Woman's Hour - Takeover 2019 - Nadiya Hussain, TV cook, author, presenter

Episode Date: July 22, 2019

Nadiya Hussain says, "My edition of Woman’s Hour focuses on time, and our lack of it! Having enough ‘time’ for everything feels like a constant battle. We're juggling childcare and career demands and I wonder whether women are feeling the pressure more than ever before, and more than men. I'm looking at what we can do to relax and switch off, and tell you what works for me!"To talk a bit more about Nadiya's ideas we're joined by the food writer Bee Wilson, gardener Hollie Newton and psychologist, Dr. Katherine Garzonis from the Mental Health Foundation.

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hi, this is Jane Garvey and this is the Woman's Hour podcast, Monday the 22nd of July 2019 and it's the beginning of the Woman's Hour Takeover Week. We have five very different guest editors in charge of the programmes you'll hear this week. We have Cresta Cowell, who is the Children's Laureate, Danny Cotton, the Commissioner of the London Fire Brigade,

Amica George, the young campaigner who started the hashtag Free Periods campaign, and the lawyer, Harriet Wistrich, tomorrow. She's the person who set up the Centre for Women's Justice. She worked on the Sally Challen cases, on the so-called black cab rapist, John Warboys. She's a formidable lawyer and somebody that I'm really could say. She's part of the fabric of the nation these days. Very successful TV presenter and author. She has a show about cooking and about cooking under time pressure on BBC Two running at the moment.

And then in May, she was the presenter of a really interesting BBC One documentary about anxiety, which a lot of people felt very passionately about that programme. We were grateful to Nadia for being very honest about her situation. So that's Nadia Hussain. Here she is chatting to me about whether or not she likes being the boss in charge. Nadia, this is your show. You are in charge. Are you a person who likes being in charge? Is this you? I used to think I liked being in charge. And then I met my person who likes being in charge is this you i used to think i like being in charge and then i met my husband who likes to be in charge even more right so he is the kind of person just giving a give you a little clue as to what he's like he hasn't he has like he has an

audit so he goes in and he goes into the um garage and then he makes sure he knows where everything is and he makes a note on his phone of where everything is in each box and so he says whenever you want to know where something is just ask me and i can tell you because i have a list and then he just goes up to his little screenshot he goes to his little excel spreadsheet and then he says click click click this is what we're looking for and it'll tell you exactly where it is in what location in the garage it's a small garage right but he's a well-organized bloke exactly so he likes to be in charge but where that for me i don't really like being in charge apart from when it's the kids like for me they are my thing they are the thing that i like to overlook like i want to make

sure everything they do i want to know everything everyone else i don't really care i need to know where my kids are what they're doing and why they're doing it okay you're at an interesting stage in that respect then because you now have an almost teenage son don't you yeah and that's when I think it might get a bit harder yeah I think I I can feel it already I sense that that is what's going to happen thank you for I feel like you've got a teenager I've got two teenagers yeah yeah yeah I guess I I feel that coming because he's kind of close to 13 and he's quite he we've always said to him, look, to all of the kids, we've said you've got to be really open. I grew up in a family where you didn't say, you know, parents were right. Kids were wrong. You didn't. And I think it's a generational thing. I don't think it's about how I was raised or my community.

It's definitely a generational thing. And I always encourage my kids, talk, tell me how you feel. And, you know, I can get things wrong too. I just feel like there's more of the mum, you're getting that wrong. It's happening more frequently as he's becoming a teenager. And what about things like phones? He's now at secondary school. So does he have a phone? He does have a phone, although he probably doesn't need one

because we live minutes away from the high school. So I don't think he necessarily needs one but he has one but we have very strict rules and when we impose those rules on them we we also stick to those rules too uh we have a tin we have a biscuit tin which doesn't have any biscuits in it has the phones in so we put all electrical devices into this biscuit tin and we put them away in the office and we don't look at them um this is every day every single day so when you come in the house put them away in the office and we don't look at them. Wow, this is every day? Every single day. So when you come in the house, the phone goes in the biscuit tin?

Yeah, so when they get in the house, they've got about 15 minutes where they can quickly catch up with anything to do with school or anything that they need to bring, they need to kind of contact their friends for, no problem. But after about 7 o'clock, it's wind-down time. So it's have a bath, read a bit of Arabic, read some books, even if it's just playing a board game, you know, just anything, just to wind down just a little bit.

And they don't watch much television. So it's quite good because we have to wind down at the time, but we get rid of the phones, not allowed their phones. The notion then Nadia, that we're all really, really busy. We're rushing around. We haven't got the time that we used to have. What do you think about that? Well, it's, I mean, how do how do you I mean I feel really rushed I even as a mum I feel really rushed and kind of trying to manage to look after the kids and feed them really well and do my job

at the same time but also feel present in my home that's really hard you know I struggle to do all of that and then still feel present so I think we all know that we feel the rush. It's about how do we slow down? And I use cooking as my form of slowing down, although it's another thing to do to feed the kids and to keep going. It's also another way of just saying, let's just stop for just a second and let's just let's cook something together. Let's eat something together. And it's about making time um and that's really hard and i say that it's not that easy just to make time and you know for some of us you know sometimes i can spend a whole like seven days and i won't see my kids and then i have to make that moment and even if it's just just melting a bit of butter a bit of chocolate a bit of golden syrup and putting some rice krispies in there you know that for us

is that's just just doing something together. You can do that for me anytime you like. That's Nadia Hussain, who is our guest editor on the Woman's Hour Takeover for today. Now, the subject she'd like us to talk about, and we are going to mull over them over the next 30 minutes or so, not having enough time, being time poor effectively, switching off. How is it possible to switch off in these incredibly frenetic times? And actually, this feels like one of those weeks where all of us, even those of us who aren't given to being particularly anxious or excitable, might be inclined to feel that way. And the heat's not going to help either, is it? Let's face it.

