That Gaby Roslin Podcast: Reasons To Be Joyful - Thomasina Miers

Episode Date: July 29, 2025

Wahaca creator and award-winning chef Thomasina Miers joins Gaby for a tummy rumbling chat about food and joy. She and Gaby share in their love of Mexican food, and talk about how easy it is to cook at home - if you have the right recipes. Thomasina opened Wahaca just two years after winning Master Chef and now has 14 restaurants. She talks about the journey to getting here, how she's only recently felt like she's good enough, and is very honest about her ADHD diagnosis, which has answered a lot of questions. Her new cook book - Mexican Table - is 100 recipes using 12 staple ingredients of Mexico. It's coming out end of August - and available to pre-order nowWe hope you enjoy this joyful chat - and remember - you can watch all of our conversations on the Reasons To Be Joyful youtube page! (where you'll also find our bonus extra nuggets of joy - our Show & Tell episodes - every Friday) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Thomas Sina-Meyes, it's such a delight to have you here because I need to admit something to you. That the name of your restaurant does something really weird to my stomach. No, no, no. You think I'm joking. You can't say the name of your restaurant because my stomach will make noises and you'll hit her out on the podcast. Welcome to Reasons to Be Joyful. Oh, thank you so much for having me. You are a total joy. Every time I see you on television,

every time I read there, my stomach just went. Oh, that's so weird. Did you hear it? Did you hear it? Oh, no. It's because of what I have to say it. And then my, all right, stomach stay still. So every time I'm so, I'm actually blushing.

I'm so pleased. That's literally the best compliment. I mean, literally, I mean, thank you. Thank you. I'll go home now. So every time I see you on tell you, Every time I read anything, and we've got other of your books at home, you are a joy spreader.

Aw. Because you do it through your love of food and your love of life. I do love life. I really, I think I really love life. I feel like in loving it more and more as I get older. I mean, I feel like I've always, but then, you know, I'm a warrior. I'm quite anxious. And then I'm really, but then I love, you know, I love everything.

And so it's funny. You love everything. How wonderful Well I just I guess I'm that kind of person Who I mean I you know I got here my Got here in a sweaty mess

With my bicycle Like wearing too many things And it was windy And I was battling against the elements But I love being on my bike Because I can just see people out And the street And the sun's out

Or it's windy Or it's bit rainy And it's life And I What I love about life Is it's messy And it's uncomfortable And it can be traumatic

but it's life and it's just so bloody lucky to be in it. That's what I feel. Well, I totally 100% agree with you. And that's the whole sort of premise of this podcast and it is about celebrating those little joys and everything. But you do it through food. So you've, was a Mastership, was it 20 years ago? It was 20 years ago.

How on earth did that happen? I know. I think in my head I'm still 16. But yeah, it was 20 years ago. So, yeah, that makes me quite ancient. No, not at all. And did, I mean, it is as dramatic as that changed your life. Well, what was crazy about that was that I had gone to, like, very academic school.

I felt like that kind of round peg in a square hole. Like I was, you know, supposed to go to Oxford, which I screwed up. I, you know, I had this big, I was a VAT consultant. I got a scholarship to a bigger county firm in my year between school, university, which I just loathed so much. It was awful. And, you know, I kept trying to be this person that I thought I should be.

And it was not, I think MasterChef was about 28, 29, that's a kind of long 30 years before you're really finding something, not just that you're good at, but like this is a valid thing to do with your life. Like, it's okay to do this. That's why. And was that you telling you it was okay to do this?

Or was it, I mean, Before you did it, did people say, no, it's not okay to do this? I just don't think it occurred to me. It's weird to cast your mind back to that era because I look now at young people. And on one hand, I feel really sorry for them because I think they've got a hard stick. Like, house prices are crazy. Social media is like mental for your mental health. And, you know, there's all sorts of negatives.

