Ep 285: Sally Phillips

James, huge news from the world of off-menu and indeed the world of the world.

Yes.

Ever heard of the Royal Albert Hall?

I have.

We've done live shows there.

And guess what?

We're doing more live shows there next year.

Sure, a lot of them are sold out already.

But we thought, hey, throw these guys a bone.

Let's put on one final Royal Albert Hall show in that run.

The show will be on Monday, the 16th of March.

It's going to be a tasting menu, a returning guest coming back, receiving the menu of another previous guest.

Those shows have been a lot of fun.

We cannot wait to do them live.

Who will we pull out of our little magic bag?

You'll have to come along on the 16th of March to find out.

If I'm correct in thinking, presale tickets go on pre-sale on the 10th of September.

Pre-sale tickets are 10th of September at 10 a.m.

And then the general sale is 12th of September at 10 a.m.

So if you miss out on the pre-sale, don't forget general sale is only two days later.

The day in between is for reflecting.

Get your tickets from royalalberthall.com Hall.com or offmenupodcast.co.uk.

You check your feed and your account.

You check the score and the restaurant reviews.

You check your hair and reflective surfaces and the world around you for recession indicators.

So you check all that, but you don't check to see what your ride options are.

In this economy, next time, check Lyft.

Popsicles, sprinklers, a cool breeze.

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Welcome to the Off-Menu podcast, taking the Stilton of conversation, the comte of humor, the sharp cheddar

of friendship, adding the crackers of having a great time and the chutney of cheering the fuck up, James.

Look at me.

What's your problem?

You know what you've done.

I guess we're having a cheese board today.

That is a gamble.

The son of a bitch.

My name is James A.

Caster.

Together, we own a drink restaurant.

And every single week we invite in a guest.

We ask them their favourite ever star and main course dessert cider shan drink, not in that order.

And this week, our guest is

Sally Phillips.

The wonderful Sally Phillips, James.

National Treasure.

National Treasure.

So fantastic.

One of my favourite comedians.

So funny.

One of our finest comic actors.

I mean,

obviously, Taskmaster, Series 5.

Yeah.

I'm Alan Partridge, one of the greatest sitcoms of all time.

And the greatest series of a sitcom, man.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Smack the Pony.

Yeah.

Iconic sketch show.

Smack the Pony was

part of a lineup on BBC2 of shows on either a Monday or a Tuesday, I want to say.

Smack the Pony was 9.30 p.m.

and it was like a run of three or four things that when I was a kid, I was like, here we go.

It was so this is my, this is my night of telling.

yeah absolutely fantastic and now in austin yes there's a new australian comedy series the bbc have acquired it already a hit in australia coming soon from friday the 4th of april starring sally of course yeah that's why that's why we're talking to her about it ben miller and michael theo yeah who's one of our favorite guys from love on the spectrum yeah we both love love on the spectrum especially the two series that michael is in and very excited to see his acting career uh yes take flight so make sure you watch austin But of course, James, however much we may love Sally Phillips, if she says a secret ingredient on which we have pre-agreed, we will have to remove her from the restaurant.

And I hope to God she doesn't say it.

Me too.

This week, the secret ingredient is pony.

Pony.

Smack the pony.

She's not going to put pony on a menu, man.

Well, you'd think not.

I mean...

Or smack.

But people can't.

It is edible.

Well, there was the horse meat scandal, of course.

Of course.

And there are some countries where, you know, they eat horse.

Yes.

And they they do it properly i guess so you know she might have been to a country where they've made a pony steak or something and it was really nice where people eat a horse and they know they're eating horse unlike the horse meat scandal yeah i mean look you've got to let the horse meat scandal go no i'm just going that i missed i wasn't on mock the week when the horse meat scandal was happening yeah that was that was a good week i imagine good week Good year, mate.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

It was quite a while that the horse meat thing was going on.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But those ones aren't always the best ones.

You know, you think, oh, this is a huge story.

It's going to be great.

Yeah.

But actually the internet avoid yeah but the horse meat scandal was different man be like oh if this is the answer what is the question three and you you could be like how many horses are in a passity

that's good yeah yeah i mean after that probably running out of three

how many have been a lasagna how many horses have been in lasagna horses

yeah yeah yeah How many horses have I eaten?

Yeah.

For breakfast?

How many bites did I take of a passity before I realised it had a horse in it?

But anyway, rest in peace to Mott the week.

Obviously, I suppose we'll get on with the episode.

Yes, please.

This is the off-menu menu of Sally Phillips.

Welcome, Sally, to the Dream Restaurant.

Thank you.

Thank you for having me.

Welcome, Sally Phillips, to the Dream Restaurant.

Very expecting you for some time.

Well, thank you very much for inviting me.

Did you enjoy that?

I did.

I did.

I just, I, yeah, that's how you normally greet guests, isn't it?

It is, it is.

I did well not to scream, I think.

Yeah, Yeah, it was very exciting.

Yeah, I do startle easily, yeah.

Yeah.

People say startle these.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's good.

Yeah, I've got startled reef likes like a baby, you know.

When was the last time you were the most startled?

Well, it's the thing that both my sons and also Michael Theo from Austin, he...

He likes to startle me because he thinks my response is funny.

I do scream very easily.

And I'm terrified of snakes.

So he comes up and does snake impressions and I scream.

And my heart rate goes through the roof and I think I'm going to die early.

And he laughs like mutley for about 15 minutes.

We have to, and the director gets annoyed because we're, you know, getting behind, losing the light.

We should talk about Austin, but Michael Theo in particular, we're both big fans.

So jealous.

We're so jealous of you.

You need to get Michael Theo on a podcast.

Oh, well, we would love to see that.

We would love that, obviously.

Such huge fans from Love on the Spectrum.

Love on the Spectrum.

Yeah.

He's just brilliant.

He is.

He is.

I'll tell him that you...

He'll go, they've heard of me?

Yeah, he's

completely brilliant.

Yeah.

Yeah, he's fantastic on that show.

And I didn't know that he was going to start acting.

And he's acting with you, Ben Miller.

It's an amazing cast.

Well, that's very kind of you.

How did you get involved with it?

Because I'm very excited to see it.

It's very polite of you to say so.

That's not polite.

That is not polite.

He's not a polite guy.

He means it if he says it.

Yeah, well, that's good.

That's good.

Yeah.

Ben Miller did a film in Australia called Razzle Dazzle, which is very big in Australia, turns out.

And he's still good friends with the director Darren Ashton.

And Darren works with the company Northern Pictures that made Love on the Spectrum.

And Australia, well, the whole world fell in love with Michael from Love on the Spectrum instantly.

He was top hat wearing, heart on his sleeve, no defences, quite a lot of long words.

And Darren thought, I wonder if he can act.

And rang Ben and said, what do you think?

Ben said, I think it's worth a shot.

So Darren got in touch with Michael, met him.

He was even more amazing in person and so he and ben came up with the idea of ben being michael's long-lost dad and then ben asked me to write it and i said no

but he he on he sort of proposed to me as in would you come play my wife on screen so then we discussed about how it might work and

they got some writers on board who don't miss deadlines

and uh yeah and then we we went from there so the the idea was come up with to base around michael around michael yeah yeah around Michael.

Amazing.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So for me, I've got neurodiverse kids.

I've got a child who's got Down syndrome and autism.

And so I, you know, it matters to me a lot, representation.

I can see it makes a big difference to Ollie.

But also, I think TV is great.

You can get people into people's homes.

And I think if you can get people familiar with people with disabilities, then they're less likely to, you know, exclude them or harm them or whatever.

And just a bit more understanding, right?

I think.

Yeah.

And also, he's so funny.

I mean, it strikes me that, you know, sitcoms in the 70s and 80s, people were just pretending to be autistic.

And so why not just get somebody...

