Ep 161: Flo & Joan

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.

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A brand new phone with Verizon.

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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.

Sucks.

The new musical has made Tony award-winning history on Broadway.

We demand to be heard.

Winner, best score.

We demand to be seen.

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We demand to be quiet.

It's a theatrical masterpiece that's thrilling, inspiring, dazzlingly entertaining, and unquestionably the most emotionally stirring musical this season.

Suffs, playing the Orpheum Theater, October 22nd through November 9th.

Tickets at BroadwaySF.com.

Welcome to the Off-Menu Podcast, taking the cherry of conversation, biting in with the teeth of the internet, removing the pip of bad times, and spitting it into the bin.

Lovely.

I love it.

Welcome to the Off-Menu Podcast, everybody.

I'm Ed Gamble.

James A.

Caster here, the Off Menu Podcast.

Ed is the proprietor, the Maitre D.

I am a genie waiter, and we live in the dream restaurant, and we invite a guest in every week, and we ask them their favourite ever, start a main course dessert, side dish, and drink, not in that order.

And this week, our guests, guests, plural, are

Flo and Joan.

Joan.

Flo and Joan.

Wonderful.

Comedians, musical, double act vibes.

A phenomenon.

A phenomenon.

Every time I gig gig with Flo and Joan, I hope that I'm going on before them.

Yep, absolutely.

Impossible to follow.

Yep, I always hope I go on before everybody.

That's why I mainly do gigs on my own.

James goes on before everyone as in around 2019.

That's when you last went on.

Yes.

Before everyone else.

Before everyone else.

Yes.

Hey.

I saw Flo and Joan.

We did a TV show together,

question team, and they did a song all about crisps.

Yes.

So quite excited to have them on the food podcast.

Maybe crisps are going to come up.

Maybe Rosie Jones will get a run for her money.

Yeah, well, I can't see anyone giving Rosie Jones a run for her money crisps-wise.

Sure.

I mean, if that ever does happen, then we've got to get whoever does that and Rosie on an episode head-to-head, crisp off.

Not to confuse the situation, of course, because Flo and Joan aren't actually called Flo and Joan.

They're called Nicola and Rosie.

What?

So...

I don't want you to get confused, man.

What the hell?

Yeah, no, I'm so sorry.

The whole world's been turned upside down.

Yeah, you're gonna have to take them to task about this man that i cannot believe this what's your name james

my name is benito

so this is gonna be a fun episode i can't wait they're on tour at the moment like we say doing sweet release ah show called sweet release all better grab your tickets go and see sweet release but listen ed i like flo and joan or French and Saunders or whatever you said their name and their names were.

Flun Rosie.

But listen, if they say a secret ingredient, an ingredient that we think is gross or we just think is objectionable or we just think is a is is a room splitter yeah then we do keep them out the dream mystery it's a good format and today the secret ingredient is

rocket rocket it's rocket which is big look

i have to be honest with myself and I don't love rocket.

I go through phases of rocket.

Sometimes

I want that peppery bite.

And sometimes I don't welcome it at all, James.

The flavour I don't object to.

I think I don't like the actual, just how it feels in my mouth.

The rocket itself, how it feels in my, it doesn't feel nice.

But you know the way things feel in your mouth, that's flavour, right?

No, no, no.

Taste, but like, I don't like the feel of it.

Like, if there was no flavor, the feel of the rocket, I don't like trying to get it on my, on my fork.

You don't like the shape of it.

I don't like the shape of it.

Yeah.

I don't like, like, you know, it's not like other

lettuce or stuff.

the vagus get it on the fork there you go nice bit of lettuce shove it in the mouth

but like rocket is like oh i've got to get a whole gotta stick it's a pain is it get a whole bunch of it yeah get it in my mouth it feels like i'm putting stinging nettles in my mouth or something right interesting yeah but that's so that's why it's a secret ingredient because you don't like the feel of it in your mouth yeah i don't like it feel of it as it passes through my lips into my mouth Open your mouth a bit more when you eat, I think.

It shouldn't be passing through your lips.

You shouldn't be sort of pursed mouth pushing a load of rocket in and it's through your lips.

I can't help it touching my lips because it's all over the place, Rocket.

It's wiggly.

Does it all point in the same direction?

So you kind of grab it on the fork and then it's like it's going all over the place.

Well, there we go.

Rocket's a secret ingredient.

If Flo and Joan, either of them.

Yeah.

If one of them says it, they're out.

The other one gets to stay in.

Yeah.

So, you know,

they're having separate menus here.

So if one of them says it, they're out.

Yeah.

We won't chuck them both out for one of them saying it.

