Off Menu with Ed Gamble and James Acaster - Montaigne

Episode Date: May 6, 2026

Australian musician, ARIA Award-winner and former Eurovision contestant Montaigne – aka Jessica Alyssa Cerro – is this week’s dream diner. Will James bring up 2016? Montaigne is touring Australia in August for the 10th anniversary of their Glorious Heights album. For dates and tickets go to montaignemusic.com.au Listen and buy Montaigne’s latest album ‘it’s hard to be a fish’ here. Follow Montaigne on Instagram and TikTok @actualmontaigne Watch the video version of this episode on the Off Menu YouTube on Thu 7 May.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 Ben Williams and Megan McCarthy for Plosive.Artwork by Paul Gilbey (photography and design). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm on tour. I'm on tour until August. And there are still tickets available at James Acaster.com. I'm looking at you, Glasgow, Belfast. Oh, there was somewhere else. Just please go on the website to buy tickets, please, Jamesacaster.com. Welcome to the off-menu podcast, peeling the tab of conversation off the Toblerone of friendship and really try an hour to break off a chunk of humour

is the Tobler own podcast, James. I was just thinking about Tobler. I'm so tired. That is Ed Gamble. My name is James Daycastle. So together we own a dream restaurant and every single week we invite in a guest,

asking their favourite ever start of makers, dessert, side dish and drink, not in that order. And this week, our guest is... Montane. Montane, James, is a musician, of course. Fantastic musician. One of my faves,

I discovered their music as part of my 2016 project when I went absolutely nuts. Oh, no. way. Hang on, now we've interviewed everyone from Strictly. We're going through everyone you discovered in 2016. Yes, and it's going to be a long road, my friend. That's a lot

of people. That is a lot of people. And every one of their albums, I'd say, has got better and better. But by any mind, started well. I loved the debut album. Yeah. Each album I've loved more and more, loved the direction that their music has gone in, and I absolutely love their new album. It's hard to be a fish. I listened to it on the

way over. I loved it as well. It's fantastic. Very excited to talk to Jess. Yes. which is Montaigne's the actual name. Yes. About the album. And also, I don't know what kind of food they like. Even though we've worked together.

We've made food together? No. We've made music together. Yeah. But that's not food. Food of life? Food of love. Isn't it the food of love?

Yeah, if music be the food of love, play on, James. One of us went to Durham, the other us. It doesn't know the difference between love and life. Actually, didn't learn that in Durham. Did you not? No, that's school. That's basic. Shakespeare.

That's nursery. That's nursery level Shakespeare. Yeah, it's nursery level of Shakespeare. That was on our blocks at nursery. On our letter blocks. We spelled it out. In Ketman, you get told it when you get a job. Yeah.

Will you eventually leave school and graduate? Then they tell you your first bit of Shakespeare. I go, okay. I couldn't remember if it's love or life. Yeah. Music is a food of love play on. Yeah. Well, there you go.

And if food is the music of love, make me dinner. That's a new tagline for the podcast. You've got to put that out there so the world can hear it because that's a good tagline. Tell you what, now and again,

I really tickle myself. Yeah, yeah. Well, when we're trying to come up with, there's a secret ingredient in this podcast, by the way, where if the guest says it, then we kick him out.

And we're trying to come up with what Montaigne's one could be. And Ed was like, is Montane? Is it like a mountain in some? language. It's not. And, but it was like, oh, Montanio is like in French.

It's like, oh, we could pick a Toblerone. Yeah. If it's that. And then we decided against it. And then immediately it starts talking. And it's pinning the tab off the Toblerone. Oh, he's on the brain. He's still thinking about Toblerone.

Sleep, it was in the queue. Got to get it out there. But the secret ingredient is not Toblerone. The secret ingredient is fish. Fish. It's fish. Because the album's got the word fish in it. It's there.

It's on a plate. Although, I. I don't know Jess's eating habits. I think that Jess doesn't eat meat, but I'm not sure. Okay. So there might be a vegan. So there might be no way we can get them out. There might be, this might be, yeah, just like pointless.

Yes. We might as well have just said a chair. You know, but like, but I think. Vegans could eat a chair? To be fair, depends on the chair is. Not a leather chair. No. Good point.

Yeah. So if there are any vegans in who have just tucked a napkin in their collar and about to eat a lever chair. Yeah. You might want me to Google what's in that. You might want to have a look, you fucking idiot. Yeah. Montane is tour in Australia in August

for the 10th anniversary of their glorious heights album, 2016. For dates and tickets, go to montanemusic.com. This is the off-menu menu menu of Montaigne. Welcome, Montaigne, to the dream restaurant. Ah, thank you for having you. Welcome, Montaigne to the Dream Restaurant. We're waiting for some time. Whoa. Yeah, thank you.

Those are getting louder. Yeah, it has to get louder. Because if people have listened to the podcast before, they're going to expect them to invite, I've got to surprise them. Yeah. So you've got to go up in volume every time. Did you feel surprised, Jess? I was surprised.

Yeah. I was scared. Yeah. That's how we like our guests right at the beginning. Yeah. To be very on edge. Really scared. Like, it's a horror film.

And I love feeling this way. I've got to say. Feels good. Australians do very good horror films at the minute. They do. I can't really report on any of them because I don't watch horror films but I do hear that they're quite good. Yeah.

Yeah. This new one, everyone's saying it's so scary. Which one we're together or the other one? Bring her back. Bring her back. Yeah, yeah. It's the Philippa twins.

Yeah, that's right. I've heard interviewed and seem like really lovely, just sort of puppy dog energy Australian boys. They seem cool. And then they make the most horrible films I've ever seen in my life. It's like that sometimes, isn't it? Sometimes people with the greatest levity produce the darkest things. It's like Hayao Miyazaki is like the most depressed man,

but he makes these beautiful jibli films, you know? Yeah. Maybe that's why because Ed makes very happy comedy. Yeah. Makes everyone feel good, but he's a dark. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Junji Ito, you're aware of Junji Ito's work? Yeah.

Really happy man loves his cats and then writes absolutely horrific horror manga. It's crazy. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. Why is it that Australian films? So it's either very funny character-led comedy or horrible, depressing, like, gritty dramas where everyone gets hurt and it's just like so dark

and everyone's in the bush and it's all horrible. That's a good question. I think, I don't know, we're a pretty isolated country, right? Like, I feel like there's a lot of isolated, sort of desolate parts of the land, right? Like, we only populate the country, yeah, Perth, namely Perth. I only really populate the coastline, and then when you get a bit more inland, it gets very sparse,

gets very small populations. I feel like that's good fodder for that sort of like, what's going to happen kind of situation. Like the roads at night, pretty scary out back that way because it's not very bright, like not a lot of lights and stuff.

So it's a lot of, it's rich, there's rich fertile soil, literally and figuratively for that kind of fiction, I think. Yeah. What's that? Was it, Wolf Creek? Yeah.

Again, not one I've seen, but yeah, that's, that's one of those. Horrible. Yeah. Just horrible country. Yeah, yeah. Disgusting. It's terrible. Yeah, no scary country.

Yeah, yeah. I hope I'd ever go. Scary to live there as well, yeah. We also, with our guests, we like to immediately say that their home is horrible and scary. Yeah. Yeah. We do that with everyone. Yeah.

It never makes the edit. Let's see if this does. Your beautiful hosts. Yeah. And the minute you're on tour in the UK, how are you find? And that you can say anything you like at this point. Yeah, you can't go for it. Yeah, no, it's been good.

I've enjoyed it. The audience is good. They're excited for live music, which is like something that Australia is struggling with a little bit at the moment. So it's nice to come to a place where people are like, they're buying tickets and they're loving it. They can't relax the Australian audience. Just thinking about all the horror.

All of the Wolf Creek type stuff. Yeah. Some backwards man from the bush is going to come in with a big axe. Yeah, exactly. No, none of that here. It's always great, like, come into a place that just, like, it looks totally different. I mean, actually, not totally different. It's interesting because, like, obviously, the British colonise Australia.

So we've got some architectural similarities and stuff. Thank you. I appreciate it. I don't know. I've been here before, so some of it feels more novel and some less. I went to Bristol yesterday. I really liked Bristol. Bristol's cool.

Did also find out that that was, like, the hub of full. slavery and so there is, you know, but they push him in the drink. Swings in roundabouts. Yeah, no, no, exactly. I went to the M Shed yesterday, which is like the Bristol Museum kind of thing, is all about Bristol.

And they have the statue lying on its side with the graffiti on in a glass case, and they tell you all about it. I was like, I was cheering. I was like, this is great. Trying to push that in the river again. Yeah, exactly. Just trying to smash in the guards,

trying to lift them home, rolling. it again down the hill. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, this is probably quite controversial for me to say, but I'm not afraid. I'm sure there's some Colston heads out there who are like, I love the guys where... There was at the time, it was crazy. Oh, yeah. They pushed him in a drink.