But the positive is that it feels like there's so much freedom to be whoever you want to be. And with that also comes anxiety and choice and all that stuff, which is kind of hectic. But I feel like when I left school, it was accepted that if you were bright, you became a lawyer or an accountant or a politician. And I thought that's what I should be. And being a cook, it just didn't seem like a valid thing. So I think it wasn't, I remember so clearly, like John Terode saying, Thomasina-Mise, you know, announcing the winner. And I remember this kind of like someone almost like taking the life out of me, sucking it out. It was such a shock because it was the first time in so long that someone had said,

you're good at this and it's great that you're good at this. Because up until then, I just successively failed at all this stuff I thought I should be doing. And that was the first time. It was like, I love this. And someone was saying, you're great. I can see how it affects you in your eyes now. That makes you quite emotional. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah. So from that day when you became a winner, the winner, how was your family about it all? Do you know, they were so lovely about it. My dad, who tried all his life to make money in a conventional way. Never made any money in a conventional way. He was always getting, like, his money'd be nicked or someone like take him for a ride in business or he's too nice. and he did what he thought he was supposed to do. He was an engineer for a long time because it was brilliant at making things. And it was in his 50s, I think, or late 40s, he started making furniture for a living.

And not only did it bring him a huge joy, but he was bloody good at it. And, you know, had he done it 20 years earlier, he made a career out of it. He never made a huge amount of money because he did it very late. But he then went on and made the most incredible kitchens

and dining room tables and cabinets for all sorts of people. And I think he saw a mirror almost of what I was doing. And it wasn't until then that he must have just thought, hang on a sec, this is actually something that maybe it's okay for her to focus on. And because they were so supportive. And weirdly, after Master Chef, obviously, I just threw myself fully into food. And as I did that, my father started cooking more and more.

My mother'd always been this incredible home cook, always teaching me how to sweat and onion to get the most flavor out of how to make white sauce. We have very little money, so she was always showing me how to maximise flavour out of very simple ingredients in the fridge. That's how I learnt to cook, and I always, it's my favourite thing to open.

My husband will say, let's get a takeaway. And I'll say, hang on a sec. Let me just look in the fridge. And then there's always something I can squirrel out and make something delicious. But you're Thomas, I mean, yes, if you can't do it, then nobody can do it. I love the idea of him saying, if we get a takeaway.

Does he ever get a takeaway from Wahaka? Well, weirdly, we're out of the catchment zone and also the food when you get there. I mean, the takeaways are spectacular, but I love it when you're in the restaurant because everything's straight off the pass. It's all delicious and crisp and hot and, you know, and I'm so proud.

I feel like Wahak is 18 years old this year. So it was only two years after winning Master Chef. Is that mental? Yeah, that's... That's crazy. That is crazy. I never thought of it like that. But I think our food is better than it's ever been.

I mean, we're in a really good spot right now and it's really fun. Your food is insanely good. It's my, I say it, but I mean, anyone who knows me, we say, can we go, can we get, my hack, come go to my hack, come, go to my huck, come on. Because also your sustainability, you care about the planet, you care about animals because you have, your ethics are really good. You don't have loads of plastic. It's not like an advert.

You don't have loads of plastic. And you do gluten-free. Yay! But that is, now we've said it, apart from the advert for a hacker, the two years after winning MasterChev, you opened your own restaurant and now it's a staple that everybody knows. That's incredible.

I remember when we found this, it took us a year to find a site. I bumped into, someone introduced me to someone who's at uni with me. And we got together. I'd already lived in Mexico by then, though. Yeah, so tell me about that. Let's come back to the restaurant. But tell me how Mexico became part of your life. So I was doing this ridiculous VAT consultancy, which was like basically being in prison.

I could not have been more miserable. I was living with my best friend's older brother. I was going out with him. You know, it was just I was in such a bad state. But at the end, they gave me a chunk of money and I went off travelling. I spoke Spanish. They gave you a chunk of money. Arthur Anderson.

They? Yeah, the scholarship thing. That was the deal. That was the deal. Right. So I had some money and it was like basically the first time, we used to holiday in Wales and Gloucestershire. You know, so it was like one of the first times

I'd probably been out anywhere and it was Latin America and it was Mexico. And it blew my mind. And I was really lucky because the girl I traveled with, her parents knew this family living in Mexico City. They were the first people we stayed with. And the mother was English. She'd lived there for 20 years. She had this flaming red hair.

