Table Manners with Jessie and Lennie Ware - Jake Cohen

Episode Date: February 26, 2025

This week we have the absolutely gorgeous chef and cookbook writer, Jake Cohen joining us for lunch. The Native New Yorker - known for his delicious bakes - came over to bring us a special pud fresh from his upcoming cookbook. Jake told us all about the amazing NYC food scene and what restaurants to try, that he studied wine in Bordeaux, and he reveals he had a nautical cruise themed bar mitzvah. We also talk about how he threw dinner parties in high school, and we discover that he was planning what to make us for pud while he was out raving! Jake’s new cookbook ‘Dinner Party Animal’ will be out later this year, and it sounds like a dinner party hosts dream - we can’t wait to grab a copy! Think maybe a trip to NYC should be on the cards soon? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome to Table Manners, I'm Jessie Wett and I have to say I'm a bit tired. Are you darling? I realise why I'm not a baker and I didn't even bake today. But I've made a chicken pie and I think it's going to be delicious. It's right on bloody fast isn't it? Even with chopped pork pastry it's a fact. It's a bloody fact. Hopefully it's going to be delicious.

It will be delicious. It's the Julius Roberts recipe. Is he related to Julia Roberts? No. He's the guy that does it all in his greenhouse. He's very cute and his recipe is really rustic and he's really, I love his cookbook and so I'm trying out his chicken pie. It's all right old Faff, I don't know how he's doing that in the bloody greenhouse on a like one stovetop. Well how does he bake a pie in a greenhouse? Oh we'll have to get him on our house. In-house gases. Anyway we have a friend of mine who is over, I think, mainly raving, but he is a chef that's got lots of best-selling cookbooks. I could nosh.

Jewish-ish. Jewish-ish. He's a friend of our friend Benny Blanco, and he is kind of the king of the challah bread. He's got a new TV show as well. Jake makes it easy. He's easy on the TV show as well, Jake Makes It Easy. He's easy on the eye too, old Jake Cohen. And he's over, I think just clubbing. So I decided to bring him over because mainly-

Just break from clubbing. Break, you know, nourish him before he goes back to Burgheim. And he's actually sweet person is bringing a challah and pudding. He's the type of person that when I played in New York and it was Shabbat, and I have to say, I'm not a very good Jew.

I don't always, I don't do Shabbat every Friday. He came over, brought a challah before, like, I went on, lit the candles and also brought these delicious Rice Krispie saffron marshmallowron marshmallow you know what do you call them when they're like marshmallow crispy we used to make them like yeah just rice crispy cakes rice crispy cakes yeah you make them with golden syrup not marshmallows but he puts marshmallows i think his was marshmallows and saffron if i remember rightly and they were so delicious. Anyway so yeah Jake Cohen's coming over to talk all things Jewish food, baking and clubbing and you've never

met him before. No. He's a nice Jewish boy. Good. He's lovely. How are you mum since I saw you 24 hours ago? I'm all right, except my tooth came out. Yeah. So I looked like a pirate for most of yesterday. I was out for lunch. What were you eating? Steak. So it wasn't even hard. Were you at home?

No, I was out for lunch. Oh, my. So I sat like that, like there. Who were you out for lunch with? With my friend Alex, my best friend, so it was okay. Was the steak well done? It was tiny little strips of delicious steak, sirloin steak, and it was just ready to go.

How's it feeling today? Well, at least it's soft, the food today. He said, I can only have soft food for 24 hours while it sets. Oh my God. So don't have the purple sprouting broccoli. Do you want me to whiz it up for you? No, darling.

I mean, look, like a baby, pure A. No, thank you. Jake Curran coming on the podcast, fab. ["The Gossip Room"] Jesse, you need a mug and dovetlight, that one. It's beautiful. Susan Alexandra. I'll get them.

Oh. When you come, when you come to New York next. That is a gorgeous one. You've got your pearls on, you've got your pleasures t-shirt. Jake Cohen, I like it. I like it a lot. You've come in, Jake's come in bearing a big bag of goo. A Tesco bag.