Actually, no one said, I don't think anyone dared say at the time that they loved him, but they tried to make the arguments about, well, it's history. Yeah, exactly. And what are we doing? And it's like, well, when we put, like, there's the same bit of history but the good guys will make a statue of them. And then they had no answer for that.

They were like, don't push him in the drink. Yeah, yeah. Stop pushing him in the drink. Yeah. No one used to phrase the drink around that time. No, no. No, no. Did it say that it got pushed in the drink?

For what I remember. Yeah. Well, that's good. I didn't know that they had it in the glass case. Yeah, it's funny. Can you remember any of the graffiti? No, I was just red. It was just like, I think maybe, I don't know if there was a placard saying what the red symbolized.

like maybe just like blood or just like, I don't like this guy's face, so I'm going to cover it with red. Well, that's the only paint they could find on the day. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it could be, yeah, rushing down to the drink. Just bring up some graffiti paint on the way. No, it was genuinely very good exhibit. Well, not just exhibit. It was like, it was a whole thing. There was lots of information there.

I thought it was quite informative. Yeah, it's good. I'm impressed in a couple of weeks. Yeah. I'm going to go to that. A couple look. It's free. I've got to go and see Stu Goldsmith.

Yep. and get all the gossip about Edinburgh from him. And then I'm going to go and see the statue. The Edinburgh gossip. I have a lot of friends who went to Edinburgh, and I can't wait to go back to Australia and get the gossip from them. Who are your friends who went to Edinburgh? And what gossip do you think they're going to have?

I have a friend named Robin Reynolds, who's really amazing new stand-up. She's like a Brit, but she's based in Melbourne, in Australian. I made friends with her. I just moved to Melbourne. Oh. Great city, loving it. And she's great.

Do you know Zach Zucker? Yes. Yeah. I mean, I don't live near him. but he's a friend and I should probably probe him. So Zach Sokow and Robin Reynolds so far. Yeah. Okay.

James is very excited about the fact they both have illustrative names. Oh, that's so true. Yeah. I don't even think about that. That's funny. He can't wait. Let me see him like a rustle up another way. You try and rustle up some and James will definitely make up some.

What? No, no, no. I won't make it up anyway. Did you drink? Did you drink? Drink for everything? This is a drink-themed episode. I can't wait until we get to dream drink.

Yeah. It would be so exciting. Yeah. Those are my friends. I got two friends. Two friends is good. So all you need, I've got two friends. Yeah.

Ed? Yeah. And did you drink? Yeah. Not myself. Oh, okay. Myself. You can be friends with yourself.

James can't. Famously. Friend of self. Not my cup of tea. No, okay. He'd never write any shows if he was friends with himself. Oh, so true. Yeah.

Just sit around at home being happy. No, I got that. All my material is just from. I hate this guy. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes it's me that I'm talking about. Sometimes it's Benito.

Yeah. And I make out like it's me, but it's really something Benito's done. Yeah. Tell us about your album. My album. It's called It's Hard to Be a Fish. This is perfect. Yeah.

Why is it perfect? Because we've been talking about the drink. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And then we're talking about another thing that people eat. And now we're going to talk about the fish, which is in the water. Yeah. And before we even started recording, we're talking about my octopus teaching.

We're talking about that. And you go to the Bristol Aquarium? I love all things marine. Yeah. Yeah. No, I, the reason why it's called it's hard to be fish, many reasons, but partly because when I started making the album, I lived by the sea in Koogee in Australia. And my partner at the time was like a full ocean swimmer, did like the 2Ks out into the

ocean and like would also go stalking stuff a lot. So that was very much part of like my world at the time of making or starting to make the album and was like truly trying to tap into that when I was. producing it as well with the sounds and stuff with just like lots of ocean and water samples and seagull samples and stuff like that and then and then broke up with that person and moved out and my whole life changed completely and then I had this like reckoning with like I guess my family life I don't talk to my parents anymore um love them God bless them that it's it's very complex and I do not wish any ill upon my parents whatsoever.

I love them, but they just can't have a relationship with them anymore. And the album is kind of about that, is about how just like my feelings swelling around that, the grief of sort of having to disconnect yourself from your parents while they're still alive. The sort of like resentment as well, which I have to acknowledge, there's a lot of anger there, a lot of resentment, but then also sort of the feeling of, I guess, relief as well, I guess, after the fact.

There's a lot of analogies in there about, like, being on a shipwreck and then floating in the ocean, deciding where you're going to go next? Like, are you going to swim back to that person? Are you going to, like, find some new island and see what happens, even though it's unknown and scary? So that's sort of, it's all trying to incorporate this notion of, like, fish, ocean, ships, like drifting in it out, the oscillation of things and I guess like family life and just encompassing all these like experiences of my life.

So yeah. It's crazy that is how you can start to like, I think we get this with shows and stuff as well with comedy shows where you start to do it about one thing and then it becomes about something else but the initial thing still kind of bleeds into it still still carries on even though they're not necessarily connected it's about to say that that's never happened to him.

I have no subtext. Something happens in my life and I directly talk about that thing and then it's the end of the show. Yeah. Yeah. And then the next routine is a different thing. Yeah, exactly.

And then it's the next thing that happened. Chronologically, Jess. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not fucking around by going back in time, right? Yeah, no. Like memories, you just leave them behind. No place.

No place in your life. If Ed was doing it your album, it would be a very stark talking about being next to the sea and his partner swimming out in the sea. And then it would be, I'm not talking to my parents anymore. Yeah.

And then it would be, I saw a fish and I thought it's hard to be a fish. Yeah. So, yeah. But they wouldn't be connected. Yeah, I see. Well, yeah, the extra layer for me with that is like, part of the way I started conceiving of, like, my relationship with my mom initially.

This is me when I'm, like, at my most, like, pet and I'm, like, I'm a victim. It's like, she's a cat and I'm a fish. I'm getting hunted, man. I'm getting hunted. But then, like, when I started to think about it some more, I was like, no, we're like all fish, man. Yeah.

We're like all being hunted by someone or something. We've all got our own thing. We have to remember that. And we have to try and, you know, be a bit more compassionate towards each other. And I'm, again, try to be that with my mom on that album. Try not to be just like, you're a bitch. You know, like try to also be like, no, you're a human being. A lot of stuff has happened to you.

And you're a fish. You're a fish than me. Yeah, exactly. You know, like, yeah. And also, like, as a metaphor for queer. Like, I am queer. I'm non-binary and I'm bisexual as well. And like fish is a term that's like slang that gets used among trans people sometimes as well.

And I just thought it was like a, I liked it as an idea, like, as a representation for queerness as well. Because there's also a lot of like interesting stuff happening in the ocean, like sea horses. Yeah. The males get pregnant. That's cool. I like that. You know, I think the ocean, there's a lot of things in there that. reveal to us that the world is not very clear cut, right?

Like these ideas of like gender and biology and stuff are not just like male and female and the genitals happen this way and the mind happens this way. It's like there's a lot of different stuff that happens down there and also within human beings, but I think human beings find it harder to accept a difference among themselves sometimes, you know what I mean?

Yeah, so I thought, you know, the fish metaphor, an analogy. Let's get into your dream. The dream menu. We'll start with still a sparkling water. I was talking to my partner about this. I was like, in the dream restaurant, can it be both like high end and low brow? You know, like what kind of experience I'm going to go for? And I think I'm going to go for both.

And in this, but on this course, it's high brow, so it's going to be sparkling. So you see the sparkling is the fancy. I think so. It's like when you go to like a fine dining restaurant, like, I mean, they offer you both, but you go for sparkling. You've got to go for sparkling. You got to do it. think. Even if you don't like it. I think it's, that's just, you got to get the full experience. Yeah. Oh, you think that's immediately, you're like on the train to like highfalut in.

Yeah. On the train to highfalut? If you're paying, if you're paying that much money, you're getting the sparkling water. And I don't know, this is something I don't know about these restaurants is like, how do they source the sparkling? Are they doing it themselves? Are they get in just like a sand pellarino? Are they like, what is it? I don't. I don't, know, but I have to assume that it's like the good stuff, whatever the good, it's like the best carbonated water, you know? Because they're not bringing out San Pellegrino at that place, they're bringing out a plain bottle. Unmarked bottle. No, exactly. That is sparkling. Yeah. And I've never actually thought about that. No. I've like, where's that? Yeah. What have you decanted into

there? Yeah. What have you made it yourself? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But usually those places, they'll describe every course in detail. You'd think while they were pouring the water, they'd be like, and we made this ourselves? I know. Well, maybe that's the thing. It's like maybe the lack of mention means it's actually quite cheaply sourced. Would that disappoint you if you sort of the door to the kitchen swung open, you saw it was like the cheapest sparkling water available? It would.

Yeah. Yeah. I'd feel like annoyed at myself as well that I'd been convinced by the surroundings that everything was fancy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There was a TV show like ages ago that Pennintella did. So Benito will know about this.

Yeah, yeah. Called bullshit. Do you remember Benito? It's called Bullshit. Okay. And one episode, they opened a fake restaurant that was like fancy fine dining restaurant. But in the kitchen, they were just making everything with like cheese whiz and cheap things from the supermarket. Going out, explaining to the customers how fancy it was and how they're made.