She was an architect. But she was an amazing cook. and she had an amazing cook too because a lot of people in Mexico have cooks as well and the food in that house was so mentally delicious and I didn't recognise any of it and I remember saying Pam what's this food and she was like darling it's Mexican food

like it was obvious but it wasn't obvious because in England we only had text mex you know we just didn't realise how incredible so I travelled for four months going wild drinking too much tequila dancing the night away and then the next day just soaking up all the tequila with like savages and fiery souses and street food

and just thinking this is mind-blowing when I go back to London I'm going to eat Mexican food every day and getting back this was 31 years ago and discovering there was no Mexican food anywhere like it was nuts I was like there was Polish food there was Ethiopian food there was Sri Lankan food which is wonderful as well that we have such a variety but there was no Mexican yeah so um

and it was big in the States already wasn't it It's mass in the States, which I guess is logical because, you know, you just have to, you know, if you're Mexican, you could just walk up, well, less so nowadays. But, you know, it's very close. So there are not many Mexicans in the UK. There's not much sun. You know, there's permanent sunshine in Mexico. So why would you come to UK when you've got the states on your border? But so 10 years later, when I was finally working in food, I thought, I just wonder.

Because by that stage, I was like, is my head playing tricks on me? Is it really that good? Because I've still no Mexican, 10 years later. There was one restaurant I think on the Houston Road. A bit old-fashioned. So I went back. This great friend of mine who does Barapina, Sam Hart, said, I know someone who's about to open a cocktail bar in Mexico City

and they need someone to run it. You could go out and do that. I was working at the River Cafe. It was my first shift as a waitress, and I got its call going, you've got the job. So I had to resign a day after I'd start to work. Oh, wow. and then I went off to Mexico City

and it was just mental I was there for over a year I opened a cocktail bar ets everywhere, traveled everywhere because it's very regional of food so I was going to the Yucatan I was going to Veracruz I was going to Oaxo I was going to Puebla or ensanalla you know just seeing how the food changed

in all these different places so I guess after Master Chef I had all this all these ideas fizzing around my head and I was just like I've just got to Got to go for it. So, okay, we'll go back to that. So then you've got a call from somebody about they're thinking of opening somewhere here. It was a friend from uni. He wanted to open a restaurant and he was really into seasonal market food. And I said, that's fine, but I've got a

much better idea. And I took him to Mexico. He had a bit of money and he said, fine, take me. And I took him to some of my favorite restaurants in Mexico City. And my tummy was just I was rumbling at thought of that. And I took him to a few places, and he was just like, wow, this is crazy. And we started looking for a site. And it was terrifying because the first site we could actually afford was this old Irish pub in a basement in Covent Garden.

It was the cheapest of, you know, we spent a year looking. And no one knew us, we had no background. In those days, it was really hard to get any sites. And, yeah, so we found this big old basement pub. Because of the year. So it was literally as you won Master Chef, then it took a year to find somewhere. Well, no, I went to work for Sky first.

So straight after, I think the prize for winning Master Chef was to work at the Gavroche for three months, peeling potatoes for no pay. And I was so skinned because I've been, you know, such a, I want to say, fuck up. But, you know, I've been failing at everything for 10 years. In your eyes you had been. Yeah.

Experimenting. Yeah. I'm now going to look back on it. To a long time to look back and be able to say, I didn't waste that decade. But obviously you're learning, aren't you? You're always learning. So I think I've lost my train of thought now.

Yeah, no, no. About that, because I said about the year between, because you'd won Master Chef 20 years ago. Yeah. You then took a year to find the restaurant. And that was 18 years. Straight after Master Chef, I remember going to work for Sky because a friend knew her.

And that was like incredible. Because Master Chef, John and Greg said, we believe in you, you should do this. And then I went to work for Sky. And she was working at Peashem Nurseries, which was in this idyllic garden where they were growing everything. And in the morning, I'd go out into the garden

and pick artisakes or herbs or Swiss chard, you know, with my little kitchen knife. And it was so small when I started that I could do the meat section, the salad section. You did everything because it was a very small team. So it was a really amazing learning curve. But also her food is like art. So up until then I was a bit of a messy cook.

I think Greg said I was a butch, you know, a bush cook, like eccentric butch cook. At skies, I learnt the beauty of vegetables or the colour of radicchio or how a blood orange looks, the simplicity of beautiful ingredients and how to make them gorgeous on a plate. And so that was incredible, just learning how you can make food look. So they're almost eating it before you even sit down.

So that was fun. For me in my head, it's probably not for you, but it's fast because then you're looking for a place for a year. And then you opened Wahaka 18 years ago. So it's super fast. And actually, if I'd had the time back, I would have gone more. into kitchens and learn more. I mean, these days, I'm still phoning up friends. I just, we just went to Mexico last year for six months.

