were like,

maybe I'm wrong about that. Did you know what? I am wrong about that. No, he had done some of it. Elijah had done some and he was going back, I think, to do additional shooting or reshoots or something like that. And no, he didn't talk about it very much. He's quite a sort of, actors on the whole don't talk about other jobs to each other just because it's just the work.

It's private. I mean, I'm sure you don't talk about that show you did last night. We do, all the time. It's the only thing we talk about. We're texting each other last night about our gigs as they were happening. Saying how great you both were. Yeah, yeah. And how funny you were.

And how much we love doing stand-up and how we really respect our audiences. And how you're never scared at all when you walk out onto the stage. And we love the reaction we get and the audiences are perfect and they're lovely. Okay. Yeah, we're so grateful. Great, weirdos. Your dream dessert. So I had to think long and hard about this because it is a toss-up between two.

But I am going to go with my own apple crumble. Love that. And the reason for that is because I cook or bake my crumble topping first. So you know you get excited about a crumble and then you realize that half of it stuck to the roof of your mouth because the sort of the flour and buttery sugar mixture actually has just steamed on the top and might have gone a bit crunchy in certain areas around the edges. So I part bake mine and it just goes all biscuity and lovely. So the crumble topping is baked separately on a flat baking sheet and then I'll cook my apples a little bit first with some

cinnamon and sugar i feel like i've talked about cinnamon a lot i guess i probably use it a lot it's the season for it though right it's the season for cinnamon um and so so i said then the apples will go in a baking dish and then and then i'll put my delicious crumbly topping all over the top and uh and that will go in for another 15 minutes and i would have that so ned would have custard he absolutely loves custard and he says flood it flood it but i actually love a big dollop of clotted cream Nice Proper Cornish clotted cream Shout out to Cornwall again

Shout out to Cornwall Spend my life shouting out to Cornwall The problem is there's a lot of tin in the clotted cream and Cornwall Stop talking about it Stop talking about it Because the cows are drinking the water Aren't they so they're drinking the tin

And it's coming out of the milk You would be the one to be told Stop talking about it This episode Second time the tin's come up Stop talking about it Eternal Sunshine 50 times

Eternal questions A journal questions About tin and clotted cream Total questions of the obsessed mind. Because you said that, you said there's tin in the water. Well, I don't know if there is. I just said rumour has it. Yeah.

Wuma has it, Ed. Sorry, sorry. Rumor has it. So that would be, that would actually be my dessert. And that was a tough one for me because I'm such a fan of cheese, so I could easily go with a great cheeseboard. Well, that's good that is a narrow escape for me. It's really angry if guests pick a cheeseboard instead of dessert.

Whereas I love it. I'm the cheese boy. Are you? And what's your favourite cheese? I am curious, actually. The thing is, if we, now, I would probably go with a British cheese. And my go-to would just be a very, very mature cheddar, I think. You can't be a very mature cheddar.

Yeah. But then also if we're... Have you tried Sussex Charmer? No. Oh! It's chalky, it's crumbly, it's sharp, it's delicious. I like the crumble. I like that.

And it's sold in a, it's like a sort of almost like a wax paper wrapping, which I love. And it comes in a perfect cube. Yeah. It's delicious. It's delicious. It's delicious, Sussex Champ. I'm going to check that out. Yeah.

Every year for Christmas, my mother-in-law buys me the Godminster cheddar. Nice. And like all the variety. So they do a truffle one that is out of this world and then a chilly one and then just the normal one. I love that stuff. But then love Stilton as well, Colston Bassett, Stilton, obviously. I do too. And then, sure, Manchego, Comte, an aged comtee.

Lovely. Oh, we could do a whole separate episode on cheese. Yeah, we should do. I mean, you can pick cheese for your dessert if you wanted. No, I'm not going to do that. He's making a face. Yeah. We can directly into this camera.

But years ago, I worked in a delicatessen, but a proper delicatessen with like, you know, beautiful Epicurean foods and... James Kate's telling a story now. I'm telling a story. You're not listening. I'm looking into the camera. He's bored of me.

I'm furious. I won't talk to you about Town Sunshine anymore. Oh, tell me about the delicatessen. But I used to work on the cheese counter with this delicatessen. Dream job. I did get to know all my... my cheeses. And yeah, love a good cheese. You can have a cheeseboard after the meal, if you like. Yeah, but have you up a crumbull. And I think I'd prefer the crumble first.

We can just leave it on the side and you can just nibble on it later on a wall. There's a delicious French cheese. Put it on a wall. Put it on a wall for you, little cheeseboard on the wall. I do, yeah. Okay. There's a delicious French cheese called Charros that I absolutely love, which is, it's sort of, it's almost the colour of a of a goat cheese. cheese with a rind that is also pale like a goat cheese but it's not it's it's made with cows milk and it's uh it's not as kind of stinky and runny as a cam bear um it's really smooth delicious with like a sort of a fruit bread or something like that it's really delicious i'm so excited for christmas now because i'm going to go absolutely cheese crackers yeah

i can't wait you know cheese crackers i'm going to go crackers and cheese cheese crackers truffle brie oh yeah god you've got a nice or triple cream truffle brie yeah oh yeah i do that Oh, my God. I do that. Yes, I can't wait too. But this crumble also sounds delicious, and I like that it's your crumble. Because like you say, your mum's roast potatoes were the best. Do you think the crumble is going to be the thing that you passed down to your children?