And the customers were like, oh, yes, this is incredible. And they're obviously filming with secret cameras being like, these people are more. And I think about that a lot. Whenever I've gone to a fancy restaurant and I'm eating, and they've explained how great it is to me. I might be on Pennantella's bullshit. And I've got to not. They might have recommissioned Penantella's bullshit

and said only if you make it episode for episode the same as the first time you made bullshit. And I'm here eating cheese with on a ritz cracker. Your ego is wild sometimes. Huh? You're just out in public going, they might be filming. Truman Show.

Yeah. Truman Show and bullshit. I think I might be. I'm both at the same time. Yeah. Like this is like, I'm on the Dreamer show. It's a show within the Truman show. Yeah.

Yeah. They've done, yeah. They've done a hidden camera. How many shows it are in the Truman show, do you reckon? Yeah, good. Well, because it's supposed to be like a sort of squeaky clean 1950s style America really, isn't it? It's like the idyllic American dream.

So like how many channels do you have? So it's probably not many channels. Yeah. Yeah. Like, how much extra TV were they making for this one man? If maybe he hadn't got out, maybe they would have done a Truman show within the Truman show. Yeah.

So he was like watching someone else have the Truman show done to them. Jesus Christ. That's crazy. That's a good sequel. That's good sequel. It might have been a good way to convince him that he wasn't in the Truman show. What about a Truman show sequel? It's kind of like Squid Game.

Have you guys seen Squid Game? Yes. You know how he goes back to the Squid Game. What if there was a sequel to the Truman show where he made another Truman show? He was the director. He did the Truman show. But then when he's the director up in the movie show, he finds out they're making a Truman show of him.

Or... You're going to have to delete this, Benito. Yeah, Benito, they're going to try and get this from us. Oh, my God. They're going to try and get this from us, Hollywood. They would be good. I mean, he would at least be... Even if they weren't making a Truman show of him,

surely he's always going to be paranoid. So surely when he escapes the Truman show, it's a happy end in that film. But surely, the rest of his life, he's like... I actually don't see it as a happy ending. How do I know this isn't... What, you don't see it as a happy ending? No, I find it really depressing.

He's just like looking at the door. Yeah. You're like, what's his life going to be like now? Yeah. Yeah, well, I guess I didn't think of it like. Yeah. Does he get like a pension for the rest of his life or something? Like some sort of compensated.

Like, does he put up for the rest of his life? Surely, because he doesn't have a real job. I mean, he's writing a book. He's writing a book though, isn't he? Yeah. Oh, yeah. No, totally. That book is.

He's an influencer now. That's a best seller. Yeah. You're right. He's just doing the talk shows for the rest of his life, the circuit. Yeah, yeah, he's got to be talking. But he'd always be thinking I'm still in it. He'd always, he'd hate it.

He'd be thinking, how do I know this is real life? Yeah, exactly. He could remake Dumb and Dumber. What? Because he looks exactly like, he comes out and sees Dumber Dubber and goes, hey, I could be Lloyd Christmas. Yeah, yeah.

Reback all those films. Yeah, yeah. Smokke. The mask. The mask. Yeah, yeah. But what if he was a bad actor? That would be gutting.

Yeah. to be a bad actor. Yeah. Do people say smoking in Australia? Australia? I'm not, no, I've probably heard it once or twice. But it's not common. Yeah.

It's a shame. Pop-lums or bread! Potoms or bread, Monta-ain! Pop-lums or bread! What do you say? Pop-a-doms or bread. Yeah, this is funny. I was talking with my partner.

I was doing my homework with my partner. I was floating all this sim. It's good. We like to say that. And we were saying, like, this is not a question you would ask you in Australia. Or here. To be fair. Yeah, okay, I see. Only on the podcast. Oh, only in the podcast.

Oh, I see. I thought maybe because Indian food is quite common here, that it was, that was a good, like, British thing. Yeah, definitely like, Popadom is very popular here, but you wouldn't ever ask a question, Popatoms or bread. Yeah. For me, bread. For me, bread, I eat popatums very rarely. I like them when I have them, but like, when I go to India, I don't get them every time. It's a sometimes thing for me. And but bread is, as a vegan, especially, and all the time thing. Oh, yeah. Yeah. What sort of bread are you eating all the time? And then what's your dream bread for the dream restaurant?

Sort of bread I mean all the time is a sourdough. Australia's got, we've got access to quite good just like supermarket sourdough. Yeah. It's quite quite good at a brain called Sonoma. I don't know if you've heard about this, but it's like quite good stuff. It's not like the best at the supermarket, but it's amazing when you get at like the market or something. It's really good. But anyway, I'll get that a bunch because I do a lot of like heavy toasts.

You know, like quite liquid heavy toasts. toast and then you pop it on and like just the simple white bread is not going to carry all that. Talk me through the concept of a heavy toast. So like, uh... Liquid heavy toast. Liquid heavy toast. I'll do like... Never call an album that.

Disgusting, tight. Hey, you can call an album anything and I stand by that. You can come up with an analogy for liquid heavy toast, I reckon. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, the more we say it, the more I would buy an album with liquid heavy toast. Yeah, yeah.

Like, I make a lot of like bean type things that are plop onto toast. So like, uh, You know, like kind of a baked beans kind of situation, but there'll be cherry tomatoes in there, maybe some kale. And then on top will be like some pickled red onions and like a lot of herbs and like some lemon juice, salt pepper, chili flakes. And maybe like some avocado or hummus or garlic sauce or something on the toast. Sounds good. All of that on the toast is very heavy. Yeah, it is very heavy toast.

Yeah, yeah. I don't put it on the side. I put it on the toast and then you just try to fit all in. And this is a thick slice of toast. Well, relative, you can, because I'm slicing it myself at home, like, it's got the loaf. So sometimes it's thinish. But sourdough, you can never get it that thin, you know? Sure.

Have you ever tried, like, a really thin slice of sourdough? Well, because obviously, it has holes in it as well, right? So if you get a holey bit and then you try to cut it thin, there's no bread. No, exactly. Yeah. Right, I had some, well, what was it? Last week, went to a restaurant, and their bread was they had crossed, cross-pollinated, sourdough and a croissant.

So it was like the outside was crispy, like, sourdough, but the inside was this like, crasson kind of thing. So there wasn't any holes, but it was like very fluffy and stuff on the inside, and that was. That sounds good. That's interesting.

Can I shout out where that was? Yeah, I can't remember what it was called. It was in Valencia. Oh, in Spain. Oh, lovely. Shout out to all my Spanish. Yeah. Huge, huge ups to Spain.

Yeah. Yeah. But Benito is trying to Google it now and see where. Yeah. He's been quite good at this. I could have just looked at my phone and been like, oh, it was called this because it'd be in my calendar. Yeah.

Because we reserved. But I've left it in the other room. Yeah. So I'm trying to do that more now. Yeah. But then you realize there's never any time in your life you don't need your phone. And I should have, I'm just going to have to surrender myself to it forever. Yeah.

It's tough, isn't it? Yeah. That'd be that. It sucks. I hate it. You know, if Ben can figure it out, we'll be quite impressed with him. I think the name Ricardo was in there somewhere. Ricardo.

Well, I'm guessing. You sure that wasn't the name of the waiter? Could have been the waiter. I've gone with the waiter quite a lot. Bar-Vicardo. Could have been. Wasn't a bar? I do think they should list the waiter's names

on the websites of restaurants with a little picture like a cast for a play. Yeah. That would be good. You can look forward to seeing them on your way. Yes, it's true. No all the big names. Yeah.

Can go in. Ricardo's not going to be here today. Fuck's sake. It's the reason we came. Yeah. Oh, man. Do you have a favorite waiter you've ever had? That's a good question.

Anybody who sticks in the head? Favorite waiter? I had a pretty good one last night. I went to just like a ramen place in Bristol, and the guy was, he was really friendly. It was just really nice, a lot of energy and good service. You know, one of us went to the bathroom right at the beginning, and he sort of came up and he was like, does anyone have allergies?

And we were like, oh, we don't, but we don't know if the other guy is. And he's like, I'll ask what he comes back. And then he came back and he asked him remembered and did his job. due diligence. And I was like, that's good waiting. That's good weight staffing. I thought you were going to say you went in after. To the bathroom, followed a bit. We know about the other guy, well. Anyone have any allergies in here? Yeah. You're in the cubicle. Your friends say, I don't know you're well enough.

Smells like you got allergies, buddy. If you don't mind you saying. My wife is allergic to pineapple. Oh, yeah. So whenever we go to a restaurant and they say, does anyone have any allergies, she always says I'm allergic to pineapple. And I'd say every other time, the wait would be like, okay. well, that'll be all right. We don't have pineapple.

She's like, yeah, but I don't know you don't have pineapple. No, exactly, yeah. If I don't say it, then it's going to come up. The pineapple comes out, and they're like, well, why didn't you say? Because most of the time, people roll their eyes and say, yeah, exactly. We go, right, SpongeBob. That's it.

