Table Manners with Jessie and Lennie Ware - S6 Ep 11: Deborah Frances-White

Episode Date: July 3, 2019

The Guilty Feminist herself, Deborah Frances-White joins us round the dinner table for today’s episode. With over 65m podcast downloads under her belt, a Royal Albert Hall gig this weekend and an army of followers, Deborah is inspiring, charming and hysterical. With fingers in the Eton mess and whilst downing champagne, we talk about her ‘fading’ from being a Witness, her mum’s incredible Pavlova, searching for her birth parents and Table Manners Olympics. I’m a feminist but....I love that she added me into a secret Love Island WhatsApp group Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome to Table Manners. I'm Jessie Ware and I'm here with my mother. Hi. Charm offensive. Hello. How are you mum? I'm not too bad. What's been going on? Tell me about your life. Darling, you know about my bad back.

I know about your bad back. I had an MRI scan with ABBA in my ears for 40 minutes. What was worse, the MRI or the ABBA? It was horrendous with the banging and ABBA on the back. I remember. Chikatita. Oh, Chikatita, you and I know. Oh my God.

Bang, bang, bang, bang from the MRI scan. When I had my wisdom teeth done, I don't know if it's like the extra kind of American service, but they gave me a whole selection that I could choose. You could choose like, you know, Chopin, Sade, Barbra Streisand. So who did you choose? I went for Barbra Streisand and I actually regretted it. Not soothing enough.

You wanted to speak. It's a night I don't fear. And I was like, oh, hearing the drill. Yeah, it was horrendous. Anyway, but actually Sade Paradise didn't really cut it either because you could just feel this drilling into your teeth. Anyway, we have a very impressive woman. A feminist.

More than just a feminist. A political, feminist, equality, supporter of women. Comedian. Comedian. Writer. Writer. Broadcaster. Everything. Her podcast has 60 million downloads. Reporter, comedian, writer, broadcaster, everything.

Her podcast has 60 million downloads. Crikey, how many have we got, darling? Not that many, Mum. Okay. Not even near. Okay, darling. So, Deborah Francis-White, you may have heard, is the host and creator of the incredibly successful and brilliant Guilty Feminist podcast. She has had a really interesting upbringing,

which I can't wait to talk to her about. They've had incredible, I mean, there's some incredibly famous fans of the show. I listened to a brilliant one with Emma Thompson and Mindy Kaling. I listened to that as well. Gemma Alterton, Dolly Alterton's been on it. She's also had a TED Talk on stage fright and charisma. She basically does everything.

She might give you some advice. What are you saying? About stage fright. Or charisma, which maybe she'll give you some advice on charisma. No, darling, I don't need that. Should we talk about the book shoot last week? Well, do people know we've got a book coming out? I don't know.

That we've started shooting the... I i don't know that we've started shooting the all the recipes the good news is all the recipes work the other good news is we started taking the photos so it's getting nearer and nearer to production and the sad news is if we is we have to reshoot the gefilte fish because i gefilte fish gate gefilte fish gate it has been called because i said it was okay to serve the crane in a jar and what did you say gaga wouldn't have served it like that it's actually really upsetting yeah yeah it's really interesting meet lenny where aka yep chris jenner no i'm not like chris jenner but i treasured recipes have to be served properly oh we haven't spoken since we did unicef's soccer aid oh that was fun it was fun

yeah it was particularly fun watching you get your makeup done by ysl makeup artist fabulous he got my what did you ask for i just wanted the individual lashes no you just wanted to look like rupaul's drag race you said i said i don't like natural look i prefer a drag queen look yeah and he knew what to do so tonight on the menu we have a pescatarian in the house right so what have you made she says she follows grandma's rules which is being presumed that she's basically she would have eaten rare roast beef if if we given it to her um mum is pointing to the table the linen um napkins that she's bought me because she's sick of the fact that we're in season six or five five or six and we're still wiping our hands with our hands yeah so tonight it's a really hot day it's friday and we are having a spring vegetable well spring summer vegetable kind of broth broth

but that it's it's with white wine and parmesan and lemon zest and loads of herbs like chives and tarragon who gave you did you make it up? No, of course I didn't. Clara Paul, my gorgeous friend who is a chef, was just like, this is so easy and lovely, and I've been making it so much. I wished we'd put it in the... Oh, hello.

And so you have that and dip with loads of nice sourdough bread. And then I bought from Finn and Flounder, it's a lovely fishmongers on Broadway market because I'm trying to do a little bit of a maternity leave. So what I do, I walk around aimlessly with my son trying to get him to sleep in a pram. But I went to Finn and Flounder and they looked gorgeous. The crab and lobster cakes.

And we're going to serve it with samphire. And then for pudding, you thought of this, a passion fruit eat a mess. Yeah. With raspberries raspberries and i passion fruit and i want to put toasted coconut in you can but also not just all cream cream and yogurt cream and green yogurt yeah yeah which makes it just lighter yeah so um we're doing that and um we are so excited to have deb Francis-White coming up on Table Manners.

Cheers. Cheers. Cheers, Deborah. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you. To feminism. To feminism. To feminism.

Are you sick about talking about feminism? No. No. No. Well, we feminism no no no well we still need it while we still need it i feel like we need it more every day god we're going backwards well yeah right we're polarizing so we we are making huge strides and at the same time it was what always happens the patriarchy strikes back so if you think about 1930s berlin what was it like there was an enormous world that was full of people who were completely owning their sexuality and their whole selves and and that's when that force comes and mows that to the ground and says we're not having that so there's always a So the question is, who will win in this battle?

Because Trump is a direct response to Obama. It's a response to, we're not having this other take over. And by other, we mean anything that doesn't look like the dominant force, the force that's been in power, the white stripes. Oh, excuse me. Sorry. That's what he thinks of Trump. Yes, he does.

Can I have a cuddle you can but I'm worried he's going to be sick on your gorgeous dress hi darling hello this is my husband

hello oh what a sweet boy you are are you happy yes look you love the ladies

oh yes oh he'll have that necklace off your neck oh wow he's having a chat with you yeah yeah he's saying teach me yeah so well i agree with you that i think that the patriarchy is currently uh in in a battle um with contemporary intersectional feminism But do you think we will win? Yeah. He just nodded.