A Tesco, you know about Tesco now, yes. And you've bought something from your new cookbook. Bearing a big bag of a bag Yes, and you you've bought something from your new cookbook, yeah, what's it gonna be called? Are you ready? Yeah So this is like the first time I'm saying it It's called dinner party animal And so the whole thing it's broken down into 16 menus and so it's just different menus for different vibes It gives you your grocery list, your timeline, all the recipes to just like throw a dinner party, which is like my favorite thing to do in the world. Other than like party party.

Well, we'll talk about your party party in a minute, shall we? Are you, is this for different age groups? Will it be for boobers like me? Exactly. He loves his mother. Okay, good. Can I tell you, when I tell you,

you are the target demo. And you are it. And I love it. And it's kind of a very interesting professional dynamic, which is that like my personal life and my professional life don't overlap really in terms of the group which I love because professionally it's it's women and their daughters who are in the kitchen and then socially it's all yeah her audience. So you've brought something from your cookbook um dinner party animal

and tell us what it is you've I basically said, can you bring a challah and can you please bring pudding? And you were lovely about it. Yes, of course. So what have you brought for pudding? I brought, so this is from the cocktail party menu, which the whole idea is when you have too many people you want to invite so you can't do a sit down dinner. So it's all great.

So it's a giant grazing table. So it's everything for a cheese board, candy, nuts. I do these cheeseburger arayas where you do a mix of ground beef with like cheddar cheese and then you like stuff in pitas and sear them. They become almost like these like very easy to make sliders. Great! And then this... Is this all on the grating table? It is. And then for dessert these are jammy goat cheese bars. So you make this one dough, you press a bit of it into the tin, spread on jam, crumble goat cheese, and then you just pick off the rest of the dough like a crumb.

And what's the dough? So funny enough, it's a variation on a... Like a crumble. It was from my great grandmother. It was my great grandmother's recipe for an apple cake for Rosh Hashanah. And it's become like one of the most versatile doughs that I use in my baking. So would you use it on top of things or underneath things? Both, that's the best part. It presses in beautifully but then it also crumbles. So what's in it? Flour and butter? Flour, sugar, you cut in cold butter and then one egg. It's like a

crumble mix really. Yes, exactly. So like a cobbler, like you say cobbler. It really is like a cobbler topping. Yeah, okay, lovely. Thank you. Oh my god, my honour. Thanks darling. And some challah dough so we can do a little braiding lesson. Okay, gorgeous. When did you get into baking? This is, baking was later because it's just I have such a huge sweet tooth. Okay. I always loved to cook. Actually in high school I used to throw these dinner parties for like to make friends. Where were you growing up? I grew up in Queens in the city and then I moved out to Long Island for high school and then that is kind of where again you had this complete shift in terms

of new place, had to make friends, was not doing a great job of it and I started cooking. How old were you? I was a teenager. How many of you are there? It's me and my siblings. And your family, yeah. Yes, me and my sister, who's 13 months younger. So we're very close. So you're very close.

Yes. So had you had your bar mitzvah before you moved to Long Island? No, we did it shortly. It was like just like a short. That was a good way to make friends, no? It was, it was. And we actually, since we're so close in age, we actually had a veney mitzvah. it shortly it was like just like a short that was a good way to make friends it was it was and we

actually since we're so close in age we actually had a veney mitzvah oh you had one together yeah what was the theme oh my god it's so bougie i hate like now i'm very i've become much more jewish in my in my in my more adult years but um it was nautical theme because it was on a little like cruise liner that went around the Long Island South Oh my god, how exciting! Did you wear a little sailor hat? I did not but all of like the all the tables were named after like nautical movies that we loved Like Titanic like Titanic exactly. The side of the French ship.

My table was the Life of Quarlic Oh my god. Love. Was there an overboard one? Oh, thank God, no. No. Did you not love overboard? I've never seen it. Oh, my God!

I watched it again at Christmas with Goldie Horne and Kurt Russell. And you call yourself a gay man? Oh, okay. She's a rich, rich millionaire. Love. She loves a big boat. Oh, amazing. She falls overboard and the carpenter who hates her rescues her and she has amnesia.

And he takes her on to look after his three hillbilly kids. Oh my God. You gotta watch it. I gotta watch it. And shows him money and she says, she doesn't know, she said, was I in this life before? She just has no recollection, but she obviously falls in love.