And the third subject he wants us to talk about is um why we appear some of us to have lost the pleasure in cooking and eating food so the first subject we're going to talk about is finding time for yourself and the family just to relax and i have with me b wilson food writer and she has three children 20 16 and 10 always good to see you b thank you um author and food historian really the. The book, The Way We Eat Now, I think came out earlier this year. Earlier this year, yeah. Good. Okay, thank you. Also here, Catherine Garzonis, who's a psychologist at the Mental Health Foundation. Welcome, Catherine. And Holly Newton is here, writer of books on gardening, a creative director

as well. At one point, you were working how many hours a week, you were telling me, Holly? About 80 hours a week for just over a decade. Yeah. And unsurprisingly, that had an impact on you. Yeah, I had complete breakdown. It was brilliant. Well, except it wasn't really, was it? It wasn't at all. No, and I know you're very prepared to be very honest about that.

You've now moved to rural Dorset. Yeah, to Dorset, just by the sea. And you have a baby who is very young, but already taking an interest in phones. Yeah, it's terrible. He's reaching right for it. Of course he is. And Catherine, I think you have a 20-month very young but already taking an interest in phones yeah it's terrible he's reaching right for it of course he is and Catherine I think you have a 20 month old yes who also has a lively interest in phones yes no he's started bringing my phone to me in the morning and so because that's where his his tv programs come from so he sort of brings it and he goes Peppa Pig yeah okay um so this is where we are and Nadia has a point, not having enough time for ourselves.

I mean, when my children are more nearer your age than Holly's or Catherine's, was it easier then, do you think, to have children? Because I actually had my first child before CBeebies. I know it's hard thinking back. I keep trying to reconstruct what was life like before the Internet, before smartphones. I think like everything, it was easier and less easy at the same time like I feel like I often use my phone stresses me out I feel as if it's eating my brain I feel as if it's dominating my life and those of my three kids and then my phone is the antidote so my phone contains this incredible library of music whereas I can remember the time when we'd be going on a long family car journey and we just have one scratched Bruce Springsteen CD to see us through the entire journey whereas now you can go on Spotify and we can have these amazing family discussions about what our favourite Beatles

song is. Do you really have amazing family discussions? We do! Okay I've never had an amazing family discussion in my life. But through music, not through many things, but through that, through this magical object. So I feel like all of us do about our phones. I depend on it. I wish I could do what

Nadia does and get my kids to put their... I mean, the youngest one actually doesn't have a phone yet and I'm trying to hold out. But by the time they're at secondary school, you can't control it. We'll talk more about switching off or trying to switch off a bit later in the programme. But is it true, actually, Catherine, that we are, are we actually more time poor than we've ever been

or is that just nonsense? Well, in one respect, we're not because we've still got 24 hours in a day. But on the other hand, we're... We also have still got 24 hours in a day but on the other hand we also have loads of labor-saving devices that's it and we sort of but rather than taking that time and sort of relaxing a little bit more with it we're actually trying to do even more in that time so I think social media is a bit of an issue here because we spend a lot of time on it so although that wonderful time we've saved from not having to do the laundry by hand now we're spending a lot of time on our phones and we can see all the other amazing things that people are doing.

And so there's a huge amount of pressure to sort of live your fullest and most complete life, which involves doing as much as possible. We don't really prioritise relaxing so much as we used to. There's a big pressure to be productive in every spare minute of every day. So therefore, Holly's burnout was inevitable, was it? Or more likely?

Yes, it's a lot more likely, I think, because there is that pressure. There's not a lot of people saying, like, do you know what? It would be really valuable if we just sort of relaxed and had a nice bit of time together. And there's a lot more messages about sort of making sure you've planned the best holiday or you're writing another book or you're doing this or you're doing that. What about being, did you ever think when you were working those 80-hour weeks, did you ever think of yourself as being time poor, Holly? Oh, yeah, incredibly. I think it was just insane.

I think part of it, you're working those hours and that speed and it's just going, going, going. Not that you don't have time to think about it, you deliberately don't think about it because I think if you stop that momentum then suddenly everything would come crashing down in a way. I think you'd get things... I did start to just become...

You'd look in your inbox and there'd be 689 unread emails and you'd think... That panic would start to rise and just go and go but I did think it was it was silly because I was working that much and going up and up in my career and you know earning good money and all I'd want to spend that money well you were in creative directing yeah I was creative director in advertising actually advertising has changed so much but a lot of it was sort of writing and andeing film and, you know, making apps and things and, you know, beautiful artworks. We were working with a big car company.

We made a sort of light reflective paint and that sort of thing. So I was running a big global account. So it was mad because you're following the clock with meetings. So all the way from L.A. through to the end of the day when you're talking to Shanghai and then, you know, you'd be in your pyjamas maybe at six in the morning in bed doing a conference call, not on Skype. This is a world away from most women's working experience. It is. And now you are, are you at home with your seven month old every day?

Yeah, I am. I mean, in the end, you know, I think it was just, you know, burnout, just plain out breaking. We sort of ran away back to Dorset. And, you know, I found suddenly I did have time. And actually, I found suddenly I did have time and actually I found that I didn't know what to do with it I think it was it was even worse I think it's taken me about three years to just calm down but filling time with a tiny baby can be hard going you know it can be because I've started to get you know a bit more childcare now as I take on more work again and I'm finding starting to get that balance better but yeah filling time you think you both have no time at all and also it seems to be these endless days we think what are we going to do are we going to fill this up? Holly thank you Holly we should say has written a book

about gardening called How to Grow and we're going to talk a little bit later in the program about growing about the pleasure in doing stuff that is away from the world of work, but can still be work of a constructive sort. And it can be massively helpful in terms of your mental health and improving it. So we moved on to when I was chatting to Nadia to how she attempts to escape. And we've already alluded to it in the programme. These days, it is really difficult to switch off. So here's Nadia on how she attempts to do it. Social media is the first thing. You know, when I'm switching off, I don't want anything to, I don't want to switch it off, turn it off.

You know, you have to have, you have to detox from social media sometimes. You've got to give yourself a couple of days to just come off it. I love it. Don't get me wrong. I love the connection that you get on social media with people. There's a lot of positive stuff, isn't there? Of course, it's fantastic. I love it. I love that you get to see an insight into people's lives and I love sharing some of the things that...

