Table Manners with Jessie and Lennie Ware - Indira Varma

Episode Date: June 24, 2026

This week the brilliant Indira Varma joins us for brunch. Known for her roles in Game of Thrones, The Night Manager, The Capture and now starring in the all-female production of Glengarry Glen Ross at The Old Vic, Indira popped over to New Cross and immediately became one of our dream foodie guests! We heard all about growing up in Bath with an Indian father and Swiss mother, the cabbage and peanut curry her dad taught her to make, working with friend of the podcast Ralph Fiennes, how theatre still gives her a thrill after all these years, and we are reminded of the best tip from Stanley Tucci when it comes to drinking cocktails! Plus Indira takes us through a spectacular last supper featuring deep-fried ricotta, spaghetti vongole, Swiss fondue and an ice cream finale. Don’t miss Indira starring in Glengarry Glen Ross at The Old Vic until 18th July, she is absolutely excellent in it.Listen & watch Table Manners here - https://tablemanners.komi.io/Follow Table Manners on:Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/tablemannerspodcast/TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@tablemannerspodcastFacebook - https://www.facebook.com/tablemannerspodcastYouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@TableMannersPodcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome to Table Manners. I'm Jessie Ware and I am sitting in my kitchen with my mother. Again. Who has got it in for me this morning? What's going on? What's going on? Not sure. Do we need to unpack this? No. There's nothing going on. I'm under a little pressure. What?

Going away tomorrow. Got to pat. Right. I had to schlep out today. What do you have to schlep out? I bought you three oranges that I can't use. Oh, okay. Shlep out food that you didn't want. that's coming in my fridge as so usual.

Three fresh oranges because I used orange in my cake. Okay, thanks so much. And a box of eggs because you go through them like... I do. Yeah. And football shirts. World Cup shirts. Are you ready for the World Cup?

I think I am. We've got the chart going. Yeah. Now, listen, I've told... I've got some work going on in the garden. I did tell them they can't work from 10.30 to 1. Well, they're drilling, darling now. I have a little word with them, Lenny.

Give them a... A clue. But you know why? You know what I'm telling? Let's have a little bit of a song for that. No, I'm not seeing my own song. But basically, I thought it was only right that I finally had a sauna. Do you like saunas?

Well, obviously, because I'm about to have one in my garden. I hate them. You have such, this is like when you talk about Tawi or Love Island. Hate them. Mexican food. Hate that. But like, you can't have enough of an opinion on it because I don't know the last time you went in a sauna. Jesse, well, because I don't go in a sauna because I don't like them.

But I did used to go in saunas. When? Long time ago, when they first came out before you were born. Oh, really? Oh, really? Before you were even born and they came over from... How long as saunas existed? That's Beijing, you, Lenny.

A long, long time. We used to go... I have one in our university health club. Oh. Well, not a health club. Swimming pool. There used to be a sauna next to it. And you had to pour water on the cold.

And then everyone thought, oh, this is great. And you're just sweating and want to die. It is great. It's an amazing gil. Just explain to me why it's great. You feel amazing. Do you? Just give you your muscles, your hormones.

Detoxic. Due to your hormones. It's just like balances everything. Oh God, I'm not talking about this because I'm getting it wrong. So we've got a cold dip to go in afterwards. No, we don't, but we've got a shower. I don't like... It's going to just hose you down.

We're going to like, this is... He's not going to hose me down, but I basically, I do think maybe we need to get the cold plunge. We're just going to see how we go with a sauna. Just have a cold plunge. shower. You don't need a cold. Well, this is what he thinks. Well, obviously, if you need the hot and cold, there'd be no point in just being hot because you need the cold to balance your hormones. Now, I don't know if we have any Finnish listeners, but when I was, because there's lots of really wonderful... Is it going to beat you with birch sticks as well? Okay. Okay. I think that's our guest. Okay. So I better go. And we'll finish this debate about saunas, but I heard that actually you don't even need to do the cold plunge if you don't want to. But again, I may be getting all the wrong information, but this lovely lady said, in Finland, apparently, they don't. always do the cold. They're all around in the bloody snow because it's freezing cold there. Anyway, Indira Vama has just turned up.

We're very excited about having Indira. She's an incredible actress who you would have seen in Game of Thrones, being Petro Pascal's sister, in I think the best land in... I hope she can compete with the drilling, darling. I don't know whether that's my house or somebody else's, but anyway... It's down there, darling. Oh, it is? Okay, I'll tell them.

She has been in the night manager. She's won Olivier's. She has been Lady Macbeth with Ray Fines, which producer Alice saw recently. And we have just seen her play is Shelley Levine in Glenn, Gary, Glenn Ross, which is an all-female cast at the Old Vic. It's David Mamet and who's directing it. Patrick Marba. And it's, yeah, we'll let her talk about it. But Indira Vama is coming up on the podcast.