No.

and also but both they're not both gonna say it because if one person says it the other person's are not gonna then say rocket are they when they see what happened

say rocket for dessert or something.

Yeah.

I'm on tour Ed GambleElectric go to edgamble.co.uk for tickets.

Great show by a great guy.

Bless you.

James A.K.S.'s guide to quitting social media, being the best you can be, and curing yourself of loneliness volume one is a book that I have written.

It's out now, wherever you get your books.

But without further ado, this is the off-menu menu of flo and joan joan

welcome flo and joan to the dream restaurant hello

welcome flo and joan to the dream restaurant i've been expecting you for some time

there we are now we should probably get the names out of the way you already spat then yeah you did didn't you don't normally

but that is uh that's quite good yeah that that just shows he's really up for this.

Good.

The taste buds are already saluting.

Saluted?

Saluting.

Saluting the union jacket.

Not called Flo and Joan in real life.

We should get that out of the way.

No, no.

How does it feel to be liars?

It gives me the most satisfaction in my whole life that people think they know me and I'm like, you've got no fucking idea.

I really enjoy it.

Do you know what feels like a real invasion of privacy is sometimes in shows people will come up to us afterwards and say, that was a great show, Nicola and Rosie.

oh right

you janet

yeah it does feel it feels like they've like really researched you and like have found the real core of you and it's it's not tricky to find that out

it's not it's on page one of google but it just feels like they've made they've purposely come to tell you that they know you're a liar yeah yeah the flo and joan thing on stage you don't refer to yourselves as flo and joan no we did it once and i it took everything in my body to not be sick straight over the panel i hate that that's hideous and we did it once and we're like never again we're never doing that again that's so humiliating it's we don't play characters now flo and joan are like kind of older names anyways we're not playing older women we're not doing sketch we talk we we don't even call each other nickel and rosy on stage we barely look at each other

it's a lot of effort to acknowledge that there's another person on the stage yeah so using a name feels like quite a stretch have you even worked out which one flo would be and which one joan would be We know that.

We have intel on that because Flo was really tiny and Joan was bigger and that is us Yeah, Nicola's tiny So she's flow on the most reductive version of it It's one was short and one was tall So I guess that's who's who if like you desperately need an answer Yeah, but in reality it doesn't matter but people are really like so what are the other are you personality or you're like it's just she was short and she's taller That's literally it like children understand it.

It's very strange.

So hold on where does Flo and Joan come from?

Am I missing something?

No?

Do they come from?

No, no.

That was a fair question.

What's one short, one tall?

Flo is our grandma and Joan was her sister.

So they'd always come visit us.

And our mum would be like, Flo and Joan are coming down.

They'd come down on the bus from Liverpool, insult your weight, and then you drink gin.

And then go back at the end of the weekend.

Tell everyone they got fat.

And then they came down once and were like, you look different.

You look really different.

And they're like, she's got fatter.

No, it's not that she's got fatter.

She's definitely got fatter though.

Yeah, she has got fatter.

And our mum was like, I've got new glasses, maybe.

I'm like, oh, maybe it's that.

And our mum was like, it's definitely that.

But they were like, no, she's definitely, she's piled it.

They're like, okay, thanks for coming.

They were funny, though.

They were great.

Saddle laugh.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

I love that you're listening to all that happening and you're like, one day we're going to do a double act.

We're going to name it after her.

Just you wait.

Did they like food, Flo and Joan?

I think they did.

Were they foodies?

Flo ate a lot of yogurt?

Did she?

I think so.

They were sort of old school Liverpool scouses, so I'm sure there's a lot of hot pots going on.

A lot of stews.

A lot of scouse.

Didn't Flo used to cook?

I don't know if Joan ever cooked for us, but Flo did.

I don't know what Flo used to cook.

I was probably a bit too young.

Yogurt and pie.

Yogurt and pie.

But she had pie men.

Disgusting.

Yeah, yeah.

Big old.

You don't want a yogurt pie?

I don't want to.

I love those two things separately, but I feel like yogurt pie would imagine cutting into a hot pie.

I'm imagining a hot yogurt pie and just like breaking that crust and being so excited about what's in the pie and loads of hot yogurt spills out of it.

Well, hot yogurt's not too far from like hot cream, melted ice cream.

Yeah.

Yeah, but it's got that fermented sort of like sour taste to it.

it so you don't I don't I don't want that I mean a yakult in a bit of pastry what about if it was a pie where you cut into it and it was just the yoghurt but then you got like a crunch corner and you could sprinkle the thing on that you wanted that would be does that make it better I feel like I just don't want it at all like I don't

adding extra stuff to it at this point I'm like well I just just get rid of it completely what about a moussey pie you know like a mousse that's close to a yogurt yeah the strawberry ones oh no inside of a pie no because then then it'd make a weird sound when you cut into it it would go that's the fun bit.