And he feels quite strongly the Young Sheldon and Big Bang Theory are misrepresenting autism as, you know, people not caring and all the rest of it.

And so he has contributed a lot to the character.

He'll sort of...

flatly refuse to do something or

we use lots of things from his life like stirring fizzy drinks so that they're flatter and and things like that.

That's fantastic.

It is amazing the oversight oversight sometimes and stuff like that where they want to have an autistic character and then they don't even do the bare minimum of research no have a habit that they they assume it's just someone with no empathy yeah just do that and exactly and think that that i don't know is either funny

i'm quite struck with scandic nordic noir they tend to make the women autistic so that they can just write men right

but yeah it is it is fantastic to actually have have michael yeah i mean it's been great and I think the thing that's been most telling is how exactly the same it is.

You know, it's just no difference.

We tried to have a neurodiverse crew on the British end of the shoot, and there was no difference between a neurodiverse crew and a crew that didn't identify as neurodiverse.

So either that tells you that all the tests just identify people who work in television, which is possible, or it's just not such a big deal.

Yeah.

You know?

I also really like, what I really like about this as a parent is that often when autism or learning disability is in a drama they will make that the reason the character is there so the character is there because they're autistic and they will then be tortured and killed because they're autistic you know i was talking to sarah gordie who's an actress of down syndrome and i said what what would be your dream character and she said a news agent she just wanted to play someone who was just there as a person who wasn't being you know not suffering because she had down syndrome and so this is great it's almost irrelevant yeah the autism it's just sort of the way he the way he talks and the way he approaches the world It's just part of his character, but it's not a storyline.

It's no surprise to me that he's brilliant in it because he's clearly such a performer when he's on screen, right?

And apparently, that's how he learnt to talk.

So he was non-verbal until four or five, maybe later.

And his parents noticed he just watched animations.

And I shouldn't tell you all of this, you should just get him on because he would be a great guest because he does not lie.

Yes.

Unlike me, yeah, of course.

Life for money, no problem.

But Michael, so last, you know, we've just been just literally just come back, and he says, I can't believe that I am so well regarded by the world's media.

Look at this, look at this review.

Michael Theo easily outperforms more experienced actors, Ben Miller and Sally Phillips.

I'm like, well, don't read us that one.

Don't tell us that one, Michael.

Brilliant, absolutely brilliant.

Yeah, yeah.

I love him to bits.

I mean, he's just great.

Fantastic.

So great.

Yeah.

Would you consider yourself a foodie, Sally?

I wouldn't, but but my partner is a trained chef.

So I have been dragged into awareness.

I mean, I'm someone who a whole term at university, all I ate was Snickers.

Snickers all day long.

Yeah, like all the food.

It's got protein.

Yeah.

You know, for dairy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And when I was

above the other chocolate box.

I just don't know.

I guess it was the salty tangs then.

And then when I first started acting, I would just have sausage, beans, and chips.

That was like all the time.

Wow.

When you were just eating Snickers, did you notice any interesting things happening with your health?

No.

No, none.

That's the great thing about being young and at university.

Yeah, and there's that thing where, you know, it's 2 a.m.

You think I may as well stay up now.

Yeah.

Why not stay up?

Have a couple of Snickers, go straight to work.

Exactly.

But now I do know quite a lot about food.

And we did s set up in the pandemic, or just before the pandemic, a secret supper club where we did these evenings.

The idea being that normally, if you have dinner theater, both the food and the theatre is rubbish.

But we thought, why don't we do performance around the food?

So we did one called Fond of Mushrooms, which is a Tolkien quote.

And we did that at the Cricket Club on Kew Green, which is where the Fungarium at Kew Gardens have their Christmas party.

Wow.

And we had the curator of the Fungarium at Kew come and do a presentation about mushrooms.

and he's basically a stand-up very very funny

and so he told us lots of like mushrooms it turns out are the fastest things on earth

they fire their spores into the air at a greater speed than anything else oh wow yeah we learned about the stinkhorn mushroom which is a mushroom that looks like a penis and charles darwin's niece was obsessed with them and was worried they would corrupt.

Anyway, lots of interesting facts about mushrooms.

And we had a band, the fun guys, come in and perform mushroom-related mushroom gathering songs.

And then Ronnie Ann Koner and I did some mushroom-related material, none of which I can remember now.

And we read things like the mushroom gathering scene from Anna Karenina and Sylvia Plath's mushroom bows.

And it was really mad.

The evening was unbelievably mad.

We lost loads of money.

There were five mushroom-based courses.

Was that a mushroom dessert?

Yeah.

Yeah, chocolate and porcini.

Oh, it was really truffles, chocolate, dark chocolate truffles with porcini musterins.

Absolutely delicious.

So we did a few more of those.

We did one based on gin and beer

and one

on stuff you get from the river.

And then midsummer we did a Swedish midsummer thing.

We haven't done one for a while.

Partly because we lose so much money.

Partly because so many people died in the midsummer.

They were frightened, actually, because midsummer the film had just come out.

So we led people into the Swedish church in Maryleben, and there were some Swedish mums, but dressed in their kit.

You know,

they looked like Lederhosen, but with a dress.

And they sang a cappella, slightly scary choral music in Swedish.

And then we didn't give them drinks or anything, and then led them downstairs.

And there was a midsummer dance.

Have you heard of this?

The frog dance?

No.

Where there's a song and you go round, you dance in a circle.

And the Swedes sing

a lot of songs around around food.

And this one was

the words, I think, were little frog, little frog, you're such an idiot, you don't have a tail.

And then they go, little pig, little pig, you're great, you have a tail.

Wow.

And everyone was quite afraid, but we gave them very strong, like Swedish, homemade, Swedish alcohol.

I think Midsummer made people...

scared of all Swedish things for about a year.

Yeah, it did.

It did.

I haven't seen the film actually.

Wow.

Oh, some bad stuff's happened.

If you'd seen the film, you wouldn't have done a theme, did you?

You wouldn't have themed it about that.

Yes, and we realised that.

It's not as fun as mushrooms.

Mushrooms were fun.

Yeah.

Yeah, we had a, it was really great.

The Riverside one was fantastic.

We had Ronnie Ancona's brother was an admiral.

in the Navy.

Ancona was really getting involved in this.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, and he told us about that.

We had an actor who had rowed across the Atlantic reading from Jerome K.

Jerome.

Do you know, have you read Three Men in a Boat?

No.

It's a completely brilliant bit where

they've had a tough day and they're all feeling a bit grumpy and then they find a tin of pineapple and their spirits lift, but they haven't got a tin opener.

It's just these three blokes trying to open a tin of pineapple without a tin opener.

And it's a good idea.

And was that dessert?

Was that dessert?

There was, I think it was pineapple-based dessert.

We had a forager, George.

No, Fred George.

Fred, George.

Fred and George.

No, I've got that.

I can't believe I've got that wrong.

Sorry, menopause.

My brain doesn't really work.

Fred, Flavor Fred is his Instagram handle.

And

he showed us all the plants around the...

We did it in a boathouse.

All the plants around the area that could kill you.

This sounds great, Sally.

I think you're doing it.

It was.

It was great.

Yeah, it is great.

Apart from it's just a loss-making

thing.

So it's just for fun.

Yeah, we could do a collaboration.

Yeah, we could.

Yeah, we'll do one.

We can't do mushrooms again.

Benito hates mushrooms.

But we'll base it.

How about this?

We do a collab that is the meal that you choose today.

And

that's what we do for people so we we make it a real thing well we should do you have you done your meals you choose

loads of times you know this is a collab with you so it should be off menu ex Sally Phillips I haven't so haven't actually at the current time decided well

by the end of this episode you will

have decided we can just do your dream meal when you say at the current times you mean as we're recording the episode right now

i did think about it obviously but like i say i was i was thinking about it and i was sort of planning with menus and all the rest of it and looking at a cookery book of Icelandic food.