He nodded and smiled. Yeah. We will win. Yes. Okay. And so you're on our side, yeah? Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Oh, that's nice to hear. I love when he talks. Well, I mean, that's a complicated issue and it requires nuance. It's something that a lot of feminists debate about. But I think, you know, your take on it is certainly valid.

And I think one could argue that way. And you have argued that way. So that's great. I mean, there are some important issues at the moment in terms of intersectionality. Being trans-inclusive, that's very important. What do you think about that? Yeah, no, a lot of people don't want to say much about it because they're frightened i say the wrong thing the microphone's live and you feel you feel concerned you're going to say the wrong thing but you don't need to we can all talk about it just you know we

just need to remember everyone else's humanity is important and identity is important yeah i mean you he's looking at you with such adoration and it's actually kind of caressing your face as you and your boob actually sorry about that this is the real love i need yeah it is what it is it is what it is he really likes deborah yeah he felt he's been inspired yeah my friends used to call me the baby whisperer because i was able to get their baby that no one could stop crying. Really? I think I have got a good rapport with babies.

Oh, yeah, I mean, he's in love. It's weird to me that I will never have a baby because I always assumed I would have a baby, and I will never have a baby. How do you know you won't now? I tried with the IVFers and the IUIers, and it didn't work. And then we got to this point with them where I think we had to wait for a procedure or to find out about something it was one of those

tests and both of us were secretly hoping that they were going to say you can't do it well I think we just got to the end of it you've gone through too much you you get pumped so full of hormones well I did anyway I don't want to i don't want to generalize everyone's experience but my experience of rui and ivf was the amount of injections and suppositories and things that you have to it's something in every orifice every day and one time i got so depressed that honestly i felt this isn't i'm so depressed i'm verging into a very dark place where I absolutely should not be having, getting pregnant. And I went to the clinic and said, I think I should call this off because I shouldn't have a baby because I am a deeply depressed person. And I've never been a depressed person.

And they said, no, do you know what they said? Oh, hold on a minute. Are you taking the X injection with the Y suppository? And the, no, it was this, it was the, the spray. There was a spray that I had to do. It was literally like an ear spray or something weird or a mouth spray or something. Are you doing the spray with this injection?

And I went, yeah. And they went, oh yeah, that sometimes does make people feel suicidal. I was like, well, that would have been nice if you'd mentioned that because I thought it was me. They could have explained that. I thought it was me. I was like, oh i i am now a

depressed person you know and you know when you're depressed you feel like this is the truth that actually everything is bleak and you are have you ever been depressed before though i mean i've had periods like anyone i think of depression but but i'm not i wouldn't define myself by depression at all no i'm i am lucky in as much as i haven't i think had a lot of mental health issues uh but i think all of us like our physical health we're all much more willing to say oh well actually i've got this weird elbow from that time i had a car accident or oh i was very bronchial as a child and I suffer from asthma and that's not an embarrassing admission oh I had an operation or I had my appendix out but if if you say oh you know twice a year I get so depressed that I have to take days off work you feel embarrassed about saying

of course we should not because our mental health and our physical health are both on a spectrum and of course some conditions physical conditions are debilitating and some mental conditions are debilitating, much like on a par. And I had never had a debilitating depression before. I'm generally, very luckily, the opposed to I think depression which overcomes people that is an internally caused condition and like any one I've had downers about my career and you know things like that which have felt very bleak and extended but I am not a depressed person and this depression was like nothing I'd ever known. But of course, when you're in that state, you think this is the truth.

All this other time I was in La La Land, I was fantasizing that everything was fine. Now it has been revealed to me what a useless person I am, how everything is terrible. So it's no good someone saying cheer up because you go, I don't want to go back to that place of not knowing the truth.

Was that the last time that you tried to try for a baby then no that had i stopped using the combination of drugs and then i was okay again but it just i was just an irritable anxious emotional person through that period and i think i am prone to my husband would tell you um you know being responding emotionally to things or responding you know being too busy and being frustrated by things or you know uh isn't that normal well i think so i don't think i don't think he thinks so he's a very even what's his background i mean because we're jewish and noisy and i'm a social worker and mental health is an acceptable state I think with with our family don't you think I mean no I mean if you said to me I feel depressed mum I'd

take it seriously um well and it wouldn't be something that you couldn't tell me or would it no no I no no I think Tom's just a very... He's... We have a joke. Is he English? Yes. Did he go to public school? He's half Jewish, actually.

Oh, is he? I don't think he feels culturally Jewish, if you see what I mean. So he didn't get the loud kind of... He's not loud enough. No. But do you know what? I'm about to do 23andMe,

because I'm adopted, and I found my biological mother and all her side of the family, which was very exciting. But I'm going to do 23andMe because I'm adopted and I found my biological mother and all her side of the family which was very exciting but I'm going to do 23andMe because I can't find anything about my biological father and I think can't she tell you uh she's told me what she knows but you have to then dig and you have to dig in a way that doesn't make somebody who doesn't know who you are uncomfortable and all of that and i anyway i can't find anything out and so i i'm going to do 23andme to see if

i can find out anything genetically on that so i don't know you know i might have a match 23andme is that these genetics show you kind of what part irish you are like you're five percent irish is that am i right yes but also you're doing when you kept asking my date of birth i thought you were trying to do it i was just trying to get my son's passport okay yeah okay so 23 and me you send some spit in a jar or whatever yeah it then looks at your credentials and if you say yes i would be interested in being connected with any family and you've opened that door wow i'd quite like to do it then they can tell you so a friend of mine she um sent it off just hoping to hear she's jewish and she sent it off hoping to hear that you know she had x y and z in her makeup and just thought it would be

interesting or maybe find a second cousin or something but she found out she had all of these half sisters and brothers all over the world and it turns out her father was a sperm donor which she hadn't known like that Netflix right right right right and so and but she she found the ones that were open that a had done 23 and b were open to it so there are a lot more so someone might say oh well actually I've got a brother but he's not interested in meeting you that's really interesting um what do you think you are well I just think you are i mean it's a good question but i know his surname is irish and i feel that that sort of tracks but i've always thought i was jewish i've always thought i've always thought you've got anything

we could claim you i'm so excited to do it because i feel it's going to come up if you're not well i will be greek you could also be Greek. Yes. Thinking. But here's the great thing about being adopted. Before you know anything, wherever you visit in the world, you think, oh, yeah. Yeah. I'm probably an Italian princess. I feel it.