And I was phoning up with these chefs. You and the family were going to. I felt I needed to change something. I was in a bit of a rot. So I was like, come on guys, let's go. And I want to show you what it's really about. So we lived in Mexico City. And I kept trying to get into kitchens.

And I did get into kitchens. Because, you know, you want to learn. That thing about learning, it never leaves you. I love learning new things. Love learning new things. And I feel like I missed out. on, I look at young kids now who've just done three years with so and so

and three years with so and so and I think you lucky things, I kind of missed out and I let frog that and I still, you know, sometimes I think God if I get that time back I'd have just done like seven years in kitchens learning as much as possible and I still obviously trying but yeah it was very quick, very quick

went straight into the deep end and boy. How many have you got now? We've got 14. 14 restaurants yeah which is which is a good It's an amazing number in terms of making change because I love making change and I love how food can make.

Food's connected to everything, right? It's how we... My summit just did it again. It's definitely weird. But it's like it's how we eat makes us feel good or bad. How we grow food is either really good for the environment or really bad for the environment.

Food connects us. It gives us joy. Or it, you know, is a cause of lots of, lots of, bad health and all sorts of bad stuff. So, you know, I helped Henry Dimbleby and Nicole Pisciani set up chefs in school six years ago, which is a charity that puts one trained chef into a school kitchen of six or 100 or 1,000 kids. And it transforms how they eat or think about food.

Fantastic. It's such a, and I love how small levers can make proper change. So, Oaxaca, we, last year, we had this skirt. state taco. A skirt steak anyway is quite hard to cook. It's a temperamental piece of meat but also it's six kilos of a whole 200 kilo animal

is a skirt. So now instead of cooking this tiny piece of meat which we're getting from lots of lots of different animals from lots of different farms, we were being told it was grass fed that was all good but now we take in a half carcass we slow cook it and it means instead of getting it from like three or 400

animals a week we can pinpoint it to eight animals a week. from 400 to 8, which means those animals are coming directly from farms that we know are no longer doing pesticides, herbicides, they're cutting down their nitrates, and all of the nature in those farms is flooding back in. They're getting like rare birds coming back, they're getting owls coming back, you know, like wildlife flooding back. And so the power to do that with 14 restaurants is really cool. Oh, absolutely. I long made you do it and please keep doing that. And the environmental impact as well,

as you say, but it's also about... I'll tell you what there is in your restaurants, apart from the most delicious food. I can see exactly my favourite. But there is... You feel like you're eating something that tastes so many layers of deliciousness. So they hit your tongue all in different places.

But also, it's not full of crap. No, it's definitely not full of crap. It's definitely... No, I mean... So you care about the animals, you care about the environment, You don't use plastic crap. You then feed us really good food.

It's a pretty win-win-win. I do sound like an advert for your restaurant. Well, I didn't know. I didn't know. Honestly, it's so lovely. What's so cool about Mexican food for me is that I was, so I've got this book out and I was writing the introduction to it. And for so long when I was cooking.

Your new book. Let's talk about your new book. Well, it's called Mexican Table. And it is, well, it's the food that I cooked for my kids. kids and for my friends in Mexico when I was living in Mexico City last year. So it's really personal. It's based around ingredients. So one of the, you know, the best ingredients from Mexico that come from Mexico, tomatoes, chocolate, chilies, um, nuts. They use a lot in their kind of sauces, ground up. I mean, half by many, uh, uh, Huacca's vegetarian, but it's still full of

protein. I love that's what I eat of vegetarian. There's so many delicious beans. So, um, so anyway, the book is based around these key ingredients, but, but, but, but, When I was writing the introduction, I was thinking about the flavors of Mexico and the layers that you're talking about. Because there are layers of texture, but there are layers of flavour too. And for so long, when I first started cooking it, because I was already a bit insecure, they'd come into cooking late. So there was that slight imposter syndrome. But then I was talking about Mexican food. And, you know, 30 years ago, Mexican food was nap.

It was down market. It was bad quality. And other chefs used to look at me like I was like an idiot for choosing to cook. That's horrible. You know, NAF food. Oh, that's horrible. Because Mexican food was seen as so inferior. And it was really interesting.