And then I listened to Bob Mortimer's episode and I just thought, it's all pointless.

I just need to say jam.

I want to eat jam,

jam in hell.

I want to be fed jam by Bob Mortimer

on a long spoon.

Well, we always start with still sparkling water.

Do you have a preference, sorry?

Yeah, I think sparkling water, since it's a dream menu, because it's posh, isn't it?

And if you're going to have mineral water, it seems, I don't know why, I have a strong feeling that it's wrong to have non-tap still.

Yeah.

Why is that?

Really?

I think

I just feel someone's making a bit of a point.

Yeah.

If they have flat, I'm going to call it flat.

Flat water.

Yeah, flat water.

Yeah.

They're selling you something that you have for free in your house.

Something you have for free.

But they're selling you, you know, fresh air.

Yeah.

So do you think people who have still water that's from a bottle are basically saying

I'm too good for tap water?

I'm too good for tap water.

Yeah, especially in their own homes.

When they say, I don't drink, I don't drink tap.

I'm like, ooh.

Do you know about people who don't drink tap?

I do.

Flavor Fred?

I do.

Not Flavor Fred.

No, obviously, he just drinks from streams.

Here's something I got

about myself the other day.

I drink tap water all the time at home, obviously.

But if I drink it from the bathroom tap, I feel weirder about it as if it's different water than the kitchen tap.

But I I think, is it not, is it not?

I don't know.

I don't know either.

I know exactly what you mean.

It tastes more metallic from the...

Yeah.

And I love the fact that we both confessively have both.

Yeah, yeah.

Always have both.

Yeah.

But it's convenient if I'm about to go to bed and I want some water or whatever to take, you know, I'm going to the bathroom tap, not going, but I'm thinking

it's different from the sink and the bath.

Yeah, very different.

Have you ever taken it from the bath?

Well, the shower's the hardest one to get.

Yeah, yeah.

Really got to be under there for a while to get a big mouthful.

Yeah, there is a website, Mineral Waters of the World.

You know, this, presumably, no, no, where they rank the different mineral waters.

Oh, wow, yeah, someone's properly done it, doesn't they?

Yeah, yeah.

What's to what's top?

Well, I actually printed it out because although I

know it's printed out the website, yeah.

I was going to look at some of this, but then I um just realized you printed out quite a lot of stuff.

A lot of stuff.

Well, no, I printed out some of the stuff from the supper club in place, so it was something I could remember, and I thought I'd read it in the car, but then I got car sick, so I haven't.

Here we go.

Top is a.

Oh, I haven't got number one.

Yeah, here we go.

Number one.

Topo Chico.

Have you ever heard of that?

Topo Chico.

Topo Chico.

Where's that from?

17 votes doesn't say.

I'm just guessing

17 votes.

That's top, is it?

Dorna, then, well, do you want to have a look at the thing?

But the only, the first one I recognise is Badois at number six with 40 votes.

What?

I don't know why number one.

I don't know why number one.

Oh, it's the

out of five.

It is mineral waters of the world.

Check it.

It's independent.

Yeah.

It's an independent thing they've done.

It's an independent thing, yeah.

Telly, I hate to skip ahead, but um, I've noticed on another um sheet, uh, there's a paragraph with the subheading Chinese ghosts.

Yeah,

yeah, this is all supper club stuff.

Yeah, did you know that Chinese ghosts, the reason Chinese temples have zigzag bridges over their ponds is because Chinese ghosts can only cross water in a straight line.

I didn't know.

I mean, it's weird what sort of comes up on the podcast because we've recently had a conversation with John Kearns where we talked about Japanese ghosts not having any feet.

Yes.

Wow.

So I thought this might be where that was going.

Yeah.

No.

Like, but obviously not.

Yeah, they can't.

They have to cross water in straight lines.

They can zigzag on land.

Yeah.

But not across water.

But not cross water.

You can't see that bridge and go.

So if you're being chased

by a Chinese ghost

and there's only a straight bridge, you're...

Yeah, you're in big trouble.

What part of the supper club did that really?

I just can't remember.

Presumably that was part of the Riverside one.

Yeah.

I love that it's still on the form, though, and you can't quite remember what.

I can't remember what it was.

Yeah, we haven't done one for a while, like I say.

Yeah.

Japanese water demons look like small naked men with a turtle shield and a water-filled bowl-shaped head.

So that is how I would like my water served.

Yeah.

I'd like it served inside the skull of a Japanese waters demon.

Yes.

They lurk in water for unsuspecting passers by and they drag them into the deep.

Because this is a dream menu.

I will be immune to their charms.

And the way you escape from them is you carve your name into a cucumber and you throw it into the water.

So I'll have cucumber, fizzing cucumber water from the skull of a Japanese water demon, please.

Yeah, that's fairly appropriate.

It tastes good in the water and it subdues the demon.

Because it subdues the demon.

Absolutely.

And your cucumber has your name carved into it yes why not um is that you're going to go full name sally phillips or just sally sally sally elizabeth phillips sally elizabeth phillips a long old cucumber yeah

pop rums on bread pop rums on bread sally phillips pop nums on bread Basket of bread basket of bread breads of the world

pechewari nun obviously obviously the bounty of breads oh yeah and then um and then like some bread and this because this is the dream restaurant all the bread is good for you yes so very very like mother's pride possibly I love, I still love that.

Rolling it into balls, yeah.

And then a Swedish bread with some kind of like citrus thing.

Oh.

Yeah.

I like that.

Like, you know, orange cardamom kind of thing with like nuts in it.

Yeah, yeah.

It's probably got a name.

Delicious.

Is the Swedish bread quite a sort of heavy, heavy bread, would you say?

What's the bread?

Well, they do lots of different breads.

Yeah.

They're a very strong bread culture.

So you can get a rye bread but that's not what i'm thinking it has a bit of rye in it this bread maybe it's got a bit of oat in it but it's also got i think cardamom and little maybe little seeds and good yeah orange rind lovely a little bit sweet then with the a little bit sweet yeah maybe a hot cross bun in there maybe a hot cross bun well exactly hot cross bun is a bunch of

day today for the list i started my day with hot cross bun yeah it was huge as well wasn't it and it was brown yeah it was a non-traditional hot cross bun yeah it looked really good though

and you could peel the cross off Yeah, that's if you're not religious.

That's if you're not religious.

It's a non-denominational bun.

Yeah, you can get rid of it.

Just have the bun if you don't want to.

I always forgive Jesus every time I eat that hot cross bun.

You think of Jesus every time you eat anything though, don't you?

I was raised in the church.

Yeah.

So like, but like, yeah, I still forgive, yeah, because of my upbringing.

Every time I eat.

Were you raised in the church?

I was.

Little Christian boy.

Which church?

It was, it was like a non-denominational.

So it's like guitars and yeah, yeah, rock band.

Yeah.

And were you in the rock band?

Uh, no, but I learnt drums from the drummer in the rock band because I wanted to I wanted to be in that one day, but sometimes James plays drums, it sounds very religious.

Yeah, yeah,

I've got tambourines,

yeah, yeah, shaky egg, oh, yeah, shaky egg, of course.

I've got a shaky egg knocking around the house somewhere, yeah, of course.

Although that, I do actually still have the tambourine that that drummer gave me, it's full of it's covered in stickers that say how cool Jesus is.

So, like, I thought I've got that in my house.

Do you think there's quite a lot of comics?

There's quite a few on there who had vicar dads.

Was yours a vicar dad?

Vicar dad or just like a member of the church.

But yeah, I met a few who do have vicar parents.

Hugh Dennis, I think.

Yeah, he's definitely got bishop dad.

Yeah, yeah.

None of you tatch.

Yeah.

No, when I was a teenager, I went to a Christian festival called Greenbelt and you were there.

That's the first time I ever saw you, doing it.

Yeah.

You introduced a band, I think.