Yes, exactly. I'm probably from an enormous Jewish family. And, you know, you imagine these things. Where were you adopted? In Australia? Yes. But of course, when you narrow it it down the answers can only be the answers yeah it can't be everything it can be one thing and it can be and it is what it is to quote Nuff Island um so when did you meet your mum your biological my birth mother so my mum is the woman

who raised me and I'm always very clear about this my mum is the one who raised me uh my birth mother um I met her I contacted her in 2012 and i met her at the beginning of 2013 and do you do you keep in touch oh yeah oh yeah i see them every time i go over so i go to australia and she lives in new zealand with my sisters and i see them all the time how does it feel a couple of times a year or and also my birth mother comes over here because one of my sisters lives in Scotland. Okay. So I will see my birth mother probably once a year when I go there and once a year or once every two years when she comes here. And we always have lovely times. Was she glad you found her? Oh, yeah.

Yeah. And I was very lucky like that because some people do get rejected. And I understand there are complicated emotions, of course. There's, you know, all sorts of things going on. And people respond to because there was a whole generation of generations of women, I should say, where they didn't have any choice. support system wasn't there the the societal support system wasn't there and culturally it wasn't acceptable to keep your baby so and there was no access to a safe legal abortion but you could find out then why she gave you up for adoption um because that's where you were 10 days old yeah i knew i always knew why she gave me up you you knew from the outset yeah because she was uh 20 and my biological father was married to somebody else and he had kids so and i think you know it was

a fling and you know that uh it wasn't the right time for her to have a baby but i think giving a baby away does of course impact the rest of your life and I think you suppress a lot of them because then there was no counselling then either or there was no access to the story of what had happened to me so I think what I would always think is did is that baby all right did that baby survive did somebody love that baby I would be concerned all the time so one reason I wanted to get in touch was just sort of fill in a piece of a puzzle I wasn't messed up by it or anything like that but um I thought I should know it's time. And I didn't want to leave it too late

and then find that she wasn't there anymore, you know. But the other thing was for her that I just thought if I'd given a baby away, I'd want to know. And how has your mum felt about it all? She was very supportive when I started to do it. And I mean, I try not to talk about her very much because she's very supportive when I started to do it. And I, I mean, I try not to talk about her very much because she's very private.

Yeah. But I was, I will just say my family has been very supportive. Can I ask, because. Can I get some more champagne? Yes, please.

So, you've talked a lot about being a Jehovah's Witness when you were a teenager. Yeah. Was that, was your family, did they bring you up that way or did you kind of enter into it they became on your own we all became Jehovah's Witnesses when I was we started studying when I was 14 and then we I got baptized when I was 16 which is an error you shouldn't be allowed to be baptized because it's it's a high control group you shouldn't be allowed to be baptized i

think until you're 21 really because you're not the the punishment for leaving even of your own just because you think this isn't for me much less because you've had sex with somebody outside marriage or something um is shunning so your family and everyone will shun you and they just like they'll honestly treat you like you're dead. You're not there. You're not there. They can't see you. But you weren't shunned by your family?

What I did was I faded away, they call it. If you just stop going and you don't formally leave, you don't get disfellowshipped. And so therefore nobody has to shun you. Now, in reality, people's conscience means that so therefore nobody has to shun you now in reality that people's conscience means that they do sort of softly shun you but they wouldn't have to walk away from you in the street they'd just be like oh hi this is awkward and they'd keep walking like there's awkwardness when you see people and some people will shun you and you wouldn't be allowed to go for well you

don't celebrate christmas and things no do you so you wouldn't go for a special day to the church or the kingdom hall if you were disfellowshipped you you can't walk in again oh yeah you can but no one will speak to you so you have to sit up the back to get reinstated you can get reinstated it's not just one one disfellowshipping and you're out okay you have to sit out the back for probably a year or two with no one speaking to you come you have to come to every single meeting you have to prove to the elders you're living under jehovah's standards or whatever and then um they'll announce you're reinstated and then people can talk to you again so when you when you talk about the baptism and you said you were 16 when you got baptized which two years after you had kind of joined um and i'm

so sorry that i kind of i don't maybe i but the baptism is a massive thing obviously because then it's like what you're in you're official you're official official you have to abide by those laws those rules and if you don't you're out so there's a big old threat hanging over your head at all times and the thing is the punishment for leaving is shunning but you're not allowed friends outside of it at all no social life outside of the witnesses so you can't if a colleague said to me i mean i say a colleague back then i wasn't allowed to go to university which i planned to do and you went to oxford i did go to oxford after i left the witnesses yeah um but i wasn't like to go to university when i got into my top choice at uni

in australia it's much more you go to the closest uni in your city it's not like you're desperately trying to get into oxbridge and then you've got your second choices it's more like if you're brought up in queensland you go to the university of queensland um but i got into that uni to do the course i wanted to do and it's a very good uni and i was told then on the evening of my baptism you won't be able to go because well it makes sense If you go to university, you will learn that everything they're saying is bullshit. Right. Would you have been allowed IVF? I wonder what their view is. I think it's changed, actually.

I think you were allowed it. I'm not sure that you now are. I can't remember. But you're discouraged from having children. Because I know it's very unusual in the religion, isn't it? Because you should be spending your time knocking on doors. Because Armageddon's coming. The end of the world's coming.

And you need to knock on doors and tell people about Armageddon. You shouldn't be hampered by children. And when is Armageddon coming? There's been a number of soft launches. God, I feel like Armageddon's coming soon, though, don't you? I mean, I don't think it's going to soon, though, don't you? I mean, it's... But I don't think it's going to be Jehovah God sending lightning out of the sky.