I love sharing my kids, but I love sharing my rabbit. You know, I like everyone to see that I have... You share your rabbit. You mean you show pictures? Show pictures of my rabbit. What's the name of the rabbit? Cornelius. Yeah.

He's lovely. Oh, I love him. Tell us a bit about Cornelius. He's wonderful. He's just... He is a part of the kind of treatment for my anxiety. So I got him because I feel really, there's something, there's something chemical, there's some chemical things that happen in your body when you stroke animals.

And they say having pets is really good for people with anxiety. And that's why I got him. Is he a long eared? I don't know. He's a lop earedared crossbreed little black rabbit. And when I went to see him, I took the kids with me. And I said to, I went in and my husband said, oh, I don't want that black rabbit.

And I said, whoa, like, why can you not want the black rabbit? He goes, oh, because when I go to lock him in at night, he's going to creep me out with his beady big eyes. And that's not even an excuse. And then I asked the lady and I said, does anyone buy the black rabbits? Oh, no. And she said, no, nobody buys.

She goes, we put them out there, but nobody ever buys the black rabbits. I said, I'm having him. I'm taking him home this minute. And I literally picked him up and I walked out the store with him with all the stuff. I was like, buy the stuff. We're taking him home. And we took him home. And he lives.

Does he have a he has an area? Yeah. He has a cage. He has his hutch. He has little hutch sorry he has his little hutch my kids don't like cage they say no he's his home um so he has a little hutch and he has a he has a big three meter run and then he's got a run that the kids sit with him in every evening so sometimes when i'm feeling really anxious i'll open up his little run and then I'll sit inside with him and then I'll have a cup of tea and he'll sit on my lap and we'll have a little chat um and he's lovely to have so it's really helped me in the last sort of six months in you know I've what I've learned

about myself is that only I can help myself sorry it's interesting that um you anxiety has been a factor of your life for as long as you can remember but actually if you're me and I think I probably speak for a lot of women here it was when I had children that that I did probably experience something like anxiety for the very first time in my life did you know that when you had children that it was likely to well you tell me did it get worse after you had children oh yeah I mean I've suffered with anxiety from as early as maybe six or seven as far as I can remember so and as a child you always get told oh they're just an anxious person or they're just very kind of stubborn or you get a late there's a label there's

always a label but they we never spoke about anxiety and I mean we're not very good at talking about it now we're getting better I think there's definitely more to be said now people are talking about it a lot more but I'd never prepared for motherhood uh so I mean I didn't expect to be said now people are talking about it a lot more but I'd never prepared for motherhood so I mean I didn't expect to be a mum at 21 but there I was 21 a very young mum it felt like a child looking after a child and I remember there were moments where I remember when I had my son and I said to my mum I said mum do you want to just look after him for like a month let me get better when I feel better I'll just have him she's like no no no like he's yours you've got to have him forever now and I remember saying so I have to keep him alive and that moment the pressure of just you know like just staying alive myself was hard enough

suddenly I've got this human being to keep alive and this isn't a rabbit or a chicken this is an actual human being then comes you know as they grow up and as they get a little bit older you realize the responsibility isn't just to keep them alive it's to then nurture them and to make them into these wonderful human beings and that's quite scary as well because that's a lot of pressure because i myself was suffering that i'm suffering with anxiety i don't even know myself at 21 that i'm then i've got this pressure to make this human being yeah a wonderful one at that yeah well i'm sure he's wonderful he is yeah okay we're going to that I'm then, I've got this pressure to make this human being. Yeah. A wonderful one at that. Yeah.

Well, I'm sure he's wonderful. He is. Yeah. Okay. We're going to move back onto the chickens. Yeah. We definitely, well, and they're loud. They're louder than you think.

So I'm really pleased that our neighbours don't hate us. Or maybe they do. But what I do do is because we get lots of eggs, I kind of drop off eggs at doorsteps and stuff. I think that probably shuts them off, doesn't it? Yeah. And they get lots of eggs, I kind of drop off eggs at doorsteps and stuff. I think that probably shuts them off, doesn't it? Yeah, and they get lots of cake, so hopefully that means they're not going to complain. But they are really loud when they're laying eggs.

Are they? Yeah, they are. Can you do an impersonation of a... I really couldn't. No, okay. But they lay whoppers, like really big eggs. So I can imagine that can't be comfortable. No.

No. So they are quite loud. And we, I mean, before we even got the chickens, we had, so we've had, we've got 18 tropical fish in my son's bedroom. He loves fish and he finds them very relaxing. So we've got a tropical tank in his bedroom and we've also got a budgie called Rafe.

And then we've got the four chickens and then we've got Cornelius, the rabbit. It's quite a household yours actually, isn't it? It really is. And no wonder you basically bribe the neighbours with eggs and cake. Yeah, because they are loud. Yeah, okay.

And that's just the chickens before we get on to the kids. So switching off, we've got a real idea of how you do it. Apart from what we haven't mentioned is the importance of your faith and praying. And you pray five five times a day five times a day well that's not quite switching off is it but it's a different part of you that you're engaging yeah um i think through the years prayer has been it's definitely changed for me through the years and i think it changes as you go

get older and you know it's a different thing in your youth and it's a different like growing up as a 13 14 year old it was competitive I was like I'm gonna pray better than you um and so you know for me just the just to be able to have like I have these manic days where I'm dotting around between here there and everywhere and sometimes I'm at home and I'm testing recipes and I'm doing the laundry and I'm mucking out the chickens and all sorts of different things. But in that moment, I just know I look at the time like, right, time to pray. And it makes me, it forces me to just stop. And I think that's what we don't do, whether you're praying or not praying.