I think it's just the thought of pastry with those things, isn't it?

It's not a marriage made in heaven.

But you pour cream over the top of a pie.

I don't think yogurt and pie are too far from a piece of pie.

I think putting yogurt on a pie, like a dessert pie, and spooning yogurt on it as you would cream, I wouldn't object to that.

Yes.

Cutting open a pie and it's full of yoghurt

sounds disgusting.

Yeah.

You two are on tour at the moment.

The same tour?

Same tour.

Same tour.

Same tour.

We should do a half and half, maybe.

No, sorry, back to you.

I think it's difficult enough to try and get them to see two of us at once.

Or do like our own vert.

We'll do the same show, but we'll do our own version of it.

So we do your interpretation in the first half and my interpretation in the second half.

Or do all your lines in the first half and then all your lines in the second half.

Or it can be like, you know, when you like read a book and then you like, you get one half from one, like one person writes one side, and then when you turn the book over the other way and it's upside down, you get to read it and the stories kind of meet in the middle.

We could do it like that.

So like we'd we'd suspend you upside down to do the second half of the show so like you've tipped the book up do i need to be hanging like a bat for this i think it'll be a new string to our boat that people might appreciate for the sake of what other people will actually see when they come to the tour it's that's not going to be that is it you are doing a show together it's called sweet release yes correct show together classic stuff actually no it's all new it's not classic no i've seen i've seen songs from it i've seen bits from it at gigs haven't i it's very it's very very good thank you we're having a very good time yeah we're in the middle of it no complaints so far no great none no not one not one no

so I highly recommend that people go to that yeah go to the tour ASAP

we always start with still a sparkling water on the podcast do you have a preference and is it we're doing separate menus I was gonna say are we allowed to do separate ones yeah I think so okay good I would love to do a separate one yeah I don't want do you have quite different tastes yeah I think so yes we share a lot of stuff but I don't think our dream menus we haven't really discussed it, but I don't think they're going to be similar.

No.

I'd be incredibly embarrassed if everything we said was exactly the same.

Thus fulfilling, I think, most things that people think about us of like, we're like kind of button early and share a bed and

all that kind of stuff.

We should say our things at the same time and see if any of them match.

I don't think they will.

Okay, well, let's do Still and Sparkling.

Three, two, one.

Sparkling.

I'd never be like this.

Sparkling.

Okay, this is over.

What I really like as well is it's so clear that you work together on stage every night because you so easily slip into the back and forth, just like that.

Was that

scripted?

Yeah, that was like, should we say the same thing?

Yeah, okay, three, two, one, sparkling.

Whoa, it was delicious.

I think it's more, it's less that the on stage thing is an act and more that this is how we are in actual life, and we make no effort to perform in any way.

Once we're on a stage, we're like, the songs will do the work, and when we're talking, it's like, oh, you're there.

Hello, nice to meet you.

Let's go with the next one.

Nice to meet you every night.

Why sparkling?

Do you have different reasons?

I think it's delicious, it's refreshing.

The thing I like about sparkling is that it feels almost like its own mill because it's got all the bubbles.

So it feels like it's, yeah,

it feels like it feels like a bigger hole in the tummy.

That sounds like something a model would have said in the 70s.

Just before I eat my tissue, I have a big

water and five cigarettes.

It feels like a meal in itself.

Well, it just offers me more than water.

I love water feels like a survival method and sparkling feels like a thrive thriving method.

Okay, yeah, that's interesting.

It feels like it's got that added luxury, so it's not 100%

forced to drink it.

And who doesn't love a bubble?

Bubbles are fun.

Everything's improved by a bubble.

Sure, but you're not like bubbles.

Everything's improved by a bubble.

Yogurt pie.

Better than bubbles in it.

I'm going to pick it up.

Yogurt pie now with bubbles, I think, is what we really want.

I mean, yogurt with bubbles in general is going to be bad, right?

You don't want bubbly yogurt?

That's a gone-off yogurt, just a fizzy yogurt.

I've had one one once.

I had a fizzy yogurt yoghurt once it's got it gone off one little spoonful i was like oh no i don't like it i don't like it really sad when did you have a fizzy yogurt little kid little kid who'd been left there i was really excited about getting the the yogurt opened it up something not right but some still i was really excited about it so put the spoon in put it in my mouth it was all fizzy fizzy yogurt did it affect your body oh it made me sad

but then yes

yeah yeah it affected my body like that but nothing you know didn't have have the shits.