I was talking, I was reading an introduction by David Thompson, of this iconic book called Thai food. And he was talking about how a European food was about simplicity, less, you know, Italian or really good French. It's about less, there's more on the plate. And I kept trying to think about Mexican food in this light and thinking something's wrong, it doesn't work. And does that mean Mexican food's inferior?

it less good because there are quite a few ingredients in some of the sauces and some of the sourses. And then David Thompson just spelled out beautifully. When he's like Mexican food, it's about balance. It's about a balance of acid from fresh lime and zing or, you know, a bit of acid from the vinegar. It's about balance of the spices, the allspice or the cinnamon or the cloves that you grind down into some of the salsers. Or the nuttiness of the sesame seed or the pumpkin seed you put in the sum of the sauces. and then the vibrancy of the chilies. And that's what's so delicious about it.

And that's what I love about it because you're balancing the acid and the heat and the saltiness and the umami and then it all comes together and it's this riot of flavour. Burst. It bursts in your mouth. I'm going to admit something which is really awful to admit.

I've never cooked Mexican at home. So I have... So I've got one... I think it was one of your first books. I was looking at it this morning at home. I can't remember what it's called. I've suddenly gone blank. But I've cooked many of your recipes in it

because it's really accessible. It's really accessible. But your new recipe book, I love the idea that you're going to make it easier for me not to panic about doing Mexican food at home. Because my go-to, as I said, is Wahaka. And we do get it delivered. And they do do.

We live nearby each other. They do deliver to our area. Okay. Well, of course we've got Pannington now. Yeah, we do. You do. But I want to be able to cook it at home without buying a pack of something, which I've never done.

I don't like buying those because I don't know what's in them. But I want to be able to make Mexican at home. And I don't, I'm sort of scared of it. Why am I scared of making it? I mean, I'm scared of making wanton, you know, because it's not familiar to me. So I think we've all, and it is. It's elements of it are, you know, this is an ancho chili. Well, how do I know if I should use an ancho or,

Guachio or an arbal, for instance. That's three dry chilies right there. But it's just familiarity, isn't it? And just thinking, but also now you can get the ingredients. I mean, when I first started cooking it, I mean, we had to import chipponies. No one, you couldn't get a hold of a chippoly in this country when we opened Oaxaca. So I had to literally open a supply chain to get chapplies in. That's incredible.

Yeah, it's nuts, isn't it? So, and now I think as a consumer, more and more, you can get Cornwall tiers, you can get I mean, there's an amazing company called Massafina, which hopefully at some stage will start selling their flower tortillas and shops because they are insane. But there are all sorts of companies now sell the chilies. So I do get the bits and I make my own, I go as far as making my own guacamole.

Delicious. I've done that. And for years, I think when I was a student, we all made chili. Yeah. You know, it was just, I'm veggie. So it was like every bean I could find, even as a student, I just put lots of beans in and threw chilies in. And that was chili.

because that's what we all thought. So I think those are the go-to sort of easy starter ones. But I love the idea of your new book that it's stuff that I can find at home and create Mexican food with just those bits, those added layers. Well, it's like a mole.

So mole is a sauce. So guacamole is an avocado sauce and it's such a nutty idea what's a mole. You know, in the old days, what's a mall? It's a mole. So what is a mole? Well, it's basically just a sauce

that is using toasted nuts or seeds to give it body and, you know, protein and deliciousness and nuttiness. And then a few spices, all spice or cinnamon, say. And then onions and garlic, which you char on a, you know, in the oven or on a frying pan. And you just blend them up together. And yesterday in the restaurant, I was testing some recipes from the book for the restaurant. Oh! Which is quite a fun way around to go. And it's got one chili in this sauce.

It's a macadamia nut moly. So it's like that rich, creaminess of macadamia. Oh, yes, please. And then one chili, which is a guachio, which you can buy now everywhere. And we're not everywhere, but you can buy it quite easily online and in some shops.

And it's a very mild, fruity, delicious dry chili. Oh, I love the idea of mild and fruity. It's so insanely delicious. And it turns this sauce, this creamy, nutty sauce into this lovely kind of burnt terracotta colour. And then you can have it with rose cauliflower, raised carrots, you know, roast chicken. I mean, it's just, it's so delicious.