I think to force yourself to say, stop, stop, stop, just stop, just gather yourself and then come back to it. Because I work myself up and i think lots of us do that we work ourselves up now at what has been quite a testing time um you are one of britain's most famous muslims aren't you what is that like when you say it out like that you know i can suddenly feel the beads of sweat just kind of and i'm not surprised yeah it's a lot of pressure it's scary because um i think if you'd asked me that four years ago, which you probably had, I would have kind of almost like brushed that question off and said,

no, I kind of like doing what I do and I like writing cookbooks and I like doing this job. I don't want to talk about it. I want my religion to be almost incidental. It isn't though, is it? But it isn't. It isn't. And I think if you'd asked me that four years ago,

I would have given you a very quick answer. But I understand now four years later the importance of doing the job that I do. Because growing up, I did not see anyone represent someone like me. I didn't read a book and identify with a character. I didn't watch a cookery show and think, oh, I know exactly what

they're cooking. There was nobody on television presenting TV shows or talking about topics or issues that I could relate to. So yeah, if you'd asked me four years ago, I would have said, let's ignore it. But now I understand the importance of representation. And so now when somebody says, do you feel the pressure? I say, absolutely, I feel the pressure, but bring it on because it is so important to do this. And what about you cover your hair? You've always covered your hair. That's not going to change, is it? No, I mean, I've covered my hair since I was 13,

since I was 13 years old. You know, I used to wear it for religious reasons and now it's religious, but it's also habitual. I don't really, I don't see who I see without it without it. I'm not. It's like my hairdo. Yeah. Yes. But well, tell me you do have your hair done. Oh, yeah. It took me a very long time to find a hairdresser who wasn't going to roll her eyes every time I put my headscarf on because about six years ago seven years ago I used to go to a hairdresser and I would go and get my hair done and she would get

really annoyed with me because she'd do my hair and it looked beautiful and then I'd stick it under a scarf and she'd say oh but why do you wear it I don't want you to wear it I've done this lovely job on your hair and you've got wonderful hair you should show it off and it made me feel guilty for wearing my scarf and it almost made me resent my headscarf and I didn't want to feel like that and now I have a hairdresser who I've been going to for four years and she said when I went to her and I felt really guilty I was like and I was putting my headscarf on the first time around I was like I'm so sorry you've done all this amazing work on my hair and I'm just covering it up and she just said look you do my job is to make you feel lovely and wonderful and great about yourself and if you feel lovely and wonderful and great about yourself and then you put your headscarf on and you still feel wonderful what do I care whether you show it off

or not and I love her for it because she's the first person that doesn't judge me for covering it up. Nadia on her hairdresser you probably never thought about the perils of being Nadia Hussain's hairdresser but there you go that was a very charming insight actually um let's talk about the idea of first of all I love the idea of a comfort rabbit you ever been tempted by that Holly? No but I think the first thing I did do when I stepped back from that career was I bought a well we got a puppy which was one of the nicest things that could have but I think the first thing I did do when I stepped back from that career was I bought a, well, we got a puppy, which was one of the nicest things that could have happened. I think my whole adult life, we grew up with dogs, and the whole time, I just want a puppy.

We had no way of having one. So when I stepped back, we got just the silliest dog, and it was one of the best things I did. She did paint a fantastic picture there of sitting with the rabbit, having a brew, and just stroking it. It's very appealing, Bea. Yeah, it's deeply appealing. I have a comfort whippet.

And when I got my dog, I've dreamed of having a dog all my life, but my husband doesn't really like animals. So it took a lot of persuading. When I got my whippet two years ago, I have a friend who's a vet. He said, oh, he really suits you because you're a bit anxious and trembly as well. And I feel that having a trembly dog, I've become less anxious. I'm now wonderfully serene. Well, not all the time,

but I completely related to what Nadia said. Yes. And we're talking, and she talks very lightly about anxiety, but actually we should, we need to acknowledge, Catherine, this can be utterly crippling for some people. Yes. I mean, anxiety is something that affects a huge amount of the population and especially women. Women are a lot more likely to develop anxiety disorders. And why is that? There's a lot of different theories around it. But partly, well, one of the things is that women are more likely to talk about it. And they're more likely to share their anxieties, whereas men tend to sort of keep things in. So they might be anxious, but it's in a slightly different way. So women will say, like, oh, actually, I'm having a really tough

time and I'm worried about this. Whereas men just, they tend not to share at all. Is it also possible that women, particularly as you enter your 40s and 50s, you simply have a colossal amount of responsibility of one sort or another, which might not necessarily apply to men. Yes, absolutely. There was a study that came out recently that was looking at how much free time men and women have. And women have a lot less free time because although they work the same number of hours as men, we also tend to spend a lot more time with childcare, with housework, things like that. So we have a lot less time to ourselves. Do some women have a martyrish tendency here? Not talking about myself necessarily, although I think it might be gone.

I'm certainly not a martyr. I think some women feel that it's more expected of them and there is that general... Who expects it of us? Just society in general. As mothers, you know, there's an idea of like, OK, this is what we're supposed to do. Or as women keeping a household, like this is our domain, our role.

We're supposed to make sure that we're nurturing the best possible children that we can. And that means denying yourself to a certain extent. Bea, what do you think of that? I think that's completely true. I think there's this huge cognitive burden on women. You can see it through food. People are endlessly talking about the decline of home cooking.

What they mean is the decline of cooking by women. If you look at home cooking by men, it's a growth activity. It's gone up. And while it might, it should go up even more. But women still feel, even if they're not the ones actually cooking the meal, they've got these kind of just burdens of shopping lists in their head i was going to say that the cooking isn't the bit i find difficult it's the thinking the cooking is the joy it's thinking this person needs this this person's going to reject that food because they're picky and you're putting your own needs last half

the time i mean i'm struck this this question i mean that nadia was raising about kind of pleasure and and food and how we all feel so rushed but it's also that sense that you're kind of putting your own desires at the bottom of the pile you're constantly thinking i mean you must be thinking this with your baby um what does he need what does he need in the course of the day and even if you might feel that sometimes you've got kind of acres of time to fill that that time doesn't feel like it belongs to you and i think that's something that can make women very anxious we should say of course she mentioned um cornelius that the rabbit obviously and we've alluded to cornelius and his importance later in the week

when danny cotton is on the program and she's our guest editor the commissioner of the london fire brigade of course she's our guest editor on friday and she has some really interesting things to say about the importance of therapy dogs. This is like your whippet. This is a growth area. People are beginning to take this really, really seriously as indeed they should. Gardening, Holly, is a place,