I'm sad that you said it that you were a child because I was about to contribute my own story, but it happened like two weeks ago where I opened a smoothie that had been in my bag for like, I'd say like two or three days, which I thought was fine.

And I opened it in the front seat of the car and Rosie said, Has someone opened a packet of ham?

I was like,

oh, no.

I did still, I drank half of it and then was like, we're going to just gently leave this in there.

You drank half of it?

You drank half of the ham drink.

It didn't taste like ham.

Well, that's fine.

It smelled like a packet of ham when you opened it.

Yeah, it stayed.

Like badly stang, like a bad ham packet.

I was fine.

Yeah.

But that's pretty brave, though, to be, because the smell is the biggest warning with stuff like that.

To then be like, well, I can push through the ham smell and get this, get this smoothie down me.

It didn't smell like ham.

It was only the back seat that commented on the ham.

So you think it was so off then that the smell.

Sunk to the bottom of the floor.

Yeah.

Like fog.

Yeah, like fog.

Crawled under my seat into the back.

Into my nasal passage.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Crept up your arm and sat in your nostrils yeah give that a crack

what I'm most confused about in the story is uh

so most of you you're in the in the back seat yes you were in the front of the car then yes who else is in this car that you're not both sitting in the front because I can't imagine you with other people it would just be the two of you in the front of the car wouldn't it Our tour manager Maya who we refer to as Lurch she she uh she's she's having a fun talk

I think I I should have called her first.

Isn't Lurch the chauffeur?

Oh no, he opens the door.

He dropped the whole fucking show.

I don't just call it like a church.

I was trying to be thinking, what's the name of the um people who drive the car?

The chauffeur.

Yeah.

No, they've got names.

Yeah, individual names.

What's the name?

Lurch opens the door, doesn't he?

In Adam's family?

I think

he does drive as well.

Doesn't he drive a horse?

That's what I was thinking.

It's not his main job.

He's just their butler, isn't it?

He's like the butler, he drives the car.

He's also, in case you didn't know, the next time you refer to your tour manager as Lurch, he's a huge, ugly man with a flat head.

Yeah, yeah, that checks out.

A Frankenstein type thing,

an undead kind of character.

Yeah.

The grunts doesn't even use words.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, no, that's not tour manager for sure.

Yeah, yeah.

She's low-skilled and doesn't save our asses every single day.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

So did she smell the ham smoothie?

I don't know, did she?

Maybe at the point that it happened, she was too polite to be like, what the fuck have I let myself in for in this fucking stinky clown car?

I was also napping at the time like I was half asleep and woke up because of the hand smell yeah you woke up and the first words out of your mouth were someone opened a packet of hand

which with Rosie you don't know if it's like the dream awakening or she's actually like it feels like it could be something that could have happened in a dream like you know someone opened a packet of hand yeah you're like oh I was asleep my tour managers never never had a prawn what can you imagine that well never had a prawn in his life refused on the last tour I did with him I was like well the end of the tour I have we you have to eat a prawn yeah he was like no i couldn't possibly do that maybe on the next tour and now it's the next tour so it's a big thing yeah and i buy those little uh like the prawn dippers from marks and spencers and the services and even when i don't want them i buy them to be like is it a prawn today paul yeah but then then the other day i tried i held while he was driving i held a prawn next to him and he didn't like that at all he got really freaked out and then i finished the prawns and there's just like sometimes a little bit of liquid at the bottom of like prawn water

and i went paul there's liquid here and he's like don't show me that and i downed it in front of him and he was he went

he started retching when we were on the motorway and i went oh man it's so funny

i mean just so distracting so funny

i didn't make it to his gig this evening because he downed some prawn juice and his uh tormanager crashed the car we rolled the car because of the retching does he not like fish in general not really i don't think he's very plain tastes what does what does he eat from a service station

get a sandwich.

What is in sandwich?

Just a normal sandwich, cheese sandwich.

No wonder you're down in prawn juice to keep yourself entertained on the road.

You have the borving sandwich, man.

Prawns are scary.

Little lurch.

Yeah, yeah.

Little lurch.

Pop a dumbs on bread.

Oh my god.

Pop-doms on bed, Flow and Joan.

Pop-doms on bread.

I'm a pop-adums person, straight out.

I just don't see...

I have a pop-adums firstly because you can pick at them and no no one's judging that you're picking at them, which I think is fine.

If you're picking,

I'm a picker.

Yeah.

And so I think if you're picking at a bit of bread, it's a bit disgusting.