Probably.

I was like, that's a comedian.

That's the only time I've ever been to Greenbelt.

Was it?

Just once.

Chattanooga Racecourse.

I thought I I really liked it.

It's great.

I really liked it.

They had Peter Tatchell and I'm talking to him very respectfully.

I was like, thank God, this is a place

where Christians are not rude about homosexuals.

Yes.

It's one thing that looking back at when I was religious,

I'll go, that was cool, actually.

I liked that.

I liked Greenbelt.

Does it still happen?

It does.

And now it happens even closer to.

It's literally like two minutes from my parents' house.

It happens now.

Do I go?

No.

You're setting yourself up for them to email you to try and book you now.

Hey.

You've absolutely set yourself up.

Well, yeah.

But they know

I'm such a bad boy now.

Yeah.

They couldn't have booked me for green.

But you're not that bad.

Huh?

What?

What do you mean, Sally?

You host a food podcast.

I'm a bad boy.

What sense?

I'll tell it like it is.

I don't care.

I care about anyone's feelings.

Well, that's just not true.

Rude man.

Rude.

I'm rude, yeah.

You're not rude.

Yeah, yeah.

Bad manners.

When are you when?

When?

When I'm on stage.

When you're not now, sure.

When you're on stage, not yet.

Yeah, they put me on that stage.

They'll be on the receiving and they'll be on the business end of some opinions.

They won't like it.

Off menu from Greenbelt.

Yeah.

Ed wouldn't do it.

He likes heavy metal.

He would, like, I think if you set foot on that holy ground, he would go up in flames.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Just steam would start rising off of him.

You wouldn't be able to do it.

But I don't really know what it's like.

But it's supposed to be pretty open-minded, isn't it?

Yeah, but not just Satanist like like anything.

Are you a Satanist?

I don't think I am, no.

I like heavy metal, though.

Yeah.

But, you know, I don't know how they feel about that at Greenbelt.

I think the guy who directed The Shack,

one of the more Christian films ever,

is really into heavy metal.

I don't think it's incompatible.

Is it?

Unless you, is it all, it's not all, I don't like heavy metal.

Is it all about Satan?

Some of it, yeah, yeah.

Some of it is.

Yeah.

Satan, I love you.

Yeah, that sort of stuff.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Satan, I love you.

Yeah, that's one of my favourites.

You've got to be careful with songs like that.

You can't go to Green Belts again.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Satan, I love you.

Yeah.

But I guess they love everyone, right?

So they have to love Satan.

Well, I think that's a really interesting theological point.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's it.

No, it is.

Like, is that the logical end point?

But all Christians become Satanists.

Even Satan should be forgiven.

Yeah, yeah.

Yes.

Like, where is the line?

Yeah.

Like, it seems arbitrary.

Interesting.

I mean, this is quite a boring point I'm going to make, but I think a lot of Satanists don't actually believe in the notion of Satan.

You are a Satanist.

You are a Satanist.

It's about self-worship.

Listen to that.

Spoken like a true Satanist.

Is it about self-worship?

I thought it was about outsiders, like being outside the thing.

Or is it about making yourself as...

I think

a lot of Satanists would say it's about self-worship, and Satan is a representative thing as being anti-organized religion.

Wow.

I love disorganised religion.

It's my favorite.

Yeah, I was going to say that.

Like, whenever I've been to church, it doesn't seem very organized.

No, the one I went to wasn't.

All over the place.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Usually they're not.

Dawn French wasn't organised.

She was more organized than most.

Yeah, to be fair.

Let's get into your menu proper now, your dream starter.

So I really like the idea.

This is a dream restaurant, right?

So I really like the idea of being able to get your own stuff, like find your own food.

And now in reality, that would be me swearing traips along the banks of the Thames with a spade, looking for a Jerusalem artichoke and only finding something polluted.

But in this world,

I love the idea of just going to be able to, you know, going to.

collect a load of stuff.

Is this like the age and stage I'm at?

Like, I think it is probably a sort of post-menopausal stage in a woman where you want to forage and gather and weave things and

find like wild garlic flowers and I want to eat chervil.

What is chervil?

What is that?

Yeah, monksweed and hagwort and things like that.

So I in the dream environment, I want to forage for a load of stuff.

Like I want to eat flowers

that are not poisonous.

Like that's time.

Yeah, in terms of the dream restaurant, we can guarantee that that you're not going to be poisoned by anything that you find.

That's amazing.

The dream restaurant, I guess, are you thinking we're like on an expansive plane?

We're like in the countryside and you can just walk around and find things and there's a bounty there.

Let's say starter in

the countryside.

I at Ekstead.

Have you ever eaten there?

No.

So it's a Swedish restaurant.

They cook.

in iron bowls and they infuse things with it.

They burn hay under the thing.

And it's like the thing, it's the most beautiful meal i've ever eaten i've only eaten there once it was just unbelievable things sort of arriving on bits of moss with tiny flowers and it was the first time i sort of we'd been doing these supper clubs and i was like oh let's make it look nice and let's do art around the food and i went oh okay sorry i get it now this is art around the food this food is so beautiful and it smells so amazing you could see them cooking it so an iron bowl like was came out red hot and by the time you got it got to your table it was it was black again and then the thing was cooking in it where is this place um there's one in stockholm but i think there's one in london exted at the yard wow nice and it's really amazing that sounds really like the chef's tasting menu nine courses we had and i was like okay i get it now haven't having been you talking to snickers girl

you know yeah it's like okay i understand this is absolutely amazing yeah i guess out in the woods like nomadic dinners that kind of thing and we've gone and got a load of things and then someone actually more skilled has made sure you don't burn it.

But I did have cooked lettuce.

Have you ever had that?

No.

I've had like grilled lettuce before, like baby gem lettuce done on a barbecue and stuff like that.

No, it's well, I don't know what it's called anyway.

It's a slightly different kind of lettuce, and then it's sort of you sort of grill it over hay with some smoked butter.

Wow.

And then put it on a plate, surround it with a load of edible flowers, which you don't have to eat, but they make you feel special and beautiful.

And when you've passed your prime as a woman, there's nothing nicer.

So you would like the grilled lettuce with the butter over hay with the edible flowers.

Smoked

in the in a field or in the woods.

Don't mind.

Outside, yeah, outside.

And maybe, you know, I'm a sucker for those sticks with lights that hang off them.

You know?

Sorry?

Do you know what I mean?

Like a lamp, or a torch.

But it's like a string of lights.

What's it called?

Festoons.

Festoon garland.

That was cool.

Donito didn't even have to Google that.

He didn't even have to google it.

It's festoon garland.

Fairy lights, candles.

No joy whatsoever.

Like a nice music festival where there's like a glittering.

Like a nice, yeah, Glade.

Nice music festival, exactly.

I'm patriotic because the other week I went to a premiere screening of the first two episodes of Bridget Christie's The Change.

That's all in the forest of Dean, and there's like all that kind of pause.

And that's that, to be fair.

Have I just described Bridget Christie's?

No, but that's what I'm imagining.

But it's so fresh in my

mind.

Yeah.

And you were saying like the foragin, and that's a big part of that

show as well, and nature and all of that.

And because they talk about the menopause that you've just talked about.

Right.

Okay, well, yeah, maybe that's it.

I mean, it's always struck me that women have a kind of more creative midlife crisis where we get into weaving and distilling things and collecting things and men just dump their wives and buy a Porsche.

Yeah.

Whatever.

It's just.

Yes, one does sound a bit more

idyllic, doesn't it?

I mean, yeah, I don't know.

It feels good to me anyway.

I don't want a Porsche.

I don't feel it.

It feels good to me.

The only thing that can happen is I think women can get into a babying primates kind of stage, like babying puppies, like when their maternal instinct goes supercharged

when you hit 50.

Even that's a good idea.

So, you know what?

Let's let's this is a dream restaurant.