Let's go back to Long Island. Long Island, so. Oh yeah, okay. So I pretty much started to have this fantasy of like oh I'm gonna cook for real life, that's what I want to do. Is that what your parents wanted you to do? No of course not. I was obsessed with the Food Network, I would come home every day from school and watch hours of it. And it just was this like natural transition where I was like, all right, I'm going to apply literally to only one college.

And that was the Culinary Institute of America, which is like the big culinary school in upstate New York. And that was it. And then I went off there. It was like the best experience ever in the Hudson Valley on the Hudson. It's like, it looks like Hogwarts. It's so intense, incredibly disciplined. They say disciplined. Did you have your own set of knives?

Oh yeah, you have a whole knife roll. It's very strict in terms of uniform. You have to be like clean shaven every day. So what did you wear? You had chef whites. Chef whites with your neckerchief tied and if you weren't in that you had to be in business casual attire. Like it was a very strict they come yeah took and yet to keep your toks clean or else you'd be sent home like they compare it the closest thing is West Point are you a good clear upper I'm judge chefs by how and cooks how they clear up my grandma yeah to be like she was like you're only as good a chef as it how you yeah ergonomics you got clean as you go, you gotta stay organized, all of it.

And that's kind of something that I really focus on in this book because I think that's what people get the most frightened of when they entertain. It's like the kitchen becomes a mess and really if you break down how you prep time-wise of what you do, you can take pauses, clean up, keep everything. Do you know what I've decided?

Tell me. When I give a dinner party, I love it, but I feel begrudging because I get tired. And then at the very end of the dinner party, you're like a waitress as well as the court because you're waiting on. Then people say, I offer coffee, and I say, would you like coffee?

And they say, yes. And then they say, oh, could I have a little milk? And then one says, oh, do you have any decaf? And then one says, oh, I don't want coffee. I'll have tea. So basically you shouldn't have offered. Well, someone said to me, offer a pot of mint tea and a pot of coffee. And if they don't like it, they can. But that's 100% it.

Yeah. And I believe that. I truly, truly believe. I cannot do this back and forth. And then someone says, have you got sweeteners? I say, no, I don't take sugar. And I've got sugar. Oh, how much sugar? Oh, only a half a spoon. And you're back and forward with the spoons.

I mean, I'm the difficult one. I'm always like, I need whatever fake milk, fake sugar you have. Oh my God. Well, Americans are very bad at this milk, isn't it? Oh, don't you tell me you don't eat cream. I do. I save it for dessert. I don't do it in my coffee.

Okay fine, there's some cream in this. Oh yeah yeah yeah, that's great. No no, I eat everything. Again, I'm neurotic. There's no rhyme or reason. It's just like, no no, in my coffee I'll do almond milk and stevia. But then I'll have like a pint of ice cream. Almond milk with what?

Stevia. What's that? It's like a natural sweetener. Is it natural? I don't know. So are you a classical chef then? Yeah. So then after school, I worked at Danielle, Danielle Balloud's Three Michelin Star restaurant in Manhattan, and then ABC Kitchen.

I loved ABC Kitchen. Benny Blanco took me there. Yeah. It was one of my favorites. It was so chic. Is it still good? It is. I will say, I mainly go because they have a ABC Cucina,

which is their Latin one, and then ABCV, which is their vegetarian one. ABCV I go to all the time. I think it's one of my favorite restaurants in the city. That being said, the chef that I worked under went off and opened his own place, his own two restaurants, Lauren Place Downtown and Greywind, so I follow him went off and opened his own place, his own two restaurants, Loring Place Downtown and Greywind.

So I like, I follow him because I just love his restaurants. We'll talk about the New York food scene in a bit, but let's start at the beginning. Who was around the dinner table? It was your sister, your mom, your dad. Just the four of you. Yeah, but we didn't have a ton of family dinners. I think the whole thing was both my parents were working. My mother's a veterinarian.

My dad worked in film. Like, they were just constantly working. So it was kind of like a food would be ready and then like everyone eats when you can. And really the one time, like the times of the year in which hospitality was abundant were the holidays, especially the Jewish holidays, where everyone in the family and abundant were the holidays, especially the Jewish holidays, where everyone in the family and all the stops

were just pulled out and we were just having these feasts. And that's where I really fell in love with hospitality. So Rosh Hashanah meal, what's your Rosh Hashanah meal? So my Aunt Suzy would host and she makes an incredible brisket. I've taken over. Everyone always does brisket. It's not a big thing here, brisket, is it? I'm gonna make you a brisket. I've taken over. Everyone always does brisket. It's not a big thing here.