SpongeBob's not allergic to pineapple. I know. Last person you want to be allergic to pineapple. The absolute idiot. If he's allergic to pineapple, Spanob. Built his house out of pineapple, fucking, is. Yeah, especially under the sea. Yeah.

Could have avoided it. Do you want your liquid-heavy toast, like, as your bread course? Do you want it to be with all the stuff you usually put on it? No, well, again, at like a, if it was a fine dining place, I would just want the really good foccccci with the salt, the sea salt, and the oil and maybe the balsamic vinegar. I think that's the best. I think that's the best part of the fine dining.

Yeah, yeah. It's the fresh, warm, made bread. Like, that's really good. Yeah. Well, yeah, we'll absolutely hook you up with that. But I'm a bit sad to see the liquid heavy toast go. I do. Well, I can have that at home.

I'll have that at home, you know. I mean, yeah, I guess for the dream restaurant menu, it is sad. Yeah. But we'll always remember it in our hearts, you know, at home. Maybe another guest will pick it. We've had guests pick things that they've heard other guests say that they've not had before. Oh, interesting. So maybe there'll be a guest in the future who will have listened to their same guy.

Yeah. That might happen. Yeah. It's out there in the world now. Yeah, yeah. Your dream starter, your menu proper. No, I love vegetables. I really love vegetables.

Like a really well-done vegetable is like the best thing ever, I think. So I think for me, my like starter, and again, this is like kind of a lot of, a lot of my menu is in the fine dining sort of realm, it seems. But like leak, like a really nice leak, a really nice fennel and a really nice saliria. Just like a threifer of those, like just done really well with like a little sauce and a ju, I reckon. Fennel, I've had, how do they do it? Like a roasted fennel, that's good. And then the celeriac, sometimes they do celeriac like it's a cabab kind of thing. Have you ever seen that?

Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of pure as well. Yeah, a lot of purest. Oh, yeah, that's purest. Pureite to fuck. Yeah. That poor guy, the celeriac must be like, fucking hell.

Yeah. How did we get here? I'm going, V-V-V-Zar again. Yeah, every night. That is to me lovely. You're like the kebab version. Yeah.

Just really freshly done nice vegetables with the ju. Yeah. I think that's... How are the leaks being done? The leaks, I never know with leaks, really. Just like whatever's the tastiest. And the most lemony. I like it when a leak is lemony.

Okay. How do you feel about it being charred to fuck? Oh, yeah. I like that. A leak charred. very well. I leak that. I leak that.

I like that. Didn't even mean to say it? No. I'll leak it a lot. I'll leak it. There he is again. I'll link it. That's true.

That's true. But it is. It's playing Lloyd Christmas. No, Truman, listen. We said, you've got to say, I like it a lot. I leak it a lot. I leak it a lot. You're fine, Truman.

You're so bad at this. You're the worst out to whatever. You're exactly like him, but this is not. You can't keep saying, I like it. get a lot. These are three things that I think we haven't had shouted out in the podcast very often. No, true.

They don't get shouted out. People generally, I find myself often the odd one out in any situation where we're talking about eating because not many people love vegetables. It's not a comment. It's not comment. I really like, I love them. And I love them more than like,

when I have a vegan burger, for example, I always want there to be like more lettuce on it. I have a thing, do you know, do you guys know subway takes? Yeah, I love subway takes so much. I hope. Oh, fucking hell. You have no idea how you just tapped into something that is currently my entire world. So I've left my phone in the other room.

All I'm doing is watching subway takes all the fucking time, man. It's so funny. Have you seen Nish's impression of the subway takes? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nish just puts on, I've heard Nish's puts on shades and pretends to be subway takes. He looks a bit like him. Yeah, it's a bit like him. But it's funny.

He puts on the shades and says I'm subway takes. Yeah, that's all you have to do. So your subway take is to do with... My subway take would be, I think that all burgers... Everyone I said this to, disagrees with... All burgers should come with a pile of shredded lettuce on the side, just like extra lettuce, so that when you're eating your burger, if you want to top up, you can.

And also, because often the burger will, like, leak some sauce on the plate, you can just, like, mop it up with the lettuce, and you can just have a nice... 100% disagree. Yeah. That's what so many people can say to you. I think this is a good idea. Partly for people like me who are really into lettuce, I love lettuce.

I think it's really good. Yeah, plain is fine, but with a sauce, it's just the best, I think. Like, I got lettuce on a taco and you get all the sauce and it's the best. But, yeah, I always want more lettuce on a burger than there ever is. And then I feel like, I don't know what the rate of going through lettuce is at restaurants, but because it is just like a, I don't know, I feel like you can get a lot of it out of a single head of lettuce, right?

If you're shredding it thin as well. Precisely. Surely they have so much left over and that does not stay fresh for like, you know, more than 12, 24 hours or whatever. Shortly, like I can't imagine a good restaurant is using the same lettuce as yesterday's lettuce. You know, so you've got to get rid of the lettuce.

So like, why not, instead of wasting it, just put a little extra out on the whole plate for everyone, you know? Yeah. Oh, I think most restaurants may as well shred that letter straight in the bin. It's no one's getting it. No, they're using it as a garnish or something like that. But they're doing so much chopping it up. Yeah.

When I worked in little, you know, just pubs and stuff in the kitchen, I was chopping lettuce most of the day. And then I would just watch it 10 minutes later come back through the door, be put in the bin before it goes in the pot, but the plate goes in the pot wash. You know, what is the point in my job? Yeah. Like, so definitely I think if you are a fan of lettuce,

You should be able to say at the start of the meal Just so you know I love letters so much that I would request that instead of scraping into a bin you put on my plate Maybe that's the modification, maybe that's my take It should be socially acceptable and free to ask for extra lettuce At the beginning of your bedroom meal

Yeah For every course we can happily bring you an extra bowl of lettuce Because we've got loads back here Yeah, you got loads I'm excited How do you feel about a grilled lettuce Have you had that before? Grilled baby gem lettuce

Oh, you know what? I think I've had that and I think it was okay. Yeah? Yeah. But does that ruin something about the lettuce for you? Do you like the fresh?

No, no. I like it all. I like it down all of the ways. Nice. Yeah, except for soggy. Soggy's gross. Soggy's nasty. What about with a burger

when the bun is lettuce? When they do that? Oh, no, I think that's stupid. Really? Yeah. I thought that'd be so strict. You need, no, you have to have bread. You've got to have the bun.

Oh, okay. I'm a bun guy as well. Yeah, okay. There's got to be bun too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think.

Every time I see it on a menu, I'm like, I know this is for someone who's got some sort of dietary thing, but it is not for me. Okay. It's not for me. Oh, man, I thought it's going to be so good street. No, no, no. No, no. No, just in the burger's fine or on the side. Fair enough.

Yeah. You fucked up, man. Fiked up big time. You don't even know me. Your dream main course. I struggle with this and I actually don't know if I can, like, pick the definitive one. Like that's really hard for me, I think, because it just, it really just does depend on the day, right? Like, for me.

But what I've gone with is something I make at home quite a lot, actually, which I think is just the most delicious thing. And I love having it. And my partner as well, who isn't vegan, but what just eats vegan with me at home is, like, his favorite thing. And he loves it. And it's a lentil bolognese. Just, it's really good. There's this one recipe that I found on Pinterest. that like he put like a cup of red wine, maybe two cups of red wine in there.

Just like really nice. Is it brown lentils? I actually can't even remember if it's just like you're brown or if it's your red. I don't think it's red. It's almost certainly brown lentils. I don't know. It's just really tasty. It's like really rich.

It makes up, I think it's honestly better than like a regular like beef bolognese or mince bolognese or whatever. Yeah, I do think so. And it's less, like, you can eat a lot of it and you don't feel gross in your tummy. Yeah. Which is really nice. But I can eat so much of it. It's so delicious and it's so cheap.

Just make it at home and it's the best. Is it just, it can't just be brown lentils and red wine. No, there's other stuff in there. This is onion? There's a tomato. Actually, is there even onion? There must be onion. I think there's onion.

I think there's onion. Onion garlic. garlic. There's got to be tomato. Yeah, dash tomatoes or crushed tomatoes or whatever it is. And, you know, you put like whatever you want, parsley on there or basil or whatever you like. What, do you spaghetti? spaghetti. Yeah. Or you can do a fettuccini as well if you want. No one's going to stop you? No, no one's going to stop you. Although I always, I rarely cook with fettuccini because I find it always sticks together and I don't know what the solve for that is. There's probably a solve. There's probably someone on YouTube. He's like, here's how to do your fettuccini without sticking. A lot of people say olive oil in the water. Oh, interesting. I was about to say, I bet Ed knows the soul.

You're right. I thought everyone knew olive oil in the water. No, no, everyone knows. Stop the pasta sticking together. Ed, you think that everyone knows your little life hacks, but they don't. You got to... It feels like a 90s thing, olive oil in the water. It's not a 90s.