Let's have a whole load of baby baboons wandering around some little chimps like a spider monkey.

Yeah.

A spider monkey that loves me.

Yeah.

That can play the banjo.

Yeah, yeah.

He's there too, sitting on my shoulder.

Is he playing the banjo on your shoulder and he loves you?

A tiny, tiny banjo

connection no he's playing

nina simone

like what's the word montage like oh yeah a little medley a little nina simone medley

medley is he eating as well the spider monkey or is he just playing

i feed him petals

Little petals.

This is lovely.

He claps whenever I tell a joke.

Yeah.

Like rolls over backwards.

Falls off his shoulder laughing.

Pops his banjo on his back and starts clapping.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's something like that.

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Your dream main course?

Um, yeah, jam.

Uh

dream main course.

You've started very well, by the way, so I'm excited to hear the rest of the menu.

This list is

a good thing.

Well, I mean, what I was thinking before I listened to Bob Mortimer's episode was: I would, I'd really like a tagine.

It's a bit boring though.

Well, it's not boring.

I don't think it's boring.

Dates and apricots and all of that in it.

Yeah.

But

it is a bit dull.

I don't think it's dull at all.

I think tagine's lovely.

I mean, if you think that's dull, you should have heard some of the things that people have said.

What's the dullest thing you've had?

Oh, my God.

What fish fingers?

I'd gladly never hear anyone pick a roast dinner again.

Yeah.

Oh, really?

Yes.

Yeah.

No disrespect to all the people who have.

And I understand it as well.

I love a roast.

Yeah, we had a roast last night.

Have my family over for a roast.

Let's talk about it.

Let's talk about the roast.

Yeah, yeah yeah yeah well roast potatoes i mean they are great they're classic aren't they they are they're just brilliant depends who does them and how they do

and how do you do yours do you shake them in there do you you parboil them just i rarely do i rarely do a roast at home i'm just not cooking a lot at the moment but i will do the par boiling and shaking when i do yes exactly me too because i like all the crispy stuff on the outside yeah yeah exactly do you do the squashing still yeah i still do the squashing i've got to try the squashing My friend Joe and Kate, I went to Joe and Kate's house recently.

Oh, yeah.

And they did Nigella's roast potatoes and they were incredible.

Some of the best roast potatoes, so crispy and flavorful.

But also, they'd left the Nigella cookbook open on the side on the roast potatoes page.

And I was looking back and forth.

It looked identical.

I was like, you've

the photo of the roasties in the cookbook is identical.

It's like you've taken a photo of my plate and you've put it into the cookbook.

I couldn't believe it.

This is what it's like having James over for food.

He will be so enthusiastic about the weirdest stuff.

But were you, like, have you been foodies then, both of you, for a long time?

Yeah, I think so.

I mean, certainly as long as we've been doing this podcast and probably a few years before that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ed longer than me, I'd say.

Yeah, I love it.

Absolutely love it.

I used to be more about quantity over quality, I'd say.

Yeah, well, you had to grow, didn't you?

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

And once I cut down on the quantity, I started focusing more on the quality.

And now I like quantity of quality.

I mean, I genuinely like healthy food, which makes it which is a bit surprising, but I think that's from having.

You're lucky.

You're lucky.

From having had three boys who really just want to eat

flying saucers and toxic, what do they call them?

Toxic waste, toxic waste.

They literally want to eat toxic waste all day if they can.

And I've got my son with Down syndrome who will go downstairs.

We have to lock the kitchen because he goes downstairs in the night.

Yeah.

We used to say, he'd go downstairs and I used to make brownies, go downstairs and eat all the brownies.

And we called him the brownie fairy.

And then we stopped having brownies.

There was a thing where

he started to smell.

And and I was like, what is this?

He smells really weird.

And I found that he'd stolen the rest of the roast chicken and hidden it at the bottom of his cupboard and it had been there for about 10 days.

That's great, respect.

All his cupboards.

Yeah.

And we're always digging like food wrappers out from under his.

It's a genuine worry, like how to stop him eating.

So much

all the time.

No off button at all.

And he says, my body, my choice, mum.

Good on him.

Chase me.

Check.

Worst day of your life when he learned that, I'd imagine.

When he found that phrase somewhere.

My body, my choice.

It's not really what people use the phrase for.

No, exactly.

He's got you.

He's got you there.

Yeah, he has got you.

I have my own consent.

He says.

Yeah.

Darling.

So, do you want that roast chicken as your main course?

Yeah, old roast chicken for the bottom of my son's cupboard.

No, I think I probably would go for a tagine.

My partner makes a really, really, really good one.

Yeah.

And I love butternut squash.

Again, that's very strange.

Only babies, me and babies, love butternut squash.

Well, I do love butternut squash.

I think a lot of people do.

My mother hates it.

The rest of my family don't really like it.

Really?

But I love it.

I love them.

I've got one at home waiting for me.

I'm going to roast that.

Yeah.

We've talked about this before, but I wouldn't buy a butternut squash because I find chopping it up daunting.

Yes.

Because they're quite hardcore, aren't they?

But you're a man who's into death metal.

Yeah, I should be fine.

I just put on some death metal and

go to to town on it i have to draw a face on it first in your robes

sacrifice the butternut squash yeah yeah there's that bit at the top it is a pain isn't it yeah i've got a cleaver though so i'll use the cleaver exactly use the cleaver yeah yeah i get i get you though it is it is a bit daunting

you'll karate chop it in half yeah he's a bad boy a bad boy yeah

just karate chop it in half straight away one hit i have to just swear at mine yeah yeah and it just falls apart does what it's told yeah does what it's told yeah what so what else is in this tagine you see you've got the dates and apricots and butternut squash is there meats within it uh doesn't need to have meat in it yeah i'm not i'm not a vegetarian but i'm completely happy with it without meat that said on austin's season two the director and the producer vegetarian without telling anyone they decided to have a vegetarian set

that's unbelievable that yeah i'm walking off

well ben miller abs aps he every he was relentless every day he would do a sort of protein breakdown of what we'd had to eat and eventually broke them.

We were having this really delicious vegetarian food, but there wasn't enough protein in it, so you were just knackered by three o'clock.

Yeah, so by the end, we would have, it was pretty much chicken every day, like bad-tempered meat,

you know, butter chicken every day, where the vegetarians continued to have their salads, and it would say vegetarians only.

Oh, wow, it's a divided set.

Divided set.

Yeah, so I'm fine if it doesn't have any meat in it.

And where do you want this?

Do you still, are you still in the glaze?

Well, I quite, well, it's weird to have tagine on top of a mountain, but like, why not just do the world thing?

Yeah, why not Tajine on top of a mountain?

Be

warm

on the top of a mountain.

Are you going to be like wrapped up?

Is it wrapped up?

Probably not because it'd be hard to breathe.

Yeah.

Breathing visibility, that sort of stuff.

Breathing visibility, that kind of thing.

There'd be loads of tourists around.

Yeah, like a simple Alp

will do.

A nice Alp.

Matterhorn.

On the Matterhorn.

On the Matterhorn, yeah.

On the Matterhorn.

Oh, Benito getting excited there because it's Disney World.

Is that where you're from, Benito.

He loves Disney.

He loves Disney World, Disneyland, and all the roller coasters.

And the Matterhorn is the OG at Disneyland.

So he'll get excited hearing you saying that.

But you need to come with us because I've got special needs kids.

We can get to them to the queue.

Oh, there you go, Benito.

You've got to be happy with that.

Your body, your choice.

But you want to be up the actual Matterhorn, not the Disney Matterhorn.

I want to be up, yeah, definitely not the Disney Matterhorn.

Yeah.

Is the Spider Monkey going to be on the Matterhorn with you?

No.

No.

Leaving it behind.

Well, no, you're getting me.

So why not?

Let's have a Heidi-themed restaurant.