Oh, I'm gonna make you a brisket next time. Next time. You're gonna come to New York actually. We do some big holidays. Yeah, love a brisket, love the big thing and especially for Passover was apricot chicken. Oh, that's what we have. But we do that at Rosh Hashanah. Okay, you can do it any anytime. I say mainly Passover because you make this it's funny it's like this Joe Nathan recipe where you take me you take crushed matzah and make kind of like a stuffing to stuff into the chicken and that's lovely. And now I do chicken portions and mine's from a friend from South Africa. So you use this you

use a chutney in it and you use the onion soup mix. Yeah, of course, of course. Yeah, and that brings it out. Yeah. I, so I do have two holiday menus in the book, one of which being a full Seder menu. And it gives you everything you need to make Seder. And the other one being Thanksgiving, which is like one of my favourite holidays. Are you going to be here for Passover?

When is it? It's Easter. I can be, if that's what you need. Me to do. Would you like some pie? I would love some pie. Okay, mom, I'm just gonna let you serve it because you will tell me the time.

In case I make a mistake. Okay. So, I have made a chicken pie, Julius Roberts. Oh love, love. Yes, it's his chicken and harrowing one. Oh, I know exactly the video. Yes, I saw it and I thought, yes. It seems like everyone in England

has a greenhouse to cook out of. No, no, he, I'm one, mom was one, oh god, whatever. It tasted quite nice, but I don't make my own pastry cake. You know what? So I do have this, you know Dominique Goncel? The pastry chef? Yes, yes. So he does this thing, I've known him for years, he actually made my first... He's like the creator of the Krona. Exactly. He baked my first wedding cake.

How many times have you been married? No, no, just once, but I... Your last wedding, do you think? I don't know, we'll see. I never say never. Okay, fine. Jessie, do you want a crusty bit? And please help yourself, there's peas and purple sprouts. Oh, love. So he used to do this thing,

I think he actually still does, at his main bakery called Pie Night, where you go and it's just unlimited slices of sweet and savory pies. Yum! And I became obsessed with it so one of the menus is a pie menu and I do a chicken pie and I felt the same way I felt so passionately that I didn't want to do a double crust I didn't want to make homemade pie dough. What's a double crust? We do it on the bottom and the top. I didn't want to do puff pastry. And so what I did is I actually used biscuit dough

and I rolled it out thin and used that as the top crust. It was so lovely. Right. No, it's fine. So you don't judge people when they don't make their own pastries. So where did the bacon stuff come from? Once I left restaurants, I switched over to like running test kitchens for food magazines and It was just something where I had this opportunity to start to explore baking and I love it And it's just trial and error you the more you do it the more you just become

It's a it's just like going to the gym or any type of practice It's a discipline and the more you do it the more you start to understand the techniques of how things affect. It's quite scientific. It is. But you also get what I always say it's like coding, so you start to learn these groups of code and what they do, and you could start to group them together and make new things. So if I were coming to dinner at your house, I love a cocktail. What are you going to make me for dinner? so the funny thing is and I live I live with my two best friends and None of us drink and yet we have

Every alcohol you can imagine everyone brings things all the time and nothing gets drunk We have a whole wine fridge full of like champagne like but we never have like we were just we always have to remind ourselves Oh, let's pop a bottle because we have to celebrate. Have you never really been a big drinker then? Not really. Is it just something? And again, it's not like I'm, it's like everyone in America is Cali sober now. It's like...

It's quite unusual for a chef to not really... Yeah. And it's funny, I actually studied wine in Bordeaux. Like I did very, there's a wine course at school that I did very well in, and got a scholarship to go to Bordeaux to study wine. And I loved it. I love the science of it. I love the art of it.

It's just the practice. And again, if I'm at a crazy, crazy restaurant, I'll do the wine pairing. So what I do actually is I typically make a series of syrups or like different, I make a shrub, a syrup, and some other kind of tincture, and then I put it out with mixers and all different types of spirits so people can do their own.