But a poppadum, you're fine to like snap it and you haven't touched the rest of the thing.

And I'm a big crisp fan, so that's fine.

And I also have a rule that I won't order anything in a restaurant that I've had to make in food tech.

So what?

I just won't do it.

If you're teaching 11-year-olds to do it, then I don't think you should order it in a restaurant.

Okay, this is great.

So this is a rule.

Well, how long have you had this rule?

Since I did food tech.

Since you did food tech?

Or my first restaurant.

I can't remember which one came first.

Hold on a second.

Since you were taught food tech or since you taught it?

Since I became a food tech teacher at the age of 12, which makes sense.

No, since I did, I think we stopped doing food tech in like year nine.

And after that, I think I was just like, I'm not eating lasagna or pasta or bread, just anything, crumble, just anything that you had to make as a kid.

I'm like, if you can make 12-year-olds do it, then I don't want to order it in a restaurant.

Do you admit that there might be a way of doing something better than an 11 year old does it absolutely not I think that's surely when your cooking abilities peak I just don't I yeah I just if I've made it as food I just don't want to eat it I don't respect it you don't respect it no so is but so bread's one of those things so you don't eat bread in a restaurant only in a restaurant I don't want to like pay for it in a professional setting right okay obviously like I order it from the supermarket and stuff but like I wouldn't order it in a restaurant you made bread as a kid yeah it wasn't good yeah that was one of like the the early days things to make.

Biscuits and then bread.

But it was like you brought in a bread packet mix, so you just added water.

It wasn't like we didn't sit there and like raise it all together and that kind of stuff.

It was just like water in a packet and put it in the oven.

So I'd say your bread rule is a little bit, you know, a bit harsh, but strict when it comes to that.

Because like you didn't make proper bread

in food tech.

But it's you still make.

It's furnished instant bread.

But how do I know that a restaurant isn't making instant bread?

So your suspicion is that they've got a food tech class out the back.

They've got I think it's child labour and Mrs.

Air

teaching people how to make lasagna.

We didn't do food tech at my school.

Did you know?

Oh god, you missed out on the lovely smells of the food tech room and all the blunt knives and the crusty little fingers touching the lasagnas.

The aprons that just got put in a dishwasher or like a washing machine with no detergent whatsoever.

So they just smelt of the crusted on food of the class before you.

Oh these rooms fucking stank.

Yeah.

Stank.

Our food tech lesson was always the last lesson of the day as well.

So you literally took it out of the oven and poured it straight into your backpack because there was no time to like let it cool or sit.

It looks like you're into a little bag.

Yeah, I remember sitting on the bus and with an apple crumble that had no, it was like a blackberry crumble that had entirely sank to the point where it pushed the liquid over the top of the thing.

And I got off the bus and looked like I'd bled through my skirt because it had just like leaked all over me.

And I hadn't run.

It was like a scalding hot like glass thing where I was just like on the bus, like just get home, just get home.

And it, yeah, it looked like I'd just been like stabbed in the belly on the bus it was awful so now I don't really like that kind of stuff sure I mean I think that's fair enough now now you've explained that explained that that's there's trauma involved yeah we can understand it

but yeah pop a dumps

here yeah I for one admire the lengths that people can go to with artisanal bread so I would always take bread yeah at the start bread and butter spoonfuls of butter spoonful spoonfuls

like Homer Simpson size bars of butter on top of my lovely artisanal breads.

Crusty on the outside and soft and spongy, pillow-like on the inside.

I'll have anything in the bread.

Put whatever you want.

I like a sourdough is a nice classic, but anything you've got, throw it into the bread and I'll have it.

Anything.

Anything.

Yogurt.

Yogurt and fizzy pie.

I'll have that in my bread, please.

Are you less of a picker?

I'm a huge picker.

I'd say I'm more of a picker than you.

Like I wouldn't save like

penny size worth of anything just to think the next day i might have this it does my

put a couple of bits of sweet corn in the pocket

i'll pick anything anything that i can see i have to just put it in my mouth

anything again anything

no rules i've never had that like if i have a bit of bread and put a spoonful of butter on

the spoonful That's going straight.

I'm not like picking it apart.

I'm not taking my time.

It's why I'm it.

Well, I'll do that as well.

Yeah, but you'll save one little tiny bit.

Put it in the bottom of your memory.

Well, Well, I'll always think, so if I was at home, I'll always think, oh, I could probably use that little nubbin for something else.

A nubbin of bread.

Like, you could chop it up and make it into a crouton, or you could just wipe it in some butter in the morning if your cereal isn't enough.

Or

there's always a use.

I live like it's World War I.

I don't know if I'll see a banana ever again.