Heidi, do you own a spiry-themed restaurant?

Yeah.

With baby goats.

Oh, yeah, wonderful.

And Peter the Goldherd.

I haven't read that since I was a kid, that book.

But there was Peter the Goatherd and the grandfather.

Yeah.

I love this theme with the food.

So like a Heidi-themed restaurant, you're having a tagine.

You're having a tagine, yeah.

Well, you know.

Heidi, Heidi, yeah, after going to Frankfurt, she then went to to Morocco.

Yeah, exactly.

People don't can't prove that.

She's very old now, Heidi.

She's massive.

More to Heidi.

The size of the Matterhorn herself, yeah.

And then on the side, I want toddler veg.

Okay, so is this your dream side dish?

My dream side dish.

Vegetables grown by toddlers.

They can't wait, right?

So they have to be dug up.

So the carrots are just the size tiny.

Yeah.

And the potatoes are miniature.

So

toddler veg.

This is so sweet.

It's a thing.

Yeah, it's a thing.

Yeah, it's a thing where you don't know about this yet.

Well, maybe you'll never have children and maybe you don't want children, but growing children, growing children.

One of the things you do with them is you grow, before they go to school, is you grow vegetables with them.

So you have your little bucket of soil and you plant some stuff and it's just...

adorable watching them

and they can't yeah they can't wait so they dig it up yeah and you have to persuade them to put it back.

So put in the carrots back so they get slightly longer than like three millimeters.

But they're so sweet, these little things.

Yeah.

And they taste delicious.

Yeah.

Yeah, completely delicious.

Yeah.

Okay.

So those are the things.

I would say the peas that my son grew are the best peas I've ever had in my life.

Wow.

Yeah.

Are they smaller than normal peas?

No, those ones grew full-size because they were above, so he could check on them all the time.

But it's the root vegetables that are tiny.

Tiny carrots.

You can't be constantly checking in on them, can't you?

Yeah, the potatoes, tiny.

Yeah, it's sweet, though.

Happy memories as well.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So you want them all mixed in together.

Little bowl of toddler veggie.

Little bowl of toddler veg.

And like, are you having butter on that or anything?

Yeah, why not?

Yeah.

But actually, they're really, really sweet.

So you don't actually need much.

Yeah.

So on a cheap, non-organic carrot, I might put some honey, butter and honey on a cheap carrot.

Yeah.

But on

a toddler carrot, needs nothing.

Yeah.

Needs nothing.

And what toddlers do you you want making this?

Well, I'd like my kids to be toddlers again.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Make them toddlers again, and they can make you

make the veg.

Yeah.

So, if your kids are toddlers again for the main course, what's the spider monkey thinking?

Because the spider monkey was a stand-in for a child, wasn't it?

Spider-Monkey was.

Well, that was that was the start of a child back in time.

Yeah, yeah.

And we've gone to the top of a matter horn.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's okay now.

That spider monkey is.

Yeah,

it's that is fun.

Yeah.

Oh, that sounds great.

I love that.

Yeah.

Are your kids as toddlers going to be there?

Or you just want to know that they've made the veg?

Yeah, it would be nice if they were there.

Yeah, have them there.

That would be great.

I feel like I've chosen the wrong place for the wrong thing because I would quite like to be, to like burn things on a beach at some point.

Maybe that was the, but you wouldn't have hay on the beach like that.

You'd be like evidence.

Yeah, like barbecue something on a beach.

That's good, though, isn't it?

That's just fantastic.

I mean, yeah, I mean, you are right.

It's probably the starter, isn't it?

Yeah.

Would be barbecued on the beach.

That needed to be in a forest.

Yeah, that did need to be.

Depends what your dessert's going to be, doesn't it?

Yeah, maybe I should swap the tagine.

Okay, I'm swapping the tagine out.

Oh, yeah.

Axe the matter horn.

We're now

on a beach, and it's a fresh fish on a beach.

Fresh fish on a beach, fresh fish on a beach, cooked in a fire.

Yeah, does it matter what kind of fish it is?

Not that much.

No, don't mind.

No, not that much.

I once had sushi straight out of the ocean.

Wow.

And that was unbelievable.

My um ex-husband caught it, a chef cut it up, and we at it like within within half an hour of its death.

Lent right into the microphone to say that bit.

Yeah.

What sort of fish was it?

I don't even know.

And I don't care.

It was unbelievable.

It was amazing.

It was so different.

Nothing like your waitress

sushi lunch pan.

My waitress has a sushi bar.

Yeah, I feel like I'm not sure.

I don't know how I feel about that.

Really?

I don't know.

I mean, it's, I don't know.

I feel sorry for them.

Like trapped in the sushi pen.

What, the people working there or the fish?

Yeah, people, not the fish.

No.

I should probably have more compassion for the fish, but I don't.

I reckon working the sushi bar in a supermarket is the best bit to work in.

I don't think they're trapped.

I think it's better than working out on the floor in a supermarket, don't you?

No, the movement.

I'd like to go up and down.

I like to get a bit of resistance pushing on that big trolley.

You know, the big, big trolleys they have.

The big trolleys?

Yeah, you get to appreciate the shelving.

You need to.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Whereas the, apart from, I quite like sushi art.

Have you seen sushi art?

There's quite a lot of sushi art where people make different pictures with the sushi.

That's quite fun, but they don't get to do that in Waitrose.

I haven't even heard of this.

What do you mean?

Haven't you?

What kind of podcast is this?

Have you printed out a picture of this sushi?

Your dream drink.

Dream drink.

Well, it depends on which of the locations we're in.

Well, I think we're now on the beach for the main course.

Now on the beach.

So some kind of cocktail.

A cocktail.

Yeah.

Some kind of like girl drink.

Did you ever see that sketch, girl, drink drunk?

Like a massive great vat of rainbow-coloured alcohol with glitter in and a bendy straw and an umbrella.

And it's brought to me by monkeys.

Those monkeys are here.

What the monkeys are?

The monkeys are bad.

The monkeys are bad.

They feel the cold.

They won't get on the matter.

Who did that sketch?

The uh, their Canadian all-male sketch troop called Kids in the Hall.

Oh yes.

Kids in the Hall.

Oh yeah.

Love them.

They're a cool one.

They're crashing your hair.

Yeah yeah yeah yeah they're good.

Yeah.

Is there some of your sketches from like the Smack the Pony days that you get said back to you?

Do people bring them up?

A bit, but

we didn't have catchphrases.

No.

So yeah, I mean people, yeah, people do talk about some of them.

What's the most common one that you do?

The most common one is the singing match.

Was me and Dune doing competitive singing in the back room at the warehouse.

Classic, right?

Do they get you to do it?

Do they want you to?

They just go, oh, that's singing.

No, yeah, they don't really.

They tend to sort of shout things from sitcoms or films instead.

It's a godsend to not have catchphrases from a sketch show, though, isn't it?

Yeah, well, and we just felt really strongly about that as well.

Because I remember thinking

it was cheating,

which it isn't, of course.

And also, if we'd had catchphrases, then we could have sold a load of merch and we'd have been welcome.

But instead, we have no catchphrase.

No returning characters, yeah, nothing we can exploit.

You had the running things of like the

dating video things, yeah.

But that was having to write a new character every day.

That was a new character.

Yeah, we used to have like a hot seat where you'd do, we'd have three or four written, and then they just blocked the day out, and you could just run in and do whatever you wanted.

Yeah, hence, video dates like, work has been solved after another moment.

Oh, Apple sticker, that explains a lot,

which is not a great sketch.

It's funny, it's just us going, who's like, your turn, you just run in, do something, run off.

And if, and look, if you'd agreed on catchphrases, you could have done Apple sticker like every episode.

Apple sticker.

I could have done Apple sticker on the Matterhorn, Apple sticker in the forest.

Apple sticker, that explains a lot, could have been the end of every single shirt.