And I have made, because it's a brunch, I've made. because I love the cookbook so much I've made from Honey and Co daily their new cookbook I did do something the other day I've made their shak sugar which was really easy and then I've done with Medesque

which also I'm loving I'm doing that salad that I did for somebody recently and it's just a really good green salad and it's got this delicious shallot dressing and a loaf of bread from Dusty Knuckle Kassie of Alice who got it in Dahlston and I've made

a one pot Yogurt and orange cake Yum Dead easy Fab I'm not competing with a drill Jessie I'm going to tell them

they can be quiet now Okay Indira Vama Coming up on table manners Hello Thank you for being Indira This is so exciting And last time we saw you Your hair has grown a lot

But you've just told me that it was a wig Overnight 24 hours Yeah special hair product I did think that was really method of you To give yourself a really short Hair-Doo that was very 80 Yeah, well, we tried my own hair. Yeah.

But, and leaving some greys in. And actually, it didn't quite look right. So our brilliant Campbell Young, who's a wiggie, he made a short, dodgy 80s hairdo for me. I have to say, I love, I love this hair. I think this really suits you. It's beautiful. But, oh, oh, Shelley Levine.

Yeah. Oh, I'm not having a good time. She's not. She's not. But do you call her she or he? Yeah. Well, I, it's really difficult because we are, David Mamet didn't want to change a word. So we've kept the pronouns, but we are all women.

It's an all female cast playing these what were written as male characters, but we are women. Glenn Gary, Glenn, Glemross, you are in the old bit production of this. Yes. With some incredible women. Amazing cast. It's a really great cast. And just explained to the listener who, doesn't know about this very

kind of formidable film. Was it a page book? It was originally a play. Then it was quite famous for the Alec Baldwin film. Yes, but it's so funny because the Alec Baldwin character isn't in it. So David Mamet rewrote the screenplay and wrote in the character of Alec Baldwin

in order to sort of do a set-up for the play and the story so that people know what they're... I suppose the setup that Alec Baldwin does is explains that all these salespeople, real estate agents, I guess, now have to deliver or two people will get fired. And the top two will win a Cadillac or a set of steak knives. And that's what he sort of explains.

And we don't have that in the play. And we're doing the original play. There is a Cadillac up for grabs in the original play. There is. I didn't hear state knives. No. No, there are steak knives. There are steak knives.

But also in the film, there's a lot less swearing. How do you... I enjoyed your cocksuckers. I enjoyed it. Just his cocks, I love all those words. Mum did want to know. You said this.

Well, I wondered how it's... Because it's a very masculine play. Yes. And it's about masculinity and competition and aggression. But some of the language is very misogynistic and quite violent and aggressive. and how it felt as a woman saying those words. Jesse loves those words.

But, you know, I wonder if like to death, like when it was written in the 80s, I totally agree. I think it's a very, it's sort of, I think some people think of it as a play that describes toxic masculinity. Yeah. But now, I think a lot of women do use that language. Yeah, they do. And also women are in work.

And from, since the 80s, there was a whole power dressing thing. Women were starting to get positions of power. And but I think one of the reasons why I think it works quite well is the fact that women have a shorter shelf life. And often we've been in an environment where there's only one or two jobs for women in a very male environment.

And so actually, as much as women, I think there's a real sisterhood and we really support each other and women are very much more about, community, I think, suddenly when there's only two roles, those women are pitted against each other despite themselves. And I feel that that in a funny sort of way, it reflects our profession, our industry as actors, you know, like, yeah, I think this play, there are loads of correlations and parallels. I mean, I'd say that in pop music too. Yeah, music too, yeah. Yeah, so there was a time when, you know, like in TV and in plays, there was only one great role for women in it.

And then everyone else was a bloke. And so you'd be auditioning against your girlfriends for the same role. And inevitably, you're sort of pitted against each other. Of course, we don't behave the way we do in the play and, you know, slam each other and all the rest of it. But I think it's about desperation. And when people are sort of on the bones of their ass, if you like, and are desperate, they're more. likely to fight, you know, like a cornered rat or something. And so I think it becomes more about survival rather than male behaviour. Is that how human beings behave when they're that desperate?

It's sort of dog eat dog. Yeah. Have you done any plays in the old Vic before? Yes, I've done a few plays there. Is it one of your favourite boards to tread or whatever, you know? I mean, it's so funny, isn't it? Because it's always, I love the old Vick. Me too. But only because they're offer me work. No, no, not really. No, because it's a gorgeous space. It's a gorgeous face. Matthew Warches asked me to do present laughter.