It's a 90s. It's a lot of money. The 90s of us are watching friends. Yeah. In the 90s. I was busy getting born. Yeah, busy getting born. That one's screaming at you as soon as you were born.

Olive oil in the water! Yeah, when I played that on a tape recorder while I was in the womb, just so I'd know, make sure it was internalised from the get-go. You actually had Fetuccini one, right? Obviously not good enough because I didn't remember. Yeah. Yeah, that's a shame. But Ed's mum, made it very clear.

Olive all in the water and then throw it against the wall to see if it's... Would she do that? No, I don't. No, she wouldn't do that. I would do that because I think I read about that and I just wanted to throw stuff at the wall. Yeah. You throwing it like against just a normal wall or, like, on the scene or sometimes? A white car.

clean. Not the whole, sorry, don't have the whole portion. Do you know we're aware, we're aware of taking one strand and throwing it at the wall and if it sticks,

it's cooked, right? No, I'm not aware of that? No. That's another 90s thing, sorry. You're not throwing, you're not throwing the whole portion of spaghetti against the wall and then scraping it back into the boat.

That's what I thought you were doing it. I was scared, honestly. I'm already, I started the podcast, scared and continue to be scared. Yeah, yeah. And he thought he was the scary one. No, you take one strand and throw it

against the wall. I mean, I don't do it anymore, but it was fun when I was a kid. Yeah, right. On the ceiling and just leave it there. That would be fun. For the ceiling? Yeah, for a laugh.

Crazy kid. Oh, cheeky. Ever get stuck? Ever get stuck up there? Yeah. Can you reach it? No, just wait for it to sort of peel itself off throughout today. Hope it drops on my mum's head.

And I'm in the corner, giggling. One of my favourite things is just Ed as a little kid hanging out with his mum. I find very funny. I can't really, like, describe why. but every time is his head hanging up with his mum and just the idea of him

waiting for the fet she needed to drop in his his mum's head at some point is funny I like that that's that's your relationship I was a prankster

oh yeah yeah I put itching powder in my mum's bedlands oh my god got it free with the Bino I was gonna say it's so Dennis the medicine he's got to be involved

somehow yeah I think she went out and there was a babysitter and I put itching powder in the bed and then the next morning my mum was like

I could barely sleep lost and I was so itchy it was like yeah it's a powder I'll do that, Mum. She was not happy. She did not think it was a laugh. Oh, my good.

I mean, I don't want to, like, you know, be one of those people. But you wouldn't get away with that now. You couldn't give away your itching powder in the beano. Surely. What do you mean? Itching powder's been cancelled. Surely, surely, surely comics aren't allowed to, like, just give away stuff that, like, a bag of itching powder to kids now that they can use on people.

Did you get your bag from a comic? Yeah, from the Bino. Oh, what's the Bino? I don't know about the Bino's. The Bino is like a, like a kid's comic that's been around for like decades. Yeah, right. And all of these sort of...

Legendary. No, so the Bino's the name of the publication and then there's like Dennis the Menace. Oh, you're saying comics like... Okay, so not a comedian. Like comedians. Yeah, I'm not a comedian. You thought Bino was a stand-up comedian.

It was really weird, actually. When I was a kid, this kid, this guy came around He was like, I'm a comic called Beano. I'm some itching powder. Stick it in your mum's bed. Thanks, Bino. Thank you, Bino. Bino's so funny.

Any other kids live around here? I've got more itching powder than I know what to do with. There's a comic book. Dennis the Menace is like the main character. I see. He's like a kid. Yeah, no. I'm aware of Dennis the Menace.

His age. That's the Bino. Okay. But that's what Dennis the Menace looks like in England. So he's from the Bino. In other country. who's Dennis the Minutes as like a blonde little kid. But like, yeah, black spiky hair and a stripy red and black jumper.

And a dog called Nasha. And knobbly knees and a dog called Nasha. Guess he's been in the Beano more recently. The Beano's still going. Yeah. Still going. Guess who's been in it? Us.

Really? Yeah. That's really cool. Probably the highlight of my career. Wow. Yeah. Like as little characters? Yeah.

Just in the sort of foreground of the first panel of a mini the Minks cartoon. in a restaurant. Oh, that's cool. Oh, that's awesome. It's been giving a cheese board and I'm angry about it. Yeah. Oh, damn. We're very, very happy about that.

Yeah. Very exciting. So, Fetuccini or spaghetti with your lentil bolognese. Yeah. How are we feeling about vegan cheese, vegan parmesan situations? There's actually some good ones nowadays. They're hard to, like, find. You can't really get them a supermarket.

But there's ones that are like, well, they're not the same as the sort of like shaved parmesan. Like, you can't get the shave stuff, which that's the, stuff, but like stuff that's just like a kind of graded one that they're doing a pretty good job with that nowadays. So would you add that to your? Yeah, I would, I would, I would add that. Yeah, definitely. And for your dream meal, do you want to make it? This is made by you. No, someone else has to make it. But someone has to use this recipe. Who would you like? Anyone in the world can make it. Oh, no. Bino? My partner. But he has to get better at cooking. Oh, yeah.

Well, this is the dream restaurant. This is the thing is that my partner cooks for me more. No, it's not probably a problem. If I say Hicking and Cookie cooks. Yeah. But like he... He's not good. He's not... He's not...

He's not... He's not... He, like, when we were not together and he was living alone, he would just like... He would just do packet soup or noodles or whatever. He does not cook for even himself. Yeah. He's not one of those people. He doesn't enjoy it.

It doesn't look forward to it. So I do most of the cooking. I do enjoy it. Sometimes I'm like, oh, I can't be bothered. And we just order takeaway. We actually, we order a lot of takeaway. What? What should go to?

Takeaway? Is that a place in Melbourne? I'm pretty fresh to Melbourne, so it's like, we're still developing the repertoire. But if I lived closer to it, I would probably order from, I don't know, like veggie bar a bit more. It's like this place in Fitzroy in Melbourne that's like a vegan vegetarian, mostly vegan. They have just like a range of different stuff. Like they've got a burrito and they've got pizzas and they've got like some Asian dishes, like a pad Thai or like they just do a range but it's all vegan. It's pretty good.

It's big portions. Nice. Yeah. It's back when I, so long since I've been to Melbourne, but when I was there, really the main option for vegans that everyone was talking about was Lord of the Fry's and that was it.

Yeah, right. It's not as big anymore. No. It's sort of, it's still around, but like... That name grosses me out, though. Lord of the Frights. Yeah, crazy, crazy thing to name yourself after.

It's a pun on flies. Yeah, it's a punerable to. And on children who kill each other. Sure. But it's mainly the flies thing that puts me off. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that book is like, that's just like, light reading in Australia.

Yeah, that's right. That's not everyday life. That's every school experience. Good on them, good on the kids. Yeah, exactly. Is that your Australian accent? No, it wasn't, but like, good on those kids. Well done for killing each other on the island.

Good on you. We've been testing a lot of Australian accents on the tour bus because we got some Scots, we've got a couple of Icelandic fellows. We've got ranged. I'm the only Australian. and they're really bad. I think the only person who's good at it is

one's got. And occasionally he'll say something. I'm like, oh, that's quite good, but not full sentences. Just one word. They're really struggling. Yeah, I think. Everyone thinks they can do a good Australian accent. Yeah, I think so too.

Yeah. To their face. Yeah. And then you're like, oh, it's not... No, it's a... I think it's quite hard, actually. Yeah. I think it's just very...

It's not very intuitive, you know? I almost find, like a classic... Californian accent. It's like, I think it's quite easy because, well, maybe I'll do it, it'll be fucking shit. But like, because you just like, you like roll your R's, like you just like stay in this kind of like rounded place and stuff and like. That is quite good. Yeah, yeah. But because Australia it's like, trying to think of any word that like is hard to say. Like, I guess it's just anything that's like, ah, like hard or like, or the Brit.

You guys have the R a little bit. Ah. Oh, you're a. Ah. Are you a? That was my Australian. Oh, that was yours. Had.

Yeah, sort of. Sort of. Maybe, yeah. You can be honest with bad that that was a fanative. It wasn't good. No, thank you. It was a good. Thank you.

Yeah. Your dream side dish. Yeah, side dish is hard. I think, because I think it would just be like more vegetables, really. Yeah. It would just be like, I recently had, There's a place in Melbourne called Smith and Daughters, which is amazing. I've got the cookbook, actually.

It's really good. Yeah, really good cookbook. Yeah. They're, amazing. I still get surprised by him. All these episodes in. He's just, a guest mentions a restaurant where they're from. Yeah, well, and he just, he's got the cookbook.

Yeah, there you go. Well, they're, they're, like, serious business. Like, the vegan food they do, it is, like, kind of fine dining-y. They also have a deli that's, like, just sandwiches. Again, all vegans. It's so delicious. It's so good. But they have this, like, fine dining-y restaurant.