Like, moon yolks. Exactly. So I think in the book, I do like, I do a, typically do a honey ginger syrup, which goes well with a lot of like, brown spirits. I do a cucumber shrub, so it adds that kind of like, I love, I love, exactly, but I love like something bright and sweet. And then actually I make my

own version. I do like a pomegranate, what's the Shirley Temple stuff? Grenadine. Grenadine. I make a homemade grenadine. Great. And then people love because they just like pour their own things and I'll tell you nine times out of ten, especially with so many gay men, it's like they're having vodka sodas and it's, that's it. But also it means that you're not bloody making cocktails the whole night. Exactly. Let them build their own. Are we allowed to talk about where you got your baking tray from? Oh yeah.

So you're having a bit of a renaissance at the moment Jake. My roommate Ben calls it my rum springer, which is when the Amish people go out into the real world for a week. You're r for a week. I mean. Yeah. You're raving a lot. I've recently gotten into party culture and we're living our party girl life. So I asked you to do a purd

and you were like, with pleasure. And when I texted you, we were at different, let's, you went, I'm just at a rave, sure, what do you want? Any dieteries? So this is funny, cause this was last week dieteries? I'm like, love. So this is funny, cause this was last week. Last week.

I was at, you texted me. I'm in basement, which is this techno club in Queens. And I am literally with this guy, and he's like, who are you texting? I was like, hold on one second, Jessie Ware is texting me. Which again, it's so fascinating how, cause I guess I never recognize what a gay icon you are. Oh, stop it. No, no, no, it's like, but it's so fascinating how, because I guess I never recognized what a gay icon you are.

Oh, stop it. No, no, no, it's like a big, it's a big thing. And everyone was so confused. And we were talking about like what to bring. And again, it doesn't matter where I am. I was at the rave and I was like, we had to- You were texting me back, bless you. So then yesterday morning, I text you,

I think it was around, we only have time for one. It was the early hours. It was the early hours. I was on my way home from my first London rave. Where did you go, fold? I went to Adonis. Oh wow.

So you were at Adonis. I'm at Adonis and I'm on my way back and I had... A lovely... A lovely... had a lovely evening, morning. Yeah. Were you traveling back alone or with a guest? Well, I had traveled with guests and then... Guests!

No, no, guests to like an after party and then to a guest. Yeah. And I literally, I'm leaving, I go, oh, can I borrow that baking tray? So shout out to Sam. Thank you, Sam. Will he be getting his? Oh, he will be getting it back. Oh, you'll be seeing him again then. I wouldn't have taken the tray if there wasn't that intent.

I'm not that kind of a... I like that though. That was a way of being able to see Sam again. I love that. Maybe this is the beginning of a romance. Is Sam into Technic? He's into Jake Cohen. That's what he's into. Period. Period. Yeah. If you're there, you're into something. You're into something. Let's talk about the New York food scene at the moment. Is it good? It's the best. People have been shitting on it,

Jake. Do you think better than London? I do. I think London has a great food scene. To me, there are like, New York has everything. I think you have better croissants in New York than you do in Paris. I think you have like, I think the pastry scene is out of control. The bagels are the best. The bagels are the best. The Indian isn't good.

It's much fewer compared to London 100%. And that's all comes down to community. I think we have a lot more regional Asian cuisine. So like regional Chinese restaurants, Thai, Korean. The Korean food scene is incredible. So give me the top five places at the moment that we should be going to in New York. So for me, it's Hila.

I am, I love, I go to Laser Wolf all the time, Michael Salamanoff's. Oh, I love that place. It is incredible. It's in the Hoxton Hotel. And the rooftops, the view is amazing. What is this in Brooklyn? Israeli, it's shippledim, which is all like kebab, like kind of things, but like-

Okay, very delicious. They start off with all of these like salad tray and hummus and pita that everyone gets and it's just delicious. Okay. Okay, there's that. There is, I mean there are classics like I still love to meet someone at Katz's for a pastrami sandwich. Coastal on the side to put on the sandwich. Yes. A lot of

pickles. Yeah. And I love their latkes. Do you like their matzo bull soup? Uh I don't get it there. I know where I'm going for matzo bull soup. I love Russ and Daughters daughters the cafe. It's excellent I love second Avenue. It's my better than russ and daughters. I would say it's homemade. Of course. It'll always be better It was oh, and would you have a whole sandwich or half a sandwich? I'm a big boy I'll go home. Okay, you Got cats is I love so then there's two spots I knew my biggest thing is I meet people for Baker like a bakery for like midday for coffee and a sweet.