That would be bloody Boris. I mean... Sending model buses, apparently. Model buses. Isn't that ridiculous? That extended improvisation. That was like a PR stunt, surely. I think it was...

You know what I heard he did it for? Yeah. Because if you write Boris and bus, you imagine you get the 50 million promised on the side of the bus. Now you don't. You get Boris and his model making bus. We're being so manipulated.

Let's talk about Royal Albert Hall. How many, you're going to have a ton of guests it's very exciting so but it's going to really work well so we open with the i'm a feminist buts our classic uh so they're sort of admissions uh so a classic of mine is i'm a feminist but one time i went on a women's rights march and i popped into a department store to use the loo and when i was in there i got distracted trying out face cream and when I came out the march was gone. True story, true story.

Shut up! True story. I did that too with Mrs Thatcher. With Mrs Thatcher! I went on a big march because she was Margaret Thatcher, milk snatcher from university. We were marketing along Oxford Street and I just thought, Selfridges is there.

Mother! And you talk about bringing Hannah onto the, what's it, the green? No, we took Hannah, we went on Nelson Mandela. I used to go on CND marches. Yeah, but you'd pop to the department store. My saddest moment was going to Newham, Greenham Common with Hannah and my pregnant friend and the women shunned us they didn't like us they didn't want it because they were part of a really tight community and i think it was really did you ever go to green and common i know i don't think i'm that's in my era you're too young you're probably in australia yeah right so green and common you know they know i know i

know what it was yeah my mother-in-law was there right so it was all kind of it became almost like Glastonbury like hippies and people lived their lives there and when outsiders came along I think they just saw you we wanted to show solidarity and they saw us as outsiders so I mean it's always the way isn't it that there are of course tribes in everything yeah there's tribes in everything I mean, it's always the way, isn't it? There are, of course, tribes in everything. Yeah, there's tribes in everything. I mean, I did... I used to march for everything. You know, Nelson Mandela, when one of the...

someone from South Africa came, we were all out there. CND did everything. Feminism. Have you got a I'm a feminist but? This has been something that I've really struggled with because I don't think any of mine are good enough. And I don't know if that's I'm a feminist but.

Oh my God, I'm a feminist but I don't think any of my I'm a feminist buts are good enough. That's the greatest I'm a feminist but in the world. It's a meta. Oh man. It's meta. Okay, I'm going to give you a few. Okay, go. Firstly, I feel like I need to bring in my friend Samantha's one because she was so excited that i we were having you on um and she says i've she says

every time she listens to you she has so many that go in her head and then she can't remember but she did remember this one so i feel like i need to put it out there she says i'm a feminist but i love the destiny's child song cater to you um so that's hers mine Mine, I'm a feminist, but I am jealous of my daughter's Barbie's thigh gap. And I hate myself. And I was like, that Barbie's got to leave. But I think it's because I'm jealous of the thigh gap. Is that why you're banning all the Barbies? Yeah.

So it's not because you don't want her to grow up with unhealthy. I don't want her to grow up with unhealthy things, but I'm being affected by it because I'm now upset about the thigh gap. That's really funny. the way to make that i'm a feminist but amazing is come on i'm a feminist but i decided to get rid of all my daughter's barbies claiming it was because i didn't want her to grow up with an unhealthy role model but in fact it was that i was jealous of barbie's thigh gap that's perfect thank you perfect um mom what's yours i see i'm a feminist but i like being objectified at 67 i'm so sorry a whistle makes my day no you like a cat call of course i do i'm 60 fucking seven if i if i get cat called i am capable of thinking in one clear sentence in my head

that's appalling still got it yeah of course you do yeah i'm like that's and that's that's really not good enough and you know one time this is true i agree uh this is a real i'm famous but one time um a man um feminist but a man shouted um nice tits. And I turned around to say, this is really inappropriate and realised as I did that he was actually shouting at a much younger, hotter woman. And then I felt so disappointed.

I felt like, oh, it wasn't for me. And then I was like, why are you thinking that? And then I was like, turn that disappointment into, and not rage that that should not be, what are you saying? And just like was like, why are you thinking that? And then I was like, turn that disappointment into, and not rage that that should not be, what are you saying? And just like this terrible rollercoaster of emotions. Because of course we're trained to feel that, you know, we should be this, you know, this attractive.

But also it is human to want to be sexually attractive. The human race wouldn't have lasted if we didn't want to be sexually attractive. The reason we're the stickiest species, and we really are. I mean, we've done this planet so many favours. With our absolute ability to survive and thrive at the expense of every other living thing. But yeah, we wouldn't be such a successful organism on the face of the earth if we weren't quite keen on being hot that's why you should allow your daughter to wear jesse and sam were very very very and quite rightly wanted their children where you try to wear no to not be gender you know i didn't do gender neutral i just gave her

maybe more trousers than pink dresses but don't worry in brown and yellow you made up with all the fucking polyester fucking shit pink fucking but she does go on a climbing frame in her cinderella dress well here's the thing about that doesn't matter i think i think absolutely do as much gender neutral stuff as you can and as possible but gender neutral doesn't mean some weird space that's really actually traditionally masculine yeah that's right that's what worries me no well i know i'm not saying this is what jesse's doing i'm saying watch what you say mom i'm saying that no she's going to be a lioness or whatever it is no but

i'm saying that actually you know tinkerbell has magical powers elsa from frozen has magical powers the fucking bitch though you know i was watching it the other day she's an absolute cow to wendy this is so love island now she she's so i have had enough of the way it is what it is it is what it is wendy it is what it is and there's no connection listen hook i need to see in the fire pit right now i've got a text from the pan i've got a text from the pan look all i'm saying is that i watched it and yeah actually she isn't her like and the mermaids are horrible to wendy and wendy's just there and pan's like some weird boring... She's a bit boring though, Wendy. Wendy is dull, I'm not going to lie. You would have been there with Tink and the Mermaid.