Yeah.

T-shirts, key rings.

Apple stickers.

You can just sell Apple stickers.

Sponsored by Apple companies.

Yeah, yeah.

Do you get a lot of people bringing up Alan Partridge to you as well?

Yeah.

Yeah.

When you get the giggles in it,

that's my favourite Sally Phillips Alan Partridge moment when you'll get the giggles.

That was all I did.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

I was a bit, I mean, I was quite young at the time, but I was really not because I was fake laughing and everyone just thought I was laughing at Steve.

Yeah.

Like being really unprofessional at work, which no, I don't mind, but at the time, I was like, no, I am acting.

Yeah.

I gave myself a headache.

So what's in this cocktail?

What sort of do you know we eat to those or is that?

I don't even need to know.

I mean, I'm really happy for like homemade.

I mean, this stuff we served at the Midsummer thing was lethal.

Yeah.

It was bright colours.

Yeah.

Flavor Fred's own alcohol.

Apart from there, there's a lot of like poisonings I read.

By Flavor Fred.

No, no, no, not by him.

He knows what's poisonous, what isn't.

Yeah.

But like, there's a,

it's called fake alcohol, but it's not fake.

It is alcoholic.

People brewing their own alcohol and making it out of different things and this it's

an increase in poisonings from fake alcohol i follow a lot of instagram accounts who make that sort of stuff who make like wine out of mountain dew and stuff what and do yeah there's a mead guy i follow a mead guy wow he makes different he looked like

you never see him

i love that i love that he makes like alcohol from honey yeah yeah yeah but he'll make loads of different flavours and stuff and occasionally do like mountain dew or dr pepper yeah i love the idea of having.

Have you seen those beautiful copper gin-like things?

The stills.

Yeah,

what are they called?

Gin stills, I think.

Gin stills.

I think you're called them that.

Yeah.

I mean, I can't hold my drink at all, but in this world, I can.

And in this world, as well as having a forest full of edible flowers and all the rest of it, I would have a whole cellar full of gin stills.

This is beautiful, isn't it?

Like a whole.

I'd just love to say, come, this is welcome to my house.

We can have dinner.

This is the

gin room.

This is the gin room it'd be great wouldn't it yeah yeah you should have a gin room yeah everyone should have a gin room yeah

so in this cocktail you don't want to know what's in it you just want to drink it and yeah i'd like it to be an entirely new alcohol made from a surprising non-poisonous ingredient which is delicious and it's got glitter in it yeah i'm i'm just joking about the glitter you know what i i was um in duty free thinking coming back from Australia, thinking, oh, what shall I get for people?

And they had a lot of, you know, alcohols that change color when you pour them and things like that.

And I looked at it and I thought, oh, that's great.

And I thought, oh, no, that's not great.

That's shit.

I'm too old.

I'm too old for fun alcohol.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's a thing, isn't it?

It's like a.

I've not heard of alcohol that changes colour when you pour it.

Nor had I.

It's weird.

And it had glitter in and all the rest of it.

And I was like, no, awful.

I don't want any of that stuff.

It wants to taste nice.

I want it to taste nice, exactly.

And also be a nice colour, to be honest, that matters to me.

Sure.

I remember Gold Schlager used to come up quite a lot in my youth when I started drinking.

Goldschlager?

What's that?

It's like...

Lager with gold.

No, no, it's not lager.

It's like a very strong spirit, but with

flakes of gold in it.

Oh.

Yes, no, I remember that.

Yeah, I do remember that.

I remember that from Superbad.

Oh, really?

Yeah, yeah.

The girl that he fancies wants a...

wants him to get that vodka that has gold flakes in it.

Yeah.

So it's that it's very important that he gets that for the party.

It's such a gross idea.

It needs to be something that puts you in a good mood though.

I remember like one of the drinks I most appreciated ever was someone bringing a bottle of espresso martini to PTA drinks.

Completely transformed the evening.

Yeah.

Who was it who bought the?

Was it a parent or a teacher?

Yeah, parent.

Or the parent.

Parent, yeah.

Got messy.

Yeah.

PTA got messy.

Is that the one, is that like a parents' evening where you have to go and speak to all the teachers individually?

Yeah.

But racing through those media.

No, that was a PTA.

It was like when the parent group and the teacher group, they talk about how the parents can help the school

and raise money and

do the reading with the five-year-olds and all of that.

And you're just all completely off your head.

Going, it's not our job, guys.

Yeah.

Nick is on the move.

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You check your feed and your account.

You check the score and the restaurant reviews.

You check your hair and reflective surfaces and the world around you for recession indicators.

So you check all that, but you don't check to see what your ride options are.

In this economy, next time, check Lyft.

We arrive at your dream dessert.

Are we on the beach still?

No, Across the river.

Let's do Matterhorn then.

Let's do Matterhorn.

Go back up the Matterhorn.

As soon as you got rid of Matton, I knew Matton was coming back.

Yeah, yeah.

Really cozy, open fire.

Yeah.

Massive Heidi.

Yeah, yeah.

Heidi's back.

There she is.

Matthew.

She thought she was out of the picture.

Yeah, and maybe

hot chocolate fondant, but with the mushrooms in, because that was great.

That's nice.

With those chuffles.

Yeah, so the inside bit maybe has the porcini mushrooms in it.

And then all around the outside of the plate, there's wild strawberries oh yeah smolette love this have you foraged these yeah okay

you're into foraging yeah why not wild strawberries just make me feel guilty you guys remember being a little kid and my mum took so long to she was growing wild strawberries in the garden it was very important to her yeah it took ages and you ate the whole lot yeah

so nice aren't they she she she she got enough for a little bowl toddler fruit so it's a little yeah toddler fruit but by a grown woman.

And she put a little bowl.

She put some of her natural yogurt that she liked on it.

And she was like, today's the day I'm going to do it.

Your poor mum.

And everyone else had their, we had our own desserts.

And she was like, I'm so excited for this.

And she said to my dad, do you want to try some?

She got a spoonful for herself, which is basically all of it.

Yes.

She went, do you want to try some?

And he went, yep.

And then she put the spoon to him.

And as a joke, he pretended like he was going to eat the whole spoon.

And then he just had a little one.

Yeah.

And And I was sitting there going, That would have been funny.

You've missed a cat.

You've missed a cat there.

And then she said to me, Do you want some?

I went, Yep.

You ate the whole thing.

And as soon as my lips closed around the spoon and I had all of them in my mouth,

I remember looking up at her and seeing her face and realizing that was an error.

Yeah.

This is the worst, but I now can't.

You're a bad boy.

And then just slid off of the spoon.

All the strawberries.

She was like, at the time, you know.

Did she cry?

She listens to this podcast every week, and she knows that I know that she has since taken this back.

But she said, That's the worst thing you've ever done.

It was bad.

Has she taken it back, or have you done just much more worse stuff since?

Oh, yeah, I've topped it.

But they do taste so great, and they don't taste like strawberries.

They taste like

sweets.

I can't even tell you what it tastes like.

Because you just swallowed them all in one.

Because I just felt so awful.

You swallowed them like aspirin.

As soon as I'd done it, I was like, So you'll never be able to eat them and and enjoy them.

I'd never be able to eat them, enjoy them wild strawberry.

We've grown them at home.

My partner's made wild strawberry ice cream.

Oh, wow.

And

they taste like sherbet.

They taste like,

not like toxic waste, but they taste as good as something that's terrible for you.

They taste as good as something, they taste like sherbet.

They're just absolutely delicious.

I love how big toxic waste is in your household.

I remember the first and only time I've had a toxic waste.