Oh, and you won. You won your Olivier for that. That was amazing. And that was another incredible company with Andrew Scott and Sophie Thompson amongst, I mean, we had such a laugh on that. Is Andrew Scott that fun? Yeah. Is he naughty? He's just gorgeous.

He's just delicious. Oh, yeah. He's heaven. Yeah. It's all real. And so Sophie, I have to say, I love Sophie. And then I did, during lockdown, COVID, we did, Matthew asked me to do faith healer, Brian Freel. And we did it in camera.

So we filmed, we did it live with the empty auditorium behind us. It was quite moving, actually. Brian Freel's the one that did translation. Yeah, I read that story. It's so beautiful. It's like the perfect play. Right. I've seen one of his in Dublin, I think. Okay.

He's an Irish. Yes. He's like the best. I think he's one of the best. So having no audience, but it didn't feel like a film set. I mean, the TV set. No, not at all. It was, how many cameras did we have?

I think we only had one camera. But we did have, because we only had two days rehearsal. So we were using auto queue. Right. And you became very familiar with it by then. but it was weirdly liberating to be able to talk directly down the lens to the audience. And it's a very intimate play.

They're monologues. And it was a sort of cross between theatre and TV, I guess. It was just storytelling. But because we hadn't long done present laughter and we'd been used to hearing a thousand people laughing in a room and, you know, that kind of, that community, that feeling of togetherness and a shared experience that's so amazing.

And then suddenly having this empty auditorium full of ghosts. Well, the ghosts, you know that? You can hear, you remember. It was really extraordinary. But it also, I guess, like, I mean, I did a really mad thing where I sung at the O2 in lockdown with like a full orchestra and it was like.

Well, so no one there? No one was there. That's weird. With Pete Tong. And it was that thing where you so appreciate the job that you are given when you have the audience. And so when it was kind of, of an amazing experience, but you do, I think lockdown made me take stock of like how lucky

we are to do the jobs that we get to do, do you know what I mean? And I'm sure other people in lockdown were like, how lucky am I to be able to be at home and do, and I felt that in lots of ways with being with my kids, but like it was performing in an empty space. It just made me think, God, we are lucky to be able to perform. Anyway, back to you. Should we start from the beginning? Where did you grow up and who was around the dinner table and what were you eating? I grew up in Bath and my mum and dad. Did you live on one of the Jane Austen? No.

No. I lived in a small Georgian terrace that was probably a workman's cottage. You know, I think it's one of the longest little Georgian terraces. I probably made that up but anyway it sounds quite nice. Of the workmen's cottages who used to build the beautiful crescents, etc., etc. and they're all different. They're tiny, but they're lovely. And we had a big old garden full of vegetables. My dad was Indian, my mum was Swiss,

and we ate foreign food all the time. And it was like, so growing up, a citrus shoe, it was just me. My parents had me quite late. My dad was already in his 50s, mom. I was 42, and they had a life behind them, you know. And so I just was brought along for the, ride. And my mum was not much of a cook, but she had to do it, you know, out of necessity

and all the rest of it. But my dad was a really good cook. And he was a vegetarian. She wasn't, but so it was predominantly vegetarian food. A lot of veg from the garden, that kind of thing. And we'd eat foods that, things like artichoke and avocado, which, and spaghetti, which I know it sounds like every day. Avant-God. But in the sort of late 70s, that was quite unusual. And I suppose because my mum's, the European side, they were used to all the seasonal stuff from, she had a lot of Italian friends and in France. Was she Swedish?

No, Swiss. Yeah, you ate a lot of fondue. Not a lot of it. I mean, you can't. You'd have problems with your arteries. Yeah, right. Yeah. But it's delicious.

It is, I love it. But we didn't eat that. My uncle, you said. amazing point it. But like my dad used to make things like, which I loved, which was really simple cabbage and peanut curry. Oh, yeah. Oh my God. Yeah. I mean, really simple. I've never ever heard of that one. I mean, it's poor man's food, really. Is it a dry curry? Yeah, it's a dry curry. Yeah. Can you make it delicious? I mean, I asked him once, you know, a long time ago, teach me how to cook. Teach me Indian food. And it was all sort of, I'm going to be outrageous and do an accent now. But you dig this much and you just, and it was all improv, you know. He was just doing it by scent and you warm the spices, then you grind it and then,

and it's like, well, how long do I have to warm them for? How long do you roast them for? How long does it, you know, do you have to soften an onion, etc? And it was, it was all instinct. And I think he taught me how to cook through scent and time. touch and I mean I can vaguely make it but you know it's never going to be as good as me can you can you remember the taste was it delicious yes it was delicious it was a little crispy but you know the sweetened thing of the cabbage and then the crunch of the peanut very and

cum in coriander ginger garlic you know all the usual chili we always had hot mango pickle patucks hot mango pickle on the table um and rice and he taught me how to make rice which was, again, it was not measuring out a quantity of water. It was you fill your, you wash your rice. And that's always a nice thing to feel, isn't it? You know when you put your hand in it? Yeah, it's the grains, those grains. And then you clean your rice.