And I recently went there and had this, like, roasted carrots, like blackened carrots thing. Just had the most delicious sauce on it. I wish I could remember what any of the other ingredients were on it. I think maybe hazelnuts might have been in the mix or something like that. But fuck, it tasted so good. Like, I couldn't believe it. And I was so upset. I had to share them with the other two people at the table.

I was like, I want to eat all of this. I was like, that guy, I think you should leave. And he's like, I'm going to eat the whole thing. I wanted to be that guy. When he houses his birth? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So you're going to kill the president? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I was going to... I almost turned into that, yeah. In that moment, I was like, these carrots are so delicious. Yeah, yeah, precisely. Yeah. But no, I thought I'll be civil. I'll be civil. I don't want to alienate these people

that I've been releasing my album with. Sure. I don't know if they know me that well. You could order a bit more, though. You know, that is so true. I really could have. And I didn't. And I don't know why I didn't.

That's the move to be like, more carrots. Fuck, what I. This is classic Ed Gamble life hack because definitely... Ordering more? Yes. Because so few people would do that. But in the early days, I think Ed did not like it if it had to share. Yeah.

And the thing was particularly good. Yeah, yeah. We'd be keeping tabs in his head how many carrots everyone's had. But now it's just like, just orders more. But you do that as well as much. Well, I see that as an ACaster move. Oh, interesting. To be like, we should get more of this, or for the table.

For the table. That's really nice. Yeah, it just never occurred to me. I don't know why. I'm like, that happened. It's done now. Forever. Forever.

I can never go back. Never go back. Always forward like a fish. Exactly. Well, no, I think the other consideration for me is actually, I have quite tiny stomach is the other thing. Right. Is like, I really have to meet out my, I have to pick and choose how much of any given

thing I'm going to have because I'm like, well, the next course is coming, and I don't know how big that's going to be. And like, if I like that, I'm going to, you know, that's, that that is the thing that I juggle sometimes. But I do think, like, vegetables very, they don't take up much space. So I definitely could order more of the carrots. Yeah, most of them are all right. There's some vegetables are going to be, a marrow, for example. Morrow. That's going to take up a lot of, the whole marrow. Yeah, if you eat a marrow. Yeah, right. I don't know if we get those in Australia. You have a marrow in Australia. It feels very British, though, the marrow. A marrow, yes.

Is there another word for it? Look it up, Benito. There you go. That's a marrow. We're showing you right now. For the listener, Benito is showing Jess a picture of a marrow. We don't get this. We just get the zucchini.

We just get the zucchini. Which marrow pitch of quixettes? They're like more, it says there that the zucchini slash the cuirgette is like an immature version of the marrow. So immature. Yeah. Put itching powder in its mum's bed. Yes. Got for a peanut.

Now I'm a marrow, of course. I would never do that. That was a little zucchini. You were doing that quite frequently. I've just got marrows in my head because my partner and I stayed in a hotel and there was only one channel on the TV. We basically booked in it

and a nice hotel looking forward to him. We got there and the receptionist said, welcome to the hotel. It's flooded. And we're like, oh, okay. We couldn't get hold of you. So we just booked. you into another hotel down the street. Oh, whoa.

And they went, it's just fair warning. It's not like this hotel. Okay, went down the street. Yeah, this isn't very nice. We're looking forward to that nice hotel. This isn't a nice one. I guess there's going to be a few emails after this. They're trying to sort out.

Did they give you your money back? Yeah, yeah. It's so crazy that they booked for you instead of just being like, hey, well, when you get here, we'll let you know, like, you have options. Whoa. Yeah, it's just so funny. Because we got there quite late. It was like 10 in the evening when we got there.

And they were like, we couldn't, yeah, contact you. We were thinking, sure, we haven't we booked this. Put contact details into all the books. Yeah, I'm sure. You could have, but whatever. Got in this other place, fucking dump. And then send us up to our room. TV's got one channel.

Never seen that before. Like everything else was coming up. What was the channel? What was this? Was this in Valencia, by the way? No, this is in Glasgow. the way to somewhere else. We had one night there.

We're going to the Isle of Mull, which is a little island off of Scotland. So we had to break up the trip. Go to Glasgow. Go to this other place. Go to the room. One channel is Dave. Which you won't know Dave.

It's called you and Dave now, which is, but like basically repeats of stuff. Right. Mainly that you're in. Yeah. So we turned up, turned it on. Me and Ed, actually. I turned it on.

It's a mock the week compilation from years ago, from like 2014, 2015. So like 10 years ago. Yeah. So turn it on in. It's a compilation as well. So it's like loads of different clips of all that us and our friends when we were just starting to be on TV.

So we're shit. Right. Absolutely. I would have liked it. Shit. We're so unfunny and our hair looks nuts. That was the main thing I took from it. I was like, whoa.

Yeah. We were, we or will, did not know what to do with our hair. Yeah, no. You don't, you don't when you're, I mean, how are the, how are you? 40. Yeah. I mean, when you're at that age, like, you don't, you don't.

My head's the same as it was then. No, it's not. Is it? Go and watch it, Ed. You think it's the same. Did I have the fade, the proper fade, in it? Yeah, but also it's just like, it's like, it's like an AI version of us now.

Yeah. Because it's like someone's putting, and so that AI can't quite do our hair right. So it's like, that's kind of Ed's hair, but not really. It's not right. Yeah. It doesn't work.

Yeah. So it's really weird watching it and seeing all of our hair. Mm. Apart from Hugh, who looks the same as an old man who's on it. But, like, but yeah, I turned it on it. It was us. And there's a picture of the week they always do. It's really weird, having explained walks a week to someone who's not seen it.

It's a really weird show, actually. And they go, it's a picture of the news this week. And what's happening in this picture? And they put it up, and it was Jeremy Corbyn, who at the time was leader of the opposition to the Labour Party. And he's holding a massive marrow. And that was the picture we had to be funny about. So I've got marrows in my head now, and that's why I bought up a marrow. That's a long way of saying.

Yes. That's why I said marrow earlier. The marrow feels like a very British vegetable because I imagine they have like marrow growing competitions in small villages and stuff, at village fates. Yeah. Which old lady can grow the biggest marrow.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of that. It's a wonderful country. Yeah. Yeah, we're very proud of it. I feel of that. I'm getting that sense. But these carrots sound nicer.

Yeah. Yeah, they're pretty fucking good, honestly. Yeah, what else is on the carrots? Oh, yeah. Oh, my God, yes. Black carrot, herb yogurt. Aleppo pine nut butter, not hazelnuts, crispy shallots.

I think that was, that was it. That is great. That sounds so good. A vegan yogurt, a vegan pine nut butter. Oh, yeah. It was wonderful, yeah. That sounds great. I've got to get back into that cookbook.

Yeah. Much if they're in there. They're very new menu. But there'll probably be something else to do with carrots. Yeah, there might be a carrot in there. You hope so. We'll find another way we're doing a carrot. Yeah.

For the carrots at the wall, see if they stick. Yeah. Now we come to the moment. most excited about. Dream drink. Did you drink? Did you drink? Shout out, Darede to drink if you're listening?

Did you drink? My dream drink's like pretty basic, I think. It's just a Bloody Mary. I love Bloody Mary. I love tomato. Honestly, like close second tomato juice. Yeah. I love tomato anything.

I think Bloody Mary and this lentil bolognese, I hope you're tucking a napkin in. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And don't wear white. Oh, yeah. No, no. You're not like one of those statues that got pushing the drink.

You'd be happy to be pushed in the drink, quite frankly. Have a bloody wash. No, exactly. No, I, yeah, honestly, countless times I've gotten some of that little Bolognais on the couch. The couch is just, it's not in a good way. And it's not a good way because I do get the stain remover out, I'll put it on. And we got a new couch because it's like a sofa bed couch so we can have people stay on it. And for some reason, this couch, like you put the stain remover on,

and then the stain remover patch leaves a mark. Yeah, yeah. Like, it gets out the shit that it was meant to get out, but then, like, the wet mark is there still. That's the trade-off. What the fuck? It lets people know that... It looks clean, but that was a stain.

Yeah. It's fucked up. I hate it. Guess what you're sleeping on. Yeah, yeah, literally. I saw a tweet the other day that's really stuck in my head. I mean, I'm not on Twitter anymore, but just people post things on Instagram.

Yeah, screenshots. Yeah. And it was, it seems to have done. really well. They've got like thousands of retweets. It was a very old headshot of Tom Hardy when he was really young. And someone had said, I bet when he was a kid, he went crazy on that spaghetti.

And someone went, what do you mean? He went, it just looks like a messy spaghetti kid. If you look at the picture, he really does look like, because he's so clean and clean cut and wearing a white t-shirt, it really looks like he's a messy spaghetti kid. It's tempting, tempting it. He used to eat loads of spaghetti. Yeah, so it's really in my head and I don't know why.

Bloody Mary is an excellent choice. Spicy? You have any spicy? I do. I love spice and it kills me every time. So funny. Like it's like I eat a lot of barn me as well. Honestly,

ban me close second as well as on the dream menu. Eat a lot of it. I get chili every single time because I just don't think it's the same without the chili. But every single time I'm like snot down here, tears, like everything. And my partner is like, why do you do it to yourself? I'm like, I have to.