So I savour everything.

It's early doors.

We haven't even gotten to your main menu yet.

But

I'll just confirm with Ed, I don't want to go out on a limit here.

Yes.

But like,

mostly the bleakest guess we've ever had.

Probably the bleakest guess we've ever had.

Potentially.

Potentially saving a tiny little bit of bread just in case something happens.

Wiping up some butter the next morning.

That was what was

the cereal wasn't enough.

And presumably you're saving three bits of cereal for the next day in case the bread isn't enough.

There'll be the fucking dust in the bottom of the packet where you're like, can I throw this away?

And she'll be like, oh, but what if I need the dust tomorrow?

You joke, but famously, I have done that.

Because the dust could just

be a bit.

Oh, I just really wasn't joking.

That was a fact.

I didn't see a hint of joking in Nicola's eyes when she was saying that.

She was describing an exact situation.

I'd actually say I'm helping the planet by using everything I can.

Don't throw it away.

Until it's got a physical movement to it.

Till it smells like ham.

Till it smells like ham.

No, I'd probably, I love ham.

Yeah, use it.

You could ask me.

How are you using the cereal dust?

You just add it to the next bowl.

So you get your next fresh bowl, fresh box.

You just put it on top because it makes all the milk nice and

yes, it does.

It goes like sweat sawdust.

But you add extra milk so it it sort of balances it all out, you know.

I'm not really a cereal boy.

I find, because I'm type one diabetic, they can be too sugary sometimes.

But you don't know this about me.

I found a new type of cereal that's for health people.

I don't know this.

Which is like a protein cereal, but very low in sugar.

And it's called Grandma Crunch.

I think that's the bleakest thing I've ever heard.

How long have you resisted telling me that because you wanted to save it for the podcast?

Because that's quite the longest.

I've been eating it for a couple of months now.

And every time I eat it, I think I can't wait to tell James about Grandma Crunch.

I imagine

the front of that box is

it looks like Tony the Tiger, but it's a grandma.

She's absolutely hateful.

Cooon Grandma.

Is there a grandma on the phone?

Grandmas are famously hurtling towards death.

Why would you want to hurt your cereal as something that you will die soon?

Grandma Crunch?

No grandma wants to hear a crunch.

No.

Maybe that's the tagline of no grandma wants to hear a crunch.

Yeah.

Except for in her cereal.

Except

the only crunch a grandma needs to hear.

What kind of a cereal does grandma crunch?

Well, there's a range of flavours.

I've only tried the peanut butter brownie one, but I mean it tastes of nothing.

Oh, it doesn't really taste of peanut butter.

Or brownies?

Yeah, and they sort of, because they're like, it's like six grams of sugar per bowl or something.

So you bite in and it's like weird.

It's quite meaty.

No, they're balls.

Oh.

Little balls.

I was not expecting that.

Were you expecting the flakes?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because I associate flakes with old people.

So like...

Of course, yeah.

Yeah, no.

Baw's feels like quite...

Quite a young cereal.

Yeah, I feel a bit of like golden nuggets and stuff like that.

Well, look,

Grandma Crunch is a jazzy lady, you know.

She's young at heart.

Yeah, exactly.

She's got glasses, Grandma Crunch.

What's she looking for?

I think from memory, yeah, I think she's got glasses.

I've not spent a huge amount of time looking at Grandma Crunch.

Well,

I also know she's got like a little pirate hat and like a pirate sword just because there's something about the word crunch that makes me think that they're like

Captain Crunch.

I guess maybe she's Captain Crunch's grandma.

Grandma.

Yeah, yeah.

Or Captain Crunch's wife, but was wife when Captain Crunch was big, and now she's grandma.

Yeah.

Well, but I mean, he wouldn't call her Grandma Crunch.

I don't know what she goes into.

She might be branding it herself.

He might not be involved.

So her main thing about herself is that

she mainly identifies as a grandma.

Yeah.

At the time, though, when Captain Crunch was big, she would identify as

Mrs.

Crunch.

Yeah, Mrs.

Crunch's wife.

But now she's in her old age, she's Grandma Crunch.

Grandma Crunch.

I'm sure.

And he'll be Grandpa Crunch.

Captain Crunch is Grandpa Crunch.

Yeah.

I don't think if you're a captain, though, you never lose that title, right?

So I think you'll probably keep that.

You always keep that.

You're always lording that.

I think he's more likely to call himself Captain Grandpa.

Captain Grandpa.

Yeah, I would eat cereal called Captain Grandpa.

That would make me feel like I was ready for the day.

Yeah.

What kind of cereal would Captain Grandpa be?