Crikey, why are you fitting it all in? You don't stop. I don't stop. So this is my new favorite bakery. It's my good friend Miro who was the pastry chef at Gramercy Tavern. Okay. Which is another favorite of mine, New York icon restaurant. And he opened this restaurant called Honey's but spelled H-A-N-I, apostrophe S. He's Serbian, but his first stint in America was living in Ohio, and so he learned old school Americana baking. And so it is the most incredible cookies, cakes, pies,

tarts ever. And then Cafe Pana, which is my friend Hallie's ice cream spot. And she, it is like, the menu changes every day. And she does these crazy affogato sundaes. And it is just, I went on, I had this incredible first date there the other, the other like last month. How much of a scary virtual? How many months do you have? No, you're Samantha. Let's be real. It's so funny. We talk, because really my friend group, there are four of us,

and we all fit into the archetypes so clearly. But you used to be Charlotte, I bet. I was more Charlotte. And now you're Samantha. And now I'm Samantha. You do you. Yeah, but I'm always a little bit of Carrie. I'm a main character. Yeah, no, very Samantha.

And it was a bit of a power play, because then you come and they bring out a sundae, and this and that, and you're just eating ice cream, and it's very low-key, because people don't want to do a full meal on a first date and this is something that's like better than just going for a drink Should we get your pudding out? Let's do it. I love that you just call everything's pudding I know, sorry

Good pud What do you call it? Dessert Do you want a coffee or a tea? I would love a coffee How do you like yours? However Okay, I'm gonna just do like a filter which will be nice and soft.

Yeah, that's perfect, perfect. Whilst I make some coffees and teas. Yeah, I'm going to talk about last supper. You're going to ask Jane about the last supper. Okay. Okay. You're going off to a desert, you're not going on Death Row because I hate that. Okay.

But you're going to a desert island for six months. Uh-huh. So what's going to be your last supper? It's very, it's, we've talked about a lot about it. It is matzo bowl soup. Like I need a matzo bowl soup. I need big chunks of chicken. I need chunks of carrots and celery. I need lots of dill. Oh, do you put chicken in yours? Oh yes. I need lots of dill. And I don't put dill. I'll put it on the side for you when I make it. And then, honestly it's a lot of deli stuff.

It'll probably be a side of latkes with applesauce, a braised brisket, and then for dessert. Do you ever make latkes? Oh, all the time. But the whole house smells of fried. For a day. Yes, you're right. I love it.

Do you ever make a filter fish? I actually have an incredible recipe in my next book. Oh, great. In part of the Pound Soil Seder and what I do is- A foil, not fried. Different. So what I do is this,

I originally was doing it as like the poached canals and then a friend had told me about his version and it's rainbow filter fish. So what you do is you split the mix into three. One third gets chopped with herbs, one third gets chopped with carrot, and one third gets chopped plain, just with onion. And then you layer them in loaf pans. Exactly, and then you bake it.

Oh, so it's not a smell? And so there's no smell, it's so easy. Is that in your cookbook? It's going to be the new one. Oh, thank God for that. Have you bought a copy? It hasn't been printed yet. We're editing it right now When is it coming out? It'll come out Most likely this fall. It's gonna be i'm so excited. It really is it was such a labor of love This is the third one, but this was the hardest one to make and this is going to accompany your tv series We're gonna time it out so the next season will coordinate.

So we'll do a couple of episodes of the show making the dishes. We've got brisket, latkes. I'll probably say for dessert, I need like warm chocolate chip cookies and tiramisu. I need multiple desserts. Multiple? Yeah, I love it. Are you a dessert person? I love it. So you like lots of sweet stuff?

Lots of sweets. Multiple. I always have ice cream in the freezer. Always have cookie dough ready to bake. That's actually one of my big things with like, as I have these gentlemen callers where it's like, you have, you could be like, you could pull out some cookie dough and bake some fresh cookies.