I was driving back from a gig and I bought some because I was like, that's funny.

it's like in a radioactive drum got back in the car 70 miles an hour on the motorway popped a toxic waste in my mouth nearly went into the central reservation

screaming at the top of my lungs well we should drive a car and eat a toxic waste no it's crazy like the television all of a sudden

why are toxic waste so big with the with the youth i think i think it's like a you know who who can handle it yeah isn't it the toxic waste fairy the chismo

no ollie can't do that ollie can't do spicy and he can't do toxic waste.

But he can do out-of-date chicken.

Well,

I like the sound of this dessert a lot.

And it's like something you haven't had.

You actually haven't had the actual fondant, chocolate fondant with the Portuguese chicken.

No, I haven't.

They were really, really good, these truffles Ian made.

Amazing.

This will be a new experience for you, the fondant version of it.

Heidi knocking around.

Massive Heidi.

I think Peter the Goatherd has been dead for a while.

Oh, he's dead now.

He would have been alive if we'd had a bad thing.

Yeah, if we'd gone there when she first opened the restaurant.

Yeah, yeah.

R.I.P.

R.I.P.

Peter the Goathead.

Peter the Goathead.

Yeah, that's right.

But still his recipe for cheese remains.

Recipe for cheese.

Yeah.

That's good.

Goat's cheese with ash.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Would you like some goat's cheese and ash ice cream?

No.

No.

Have you had cheese ice cream?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Have you?

Good.

What's that like?

Delicious.

So I obviously hear your adverts and I know how keen you are on cheese, the pair of you.

Wow.

But are you keen on?

Are we keen on cheese this month?

This is what we're keen on.

We're keen on whatever pays us the most money.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, quite right.

Wow, we have our ethics.

We have our.

We don't say yes to anything.

So toxic waste, we're going to spoil it.

We're doing toxic waste absent.

We're doing toxic waste.

Yeah, if toxic waste get in contact, we're cutting that story about me nearly crashing my car.

Yeah.

We'll cut that contact.

We'll re-record it and say it helped me drive better.

Yeah.

And Ed got to his destination.

Yeah, yeah.

So much focus.

Yeah, and I drove at the speed limit.

It was fantastic.

I love toxic waste.

I'm going to read to Mengy back to you now, Sally, see how you feel about it.

Okay.

You want 50 cucumber water served in the skull of a Japanese water demon?

It was a strong start.

Great start.

Do you overlike Breads of the World?

That's Peshwari Naan, Mother's Pride, Swedish bread with citrus, hot cross bun.

I find it so sad that in Breads of the World, the British representation is Mother's Pride.

Well, what should it be?

I don't know, but it's just funny to me that every all the other breads are like these wonderful artisan delicious breads and then motherfuckers could say tiger loaf could say tiger loaf could say tiger loaf i mean tiger loaf's appropriate in the skull of a japanese water oh no that was the water wasn't it that's the water you know i never said how the bread should be presented oh yeah yeah how do you want them presented if you said basket you did say basketball i did say basket in a basket woven by my enemies

name some of the enemies i don't have any enemies really nish that i know of no I loved Nish.

He was a rival.

He wasn't really a rival, though, was he?

Because that was what's so brilliant about Nish was he completely failed in every single task.

Didn't get any points.

Did he get any points the whole series?

I mean, there was like a, but he didn't deserve any of them.

Yeah, it was points.

And it was so great because I only didn't know Nish, and I only discovered afterwards that he was incredibly clever.

It was this incredibly clever and quite political satirist.

But when he's identified he can't do something,

he will sabotage it as much as possible.

Oh, really?

Yeah, exactly.

He was brilliant, yeah.

Yes, oh, yes, one of the all-time great awful taskmaster contestants.

Your dream starter, grilled lettuce with hay and edible flowers outdoors in the glade with the spider monkey on your shoulder playing the back.

Well, it's it's grilled over a hay, not grilled, but sort of over a hay fire.

Yeah, yes, so I'm not eating the hay.

Not easy.

Maybe I wasn't clear.

Maybe no, no, no.

I'm not a horse.

You're not a horse.

Put that on the menu.

Not a horse.

He's not a horse.

Main course.

You scratch the tagine.

Yeah.

And you would like a fire-cooked fresh fish, any fish, doesn't matter, on the beach.

Yeah.

Side dish, a bowl of toddler veg.

Yeah.

That'll do.

Drink?

They won't be near the beach, but it's fine.

They can.

Yeah, yeah.

The toddlers might be near the beach.

Yeah.

The drink you would like,

was it a girly drink, you said?

Yeah.

Big girl drink.

Big.

Cocktail.

Bucket of girl cocktail.

In a bucket.

We're going with a bucket, like a sort of Thailand full moon party.

Yeah.

Yeah, why not?

Yeah.

You want hot chocolate fondant with porcini mushrooms and wild strawberries?

Yes.

Heidi's matterhorn.

Heidi's matterhorn house.

Yeah, yeah.

The matterhorn house.

Yeah.

Big Heidi.

Big old Heidi house.

See, if this was Smack the Pony days, you could have done that and done.

Let's do a catchphrase.

Big old Heidi house.

Big old Heidi's high house.

Yeah, yeah.

The high house on the Matterhorn.

That would have been so much merch.

So much merch.

Yeah.

Heidi's got an apple sticker on her forehead.

She has.

And she is the same shape as the Matterhorn.

Yes.

Yeah.

Exactly the same shape.

With a massive apron.

That menu sounds absolutely delicious.

And it's things, probably things that I've not had before.

Yeah, I haven't had a lot of that.

And look, I'm glad I was hoping that it would get out of control, go all over the place.

Thank you so much for coming to the Dream Restaurant, Sally.

Thank you so much for having me.

Thank you, Sally Phillips.

There we are.

What a great episode with Sally.

A fantastic episode.

That menu took us all over the place.

Yes.

To mountains, to beaches.

To mushrooms.

Mushrooms in the woods.

Thank you so much, Sally, for coming on and Sally's series.

Austin is on BBC One from Friday, the 4th of April, at 9.30pm with all episodes available on Mr.

Apple.

And also, thank you, Sally, for not saying pony and not putting pony on your menu.

Yes, thank you.

So we didn't have to kick you out.

Yes.

Even though I had loads of jokes lined up.

Yeah, what were we going to do?

Horse meat scandal jokes?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I remember that from the horse meat scandal.

It's a you know, funny time, simply simpler times, simpler times.

Since then, you know, the news has been a lot darker than just that we didn't know we were eating horse meat.

Well, we thought that was dark then, we thought that was pretty dark.

That's the biggest thing that happened, man.

There was horse meat and stuff.

That was the biggest thing since World War II.

The horse meat scandal.

Never forget, never forgive, never forget, never forgive the people who did it.

The supermarkets.

The jockeys.

The jockeys.

The horse whisperers.

Everyone who was involved in that.

Benito wants us to wrap it up.

So, you know, for the listener who wants to carry on riffing on that, bad luck.

Benito said stop.

None of it's going to be in.

Also, tickets are on sale today for off-menu live at the Royal Albert Hall.

We're doing tasting menus live where we get a fan favourite back and we give them the menu of a previous fan favorite.

That's double fan favourites for you.

So you can get tickets now at offboutyoupodcast.co.uk.

Thank you very much for listening.

We'll see you next week.

Goodbye.

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You check your feed and your account.

You check the score and the restaurant reviews.

You check your hair and reflective surfaces and the world around you for recession indicators.

So you check all that, but you don't check to see what your ride options are.

In this economy, next time, check Lyft.

Hello, I'm Carrie Add.

I'm Sarah.

And we are the Weirdos Book Club Podcast.

We are doing a very special live show as part of the London Podcast Festival.

The date is Thursday, 11th of September.

The time is 7pm.

And our special guest is the brilliant Alan Davies.

Tickets from kingsplace.co.uk.

Single ladies is coming to London.

True on Saturday, the 13th of September.

At the London Podcast Festival.

The rumours are true Saturday, the 13th of September at King's Place.

Oh, that sounds like a date to me, Harriet.