Just the dust.

Hopefully, yeah, just dust.

If I had it my way,

popsicles, sprinklers, a cool breeze.

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You check your feed and your account.

You check the score and the restaurant 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.

Let's get into your menus proper now.

I don't know who to start with, really.

I mean, do we start with the person who hates food tech or the person who's the bleakest human being I've ever met in my life?

Let's start, let's start with Nicola and see what you would say.

I want like a bucket of olives.

Is this a surprise to you?

No, you like an olive.

I've heard that about me.

A bucket of olives.

A bucket of olives.

Yeah, just so that there's like a nice selection.

I mean, it doesn't, it can be like a kid's bucket.

I just want there to be like enough.

I like that you're spending so much time talking about what sort of bucket it is.

We weren't questioning the bucket.

It's like a seaside bucket.

I just like, I think you either think of a bucket of like those big like tin ones that they're using like rural productions of Annie or like little like seaside buckets.

It's in the shape of a sandcastle.

I wouldn't request it, but if it came that way, I also wouldn't be angry about it because olives are kind of like sea tasty, aren't they?

So like it wouldn't not make sense.

Did you want a little shovel in it to eat the olives with?

That would be cute.

Yeah.

I like that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But this is all like, none of it's been used.

No, no, no.

It's not like pre-loved.

It would have to be new, I think.

This is interesting that you've picked olives as a starter.

Yeah.

Because I would say olives are like a pre-starter.

Oh, you've picked them with the bread.

You might have hacked poppedums or bread with this.

You could have hacked that course, had the olives, and then had a different starter.

Now, it's too late now.

It is too late.

And I'm not smart enough to think that way.

I think this is the, I get three things.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But they just, I feel like you can pick at them and not get full.

Picking picky stuff again.

Just picking it.

And I want them to be like the size of, you know, those like 10, those machines that you put 10p in and it'll give you like a little rubber ball or like a gob stopper.

I want them to be like that size so they're like really nice and meaty.

Yeah do these exist in the in the real world or is this your fantasy olives?

Am I allowed fantasy olives?

Yeah.

Cool then they're my fantasy olives.

They're not like massive.

They're slightly bigger than the biggest olive I've ever seen.

Yeah, a golf ball size olive?

No, no, no, that's too big.

Don't be too sorry.

My guess I ever spoke.

A 10 pence piece maybe.

That's a normal olive.

Lots of olives are that kind of size.

I'm thinking the Nando's the olives you you get are Nando's, pretty big.

Halakadikis?

Excuse me.

Halakadikis?

Is that what they're called?

And Halakiki.

Halakadikadiki.

There's definitely an olive called that.

Or hakladiki.

I don't know.

It's up to you.

You said the word definitely.

And then each time you say another olive, I'm like, you've got no idea, actually, have you?

Well, it's all insane.

Yeah.

But just like really meaty and like some of them are like stuffed with stuff and then you've got like little bits like Sandra Tomato and things like that.

Oh, the Nando's olives are an absolute show-in for that, I think.

You get bits of mushroom and the garlic, yeah, all of that shit.

So good.

Little bits of chorizzo and things like that.

What's your name?

Oh, okay, okay.

You're adding things as we go.

I like that.

Yeah.

Just a little, is it more of a starter now if I'm like adding extra bits of stuff to it?

Sure, but you might be in danger of adding so much stuff that the olives are just an ingredient in a dish, in a bucket of salt.

The chorizo, that was the step over.

I'm not going to stop there.

Okay, are you going mainly green olives?

I like a black olive as well.

Mostly green, but I'll do a black or like the little cattle ones.

I would like the stones out.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They can have had them in at some point.

Because I think that's it.

Why do people bother?

Why does anyone sell an unpitted olive?

It's so undignified.

Because we know that it's possible now to take the stones out.

Why are we doing that?

It's not like it tastes better.

It tastes better with the fucking stone in.

And I have it.

It's like, oh, great.

Now I've got to find a space on my saucer or whatever to like put this stone in a shameful way in front of everyone.

And you have to spit it out.

There's nothing more disgusting than sitting in a restaurant and spitting things out of your mouth.

That's not a compliment.

That's not, yeah, that's the opposite of what a restaurant should be.

And it also bothers me when people spit them out and there's like still half an olive on it.

Sure.

Just you lose half the olive on the stone.

Oh man.

But then you've got to sit there and suck the stone dry.

I'm pretty sure Rosie's starter is going to be a pocket full of olive stones.

Yeah, I will take Mika's bucket of spat out stones.

I'll make a stock out of them.

Call me Captain Stones.

What is your starter?