Oh my God. I love that. Is that in one of your cookbooks? Cookie dough is, I should pretty much share it everywhere. Like on the internet, on stuff. I do a version in my first book where I bake my chocolate chip cookies and then I flip them over and I glaze them like a black and white cookie so I make I don't know what a black and white black and white cookies are these yes they're these like they're these like cakey cookies that

have like a white glaze and half white glaze and half chocolate glaze. Okay, what's a white glaze? So it's again, it's typically- White chocolate. This is typically just like a powdered sugar glaze. Oh, okay, okay. But what I do here is I make like pretty much a white chocolate ganache and a dark chocolate ganache to glaze these cookies with.

Yeah, I think that would be good. What drink are you gonna have? Oh, what drink am I gonna have? That's a great question, and the answer is very simple, a Diet Coke. Even if it's the last the last day like I don't I'm not doing that full fat honestly the only thing that I love as much as diet coke is Fresca. I love Fresca. Fresca is a Jewish woman's dream. It is the most refreshing. Yeah, fresca. It's delicious.

I used to like Mountain Dew. But the only time I've ever drunk it was in, when I was with Michael and Loretta. It was the most delicious drink and you can't find it anymore. It's like drinking, like, break fuel, like, break fluid. Yes, it's delicious. Oh my God.

Let's try these. These look beautiful. These are jammy goat cheese crumbars. Typically I'll do it with raspberry, but I only saw blackcurrant and I thought that'd be lovely. So these are blackcurrant with goat cheese. It's this like beautiful, like lemony crust. And how long did it take you to make?

An hour. Oh, come on. Oh my God. Jake. Are you happy with it? I love it. It's such a good recipe and the goat cheese is so lovely. Yes!

It's not too sweet. You don't think it's cheese? Cause it gives it that like cheese cakey kind of tang. Where did you buy the goat's cheese? Tesco. Tesco. No, but what, it was just like- It was a log and I just-

A log, yeah. I know. Oh wow, that's lovely. I won't ever forget when you bought a Holler backstage. Oh my god. And you bought your delicious rice crispy. I did. Oh my god I totally forgot. Yes because you had she played Terminal 5 in New York. Oh I remember was I there? No. She invited me but it was a Friday night so I was like why don't we do Shabbat first? So I came backstage before the concert. We did Shabbat with your whole group. It was really lovely. And then I went out and I ran into every gay person I knew

and I was like, what are you doing here? And they're like, no, no, what are you doing here? It was really special, it was gorgeous, I'll never forget it. Are you quite religious? No, I would say I just I love the I love ritual, I love the practice around it, I think Shabbat is like one of my favorite rituals in the world, I don't like keep Shabbat, I will say I try there are moments I'm not very good at it but I love on Friday nights just turn off my phone from like when I

sit down to dinner until Saturday morning and just even have like the evening free of my phone I think it's magic. Can you give me, Jake, a very nostalgic taste that can transport you back somewhere happy or sad? Mmm that's a great question. Um, I would say really, it's very specific, but it's Gouda cheese. And my grandmother, who I'm still very close with, who's a survivor, and she always, like the vacation spot that they've been doing since my mother was a child was Aruba, and she actually lived in Aruba for a long time. And it's a Dutch colony. So the whole thing is like every time they go, they come back with an entire wheel of Gouda.

So it's always in her house in Forest Hills in Queens, and we'd go and spend the weekend, and she would make these elaborate meals for my sister and I when we'd sleep over, and there'd be like lamb chops and pasta, and she would always make asparagus with like thin-sliced Gouda melted on it. Ooh. And that's just become this, whenever I taste it, it just reminds me of childhood in this way, of these moments with her. That's such a lovely story, thank you.

Jake, do you like karaoke? I like everything. I'm not a great singer. So which song would you choose? Ooh. A techno song. Not a techno song. I mean, who knows knows maybe I'll do something from Brat now. It's typically something ABBA I would say. Probably an ABBA song. Have you been to see the ABBA thing? I might go on Thursday. Yeah go! It's the best. It's brilliant. It's funny because you ask all

these questions and now since I've been dating I have two questions that I do every day. And I actually do it platonically. First is, like on the TikTok, the red carpets, like, what's your letterbox for? Like, what are your four favorite movies and why? OK. OK, that's a good one. OK, that's an opener. What would I say? I'd say overboard, I'd say. Oh, God. Saturday Night Fever.