And in the old days it was, he used to sift that, he used to go to Kermite Lane because his mate lived there. And he used to bring back spices and rice by the kilo, you know, massive bags. And it was in a box under the stairs. or something, and you have to take out the stones that were in the rice because they weren't, I think, wasn't washed. It wasn't washed. It was kind of a big sacs or something. So you'd have to take the stones out.

I remember that on a tray and then used to wash it, wash it several times over, several times over. And you put the rice in, you put the water in and you measure by the top of your finger on the rice, the top of the rice, that much water up to your first. Yeah, I do it. This is how you. There you go. international global I love that. The thumb. I love that measurement. Are you a good cook then? I'd like to think. Yeah. Okay. So if we were coming over to yours, what would be on the menu?

If you're having a dinner party. Well, I think my skills are, I can rossil anything up from what's left in the fridge. I think that's my special skill. That's very good. I think it's useful. But if I were to invite you over, which I'd love to do, I think it would be, and I don't this all the time but I love it so much it's a morrow fish stew catalan fish stew monk fish and clams and it's got it's a red pepper paprika and it's almond based sauce and it's so and saffron and it's and that's in the morrow cookbook delicious they're celebrating an anniversary thing because I got invited to a dinner used to be my it used to be my favorite restaurant that lamb that they did there it was so delicious And the yoghurt cake.

We haven't done the yogurt cake. Oh, you don't remember the yogurt cake? Yes, I do. Yeah, but you know the ones that had the pomegranates and like, oh, delicious. Yeah. So you do that. Would you, are you interested in drinks? Do you drink?

Yes. I love a cocktail. But you see, I can't, I can't, I can't, it's really hard. I love food. So much that I find it very difficult to bring it down to one thing. Yeah. But I mean, if I were to have a cocktail, I might say a Paloma. I love them.

Oh, Jessie loves those as well. I prefer them to a margarita, I have to say sometimes. I mean, there's a time and the place for Margarita, but I think Paloma's are easier to like... A bit freshering. Exactly. You keep going. You can have more of them. Yeah.

And I know you had Stanley Tucci on. Oh, so far. And I'm not sure, because I haven't heard that episode, but I worked with him many years ago. You do. And he made me my first... what do you call it? No, martini. And he gave me my first shaker and all the rest of it.

But he gave very good advice, which I think goes for all cocktails, which is they're like women's breasts. Did he tell you this one? No, but it's about two, three. One's not enough and three's too many. So true. So, I think that's probably true. Well, your friend Ray Fines does discusses martini in our podcast. Yeah, a bone of contention for us.

Producer Alice saw that production of Macbeth, by the way. Which sounded amazing. Yeah, that was great. Where was the theatre that you wrote? Was it in a warehouse? Yeah, it was in a warehouse. We did warehouses. We started in Liverpool at Canada Water.

And then Edinburgh for a couple of weeks. And it was really exciting. You know what we're talking about being in the old Vic and the beauty of being in a space that has history? And, you know, like when I did present last, after, I remember looking up at 1930s makeup for women of colour or women with olive skin. And the face that kept coming up was Merle Oberon, who of course, since then we hear, was probably Anglo-Indian. And then I thought, oh, she called herself Merle Oberon. She hid her identity.

And I was so, and then I found out that she was friends with Olivier and Noel Coward, who, of course, we were doing the Noel Coward play. And I was, I was, I was, overcome with emotion because I thought, my name's Indira Vama, and I'm allowed to be called Indira Vama doing an old cowboy play at the old pick. And hasn't time changed? Haven't we moved on? But that was a bit of a segue. But being in that space where there's all these people,

all these amazing actors who have been through there. And then doing Maccas. Macs and being in a warehouse where you think, oh, this is uncharted territory. we don't know whether this space works. It feels sort of more of a risk because you don't know how the space responds to you. Old Vic has been tried and tested.

Some of these beautiful London venues have been, they work. You do a lot of theatre. You kind of love theatre over. I guess that's... I mean, theatre over it. It's frightening, isn't it? And it's a risk. It's like I could fail every night you can.

fail, you know. No, you're never going to fail. But you can because you cannot please everyone and somebody will always not love what you're doing. Do you read reviews? No. No, there's no point. There's no point. It's one person's opinion. But I bet if you get a good review, you read it. Well, it's, you know, it's tempting. No, but even then, you know, it's beautifully played by and you think, what, is that it? Is that it?