You would have been drowning in the Mermaid. Yeah. But look... Moana's my favourite. Okay, all right. Moana is the goddess of warrior. Let's look at those... What I'm saying is,

if you want to dress like Elsa from Frozen, that is no less powerful than dressing like Spider-Man. Femme things are not less good they're not less good and and and we are all in danger of going well my little girl wants to be Spider-Man so you know she's not we are in danger of doing that thinking that's better but why is masculine better that's all I'd ask so if where the female is submissive yes well that's my issue where it's just decorative we need to just recreate that okay so unfortunately i adore the little mermaid but what she does is she gets rid of her legs and loses her voice yeah to meet a man i think ariel went i be fair, I did that when I was 25. And it's easily done. It's easily done until you find yourself, this kind of thing you do.

But I think, yeah, I think we just need to understand that femme gender expression is its own power. And so, and you've watched something like RuPaul's Drag Race. Yeah. That power is being taken. Yeah, absolutely. So, you you know it's it's who takes the power when do we take the power how do we take the power and how do we understand that to dress up and to decorate is anthropological the same way that wanting to be

fancied is anthropological it's it's biological it's it's what makes us human that's absolutely fine the problem is not wanting to be hot or enjoying being objectified the problem is when when we when we decide only a very small band of aesthetics makes you sexually attractive and we are all brainwashed into thinking the thing that is sexy is thin the thing that is sexy is is blonde the thing that is sexy is you know a big bum or whatever it is what you know that's that's the thing of the thing um or the or the the object, that's the thing or the objectification. That's the problem. The problem is not wanting to be sexy.

That is for the crab cake, but I'm very happy for you to try it. No, I'm into... She couldn't eat all that on the crab cake. No, no, I know, but I'm just like... Do you have... I've dipped the bread into the sauce for the crumb cake. I thought it was a dip.

Tis a dip. It can be whatever. I've got hummus though. Here we go. I don't need anything. No, she likes that, darling. I'm a bit drunk now. Brilliant, good.

Because we've got rosé as well. I was going to say you've given me too much champagne, but I actually brought it, so I really cannot blame you. I love starting the night with champagne. OK, it looks deceptive, this glass, because it's shallow. It's one of those Mad Men champagne glasses, which is flat and open.

So you think, oh, it's not as much as in a flute. There's barely anything in there. It's very shallow, you think. Yeah, it is. But you drink it really fast, and open so you think oh it's not as much as in a flute there's barely anything in there it's very shallow you think yeah but you drink it really fast and if you have enough of it yeah listeners this is what i'm telling you and this is a public service announcement if you have three glasses of champagne no matter the shape of the glass you're going to start to feel a bit funny do you have time to cook with all the um i do have i don't have skill to cook um you have time but not skill well i don't have time to cook with all the... I do have... I don't have skill to cook. You have time but not skill.

Well, I don't have time or skill, but I used to have skill, but I used to have time but no skill, and now I've got no time nor skill. Who cooks in your house? My husband is a very, very good cook. And we live with Steve, who's Syrian, who came to live with us, and he's a Syrian refugee. And that makes him sound like he's displaced now, and he's not.

He lives with us, and he's started this amazing jewellery business. And he can cook. No, he makes amazing hummus, but he doesn't cook either. He makes himself sort of noodles and, you know, pasta with cheese and things. So I'm always trying to get him to eat properly. So that means I can encourage Tom to cook more. And also, my deliveroo skills are in cred. That's, yeah. are in cred that's yeah

like in cred like don't what's your go-to delivery okay gym food so gym oh my god i've tried them absolutely incredible so it's high protein and low carb exactly it's really well when you want anything because it's got all the different combinations so especially if i'm exercising then you go to gym food and it's like really i just like gym food as in g y m it's the worst name g y m i try and yeah gym food like so so it's like if you're going to the gym and then you want you know to sustain that because you're you want high protein low carbs or you want this or that um but they bring you the best sort of salmon with vegetables and sweet potato and it's really good it's delicious and i order big boxes of chicken and vegetables off that for steve i'm pescatarian but um steve is steve is not he likes chicken and i try i think we should all be more

plant-based but at the moment i'm trying to feed steve up because he's had six years displaced he hasn't eaten properly and he's got into a habit i mean he's very well-built man he's tall and well-built but i think he just needs to eat better protein he was came to a podcast um that i was doing we're doing a season where we were doing i don't know any syrians called steve no his real name's mustafa okay um but he was he was teasingly called steve in syria because he was doing like bodybuilding and wrestling and stuff and one of his friends said he you look just like um stone cold steve austin who is a wrestler and so everyone called him steve and staff staff is short for mustafa or steph short for mustafa so steph to steve

wasn't very fast. So he was always called Steve in Syria. So when he ended up in the Calais jungle, he was called Steve. And then he said it's sort of like almost like that was well before there was a war or anything. But he said he it's almost like there was some kind of fate telling him you're going to live in England. So you need an English name. So, yeah. How old is Steve?

He's just turned 27. He was 25 when he came to us yeah he's a baby boy yeah and he because I think of displacement I think in some ways I often think you know refugees that age in some ways they're 16 and some ways they're 60 because they've seen far more than hopefully we will ever see but also you've missed quite crucial things in terms of you've had years of just survival how did he get to cali uh he went did he go via turkey or yeah yeah yeah um yeah a lot of the i mean it's his story to tell but a lot of the sort of the generally precarious route um so when he came to us he was doing global pillage because we were doing a season with refugees but they weren't talking about being refugees they were just coming on podcasts and

being regular people who happen to be refugees because I think that's important for people to remember refugees is anybody who's displaced you can be anybody you can be anything you can be you know if you if you took a thousand people from Britain and put them in boats off the shore of Dover and pushed them out into the ocean because there was a war or climate change or something you in those boats you'd have the CEO of a tech company and you'd have someone who cleans the floors in that same company and you'd have someone who's a librarian suffering from unrequited love and you'd have somebody else who's homeless and you'd have somebody else and that's who refugees are and we forget that we're like oh sad people in boats or scary people in boats depending on which newspaper you read that's

what you see it's just one group of people and and i think even liberal people are in danger of projecting all sorts of things onto refugees and i have learned through getting to know refugees that of course they're regular people and they're all sorts of people and yes they've all been through trauma but there's a lot of different life experiences there and so we thought well we'll do these podcasts and have different people on