It's a high. Completely. But like, it is. When you have it without, it is like, this is boring. Yeah, it's like, what's the point? Yeah. What's the point? Do you need that?

Yeah. And especially, like, especially if they don't put enough vegetables in. Of course. You got to have enough cucumber, enough herbs, enough of the, what is it, is it diacon? The pickled diacon or something? They put that in, the carrot. Love all that stuff. That, to me, is the best part of the barmeet is the vegetables.

Of course. Yeah. And then, like, obviously, you need, well, honestly, I've had a lot of salad barmeas and they're good on their own. I think. Even without a protein. I'm happy with that. Yeah, plenty of chili.

Yeah, you've got to have chili. Yeah. And where's the best place you've had a Bloody Mary? On one tour that I went on, a particularly long tour, it was part of it to just keep it interesting was, can we find the best Bloody Mary? Yeah. And where to get it, which is eventually in a hotel in Birmingham

that I've forgotten the name of, so that was a waste of time. But like, it was really nice. But like, where have you found the best one? And what is the cruxed? criteria for you of a good bloody Mary. I actually did have a really good one recently, but I also can't remember where it was. Oh, man.

I think for me, yeah, a lot of tomato juice, like heavy on the tomato juice. I think, because vegan ones are different as well. It's like you don't have this like wastiscious sauce or something. Like, I don't know what they put in instead, generally. I'm not sure. I think maybe they just skipped that and then put maybe like some olive brine and some other stuff in and stuff like that.

You don't go heavy on the accoutremon? I like a celery. I like a big sticker celery. People fuck around with Bloody Mary's too much, though. Yeah, I think sometimes they do. I think, because it's already so powerfully flavoured. That's why I like the celery, because it's a nice clean, palate cleanser type thing.

It works. It's a classic. Exactly. But anything else, like a little... People put bacon in it. Bacon? Yeah. But I mean, this obviously doesn't cross your path anyway because you're vegan,

but people put bacon in it. Little burgers. Have you seen that before? Oh, this is just becoming a meal. Yeah. Just have a pasta. In the Bloody Mary. Just have like a spice.

spicy briny pasta. They have a Puraneska at that point, you know? Yeah. It's like the savory version of freak shakes. Yeah, of course. Freak shakes, what's that? They do like milkshake, but then they'll put like whole cakes on the top and like brownies and shit. And they'll put so much sauce, but on the outside of the glass, so you can't even pick it up. It's just a gimmicky thing, isn't it? It's an Instagram thing.

Yeah. Although as soon as you said about putting pasta in the Bloody Mary, I love that. That is a good idea, actually. The burger and stuff sounds disgusting, but if someone was like, do you want a full load of pasta in this? I'd be like, in the bottom. Well, that's just like cut pasta, isn't it? Like, you could just do that at any time. Yeah.

You could just put pasta in a glass and just have a sauce in there and that's what that is. But that would be fun. It would be fun. It would be fun. It's like fishing it out. It's going to be crazy. We arrive at your dream dessert. Yeah.

Do you have much of a... What? Deirdrie desserts. Do you have much of a sweet tooth? I've been pretty sweet tooth, but like I can't hoof it like I used to. Like when I was in my 20s, I would eat so many sweets. Like I loved it. And now, I don't know, the older I get the less, I can have like three bites of a thing.

I'm like, I'm okay, that's good. Right. Like I enjoyed that and that's enough, you know? And anymore, I start to feel. sick nowadays. But, but there have been some things I've eaten where I'm like, I could, I could eat the whole thing. And one of those was, again, Smith and Daughters, Tiramisu that they did, vegan Tiramisoo. That was the most, one of the most delicious things I've ever eaten my whole life. It was so good. Wow. Was it very creamy? Did they get a really, like, thick cream on it?

Yeah. Yeah. And they actually do this, like, you can just buy it from the fridge and you take it home. And I did that as well. And it was as good from the fridge. It was really good. It's crazy to me what you can do with vegan food. Yeah, it's nuts. Especially in the area of like desserts and sort of impressions of dairy. Yeah. It's incredible. It is incredible.

It's nuts. It was very not available even probably like five years ago. Like it's crazy. Yeah, I feel very glad. Especially I do like the thing. I really like covet when I like walk past a bakery like a lot of the very nice like tarts and just like the very fine looking. well-made ones that look quite tough to make.

And like, you don't get a lot of that. We're vegan. When you do, it's like, I don't know, just like so stodgy and like shit. You know, I hate, I hate it. And like, but I feel like we're inching towards possibly a future where I could have something like that again. Oh, yeah. Like a little dome, little chocolate dome with a little crust on the bottom.

Oh, yeah. That would be like a moose sort of cake. Yeah. That would be nice. Yeah, I watch Beck off a lot. like Australian and my friend, do you know Tom Walker? Yes. Yeah, he's hosting Beacoff now.

It's so fun. Is he? Yeah. In Australia. Yeah, do you not know that? Yeah, it's really funny. Well, how does that work? For the listener, Tom Walker is an alternative comedy clown.

Yeah. He's a real freak. Yeah. He's a crazy guy. Yeah. I've seen him make himself vomit on stage before by shoving his hands so far down his throat that it just happened. And so that's his typical schick.

Yeah. And then... He's hosting Beacoff with Rachel Koo. Do you know Natalie Tren? Yeah. Yeah, community channel. Do you ever heard of YouTube, like community channel? No, I've not.

Yeah, they're co-hosting. It's really fun. Yeah, they've dressed them real preppy. He's got like these nice cardigans on. That's insane. It's very bizarre. It makes no sense whatsoever. It does because Noel Fielding is on our bake-off,

which is basically the same situation. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so actually. Yeah, when you say that, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I once went to Sydney and it was when Tom Walker, Sam Campbell

and Aaron Chen were hanging out constantly. You'd see the three of them. They were never separate. It was always the three of them and now they've been three different countries I believe. But it was all three of them. It's a difficult conversation to penetrate as well. Yeah, yeah. Hey guys, how's it going? Okay, you're not normal, bye.

Yeah, yeah, all three wacky guys. Yeah, and Sam because I was there for a couple of weeks and Sam had said to me, you like music, right? And I was like, yeah, he went, can you make me a mixed CD before you go home? I was like, I don't think I have the,

I mean, I could make you a playlist and you can figure out and get it on to the CD. Does it need to be a CD, Sam? Yeah, it does. Did it, get, you gets a CD by then. Thank you. A few years later, sends me a video of him, Aaron, and Tom, laying on the floor,

listening to the CD in full. That's sweet. And every doubt again, Aaron would say something like, Sam, does James like music? And they go, yeah. And then they'll come on listening to it really earnestly. It was nice, but it's weird.

Yeah. So, you were saying, Oh, what was I saying? Yeah, you watch a lot of bake-off. Oh, yeah. Watch a lot of bake-off. And I'm always like, God, I wish I could eat that. Like, always, I'm just like, fuck, it looks really good.

They do vegan week now and again, don't they? They do. And they do it on the Australian one, have a vegan baker. And they were quite good. I don't, I don't back at all. Like, I'm never touched it. I don't know. I bake cookies a couple of times, and every time I'm like, God, this is a lot of effort, isn't it?

And it's also very messy. It's like just cleaning afterwards. And there's people who can do it and you just buy one thing from them. Yeah. Baker's. Yeah. No, literally. Yeah.

And how are you meant to resist eating the mixture? Yeah. If you're making it. Exactly. That's unreasonable. Especially for chock chip cookie dough. Yeah. That's delicious.

No way that all of that's making that this way onto the tray. And also, I'm pretty sure it tastes even better. as the mixture. Just raw. Definitely. Yeah. It definitely does, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So, like. Yeah. Turimisu, I like it a lot when I have a really good one. But chock chip cookies are like, that was the thing that when I went vegan, I was like, oh man. Because like I would do when I was like, I went vegan when I was like 18. And when I was like 16, I would, when I went to the movies, I'd go to Kmart, which is, do you guys have Kmart? Yeah, I know.

We're aware of Kmart. Yeah. But it's not. It's a much bigger thing in Australia but once came up and you get... When rain man gets his trousers from. Oh my god.

Ironically said that's exactly how Rain Man would bring it up as well. It's right. He gets his underwear, sorry, not his trousers. But you could at the time get like a box of chalk ship cookies really good ones. I think the brand was called like Decadent or something like that

for $5.00. Big box. And I just take that into the cinema. Just how old. The whole thing. That's the way to do it. Just eat the whole thing. It was the best. Yeah, those days.

Definitely couldn't eat like 24 cookies in one sitting anymore. Do you reckon? Oh, I don't know. It's easier in the cinema though. Maybe. How was that? Easy in the cinema. Yeah, because it's dark.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Get it down. It's like it's not you doing it. No, yeah. Yeah, it's not you do it. Yeah, exactly. I'm in the film. And I'm taking these cookies and I'm posting them into this hole.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not connected to me in any way. It's in the dark. Yeah, you don't know what's going on. Yeah. Yeah. Then the lights come up. And then it's bad.