You know, it's so reductive, I think, whether it's if it's a good review or if it's a bad review. And I've worked with Roger Alam a long time ago and he said, I don't read reviews anymore because once he was sent all his reviews for whatever play it was. And he said literally one cancelled the other out. So it's just an opinion. Should I go and get the food going whilst you ask Indira about last supper? What would you have on your last supper?

Would it be a combination of that heritage? No. Okay. Start from the beginning. I mean, my parents travelled a lot and had friends from all over. I think my favourite thing, I love Italy. Do you? And I love Italian food.

Me too. I did a job a long time ago in Rome and we were sort of living there for about a year. And Lindsay Duncan and I shared a flat in Rome on Via Julia. She's amazing. Okay. And we're both foodies. And so we would go around finding all the great places to eat. And we both eat anything as well.

And in Rome, they do like their sort of... And trails. And their inids and then... That's not on my last supper list, by the way. But we found this place in Trastevere, which I don't know is still there called Czechos Caritiera. And they did the best antipasti. So for antipasti, I... This is your start.

This is my starter. Okay. But, you know, it's going to be a long meal. You know, in Italy, you don't just have three courses. So I would definitely have, I think I would have to have a fresh tomato. And you know, we'd say tomato basil, mozzarella. We're not talking something outside. We're talking something.

I remember the first time I went to Rome and on my first day that I went to a restaurant by myself and a man sat just at the table next to me. And all he ordered was a demi-caraf of restaurant. red wine and a ball of mozzarella. That was it. And he put olive oil on it, salt and he ate it. And I thought, oh, I need to know what this is all about.

And so I think I definitely have. No, I didn't because it was too late. I was on dessert by then. The olive oil probably was something exceptional. And imagine the mozzarella, dripping, milky, you know, and so I think I'd have to have one of those with those amazing tomatoes.

It's sort of acidic sweet and basil and the olive oil. has to be amazing. And then I'd go for my deep fried ricotta, you know, little. I've never had that. Oh my God. I mean, I think it's basically battered. And it sounds disgusting. Is it not with like a courgette flower or something? Well, yes. That's definitely, no. Well, no. That's also one of my days. Okay, fine. How do you deep fry ricotta? Well, I think they're cubes. I've never had it since. Recotta doesn't come in cubes. No, but they, I think they cut it. And it's really delicate and they slightly, you know like a Japanese tempura batter? Yeah.

Very, very, very fine. Yeah. And very swiftly done. And so I don't know how they do it. I'm afraid I don't know. I can't help you there. It's really, it is very loose and delicious. Have it on its own.

But I would also have Fiori di Zuka, you know, stuffed with ricotta and anchovy. Mmm. And. And. And chocker and the anchovy. Yeah. You know, just a slither of anchovy in the middle. Antchavans.

Yeah. And I think, you know those in a Bocadilupo? They do sage with an anchovy in between. I'd have one of those. And I would also have, you know, in Rome they had two different ways of cooking artichoke, car chachev. I think it's Chudeca, so the Jewish deep fried. Oh my God, I love that.

That's in the ghetto area. Exactly. So I would definitely have that as my little entree. Great. And what are you drinking with that? Well, I'd have to have, I do like the idea of maybe starting with the Nogronis, Ballyat or something like that. But again, Lindsay and I came across this, because we were obviously wine tasting, wherever we possibly could. And we found, and I've never had it since.

You know, when you, I think it's, I'm capturing those flavors that have transported me and I cannot let them go. Okay, good. And I've not been able to capture it since. So it's a white is a Sauvignon Blanc, but it's from the Alto Adige region, which traditionally does chardonnay and it's a slightly sweet, you know, in the northern area. But there was something about this wine. It was like drinking elderflower. It was phenomenal. So that is what I would like with it.

And then I would have to have spaghetti vongolet. Can you make it? Yes. Okay. That was the first time I ever had it. I was six years old. And we went on a family holiday to Calabria. And we went to these old non-na, you know, these house,

where they lift the lid and you just eat that. And I have a photo of me. I don't, I look like I've gone to sleep, but I'm just staring to the middle distance with spaghetti coming out of my mouth. And I thought I had gone to heaven. You know, the very small clams, which I never seem to be able to find those tiny, tiny ones.

What do you think makes the best spaghetti bongale? Is it the amount of garlic? I think it needs to be very garlicky. Yeah. And parsley. A little tiny bit of chili, but not too much. Not too much. And very good olive oil.

Very good olive oil. And of course you have to have, I think probably the vongolet juice, the liquor of it. Yeah. And the pasta water. So that there's that slight unwiseness. Oh, God. The white wine. Oh, the white wine.