so we do a podcast that's called Global Pillage which is a diversity based comedy panel show a bit like a QI or something like that Steve came on and I really liked him and afterwards I was How did he find the podcast? that's called Global Pillage, which is a diversity-based comedy panel show, a bit like a QI or something like that. Steve came on and I really liked him. And afterwards I was... How did he find the podcast? Through an app called Timepiece, which at that point was being developed

and they're still looking for funding that connects refugees with local people so that you can skill share and time share. And sort of like you might teach somebody English speaking skills for four hours and then you've got that in the bank yeah and then you could learn you know syrian dancing or you know aerotrain cooking or something for four hours you can get it's all it's all banked on time rather than he's been there for 18 months with you so sit down together and eat well we do but i mean because our schedules yeah our schedules are so

poor it's much mostly me going steve i've ordered you some gym food we're going to sit and eat it together um but we need to cook more together and steve has just steve's very very very talented and um so he was studying architecture at the university of damascus he also has a um a jewelry company now because he learnt to be a silversmith in the jungle, in the Calais jungle. And so his jewellery company is called Road from Damascus. But he's also very, he can build everything. He's amazing. So he's just built us a kitchen island where if you put it out, you can sit around it and eat. So I think we're going to eat more around the table because our table tends to be co-opted.

Our dining room table tends to be co-opted by Tom, my husband, editing podcasts, which you can't really accuse somebody of too much editing of the Guilty Feminist, can you? You can't really say, get off that. So I think we're going to have a kitchen, an eating kitchen now, which is going to be great. So it's a bit of a weird thing, but I'm loving making this.

So we're having a version, it's kind of like a broth. Amazing. Like a spring vegetable broth. Excited. And then a crab cake on the side. So I'm really sorry that it, it's a bit of a funny one, but it does taste good. Please stop apologising. Yeah, well, I'm a feminist, but I apologise all the time.

Stop apologising for making me an amazing supper. I've already just told you I don't cook. So whatever you've cooked, I'm going feminist, but I apologise all the time. Stop apologising for making me an amazing supper. I've already just told you I don't cook. So whatever you've cooked, I'm going to be thrilled by. Growing up in Australia, I mean, I've been to Australia. I think the food's amazing there. It is. What was it like in the 80s? Nowhere near as good as it is now,

but I think there's always been quite a lot of fresh ingredients in Australia because it's a farming place. Is it all lamb chops? Be my idea of heaven. There's a lot of lamb chops when I was growing up, yeah. So what was on the dinner table with your family, like the go-to meal that everyone would sit around together? Did you eat together?

We did, every night. I think my mother was quite good at sort of making variety and exploring different things. I think a lot of people in Australia at that time were growing meat and two veg. And now, I think my mother was much more like, oh, tacos or lasagna and things like that. Whereas other people honestly would have a slab of meat on the plate and two veg every single night. So I know now lasagna and tacos are just standard food that anyone would have. But I think then she was much more into international food and that kind of thing. So she would have hummus and baba ghanoush and things like that that other people wouldn't have had at that time.

But I also remember, I remember her great joy in feeding us that my dad used to take us to the swimming pool or to the beach and we'd come home and she'd say are you hungry you must be and she'd really enjoy enjoy our hunger and she'd put out these big australian lunches which was all the salads that she'd made potato salad and all sorts of three bean salad lots of different salads and some meats and things and then breads and things and then you sort of just sit around the table and you take whatever you wanted and make your own sandwich or make your own salad and and i remember that being a fun time a good time that i remember i remember her joy in feeding us and i remember when i got into baking as a kid um i learned to i couldn couldn't cook, but I could bake.

And I liked to make a cake. So I would have been a bake-off kid, basically. Right. And then my mother, as I got older, would say, you know, can you help me fill the cake tins? Because, again, it was a thing that at lunchtime, there was what at school called little lunch, which was morning break, morning tea, and then big lunch.

That was what was always called little lunch and big lunch and little lunch so little lunch was like a snack yeah but little for little lunch we'd always have a piece of homemade cake um in my my you could bring whatever you wanted now it would be yogurt and fruit or something but then it was like a piece of homemade cake because all the ingredients were fresh and it was homemade it probably wasn't it's not like having processed biscuits or something i remember being excited to see what that was it could have been a lamington which is very australian what is that lamington so lamington is a square it's like a cube of cake but on the it's dipped on all four sides yeah like a rubik's cube it's dipped in chocolate and coconut and then coconut and sometimes you split it in half

and you put jam and cream in the middle are you a sweet tooth or savory no i really was i'm more savory now but i remember as a teenager kind of helping my mum with cakes and enjoying that that wasn't like a chore it wasn't like you know you have to do your jobs it was more like oh do you want to come and make one of your chocolate mint cakes it was more like a fun thing that she would ask me to do to help and i would take pride in was this once you were in do you refer to yourself as a witness is that yeah you'd say you're a witness yeah so um from what i understand is around that time around that time so were you you weren't being able to socialize too much or you'd only be allowed

to socialize with other witnesses it's just sort of so it's quite an innocent coming out of what they call the world you know there's a sort of process of it so i still have my school friends you come out and you end up on the other side it's more like when i left school that's when i broke off my associations with my friends but because you're getting brainwashed as well, your friends are starting to go, what's happening to you? So it's sort of a two pronged magnetic pull away. But yes, during that time I was making leamingtons and learning to bake. I wanted to ask, do you think you've got good table manners? Oh, OK. You are asking the adventure of the table manners Olympics.