Yeah, then you look at the crumbs. You looked down like a comedy girl. That was me all along. Yeah. My favourite part of the Drake and Kendrick beef, were you following that last year? A little, not closely, but I was hearing, there was hearsay. It was brilliant. Yeah.

Sometimes they let themselves down. But it was mainly brilliant. And the best thing about what Kendrick was doing was bringing up stories and not a lot of people knew about about Drake. And the best one was that once when Drake was in the cinema, in the dark, a member of T.I.'s crew was in there and pissed on his leg. And Drake didn't do anything about it. And he just put that in a song that he just got his leg pissed on in the cinema. And just like, do you have in the film?

Whoa. A guy just went over to him and peed on his leg. That's the thing when it's in the cinema, though, this is my point. It doesn't feel like you're completely dissociated from your own being, I think, because you're in the film. So it doesn't take a peat on my leg. I wouldn't notice. dealing with that until the lights are up.

Yeah, you don't have a body as far as you can say. Yeah, yeah. Crumbs and piss again. Which one have you did it this time? Remember of the... T.I. T.I. I'm looking at you and your crew. Does this a piss on my leg again?

All the way down. I know it was one of you, T.I. and your crew. Why do I keep coming to the same screenings as you? These cookies are so decadent. Oh, they were. And they were. Yeah. Yeah. Well, if anyone ever got in a beef with you,

they could say that. Say you used to go to the cinema and eat a whole thing of decorative cookies. Yeah. And really, like, shame you publicly about it. Yeah. No, I'd own it. I'd be like, and I'd do it again if I could. Who would you like to get in a beef with?

In a beef with. And that's a vegan, I know that's difficult. In a tofu with. Yeah. I once someone made that joke at me, they were like, oh, no, it was my tour manager at the time. He was like, oh, it's not a meat, great. It's the tofu would greet. I was like, ah.

That's so funny Yeah Yeah Yeah I'd like to get in a beef with There's many things to consider You gotta write songs about him You'll have enough stuff on them

Enough dirt that you can write decent tracks Where you can bury him Yeah And it's going to be someone also that like Can't Like I could I would say like Elon Musk But then also I feel like he could

Actually change my life of the worst I did pick Pick Pick on him You know what I mean You almost want someone who you'd be friendly with afterwards, after the beef's done. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And then you can sort of raise each other's profiles by being in the beef.

Yeah, precisely, exactly. Like can't be someone to, yeah, it's, I don't know, like a, like a feist. Oh, perfect, yeah. Like feist. Fyce is due a revival. If only just because I want her to acknowledge me and recognize me and know who I am and then we can be friends afterwards. It's funny if the beef turned into that, your songs were just really about how you want to be.

Yeah, that's a funny bit. Yeah. It's a funny beef to be like, you suck. Hello, I'm here. Really like you. Yeah, exactly. Surefire way to get someone's attention is to start a beef with them and see what happens. So maybe they won't mind too much that you would rag on them and then you become friends.

Maybe that awful Kendrick was doing. But afterwards contacted him. So are we friends now? You can be a pedophile? You couldn't get me? I can't be your friend after that. But it was like a big. I was wanting you didn't notice me.

Well, you, oh, mission accomplished. I noticed you. My whole life is in fucking tatters now. You get, like, I just said you were short in a couple of the wraps. You come back at me with that.

My legs are covered in piss. People are pissing up in the cinema now? That first story didn't even happen. I don't mean you made you back to you now. See how you feel about it. You would like sparkling water. You would like for catcher with olive oil and balsamic and sea salts.

Started. Leaks, fennel, Seleriac with a ju, all cooked perfectly. Yeah. Main course,

lentil bolognese cooked by your partner. Side dish. But he can cook it well. He can't cook it well. He can't cook it well. Not in real life. Yeah.

Not in real life. Yeah. Maybe one day. Yeah, maybe one day. I'll get him there. Blackened carrots from Smith and Daughters, as your side.

Drink, Bloody Mary, and dessert. Tiram Missou also from Smith and daughters. They've done very well out of this point. I just sound good. I don't feel hearing it back. I feel good.

I like all those foods very much. Yeah. Yeah. That's why I picked them. I also think it builds nicely as a menu because you're saying you have a small stomach and can't manage that much food. I think you've got such a nice light starter. Yeah.

Then a more heavier pasta dish. Yeah. And then it's the big sort of rich blow out at the end. Yeah, exactly. Because, yeah, I am a person who's like, there's always room for dessert. Yeah. Like, even if I am really full, I'm like, no, I can force it. I will.

And so, yeah, like, the bolognese will be heavy, but, like, I will eat the tiramisu. Sounds so good. Well, I love that. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Pleasure. It's been fun. Any of a business? Business.

Uh-huh. I'm on tour. And then, God, what else have I got going on? Yeah, I got my album. My album's out. You can go listen to it. I'm an independent artist, so I'm relying on, like, band camp and Patreon and stuff now. Like, you know, you can stream the songs, but what does that do?

No, no money from streaming. Absolutely no money. No, zero money. I don't think I've ever made any money from stream. Like in the, well, I've left my label now, so I've not made any money from my time with my label, despite having really big songs. Wow.

Yeah, it's crazy. Anyway, yeah, that's my stuff. And then I know Twitch stream. Play video games once a week on Twitch. Yeah. Yeah, that's fun. What's your favorite game to play on the Twitch stream? Well, honestly, I usually do music production.

Like, I make songs on Twitch live. Yeah, it's fun. But, like, I'll change up. games because I don't, it's hard to, like, just stay on one game on Twitch because, like, I love playing games. And if I'm, like, starting a game that's quite long, I'm like, well, I don't want to just play it when I'm logged on to Twitch, you know, like, I want to play it all the time. So I'll never do anything that's, like, crazy or anything. Yeah, I don't know, just like, you want puzzle games.

I did it with Charlie for a bit in lockdown. Yeah. Charlie did the Twitch streaming and we played, we played Hitman on stream. I was really bad at it. So that was what it became about. Yeah, nice. Running around. Yeah. Fucking up the hit. Yeah. I don't know.

That would be fun viewing. I've seen Ed not be good at stuff. It doesn't take it gracefully. I don't like it, Jeff. Not sure that would be a fun tweet. It's not a nice feeling for me when I'm not doing. Yeah, got you. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. But luckily, I'm brilliant at podcasts. And what an episode this has been. Oh, yeah. Thank you very much, Jess. Oh, my pleasure. Thank you, Jess. Thank you so much to Jess,

aka Montaigne, for coming on the show, James. A lovely menu. Yes. Nice to get some shoutouts for, especially those vegetables in the starter that we don't often get shouted out on the pod. I didn't bring it up at the time because it didn't feel right.

One of the vegetables, James, was fennel. Yep. You fucking hate fennel. I do. And any other guests that said that, you would have gone mental about fennel being on there, but you respect Jess's music too much. Yep.

I left it. It's too early in there. James tries to play it really cool when musicians come in. Yeah, I do. Yeah. They got off and come cool, man. I had nothing to add to the conversation outside before the podcast. Yeah.

They were talking about beats and stuff. Yeah, we were talking about beats. Not beat troop, Benito. Benito doesn't know what we're talking about. He heard beats. Yeah, beat treats by Dre. Might as well be speaking of Dwight Shrewt over here. Not talking about beats, mate.

Benito is our of Dwight Shrew. He's very much our Dwight Shrew. But instead of like talking about martial arts, he's talking about roller coasters. It's good, you could sort of copy and paste roller coasters into all of the dialogue about Beatrice. Instead of talking about Beat Farm and he's talking about magicians.

I've just realised. That's why we take a photo after the episode. Because it's like a roller coaster. That's why he likes it. We should put our arms in the air. He keeps telling him. Put your arms in the air, he keeps saying. But he's put your arms in the air.

The Gettors are. I'm not doing that. Who's this guy? Montane, Jess, did not pick the secret ingredient, which was fish, which obviously wasn't going to happen because very early on we learned that they were and vegan. So, they're vegans. Why was that going to happen?

Yeah. But, you know, it's good to, we've got a lot of secret ingredients over the years. We'll have to choose loads more. It's good to just be able to use fish. Yeah. Because, like, the broad ones, it'd be good to start using them. They're dangerous. They're dangerous.

I don't want to chuck a musician out because I want to be cool around them. Yes. Talk about beats. And talk about beats. And they won't let me do that if I just kicked them out of the restaurant. Thank you very much to Montaigne for coming on the pod. Go and have a listen to it. It's hard to be a fish.

Yep. And don't forget, Montane is touring Australia in August for the 10th anniversary of their glorious Heights album. 2016. Came out in 2016. For dates and tickets, go to montane music.com. Check out their tour dates. Make sure you can see them live if you can.

Yeah. Thank you very much. Goodbye.