Oh, the white wine. So which wine do you put in a vongolet? I think it doesn't matter very much, maybe. I leave it up to whoever's cooking my last supper. And which pasta would you choose for that? Spaghetti. Classic spaghetti. I used to be obsessed with angel hair.

You know, they're really fine, but not for the vongolet, I don't you? No, I think it's too fine to get the, yeah. Will you have cheese after that or salad? Oh, I haven't had my fish yet. Oh, my God. Yes, dear. Oh, my God. This is a pasty dish.

Yeah, okay, sorry. That was just, you know, that was, preemie. Cicconde would be my fish. Again, it would be, I've gone to Greece, I think, for my fish. Okay. Probably a sea bream and it would just be grilled with garlic lemon. A whole big one that you're sharing. And I'm going to eat it with my hands.

Yeah. And what side are you having with that? Well, I'm sure you've had it. I love something like a spinach. The horta. Vlater. The best thing on earth. That is what I want.

And you can't get it here. No. I don't even, I think we should try and grow it. I'll bring the seeds. Our guy on the beach that we go to, he does it with feta and chili. Oh. And with the lemon and it's just like a little kick, delish. And then you know those really sort of oveny potatoes that sort of drip in oil?

This sounds like a great meal. But also the thing about Greece when they serve horta, you know when you get vegetables in England that as a side, it's like that much. I know. They give you water that it's always that much, which is far too much. But I think veg is so important, an important part of the meal. I love it. Okay, so we've got the potatoes, we've got the Vlita.

Yeah. We've got... Can I throw some Punterrelli in there? Sure. Puntarelli. You know, it's that Italian. Oh, Puntorelli's the like chiquery. Oh, the chivalry thin, quite bitter with anchovy.

I think I've gone anchovy mad. That's okay. But it's okay. So you do, how do they cook it? They don't. It's raw. It's raw with a bit of anchovy on it. it. Like the

dressing? It's delicious. God, yeah. So that's going to be the salad with the fish. And then are you going on to cheese? Do you know, I love cheese as a Swiss person but I'm going to forego it

because, is that wrong? No, I have it as well. Okay, I'm going to wrap it in. But I do love my dessert. But the cheese, but then should I do cheese first before my dessert or? I never know about that.

I never know. I like cheese at the very end because I like to keep going all night as I carry on drinking. And you can sort of go to and throw, can go back and forth and you have another glass of bread and you think I have a bit more cheese. Well, okay, I'll go my cheese. I'll give you my cheese.

Is it an Italian cheese or Swiss? I think I'm partial to my English cheeses. It's your mum from the Italian Swiss side. She's from French and Bernice, so German as well. But I love a grueire. Me too. A very strong salty. Sweet, nutty.

Yeah, I love it. Delicious. But I do like my Montgomery cheddar. Adore. And I'd have to have a still. But I love, if we're going Italian, I do love a Gorgonzola. Yeah, me too. And I love goats cheese.

So I'd have some sort of a goat. Oh, I love. Yeah. It's delicious. Hard goat's cheese or soft. No soft, I think. Just to contrast. And then dessert.

I love ice cream. I do too. It's my favourite dessert. I think we can be friends. Yeah. I love it. Which is your flavour? When I was a kid.

We used to go to this restaurant in the mountains in Switzerland. And they had a menu, an ice cream menu with 85, you know, coop. Yeah, you know Coops. With 85 different versions of Coop. And I actually asked to keep the menu because I love ice cream so much. I was so inspired by it. So your favourite ice cream? Well, I think it has to be a combination.

I love a dark. dark dark chocolate, which might be a dark sorbet. Okay, yes. Sometimes they do chocolate sorbet. With seasonally depending a black current sorbet. Wow. So you lost me a sorbet. What?

I just don't fuck with sorbet. I don't fuck with sorbet. Like give me the cream. Okay. But you know. No, you do you. No, I am doing me. You just want to add some.

But I can remember a black current sorbet from Marine Isis. Yes. That was so delicious. Ruby violet. Do you remember Ruby? Yeah, yeah. Absolutely delicious. It's really, but it's the combination on its own.

Oh, you like it with chocolate? It's so good. I understand the combo. Maybe that could make it a bit more sense. I don't get the combo at all. But I haven't finished my combo. Okay. Maybe you'll probably like this.

Praleen ice cream. Oh, my favorite. Or a roasted almond. Roasted almond. Oh, I've never had that. That was delicious. Roasted salted? No, not salted.

Just roasted. Absolutely delicious. River Cafe. And I think I might have to have some alpine strawberries on the side. You know Alpine Strawberries are the tiny, tiny ones? Wild strawberries. You have very specific I like that. Don't you have wild strawberries?