would it be fair to say that it's, I mean, I think it was very telling that Nadia felt the pain of her chickens as they lay those enormous eggs and it's something we can all think about. But that sort of activity, it's something we can all think about um but that sort of activity it's not that far away from gardening can be tremendously therapeutic and i think that's why i started you know when we still lived in london we had it started with just a small rented

balcony and i think it was just we thought oh we better grow something on there and some herbs and before i knew it it was probably the one respite I had from that mad world and it's something about suddenly because I spend my life on a screen what we all do don't you wake up you look at the screen you look at the screen you look at the screen again you look at it before you go to bed but suddenly to actually plant something in earth and get your fingernails completely covered and and you sort of immediately it takes little time you're outside you can hear birds oh there are birds out here it was so it was so deeply calming it was something that I hadn't actually experienced for years it's almost you haven't had it since childhood maybe what could somebody do today in the garden or in their outside space whether it's a balcony or backyard whatever it might be

that is going to make them feel better oh goodness I think um just go and buy some sort of container or find a container and just buy some plants and goodness. I think just go and buy some sort of container or find a container and just buy some plants and plant them. I think there's this mystery around gardening that you have to know how to sow seed and it takes all this time. And it's something that once you start, you do grow into it,

it becomes more and more soulful. But you can absolutely pop to your nearest garden centre, buy something that looks nice and just plant it. And the absolute brilliance of it, you just feel like you've created something so wonderful. It's deeply affecting. So those little plug-in plants that you can get, and they're a couple of quid, aren't they?

Exactly. Get them, throw them in. Is that all right to do? It's totally all right. I think also there's this thing where you don't feel like you're being a proper gardener, and I still get it now. And in my book, I very deliberately didn't use seed much because you need space and it does need more skill. And the book was all about just having a go and reveling in how much fun it was.

I think if you look at the average Chelsea garden, I mean, they are bringing in truckloads of mature plants and creating instant gardens. So to do a tiny bit yourself is not bad. No, of course, it's definitely not bad. We should say, of course, that Nadia is on BBC Two tonight with her series Time to Eat. Is that the title of it? I think I've got that right. That's tonight. She's also made a film for the Women's Hour website. You can find her there already. She's all over our Instagram. And if you'd like to say anything on social media about what you've heard her say today,

it's at BBC Women's Hour as well, of course, on Twitter and Instagram. So this is the final subject she wanted us to talk about. Is it true that we have really lost the pleasure in eating and food? Yeah, I think there is a, you know, I say that and I look at my family and I'm one of six and some of us love eating, like really love eating and others not so much. And some people just kind of cook because they've got to feed their families and I think life is so fast-paced now um that we've kind of the monotony of everyday life can you do kind of lose that joy even for me sometimes I could go from testing six recipes and then cooking dinner sometimes I feel a little bit oh I don't know if I enjoyed that today but then I

step back and then I watch everybody eat and I was like oh that was fun you know like that was so worth it and I'll never lose the joy I know I won't because I love it and I just it's something that my dad you know I could see the look on my dad even now when my dad cooks the look on his face is just sheer delight um but I think just modern day and life and how busy we are we have kind of lost the joy a little bit and it just feels and also it's not just it's not just busy everyday lives it's also the fact that we're constantly told what we can and can't do and I think that's where that's where the joy is sucked out from

eating and living yeah well because we know um that too many of us are eating too much of the wrong sort of stuff yeah and that message is driven home all the time. We've just had all the obesity posters. I see them in bus stops wherever I go at the moment. Yeah. You're right. There is now a kind of fear attached to food. It's scary that food is a scary thing.

And I think there's this now when people talk about food, they talk about what you can't eat, what you shouldn't eat and what it's causing, you know, like the obesity crisis in children. And I get that that's a real problem. Genuinely, I'm not taken away from that. I know that that's a real problem. But I think if we just go back, if we step back a little bit and try to find the joy in cooking and being in the kitchen and enjoying food, we wouldn't be so quick to rush out to just feed ourselves for fuel sometimes it's about just stepping back and saying I'm just going to stop I'm just going to stop and try and enjoy this moment and I think that's where we can

kind of like eat back some of that joy because I'm guilty of it I sometimes I just want to go into a shop and just buy a sandwich and just eat it and which I do often do that but sometimes I just want to stop and sometimes I want to make that salt beef and I want to you know make those bagels and buy those bagels or whatever it is and just make a really good sandwich yeah what's your dream sandwich salt beef and mustard so I wouldn't have put you down as a salt beef woman why that sell it to me I because I really like um I but beef, but like stacks of salt beef in there. Like lots of salt beef. Like an American style.

Yeah, and loads of mustard and maybe even a pickle and a bagel. Because I like to make salt beef at home because it's cheaper to buy a big chunk of meat and make the salt beef at home. How do you do that? If you can, tell me about that briefly. You just salt it. So you brine it. You it in a brine right for a couple of days then you take it out and then you cook it and then you cook it in with some carrots and black pepper some leeks some onions some garlic and just cook that salt beef gently really really slowly then take it out leave it to rest and then slice it really thin it's just it's wonderful. And does it keep for ages? It keeps for ages I say that but i will

leave like a tray of salt beef in the fridge and we have to make a little bit go a long way so at home we don't have the big unless i'm buying it they don't get to have the big thick american kind of salt beef sandwiches um but the kids absolutely love it and they love making it and they love we love attempting to slice it really thinly and it never works because they're just big chunks big hunks instead um yeah salt beef so um the pleasure in eating and i know people listening are going to say yeah it's all right for nadia i bet she's got a lovely kitchen i've got two part-time jobs and i've got three kids and i'm knackered when i get in from work what am i supposed to do and are you suggesting that in fact the way around is to actually spend the whole of Sunday, for example, sticking making stuff to stick in the freezer?

No, I'm not. Not for a second. And just to set the record straight, I have a really small kitchen, really small kitchen. And it's you know, I am you know, I work. I don't have a nine to five. I'm up at six o'clock in the morning. Sometimes I'm finishing at one, two o'clock in the morning. You know, so I'm literally sometimes on four hours sleep with three children. I still clean my own house. You know, I don't have a, you know, I still make it a thing on a Sunday morning. I actually spend Sunday morning with the kids with our house. So we have a house cleaning playlist. We put that on and we clean the house for three hours, me and the kids and my husband.