Sorry, what? Oh, yeah. Table manners Olympics. um oh okay you are asking the adventure of the table manners olympics sorry what oh yeah table manners olympics so when i was a nanny yeah the the first nanny job i had i was more like a mother's help because the mother was there a lot and so they had good table manners because she was quite strict about that so the second nanny job i went to where the parents were very loving had big jobs um so the kids had had a series of australian nannies who'd only stayed a year so it was a little bit more lord of the flies oh shit i mean great but you know much more rafferty's rules much more as we'd say in australia rafferty's rules so it was much more people sitting at the table and grabbing things with their hands and sort of sitting you know so i in an effort to work on their table manners you super nanny'd them i well i instituted something called table manners olympics because i realized they were very competitive so i would

do a running commentary like a sports commentary on the table manners as they did it and how old were these kids six seven and nine so i did this running, like a racing track commentary. And he's passing the salt and milk. Yeah, and she's sitting up very, very straight now and there's going to be a lot of points for that. But he, oh, he has just reached across the table and taken the salt and he's not asked for it to be passed and he will lose points.

Because they love it. They loved it. And sometimes they would theatrically do things that when you when were not good table manners in order to get me to commentate on them but ultimately they wanted the prize they wanted what was the prize oh i can't i can't remember i think they got stars on the star chart um which years later to be fair they told me because i'm still in very good touch with all of them i'm still very close to all of them years later to be fair they told me because i'm still in very good touch with all of them and i'm still very close to all of them years later they told me that emma emma's a lawyer now but she once declared at a sort of family dinner that she could get the stars so the star

chart was artificially weighted and one time james the youngest had come in and caught her stealing the stars so she said i'll cut you in if you don't say anything oh my god I love so James and Emma had more stars than Danny and Danny's the middle child Danny was just the most easygoing child as middle child children I'm a middle child as well very easygoing and the two youngest and oldest would always be competing the younger and yeah the youngest and always be competing for attention and everything. And so they always were head in stars and no one could work out why. Now we know why.

And I, at the time, I was genuinely, I was genuinely upset. I was genuinely horrified. I was like, how could you do this to me? And even though we're all grownups and Tom thought, my husband thought, this was so funny that I was upset. And I said, but you couldn't have gone up there.

I was like, that's, that was, the cupboard was so high. You couldn't have got up to where the stands were. That's where I kept the snacks. And they fell about laughing. Like we couldn't get the snacks. I was like, no, but the snacks were treats. They were incentives. I don't understand.

Actually, looking back, I don't think you should incentivise children with food because it gives them a weird relationship with it. But it was the late nineties. Jessie, I think this pudding works. Now now this when i was a little girl we rarely had people around for dinner or if we did i guess we were in bed or something but it wasn't my parents weren't terribly social really um one night they had friends around for supper and we were allowed to stay up i think it must have been a work colleague of my father's or something i don't know but i remember then now if you're terribly young what you will not realize is children in the past were very quiet when grown

ups were around yeah so i remember sitting there on my best behavior not saying anything unless i was spoken to and i wasn't spoken to just sitting there and I remember the pudding came out and I thought it was ice cream I liked ice cream thought it's vanilla ice cream now when I bit into it it was like angels crying on my tongue this was no regular ice cream this was a very special spiritual experience what was it now retrospectively it was of course pavlova and I remember just tasting it and thinking I had gone to heaven but I couldn't tell anyone because there was grown-ups at the table that I didn't know how frustrating so I just had to sit there in wonder and awe and I was dressed up I think in a good dress and things and I was sitting

there I remember looking at my mother just like completely wide-eyed I remember her winking at me across the table and smiling and I remember this very special moment of the combination of pavlova and the affection of my mother and this sort of intimate little moment between us in this grown-up world. And so Pavlova's always had a special place in my heart. And this Eton mess evoked that memory when I bit into it. Wow. Yeah, it really did.

Thank you. Wait till you taste my matzo balls. I'll remember the past life where I was Jewish. I'll probably get inherited memory from a generation or two back. You know what Marilyn Monroe says about matzo balls? I don't, but you, I feel you. Is there any other part of the matzo you can eat? Nice. It's good. It's really good.

I want to talk about the fact that you, I mean, you know, these stats. 60 million downloads. I'm 65. You're so naughty. I'm a terrible person. I love you. But I want to know, so, I mean, it's always live. How many, like, you have a lot of people in your shows, like your recordings.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, we do. We started off with 30, and next weekend we're playing the Royal Albert Hall, which is 5,000. There you fucking go. We are looking set to sell out for that, which is exciting. So, yeah, the biggest we've played so far is 2,200, I think. Where was that in? The Palladium.

But, yeah, it's on our tour we played a lot of 1500 seaters but i mean because i don't know whether you always envisaged it being this successful no how can you no right you can't do a podcast in a room below a pub with 30 people in the audience and go one day although on the first episode you will hear me say at some when we're at the when we're the O2, if you were at this first recording, you'll get a free ticket. I did say that. It was a joke.

But three and a half years later, we're at the Royal Albert Hall, which is pretty incredible. You will be at the O2 soon. You're used to enjoying it. Oh, yeah. So I think, yeah, it's such a joy. And I think it's partly that we have the live audience, so I feel the connection every time i go

in and i feel that audience is excitement and i think that audience is just electrifying to be there and a lot of them this first time i've ever been to the show they've listened to 150 episodes on the tube and here they are in the room and so they give us that energy and what i love is that it's a microclimate for successful women um that when I say, and now, welcome my co-pilot this evening, Jessica Ostakou, they go wild. And they're like, they just give Jess, who is one of the best comedians in this country, if not the world, all of the rock star love.

And then Jess rises to that. You know, she's like, yeah, I am a fucking rock star. And she performs like a rummage up. She doesn't say that arrogantly, but you can see the sort of rise or if i say now suzy bacoma suzy bacoma doesn't do stand up in any other context but she comes out and she surfs that wave and i think i know doing stand up in comedy clubs when they say it's the next one's a woman one but don't worry she's funny you come out and you see people in the front row going on if i'm women funny and you know i've had women say to me this what when they play the guilt of feminist this is what it

must be like to be a man in a comedy club the assumption is projected upon you that you're going to be magnificent and then of course you rise to that and i and i've had men on who've been brilliant but for a reason i don't really have men but i do if there's a reason to have them and i see the audience even sometimes famous men i'll see the audience go all right you you will hear you aren't white man but you better have something to say i must say also all the men we've had on have been brilliant the audience have loved them and come around to them but they don't project is it pantomime at the beginning is it a bit booze no no no no they're very polite but i can feel the tension in the same way just the sort of reservation the same way that the woman on the end of the panel normally gets

so the one woman on a panel show will get that sort of are you going to be any good or have you just been booked to be a woman that's what the man gets on the guilty feminist there's not starting from plus five they're starting from minus five and that's how it is to be a woman everywhere else almost um i'm just i'm just letting everyone know that you may be rivaling Stacey Dooley for the amount of spoons going into the pudding back in. And I love that. I'm so sorry. No, what are you talking about? This is what we like.