You can't believe that seven ingredients together can make this insanely. No, I do believe because you've converted me to your way of the world. For you, though, as well, if you're happy to talk about it, you were only diagnosed recently with ADHD. Yeah. Is that something that you were, I mean, was it you that went to get it diagnosed or does somebody say, do you know what? Or how did that come about? Well, I think it was a long journey because I've got three kids and I remember at a certain point when they were all quite young thinking, this is not right. Like, our household is feeling tense. I'm shouting too much. It's not fun. Like, there was definitely something wrong. And I remember I'd met Philippa Perry at a party

who wrote this incredible book She's an amazing psychotherapist And she wrote an amazing book saying If only I knew this If my parents knew this that I know now or something And it was all about parenting And I remember messaging her Late at night, one night going

I'm really worried about my daughter And also And me and our relationship And it all feels a bit wrong And she said The first thing you need to look at is yourself when you're looking at parenting, you're number one, you know, look at yourself and that will affect your parenting. And it was like, oh, okay. So I remember finding a psychotherapist to go and talk to you. And then, you know, lots of stuff kind of coming out about growing up, you know, not being happy in my 20s, really trying to work through quite a lot of tough times in my 20s and kind of getting my head around it all.

Anyway, cut to a short story, it led to so many things. It led to Mexico because going back to Mexico last year, the whole family. Like we literally packed up our house, rented it out and moved, lock, stock and barrel, rented a flat. And it was this incredible family adventure. But it was because having done a few years of therapy, I knew I was in a rut. I knew I'd lost the joy in life. And I knew I had to reconnect with some. something that gave me joy. And I think we lose that in life because there's so much heavy

stuff. The stuff. There's stuff. Too much stuff. So much stuff. And it's in our faces all the time. And it's really hard to, or it's really easy to lose touch with the fact that we need to find joy in life to be joyful, to give joy out and to be good human beings. We also need to take in joy. We need to feel ourselves. Yeah. And which then you can share with others. Absolutely. So unless you're having pleasure in life, you can't do good. I fundamentally believe in that. So anyway, we had this epiphany.

I had this epiphany. We went out to Mexico. We had this unbelievable family adventure where I was cooking restaurants, traveling around, cooking with chefs, seeing old, old friends of 30 years for six months instead of a couple of snatch days every year, once a year or twice a year. So it was also the sun, let's not add the food, and everything. So that was epic.

But just before I went, I think I'd realized, because of all this self-discovery and journeying I'd gone on, I thought I would, I read, I remember listening to a Gabel-Matte book on ADHD. And then my husband listened to it and he just laughed at me and he was just like, you just need to go and get your self-diagnosed. I think at that stage I thought my middle child had ADHD. Then I thought my youngest had ADHD. Then I got them all diagnosed. And then weirdly, they thought my eldest had ADHD. And it was just a, but then they definitely said, no, also you've got ADHD. And we then went to Mexico.

I didn't actually think anything. I didn't have time to even think about it. But since I've got back, which was a year ago now, I've really had time to read more about it, listen to podcasts. And it is mental the way, you know, we grow up and we feel that we ought to be living a certain way. And what never comes to your head, and especially when I'm, you know, we grow up. was growing up is, well, maybe you're just not wired to do that kind of thing. Maybe you're not wired to be an accountant, for instance, or sit still for too long, or maybe that's a reason why you're always losing your keys, your scarves, your sunglasses. You know, maybe that's okay.

And I think for so long, I beat myself up all the time for being a total loss cause, an idiot. I find that so heartbreaking that I'd say probably 90% of the people I know, or, or, you know, or that I chat to on the podcast and on various TV and radio shows, all feel the same. And it is a generational thing. I think it is different now. Obviously, there's still judgment out there, and social media has caused it to sort of escalate in a different way.