Just give me an example of one of the tracks on your playlist. We have the Guardians of the Galaxy theme song. We have the Jurassic Park theme song and we have Castle on a Cloud from Les Mis. Right. And all of which sets you to work with your feather dusters. That's it. We get on and we clean every Sunday.

So we don't even cook. What I'm saying is that the way I've kind of cooked for the last 14 years has felt effortless and it felt really important to share that with everyone because there are, we are time poor and we do struggle to eat really well. And, you know, it's not about having a fancy meal every night. It's about saying, right, here's this kitchen. I've got all these, I've got an oven, I've got a cooker, I've got a microwave, I've got a freezer. How am I using this kitchen to make the best of my time so when I cook on a say Monday

evening I'll cook dinner for the kids and if I'm making a chili for example um I will make a little bit more and then I'll take a little bit aside add a few kidney beans to that and and then stick that in the freezer and so that's a second meal already in the freezer and then it might even be smaller so it might not even be enough to stretch for five people but i'll make it stretch when i get to that but i'll feed the kids one night and i'll stick a little bit in the freezer and by doing that and always kind of batch cooking and trying to think of one meal as two i end up with a week's worth of food in the freezer which means i'm then not cooking the next week. Nadia, thank you so much. Thank you. You and I could talk for, well, literally days, I suspect.

I think we could. Yes, it was a battle for us both to get a word in, but really enjoyed spending time with Nadia Hussain, our guest editor today. So Bea Wilson, this is you really. You're the food woman, go-to food woman. Have we lost the pleasure in proper food? I think we have.

I think our culture now surrounds us with these really weird messages about food where we put pleasure in one box and health in the other. And we're constantly almost set at odds with our own appetites. And the food industry colludes in this because it enables them to sell us huge numbers of things like protein bars. I mean, what is that? Should we never eat those? I'm not saying we should never eat those. Somebody's probably now listening thinking, I love protein bars and how you do...

And I haven't got time for breakfast. And I haven't got time for breakfast. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with protein bars in the context of our mad, busy, crazy lives, but it would be lovely if, as Nadia says, we could eke back some of that joy out of these mad, busy, crazy lives. And a big part of that is food. And

it's really sad that food, which is this thing that ought to nourish us, give us pleasure, give us relaxation, has become a kind of renewed source of guilt, whether it's because you're a mum trying to feed a family, you're thinking, oh, I've got no time to cook. Or it's you're thinking about your own body and you're thinking, I should eat that and I really want that. And what's wrong with me? And there isn't something wrong with you. I mean, I just feel we should get back to our senses, get back to the enjoyment of food. I've been involved in this new food education thing called Taste Ed, where we go in classrooms and we just bring in delicious things like many coloured tomatoes. and we just say to the kids, what does it look like? And do you like it? Do you not like it?

If you don't like it, tell us why. That's fine. And they're kind of surprised that we're not using these terms like obesity or fat grams. We're just getting back to joy. But the new ads are everywhere at the moment, certainly in London. I don't know about the rest of the country. The obesity ads. I think I've seen them in Liverpool as well don't know about the rest of the country. There's obesity ads. I think I've seen them in Liverpool as well, actually.

Yeah, they're really sad. They're very stigmatising. Well, but they're telling us an uncomfortable truth, aren't they? I don't think you ever change the way somebody behaves, least of all around food, by making them feel ashamed. I mean, as somebody that was a compulsive eater and a compulsive yo-yo dieter in my teens, I already felt shame, huge shame. Shame was what drove me into my bedroom to eat in secret until I felt sick.

I don't think we need to make people with obesity feel more shame. I think there are lots of structural causes of obesity which need to change. We desperately need to reform the way that food is sold. We desperately need to... OK, reform the way food is sold. What do you mean? Well, so people talk about sugar taxes. That's clearly the beginning. But, I mean, the idea that all of the buy one, get one, freeze

are on exactly the foods that we maybe should be eating less of. Why aren't we subsidising fresh fruit and vegetables? Why aren't we makingising fresh fruit and vegetables? Why aren't we making that the affordable, easy choice? We know that if you're among the poorest families in the UK, if you were to attempt to eat the diet that the government says is healthy, it would take about 70% of your income. I mean, that's... Sorry, where does that come from?

I think that comes from data. It might have been done by the Food Foundation. It might have been done by, I mean, there's been a lot of research done recently. The Soil Association did a State of the Nation report. So it's expensive to eat well and much cheaper to eat badly. Much cheaper to eat badly. So if we could change that rather than making people feel ashamed about their own bodies and about food. And I think there's way too much of that shame out there already.

And joy and flavour should be part of the solution. Holly? Sorry to interrupt, but Holly? I couldn't agree more. And I think also when I was young and I first got to London and that shock of how little time I had, you'd run past your local convenience store that has a brand name and you'd look there and

suddenly they'd be like a microwave curry for a pound 50 when I was actually intending to go in and make like a nice omelette. But you add up the price of the eggs and the courgette and the thing, you suddenly think, well, no, I haven't got the money. And even then, suddenly you see how you start to gain weight. And growing my own vegetables suddenly, you know, is this absolute joy there. You've spent time, you take it into the kitchen, you want to celebrate it, and all of it's slowing down a bit more. But I also think there's just the process of making dinner when you get in and chatting and not making a chore

but rather part of unpacking and doing that and something you do naturally. It's actually probably the best bit of the day. Let's celebrate. Let's just celebrate food with our go-to comfort dishes. Catherine, what would you have? Bacon and egg sandwich with runny egg would you have sauce with that she said nervously maybe a little bit of ketchup but not over the whole thing I'm not going to drown it okay that was very sensible B um my go-to comfort dish but it's really more of a winter thing but I love

chicken pie I just think a really good chicken pie with kind of delicious filling but i'm not trying to think of what my summer comfort food is what would you if you were to go into the kitchen now or tonight let's say i find the most difficult time about 5 20 when i'll almost certainly open some nuts or have three slices of cheese in rapid succession with a gherkin what would you have are you talking what i would make very very quickly because i mean there's many different questions here aren aren't there? Like if someone were to hand me something on a plate, it might be quite different. I mean, most of my comfort foods involve a lot of butter.