This is when we love a guest that goes in. It's the Pavlova bit that I just can't stop myself. It's an eaten mess with passion fruit, not enough raspberries apparently by mum, and whipped cream and a bit of Greek yogurt. Which I think lifts it. It kind of towers it up a bit. Is that what it is? Yeah. I think it lifts and a bit of greek yogurt which i think lifts it yeah i think it lifts it a bit doesn't it i can't i should not be she can't stop i love it it's the meringue which is like the pavlova you might not be able to find it no have you got more did you put all the money yeah if brexit happens what if you've combined Brexit

with the most delicious what will you stockpile well this no I think we'll be alright with this to be honest I mean we'll be able to get

I'll try not to eat but I'm aware I've got vanilla Haagen-Dazs in the freezer because Tom bought some for a dinner party and I could really sit down and eat Haagen-Dazs

I could eat a whole you're not the only one there's a wonderful writer called samin nosrat do you know her she's got the book salt fat acid heat and she's got a netflix program and you should yeah you should get her you should get her on your podcast she's amazing she's a really fabulous woman who's a major in english at berkeley yeah and she says vanilla Haagen-Dazs is like well she likes coffee Haagen-Dazs

but I love Haagen-Dazs yeah just Haagen-Dazs it's the amount of sugar in it I don't know it just hits me it's something about it's like a drug

yeah I have to not keep it in the house Desert Island meal starter main pud and drink

of choice you can call it a last supper or desert island. It's up to you. Okay, desert island. So starter, a tricolour salad. Okay, mozzarella, avocado, tomato, basil. Is there a place that you've had this that you love?

I mean, I've had it in Italy with very, very fresh mozzarella and very, very fresh tomato. I mean, the mozzarella part is not plant-based i accept um but it is absolutely delicious oh life's too short bloody grind up cashew nuts i know but i know but life is getting considerably shorter because we're not living a part-place life and you're about to either die or you're stuck for a while you've got two children we've got to protect the future so we should all go plant-based and i just want that as my official political statement while i salivate over my tricolor salad okay um and then for a main i

think black cod miso cod like there's nothing there's a there's a place in canada that does this incredible black cod it's the place by mornington crescent oh there is a place down there as well the japanese uh okay what i was thinking was on parkway that just did this heavenly heavenly black cod um and then for the pudding well this pudding would have to be up there as one of my now but maybe throw options maybe your mum's pavlova yeah yeah it's definitely in this territory okay it's one of those but i think your mum's eaten mess is it's quite a good one i mean i could eat the whole bowl and bowl. You can. You're looking at it and I just want you

to put your spoon back in. No, I mean, come on, there's limits. But pop, I'll spoil it and I'll have to sit

and I'll feel annoyed with myself that I've eaten too much. But it's got great yoghurt in it. Could I, oh, well then it's fine.

Could I have on the side some vanilla Haagen-Dazs? Yeah. Do you know what they used to make? So they don't make anymore. Vanilla Haagen-Dazs with a chocolate,

like a chocolate fudge sauce in it that would swirl around. What was it called called i think it was vanilla and chocolate fudge i didn't ever have that it was glorious and my friend justin rosenholz also makes a chocolate fudge sauce and she used to bring the ingredients over from america she's american she said you couldn't get the sort of sugar you needed here and that was heavenly absolutely i think they do different harganas in different countries oh Because we've not had the coffee back again. It's in my bloody... Newsagent there, yeah.

They used to do, in Australia, at McDonald's they do an ice cream with a chocolate fudge on the top that was the hot chocolate sauce. But it's got to be right, and you sell off and order it, and it isn't. Deborah, thank you so much for being on this. It's a delight. And we are going to say it again because your Royal Albert Hall gig is coming up.

Basically, this Sunday it's coming up. And I will give your listeners an exclusive discount. Amazing. Do we have to do like a little code thing? Yeah, I'm not meant to do this, but I've had three glasses of champagne. So I've got a secret code that I'm allowed meant to do this but I've had three glasses of champagne so I've got a secret code that I'm allowed to give people

if you put guilt hall into the discount code box on Ticketmaster you get £10 off a ticket wow I'm so not meant to give that out I'm so sorry I'm just hoping the producers

don't listen to this no this is so and it's the 7th of July yeah 7th of July Sunday afternoon 3 to 5.30 and it's going 7th of July. Yeah, 7th of July, Sunday afternoon. Sunday, 3 o'clock. 3 to 5.30. And it's going to be incredible. Hannah Gadsby from Nanette is our headliner.

She's doing 20. There's all sorts of incredible famous actors, including Adjoa and Susan McCormack and... Juliet Stevenson. Juliet Stevenson and Jessica Hines doing the reading. Lots more. Amelia, the last speech from Amelia by Claire Perkins, which is known as the burn the

fucking house down speech was going to blow the roof off the place jess robinson singing an incredible song a musical there's going to be some amazing music and there's going to be um some massive stand-up as well from london and jessica foster q and jessica foster q and i'm going to be on the stage as well i've just dipped my fingers into that bowl now. I love it. I love it. I'm so happy. Honestly, it makes me so happy. You, Stacey Dooley, and Ed Sheeran. I feel like I've come back for the most amount of helpings,

and that makes me happy. thank you so much deborah francis white for joining us on friday night um to entertain entertain and educate it's been an absolute pleasure and do try and see her show, the biggest guilty feminist show at the Royal Albert Hall this Sunday and I'm going to bed. Okay, me too. I'm going to drive an hour, darling, but don't feel a guilty feminist

about that. And I'm not going to feel guilty. I'm not, actually. Good night. Night. Night.