But you know what? Not everybody has to be the lawyer, the doctor, the accountant, as you were saying before. and you can have those, you can be you. And I think it's the fear of being you that gets in the way of everything and oh, we're supposed to do this, we're supposed to do that. That I find it sad,

and I don't mean that in a patronising way, that for all those years you thought you'll of yourself as a failure, but actually your story's incredible and it's a win and it's a success because look where you are now. And if you'd known, I had this conversation, husband the other day. But if you'd known

then, what you know now and where you are now, the then would have said, actually, you know what, you're going to be okay. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, no, it is, it is, it's interesting, isn't it? I think, I think I was slightly tormented by, in my head, the lost years, which for a long time I felt I'd just thrown away so many years. And I've been quite emotional talking about

it. But, but when I look, back also and when I think about now I just feel so lucky that I am doing something I love so much I I have I get so much joy from feeding people from cooking also do you know what's amazing Gabby I'm really good at fucking cooking I can say that now and I it's taken me 49 years to be able to say I'm good at anything because I've always thought no you can't you know can't say that but also like oh that's you know bracing it's arrogant but I'm a bloody good cook because I've worked at it for all my life I've been cooking

and I love feeding people because it brings joy and I can see the pleasure I give to people when I feed them delicious food and what's not to love about that? You know, I go down the street, I'm not that well known but I'm a bit well known and people stop me and go, oh, I cooked your recipe and I loved it and I also do this one and I just think that's really fun to do something for a living that you get pleasure from and you give pleasure and you know you did a bit of fun stuff along the way as well and go dancing sometimes. Like, what's not to love?

So I just think I'm really lucky and maybe if I'd had all that straight away I'd have been an arrogant shit, maybe. And maybe because... But you can't do that because you can't change yesterday. You can't change it. You don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. So live in the moment and I just get from you,

which is something I really powerfully believe in, about living in the moment. And I feel like you really do live in the moment now. Yeah, yeah, and it's joyful. It is joyful living the moment, and it's taking the time. And it takes work, by the way. You know, I am ADHD. My head is scattered if I don't get enough sleep, if I drink too much.

There's lots of things that fry my brain and I can get drift a bit. But now I really do do that boring stuff. Like I try and meditate a few days a week, try and do a bit of exercising, get out in nature, cycle everywhere to get rid of my insane energy. You know, and I know those things make me happy. and they ground me. And because I don't care anymore about what people think about that...

Yes! Then I just do this stuff for me, which makes me happy. And then I know I'm a functioning, thriving human being that can give joy. Because as long as I'm looking after myself, then I can, you know, look after all those around me. And that's what life's about.

We've all got to just look after the people around us and spread that joy. Because the world is nutty at the moment. And I feel like the root cause of the naughtiness It's so many people haven't found the joy Well, it's the narcissists apart from the world Or the narcissists who have no idea They've got no empathy, no sympathy

And certainly don't know how to spread the joy Feel it themselves Yeah, they just want to win, win, win Well, it's the winning, it is, yeah The competitive, it's quite masculine, isn't that competitiveness Instead of just thinking, do you know what, if we shared it all out a bit Didn't everyone would be okay?

It's weird, isn't it? But I also think the phones are kind of this terrible thing where we compare ourselves. It's really hard not to. They're a bit addictive. And then you get sucked into this very egocentric thing instead of looking up a bit and outward. Always, always look around. You know, with so many times, when Adam was telling me on the way here that he was up very early, that we were talking on the podcast last week with a guest about.

listening and not just or having, it's very nice that people listen to the podcast, thank you very much, but not just having music or podcast or radio or TV, whatever it is in your head, just actually listening. And as you say, you're cycling. I walk everywhere. I walk about 10 miles a day. And I listen. I listen to the noises. I very nosy.

I like listening to people's conversations. But you get that. And when you cycle, my husband cycles everywhere. And he just says, you just can't be on your phone. It's just you're there in the moment. You have to concentrate. But also you've got the wind in your face and you've got people and noise around you.

And you're outside. And you're moving as well. Like we are animals. And I feel like so many people just don't realize that movement gives you joy. You know, just moving your body is what we're supposed to do. And it's funny. I sometimes get people on Instagram going,

oh, you're so skinny. You mustn't eat, you know. Oh, ignore them. Ignore them. Ignore them. Ignore them. It's so funny, isn't it? You're like, one, you've got no idea about me, but two, like, what's wrong with just feeling alive and thriving and exercising and feeling good?

Just carry on doing what you do and don't worry or think about what those people think because actually, and I talk about this all the time, it's not about you, it's about them. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Always about them. The bully is always about them. It's not about you. Like the school of religion. Do you know, you are just fantastic. Your energy.

your energy that you bring into the room sitting with you is everything that I imagined it to be but even more and you know you're a proper joy spreader I feel very emotional sitting with you because you're a very special person thank you. Thank you Gabby

thank you for having me