I thought you have wild strawberries here. You probably have a lot. I think the foxes have pissed on them and the kids have eaten them. They're my favourite. I'm going to, so we've got a honey and co daily recipe, which is from their new cookbook, Honey & Co Daily. It's their Shack Shooker. It's Shack Shooker.

And then I've got from the Medesque cookbook, which is Georgina Hayden, a very good green salad with a lovely shallot dressing, and then dusty nuckle or sourdough. Should I serve you? Do you want two eggs? I'm starving, yes, please. I'm really sorry if they're hard now. Give her the soft ones, Jeff.

I don't mind. She won't mind. Wow, this looks amazing. And then, do you want some bread? Thank you, yes. And then, I don't know, do you want your salad with, do you want a separate plate? Separate. Yeah.

Or I put it on afterwards, I don't mind. Darling, would you bring the butter for the bread? This is so good. It's a good recipe, actually. I'm usually a bit neither here nor there about shakas, but I think this is a good recipe. It's got a good amount of paprika in it, hasn't it? Yes. Yes, it has.

It's got smoked paprika and sweet paprika. Do you cook from cookbooks? I do, but you know what? I love Felicity Cloke. Oh, what, the best, the best, the best, you know, the best. Yeah, because I've always, like when I was a kid, I used to read, when I was ill, I used to read cookbooks just for pleasure. I was really, I love food.

That's, yeah, I can see. And I love that. And I'm a bit annoyed that you've come for brunch because there's only so much one to do for brunch. I know, I would love to have a big, oh, we'll do it. We'll do it. Oh, that would be amazing. We eat more than just eggs. So you're in North London.

Is there any haunts that you absolutely love or are you going to keep it a secret? Well, I do love... I mean, in terms of where I go for food, Weston's Laundry, I like. Okay. Yeah, it's nice. Do you know it?

And Floral Hall. Floral Hall I've never heard of. It's really, it's not like a soup of foody place. It's a very small menu and they do great cocktails and great wine and drink. And it's a really nice atmosphere up there. And they've also got a restaurant which I've not been to called Through the Woods or something like that, which is meant to be very good seasonal, all that kind of thing. But, you know, like, I'm happy to travel to go and eat.

Me too. Yeah. On a Sunday, your day off, do you cook or do you go out? Tend to cook, actually. Yeah. Yeah. And also we've got a really nice farmer's market, Ali Pali Farmer's Market. Oh, lovely.

So I always try and, in fact, we do that every week. get food and seasonal it's always. I'm so happy at a farmer's market. Me too. Have a little shmai. Why, darling? I just, I love it. I like chatting to them.

I like tasting everything. I like buying it. I like that my son wants to go and steal all the Comte cheese. Yes. I like, I love, it relaxes me. It makes me happy. I'm on speed doll with a chicken lady. You know, but she's like, she saves me the last remaining asparagus if I get there late.

And like the raspberries and this draw. strawberries that have, you know, whatever is coming now. Hang on. Have we got a connection with our farmer's market? Joe chickens. I call her Joe chickens. I swear to God, someone suggested that you be on the podcast and it was, the connection was, Ali Barrett. The chicken. Do you have the lovely Irish lady that does the fruit and veg? Joe chickens. I don't get chicken from her. Yeah. And she's in Kent? Yes. Yes. Oh, yes. Oh, I guess the lady, I love her.

Do you need her number? Yeah, fucking do. She's not allowed to do meat on ours because we've got Steve, the butcher. Joe chickens. She'd hate it if she knew I was calling her Joe Chickies. You know what? She's mentioned you at the farmer's market. That is funny.

Yeah. Yeah, that's so funny. She's a lovely lady. I love her. We always have a chat. I hear about when she goes to see her kids in L.A. Mm-hmm. She's a great woman.

And her granddaughter, who's like, amazing horse woman, horse girl. They're great. And her, I don't know if they're grandsons or whatever, they're very handsome, charming boys. I don't think I've met them. Oh, right. Okay. But how can she be up here and up there? Because you must have it on Sunday and I have her on Saturday. Oh my God, I'm going to go and say, speak to her this Saturday. That's so funny. And you'll be there on Wednesday. I know, I will. Now we are going to give you some purred. Sounds great. It's not very exciting now. I feel kind of, because we've got foodie over here.

Well, it's a yogurt orange cake. That sounds delicious. It doesn't look very exciting, but I think it might taste. It looks a bit like a school dinner tray, though, but I don't think... It looks like what you're going to have custard with, cake and custard. It's literally two cups of castor sugar. Yeah. One cup of oil, olive oil. Okay.

One cup of yogurt. Yeah. Three eggs and three cuts of flour. Okay. All put together with orange zest. Which cookbook is it? Taverna. I have no idea.