They're going to be like, my mum's crumble was the best. Well, there is something else that my children would prefer I pass down to them, which is a, it's a very decadent bread and butter pudding that they do request that I make at Christmas as well. And this has become a new thing. we were in Vancouver for Christmas several years ago and in this particular area of Vancouver there's a wonderful donut shop

and it's quite a famous donut shop I don't particularly eat donuts but these things are so good What's it called? It's called Honey's Donuts This donut shop and it's in a tiny little place called Deep Cove in Vancouver in North Vancouver

and the owners very kindly when we were there gave us a huge box of probably I don't know 12 or 16 donuts And I really thought, my God, what are we going to do with these things? I made the two-day-old donuts into bread and butter. I just know James is losing his mind over there. It was unbelievably delicious. And now my kids do say, Mom, come on, you go to.

And now in England, we don't have Honey's Donuts, of course. But, you know, Panatoni, left over croissons or cruffins, a cruffin, you know, the big sort of swirly things with the kind of crusty top, with the sugaryness all over them. so yeah so rather than going with actual bread I will try and find some sort of cake and put that into this very very decadent bread and butter pudding and that they that they would in fact last year my daughter was like you're going to have to show me

how to do it yeah it's delicious were all the donuts like plain donuts no so here so some of them have a slight caramel topping some of them have chocolate and I was like okay just break them up Shove it in. So every spoonful you're getting like, you might get a different flavour donut in every bite. That's pretty special.

Pretty delicious. I think I'm adding that to my dream menu. Haven't even eaten it. Really, really, like, ridiculously good. I always think we should do like an episode where we only can make our menus off of things that other guests have picked. Yeah.

And I don't pick that. Yeah. I'll make it for you. But I don't think it's on case. That's not going to happen. It's not a case menu. No, I will. No, I will.

Yeah, we've had. We've had people come on this podcast before. And they've said they'll make things. And they never make them like that. They make promises. They say, let's go for a cocktail at that place. I'm a woman of my word. Cocktails.

You see, I'd have to go for a Nogroni if we were going out for a cocktail. Although I did, someone did make me a very, very strong one this summer. And I loved it. And I loved it so much that I had a second one. And the next day, I swear to God, I thought I had brain damage. I honestly, I was like completely, I felt like a bag of smashed crabs. What that is going to? What's happened?

to me. I'm up in street. Yeah, I love that. I'll be using that. That's amazing. I'll be taking from mashed crads. Absolutely loves it. Okay, I'm going to read you your menu back now.

Go on. See how you feel about it. By the way, you've said French airlines today and French cheeses, and I was trying to come up with her, paint me like your French girl's thing, and I couldn't do it. Just so you know, I did try, but sometimes we fall short. No, no, no, no. It was a good try, though, James.

Just so you know, I tried and I could have. didn't do it. No, okay. I'm not on my best form today. Okay. Still has sparked in what you want, still tap water from Cornwall. Popadoms of bread you would like warm, crusty bread and bread sticks with thick butter. Yeah. Starter, pasta with travel and shave Parmesan. Lovely story. Main course, Christmas dinner, with your own turkey, your mum's roast potatoes, mum's red cabbage, with bread sauce, with chicken and vegetable pie as well with grandmother's pastry and Christmas cake. Side dish,

oysters, the little ones. Drink, champagne, dessert, your own apple crumble with Cornish Cotter cream. Yep. That sounds great. Yeah. It does actually, doesn't it? That sounds really nice. Nothing overly fancy, apart from, well, no, actually I lied, the truffle and the oysters and the champagne.

What am I talking about? I'm somebody I didn't think I was, clearly. Yeah, but you've still got the Christmas dinner in there and the red cabbage. Yeah, and the pie. I think it's a good mix. Grounding things. And look, it's mid-November, like we say, it's the first time I felt Christmassy this year. Oh, good.

And that's because of your menu. There you go. Yeah, I feel quite Christmassy, actually. And there's a little Christmas cake next to you. Yeah? That's not a Christmas tree. It's a plastic thing with tip-ex on the ends of it. You look like to know.

Yeah, Benito, what the hell are you playing at? What is your problem? What the fuck are you putting that next to Kate Winslet for? A little gingerbread house. A little sweet gingerbread house. You see, that's designed for a tea light. One of those, why are they called tea lights? I don't know.