So at this time of year, it's globe artichoke season. I know a lot of people are listening to me, oh, so fancy, ridiculous. But just a globe artichoke is essentially a vehicle for either the most delicious vinaigrette with loads of mustard in it or just a vat of melted butter. And that, to me, would be a huge summer treat. And then a hunk of really good crusty bread. My gran Garvey used to quite literally slice butter and eat it. Holly? I'm just a pasta addict. It's always pasta for me.

I think something like a puttanesca, where you've got all the ingredients ready to go in the cupboard, it just does everything. It does it really, though. Yeah, it does. It's sweet and salty and umami and really hot. It's so good. With too much parmesan, that's really the answer. Okay, that's a good way to end.

Well, I think you can actually. I'm going to take a very firm line on that one. Your thoughts, welcome at BBC Women's Hour on Twitter or Instagram. Thank you to Catherine to be and to Holly for being here and to Nadia Hussain for being our guest editor Holly Newton on her love of pasta you also heard from Catherine Gazonis and from the food writer Bea Wilson on this edition of Women's Hour with our guest editor Nadia Hussain now to some of

your emails here we have Joanne, who's in Edinburgh. As a woman approaching 60 with grown up adult children, but no grandchildren, I see more and more women in my demographic who are not busy, but are in fact isolated, lonely and bored. Why not look at more creative solutions for people who have busy lives? How about fostering a sense of community and asking that older woman next door or down the street who lives alone, if she'd like to help you out with the kids or with the cooking or whatever, she might actually say yes. We need to build a community, not sit in our boxes talking about how busy our lives are when we've got small kids or teenagers

still living at home. And then 20 years later, find ourselves alone at night, wondering what the hell life was all about. I think you're onto something there, Joanne. Interestingly, in my street, we've had a sort of what I might loosely call a community issue over the last year or two, which has brought us together in a way that we've never been together at all before. And it's really interesting.'s we've built connections um this is suzy and i think this is an important point i'm a mother of five children now all grown up and flown the nest always had a full-time job and a lovely husband family meals were very important and however stretched for time i always seem to be happily producing copious amounts of food for

everyone well very sadly my husband died last year after a long illness as a result i've got no pleasure in eating alone i never cook as cooking is a work of love for sharing and i wonder how other people adapt after family loss suzy i'm going to keep your email because i think that's a really interesting point and we're going to see if we can discuss that over we have a listener week coming up in August and I wonder whether exactly that subject is something we could talk about then because I think you've touched a nerve there. I think a lot of people will understand that.

Jill says, An interesting programme this morning with lovely Nadia and her gorgeous rabbit Cornelius, but no coverage for my age group. Jill says, I'm in my late 70s, I'm divorced, I'm on a very modest pension and I live alone. And I wondered if you have programmes that address my demographics concerns.

I had four children, so I was used to cooking and feeding them, but now I find cooking for myself pretty soul-destroying and uninspiring. So this is the same subject, so it's definitely something that we should talk about. I know it's important to eat well and stay healthy, but it's definitely something that we should talk about i know it's important to eat well and stay healthy but it's definitely a real challenge let alone issues around ethical shopping the latest health fads and whether organic foods will help me to live longer so there's two listeners jill and suzy both drawing attention to the same issue so i'll make sure that we do discuss how you can enjoy cooking for yourself when you find yourself in

that position in life, whether there is any advice we can offer. This is from a listener who says, I can confirm, Jane, the joys of owning chickens. When my daughter left university, I quite literally had empty nest syndrome. So we went out and bought three brown hens and called them Diana, Mary and Florence, the chicken supremes. Hey! With a teenage son and an absent daughter and a husband with depression and a small business to run, believe me, those times spent with my birds at the beginning or end of a difficult day saved my sanity.

Congratulations, Emma, and well done to you for clinging on to your sanity in what sounds like a remarkably testing time. And I'm really glad the chickens helped. Now, because you're an erudite and informed and thoroughly educated and sparkling individual who's chosen to subscribe to the Woman's Hour podcast, you get additional material. And here is a bit more from Nadia Hussain. Right. Just to explain what this interview. So what we're going to do, I'll open this now.

Because you're the guest editor, so what we do is I will talk to you about, in quite a general way to start with, and then we'll weave the chunks of our conversation throughout the programme when it goes out. Yeah. So you want to talk about chickens. Yeah. And so we will have, I don't know, we'll either have a live chicken in the studio when it comes, or I'll have a chicken expert or something. Ah, I see.

So that will follow the chunk of conversation with you about your love of chickens. Mm-hmm. Does that make sense? Of course it does. Right, okay. It's all a bit choppy and chatty the way TV works, right? Yes, it will be like,

she's more like TV than a live, well, it's not obviously a live radio interview. It'll be chunks of our conversation which we will then weave in to to a live show all good okay brilliant thank you very much indeed oh are you going to tell me what's in here yeah so there's um so there's some salmon so um so there's some so there's hold on the scones so there's some scones brilliant i've got some smoked salmon pate in not pate but like a salmon paste lovely which i hope you like i do i love it granola and prune bake

okay and this is my kind of miso aubergines that I do in the microwave I love aubergines saving loads of time and then that one's coconut barfi balls so like little milk coconut balls right

thank you very much that was an unexpected treat well I might leave the granola chunks but I'm definitely taking the salmon good that is my that is my supper. Oh, really? Oh, good. There's some scones in there for you as well. Fantastic. Thank you very much. That is very much appreciated.

Right. So there was a time, I think, when you didn't have a telly. Yes, I didn't have a television. So my little girl, who is now eight, she's only ever had a television in her life for four years. And so she doesn't know how to use a remote control even to this day you give her the remote control and she looks at you blankly as if why have you just I don't know what to do with it so she gets the numbers mean that you can get to a certain channel but she doesn't really understand what numbers she needs to press to get to that channel so she doesn't really know how to use a remote control because she doesn't watch television very much at all and does that mean that she's missed out on highlights of your career, for example?