I saw it on Instagram. Okay, so it's Georgie Hayden. I think it's a Taverna one. Yeah, that's it. And then on top it's supposed to be a glaze, which doesn't look very glazed to me. Which is icing sugar and orange juice. Delicious. So it's sort of like a lemon drizzle, but orange drizzle.

But with yog. Yeah. Delicious. An orange drizzle. So before we let you go, back to the old Vic, what is a nostalgic taste that can transport you back somewhere? Well, I think it would be the fondue that my uncle made. I didn't, I used to hate fondue when I was a kid. And maybe that's partly one.

it's nostalgic, you know. It was a real thing where you were party to all the adults around the table and you were the kid and I love that shared pot, you know, and my uncle, he does a shallot in his fondue and uses vachin and cuirierre, I think, and wine. Sometimes he'd put champagne in instead if he had like something that was left over, you know, a bit throw away or whatever. What's the other booze that you put in? And then we'd serve it with, like as a kid not drinking alcohol.

My faith, I loved water, but you can't drink it with fondue because it makes your stomach go, like it congeals. It's a bit gross. So it's wine or tea and kyrsch. We'd have kyrsch. So you dip your bread in the kirche and then dip it in the fondue. I would put kits in the fondue. And it's really, I mean, you get wasted. But it's such a great, I love the whole thing of dipping.

It's like a lucky dip. Someone loses their bread. You've got to fish it out. And then the crusty bit at the bottom. And then he would break an egg. And it's called la hors de jules. And you mix it. The very last remaining bit of cheese mixed with the egg.

And it's so delicious. It's great. And that smell. He used to have one once a week. And, of course, that's not good for his heart. His doctor told him to stop. But every time I go to Switzerland, I wish I could still have that.

Yeah. I don't think I've ever really had a fondue. Oh, I used to do them all the time. It was a very, very 70s thing to do from, it's quite tasty. It's really tasty. It's light. It's like a perfect with a cup of tea. It's really lovely. It reminds me of the Topath lemon cake that I do. It's really nice. Oh, that's nice. It's quite light, isn't it? It works. Do you think the girls would like some? I think they'd love some. That would be really lovely. Do you ever have raclette? I love raclette. My cousin gave me a rancet. My cousin gave me a rancet. raclette machine. So we have done that for dinners.

Is that what potato? Yes, it's a big potato and then gherty. A big piece of cheese and you scrape it off. You grill it. It's grilled cheese basically. Oh yeah. But we, I've struggled to get really good quality, strong raclette cheese. My friend T, who is a connoisseur of all good things, she's found a Swiss cheese place on Jamaica Road like really near here that apparently is really good.

So you can maybe go down in between matinees from the old. it. Indira, thank you so much for coming on and being such a great guest and congratulations on your run

and good luck with the press nights and the rest of the previews. You were really phenomenal in it and the cast are absolutely brilliant. Well, thank you for having me. It's been a delight. Any opportunity to talk about

and eat food is a joy. It's been such fun. So much fun. Thank you. And delicious. Oh, Indira was just a joke. Just so fantastic.

I loved her enthusiasm about theatre and about the play. Food. And food. She was just a fantastic guest. Yeah. Just gorgeous dream guest. Um, cake was really nice. Did you like it?

Yes, I would like another piece with a cup of tea. Okay, you can have some. And that shat-suka was delicious. Delicious. So, yeah. Smoke paprika for me. Too much? Made it.

Oh, yeah. For me, that was a thing that made it. You know what? I accidentally put too much smoke pack peaker. So maybe. watching again because it made it, it made it a bit kind of, you know, that goulashy, sweet paprika taste. A lovely, lovely episode, loved having her there, loved hearing about her food choices. I think she knew more about food than me. I know. I'm a bit annoyed that I, I mean, the shak

sugar was great, but like, well, you couldn't have done it. God, it wasn't the dry chicken. Oh my God, that would have been a disaster. That would have been a disaster. Yeah, it would. But if I'd have known she was so keen on Italian food. No, you were, avoid it at all costs then you have to avoid it. Okay. I wasn't going to be deep-briying a bloody bit of ricotta. Do you think, I don't know how she does that. But Jesse, do you think you'll ever do a spaghetti vongale? So many of our guests, yeah, so many of our guests love it. I'd have to finesse it at home first. Yeah. Spaghetti is kind of a difficult one because if you want to make the emotion and stuff, you've got to kind of work it and I've got work to do.

Yeah. On the podcast, let me. darling. Thank you to Indira Varma for coming on the podcast and being such a fantastic guest. You can go and see her and the all-female cast of Glengarry Glemross at the Olvik until mid-July. She really is fantastic

and you see her in a very different light. The character of Shelley Levine, she portrays so brilliantly. So yeah, go and see her. And we'll see you next week for more Table Manners.