Ten Things I Hate About You. Oh yeah. I love. I used to love She's All That. Pretty Woman. Oh amazing. I don't know my last one. What are yours? Greece! Greece, great. That's a great four. Number one is Bridesmaids. Very good. One of the best comedies of all time.

Second is Howl's Moving Castle. Oh lovely. Studio Ghibli. I've seen all of the Ghibli films. I think they're incredible. And this one is like very gay. It's like very much rooted in vanity and this girl who's stripped of her youth and beauty and finding her own power even within that. Third is Arrival. It's one of my favorite movies with Amy Adams, like aliens come and she has, she's this linguist who has to communicate with them.

The same guy who did the Dune movies did Arrival. Okay, fine. Incredible. Number four, because I'm a romantic, Before Sunset. Oh, you know what? It's such a good one. It's such, I like that is my life. The duo though, I'd have most.

What about after sunset? It's before sunset, before sunrise, before midnight. Okay. I really like the before midnight actually. I love, I mean, because it's so real where you get to see over 21 years the way a relationship's been. I loved. So do you judge them on their film choice? I do, funny enough. The guy I went on that ice cream date with,

I had two overlaps with him. Ooh. But again, here's the thing, I'm very into woo-woo. The guy I went on that ice cream date with had two overlaps with me. Oh. But again, here's the thing, I'm very into woo-woo. I'm very into woo-woo. Oh yeah, have you got Crystal Quartz? Not that much of that part, but I'm very into Abraham Hicks manifestation. I'm very into just like true deep like a do-artist way for kind of just intense journaling. I did the Hoffman process.

I love all of it. And it's just as simple as the fact that like, he might be so amazing, but if he's not obsessed with me, then that's, then he's not it. Like cause I'll find someone that is all of that plus matches my freak. And that's the most important thing. Matches my freak. And on that note, thank you for coming over, thank you for cooking, thank you for being so fun and brilliant. I'm excited about the new cookbook. When are you back

on the telly? Back on the telly probably around the same time. The next season will probably come out this fall. And what's it called? It's called Jake Makes It Easy. It's on A&E so American Cable which is like very fun. But do you have massive fan mail? Isn't everybody in love with you? Because I'm already in love.

No, no, no. I have this reaction. The... it actually happened. Oh my god. You got a stalker. It happened the other night. We were at Chill Turn, and funny enough, I was with a group, it ended up getting very heated, there was like kind of a fight and there was a fight There was a fight around a promise of someone to come rating with us who bailed and I literally I mean I flew to London for this like I flew. You were the one that instigated the fight? No, he did by bailing but

But it was this whole heated thing and my friend is like we got we're leaving And so we get him to leave and as we get up to leave, the girl at the table next just gets up and she's like, Jake, I love your cookbooks, I'm such a huge fan. And then we have this conversation and then they have to take the picture of us. Oh yeah, very. But it was really great. And again, I love them all. That's the best part of life, nothing's that serious.

I had a great time, as you can tell, because I got the tray. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much, and we will see you in New York. Can't wait. Can't wait. ["The Trial of the Night"] We are actually recording this outro a few hours after we finished recording the podcast with darling Jake. Because the challah came, just didn't go.

No, that makes out that we didn't want him to go. No, we wanted him to go. No. He waited till the challah was cooked. We were yaching, we were chatting. I had a play date. he stayed for the play date. We loved it. Jake Cohen was a delight.

It's fabulous. I love him. And his pudding, his dessert was so delicious. So delicious. I mean, they've already gone. Everyone's had them in the play date. My kids have come home. Gorgeous.

Your chicken pie was absolutely delicious. Thank you, mum. Julius Roberts. Thank you. He's got very good recipes. I think mum Yeah, after this conversation we should Get on a flight to New York and do a New York series. Is that because of the bagels darling? No, it's because Jake Hohens offered to cook for a series and I'm fully down for that. Me too. So watch this space Thank you so much to Jake for coming on. Can't wait for your new cookbook.

Your cookbooks are brilliant. We'll see you next week.