I mean, I want to. I try and shove it in their face a little bit and say, come on, guys, make me feel good about myself. Here, watch something that I filmed. And the last thing they watched was the documentary I did on anxiety, which was difficult for them to watch. But I felt like because it was something that was out there, I wanted them to watch it I felt like because it was something that was out there I wanted them to watch it first before anybody if anybody asked them any questions about it I wanted them to be aware that it was out there so we sat down and watched that together and that was really difficult to watch um and I remember my little girl she doesn't really she watches all the cookery shows she's very supportive of my career whereas the boys are like whatever mom we don't care what you do and she watched it and she just said I remember her turning around quite upset and she just said mommy you're so

brave but you did a good thing and I don't know why she thinks I did a good thing but somewhere in between watching that documentary she felt like it was a good thing to do so yeah I sort of try and shove it in their face and say go and watch what I do I'm not surprised you were a bit wary about her watching that program because it was very, very personal, wasn't it? Yeah, it was. But I think that's a risk I took by sharing that. Millions of people watch that. And I just know that, you know,

now it's kind of tangled and slightly weaved in that in an ideal world, I would have preferred her not to watch it. Not yet anyway, but because the boys at 12 and 11 have a different understanding of the world, whereas at eight, although she thinks she knows everything, she really, you know, she is only eight and still quite, she does not fully understand anxiety. And in saying that, I realize now that my boys don't either. And they're really learning themselves now what it means to be anxious and when it becomes a problem. In that programme, well, you talk about your school experiences, which you were, you were bullied. Yeah, quite badly.

What happened to those people who behaved in that way to you? Do you know? Do you have any idea? I bet you can remember their names. I don't want you to name them. Yeah, I do. I do remember. Because you don't forget, do you? No, I remember their names. Sometimes I do want you to name them. Yeah, I do. I do remember. Because you don't forget, do you? No, I remember their names. Sometimes I do. I mean, they consume so much of my life because of some of the thoughts that I've been left with because of the bullying that I actually sometimes when I think about where they could be,

I sometimes think I don't need to give them that headspace. I don't need them to be in my thoughts. And so I have to kind of force myself not to think about where they might be or what they're doing yeah I feel sad for them but I always tell my kids that you don't want to be those people but I try not to give them too much of my thinking time I've got kids to think about of course now um since you made the program about your anxiety have you have you actually felt better it definitely I I didn't finish my treatment I I had because you started didn't I did start I haven't finished and I've done exactly what I shouldn't have done which is um get busy again and not have time to go back to the treatment

and I think maybe once you've started something like that maybe it's for life I think maybe perhaps it's not a thing you stop maybe it's something that you just keep going back to in case you know you're having a tough time I will I'll cross that bridge when I come to it but since the hardest thing about making that documentary was I'd realized that everything that I'd buried quite deep I had to then unearth and I wasn't just unearthing all of that I was then doing it on camera and it was there for everybody to see and that was really hard for me in the two three weeks of filming just before Christmas I had almost a panic attack every single day and I was ringing my agent and I was ringing my husband and I was saying I'm not doing this I don't care who sues me and I don't care what contract I've signed I'm not doing it I genuinely felt like I was going to

walk out but not doing it because it was so exposing it was it was so I felt so vulnerable in a way I'd never felt before and it was not even at that point it wasn't even about the cameras being there it was about the fact that I couldn't I wasn't quite ready for to talk about some of the things that had happened to me and I discovered that I had PTSD so I'd learned a lot about myself that I hadn't realized as a result of the bullying as a result of the bullying and I didn't know PTSD to me I instantly I link it to people who have been to war you know people have fought you know and lost their lives and you just think how can I have PTSD this is ridiculous and what I did for years was just kind of ignore the fact that I do have a problem and just carried on and and that's something that I've learned in the since Christmas not to do is to address the problem.

And I should go back and I haven't. But the last panic attack I had was before Christmas. And I and it's now, you know, we're well into the summer now and I haven't had one. And that's the longest I've been without a panic attack my whole life. So you do strike me as being an incredibly committed and energetic and energizing presence you know that about yourself. With the positive comes the negative and on social media I get people lots of people saying oh she's just another celebrity who's jumping on the mental health wagon and saying that she's. People have actually made that point. Yeah they have they have and let's be honest you know that's I knew that was going to happen I could I knew that was going to happen and when it did I wasn't surprised I was

saddened but I knew it was going to happen and my answer to that is you know it doesn't discriminate I've always had anxiety and but the one thing I have always been is committed the one thing I've always been is driven and when when I did Bake Off I didn't do Bake Off because um because I wanted to win the show I didn't do it because I I went in there to with a career in mind none of that I went in there because my husband did the application and said you've just got to do something that doesn't involve us and he threw me into the deep end so out of my depth I was practically drowning doing that show and I really struggled and it's the best thing he ever did and I never set a target to come out and

have a career I remember coming out saying you know what it's great that I won but I'm happy just to go back to my life and I was so lucky in that I had these amazing opportunities and even now four years later I always say to my husband, I've been so lucky. And he always has a go at me and says, no, you're actually really good at what you do. You need to stop saying that you're lucky. Own it. Yeah. Nadia, thank you so much.

Thank you. You and I could talk for, well, literally days. I think we could. Yeah. Really nice to see you. Thank you. Thank you very much. That's my genuine thank you coming out now.

That was the recorded thank you. But now this is the other thank you. No, thank you very much for having me. No, it's a great pleasure. Thank you very much. That's my genuine thank you coming out now. That was the recorded thank you, but now this is the other thank you. No, thank you very much for having me. No, it's a great pleasure. Thank you. Is the daily grind getting you down? Fancy taking a break and going out into nature this summer? Then look for Go Wild in BBC Sounds, a place for some of the best nature programmes from Radio 4.

Get some inspiration for your next adventure, no matter how big or small. Just search for Go Wild and BBC Sounds and set out on your next adventure today. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody.

Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby.

It's a long story, settle in. Available now.