I don't know. I've never known what they're called tea. Why are they? Yeah, they're rubbish, aren't they always go out. Yeah, yeah. It's the battery-operated ones you have to get. But I do like a little sort of house with a little candle in it. Yeah, that's a nice touch, actually.

Oh, no, because the screen says Christmas special on it. I didn't even know. I didn't realize that. He does so much for us. But why is there a chopped octopus leg? Yes. Yeah, that's interesting, isn't it? That's not Christmassy, isn't it?

That's not Christmasy at all. I don't know as a food podcast, but it's a Christmas special. Yeah, think about like Christmas food. They don't have chopped octopus leg for Christmas. Maybe they do in Spain or something, but... Is that a cabbage or a brain, Benito? It's a bozzer sprout, I reckon. It's a poo, actually.

It's a poo. It's a shit. It's a shit. We've got Kate Winslet on the podcast. You put a shit on the screen. It is a petrified poo. Yeah. So sorry.

So sorry, Kate. So sorry, Kate. That's all right? We were good, though, right? You were great. You were great. Yeah, we were good. You were nice.

You were relaxed. You were kind. And you were funny. Yeah, pretty funny. Yeah. Didn't ask too many questions about a tennis phone. I thought I was quite funny Was I surprisingly funny?

No, you've been funny in film Did you not know what you were going to get And you're relieved to discover that? No, I think I knew you'd be a funny And warm and open interviewee Okay, good Yeah, I've seen you with interviews before I was never worried about when you were coming in

Sometimes people coming in We're like, I don't know how this is going to go And sometimes we're right And when we finish recording You're going to tell me who was the scariest person Robert Deer Oh, I don't think he's scary, is it? No, not scary, just intimidating is a prospect.

Oh, intimidating, yes. Yeah. Yes, and I can see that. That might be a surprise to the guests. And he's very... To the guests, to the listeners. Very comfortable with not giving answers. Oh.

Oh, that could maybe... Okay. It was a funny episode, though, because our listeners know us and they like to hear us flail sometimes. Oh. Yeah, but that's... Sorry to tell you, but that was an option.

Well, they have a hint of flailing today. We've not needed to flail. Good. It's been fantastic. Thank you so much for coming to the Dream Restaurant, Kate. and Merry Christmas. My pleasure and you. Thank you very much.

James. That was a dream country. She was brilliant. How good was that? I did talk about a ton of sunshine. I broke my promise. But she brought it up. She did bring it up, which, you know,

and brought it up quickly as well. I was like, oh, we're in trouble. I couldn't believe it. We are in trouble. I was really restrained until a certain, point. Yeah, until towards the end when it was maybe five or six. I thought I've got to get them all in now.

The problem is, James, and you know this about me, is, of course I've seen a eternal sunshine multiple times. Yeah. But I don't remember anything that happens in any film ever I've ever watched. Yeah, yeah. I go to films, I go, that's brilliant. I'm going to remember this is one of my favorite films. And then you asked me about it three days later, I could not tell you who's in it.

No. I could not tell you what the storyline was. Yeah. Also, I just go and see films and I go, that was good. I thought that was good. I better Google to check to see if I was right. Yeah, yeah. So when I do stuff like that to you, you've got to just sit there. I've got to sit there, but it's really interesting watching you interview Kate Winslet

about Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and occasionally I would go, Ah, cheese! Yeah, dream from true. Oh, yeah, you have a sick bowl at home. Yeah, yeah, that was good. You jumped on the sick bowl stuff. Kate didn't say Clementine either. No, so, thank God. Even in reference to the characters, you didn't even say the word. Yeah, well, she knew you didn't need to know the name of the character.

She knows she knew this guy knows everything about this. What a joy. Watch Goodbye June. It's in cinemas now and on Netflix on Christmas Eve. December 24th. December 24th, for those of you who don't know that that's Christmas Eve. Watch it on YouTube. You can watch this on YouTube.

You can watch this on YouTube. You can watch Goodbye June on YouTube, but you can watch this on YouTube. This podcast. Yeah, yeah. First talking to Kate Winslet. Yeah, yeah. On YouTube. Yeah, I wonder how many shots there will be of me looking back and forth

as we should release a whole different version where it's just my shot while they're talking about Eternal Sunshine. Well, I'm my shot when you're talking about cheese. Yeah, well, yeah, that'll be in it. So rude. Funny for the first bit,

and then she starts telling an anecdote about working in a delicatessen. I could not believe when I look around and you're still doing that. It's really rude. Yeah, yeah, really rude stuff. Really rude. But luckily, she was lovely

and what a brilliant interview. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I absolutely lovely. every second of it. Thank you, Kate, if you're listening. Smash it out of the park. Adja-cadja. Thank you so much for listening all year, but the year is not done for off-menu because we will, of course, be releasing our best of the year episodes, the compilations.

Yeah. And we'll be back for a new series of Off-Menu in January. And what a way we're kicking that off. What a way we're kicking it off? Merry Christmas, happy seasonal period. Have a good December. Happy New Year. Goodbye.

Bye.