My starter would be I would like

really thinly cut pieces of steak.

I used to work in a butcher shop as a butcher.

And if like a new...

Oh, that's made me laugh.

It's funny that you're immediately like, as a butcher before you...

As an old meat steak.

As a butcher.

Start questioning that.

I'm a hype man or something.

I was a butcher.

When we used to get new steaks into the shop or like a nice steak or an off-cut, the chefs out the back would always...

cook it up and just cook it perfectly because they're all good chefs and they'd slice it up into

they were like lovely thin slices and you just go into the back and just eat all the different steaks and it was just like it was divine it would be so i just want a sort of a platter of i wanted to be cooked by them because it was it always felt right all different kind like give me eight nine ten different types of steaks yeah and just slice them nicely salt and pepper crusts maybe a little bit garlic butter i could dip them in swipe it in swipe it in yes swipe swip it up in yeah i'd like that because i don't want to be i mean it would probably be one giant steak worth by the end of it wouldn't it

this is great i think i would like that because they're picky still salty to get the taste buzz saluting yeah

and then really right yeah i yeah i'd like full-on big meat for my steak full-on big meat full-on big meat yeah where was it so you were a you were a butcher in this butcher's shop yes but they were chefs out the back so yeah they sort of everyone sort of crossed over a little bit there'd be like a couple of guys who would make food for the shop but all this all the butchers knew how to do a good if you're a butcher you're gonna know how to cook a good steak.

So, we'd have like hot plates and stuff out the back as well and barbecue.

We had the big green eggs.

What was the name of this place?

It was called Bespoke Butchers in Toronto.

Sounds great.

Oh, it was

the best.

Yeah, we lived up there for a few years.

What?

So, I became a butcher for a year and a half.

That's what you do, but when people go travelling, yeah, you just get a job with a butcher.

Yeah, yeah.

Happens to the best of us.

It was the best job ever.

It was so good.

Yeah.

I loved it.

Is it better than the job you have now?

I do fantasise about it.

about when i'm dying on stage i always think oh i'd love to have a little pork chop in me and now

when i'm in peterborough and being told the most interesting thing about the town is the passport office i love to be hacking a little piggy up

so what so you say eight or ten different cuts of steak yeah you know you can go from like a ribeye like lovely take us through take us through them you'd have all the biggies i have a tenderloin it's my it's one of my least favourites but it would be and stuff.

Tenderloin, I have my rib eye.

I'd like a nice sous vide chuck tail.

That would be nice.

Bit of sirloin.

A bit of sirloin tip.

I'd have a bit of sirloin tip.

Bit of hanger steak.

But the hanger steak would be nice and have a marinade on the hanger steak.

How many have I done there?

Six.

Oh, a bit of tartar.

Not tartare.

Yeah, steak tartar.

I was thinking of tart tart sauce.

A bit of tartare.

But I think I'd like my tartar as a hanger steak tartare rather than a tenderloin tartar.

A bit more bite to it, is that right?

Just more taste.

Yeah.

More taste.

Tenderloin just doesn't really give me a lot at all.

That's all I need.

If that's six or seven, then that's actually all I need.

You don't want rump steak well done?

I don't really like rump that much.

When you know you've got all the other good ones, I don't like it well done, no.

Greg Davis likes that.

Yeah, Greg Davis.

No,

he wanted Phillip.

Oh, he wanted a fillet steak well done.

Well done.

Phillip well done.

Can you imagine?

Why?

You should just eat your shoe.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's terrible.

That was his dream meal.

No.

Oh, I used to like him.

He said it was such glee as well because he knew how much it would annoy us.

That's terrible.

But if you're going to have anything well done, it should be the tenderloin.

Yeah.

Because it's soft.

But nothing should be well done.

That is terrible.

So at the start of this meal, this dream meal, are you both looking over at each other's plates and thinking, maybe I'll have a little bit of that?

A little pick of that.

If it's my dream meal, I don't know if I want to be eating it with you.

Yeah, I would say the same.

If we were, which we eat a lot together.

Look, this is your dream meal.

You don't have who are you?

Who are you eating this dream meal with?

I just assumed that you'd be eating this meal together, but we haven't even talked about this.

You can each of us.

Listen, it's a dream restaurant, so anything can happen.

So just for this, like, meal, you can, like, just not be able to see each other.

Or just for the time you're having the meal, the other one, I could make them dead.

Alive after the meal.

Or you could be eating separately in like, you know, Love is Blind when they go into little pods.

You could both be eating separate pods.

Or back to back.

Or pods.

That would be fun.

Or just like you doing me an ASMR if you're wearing a picture.

I don't want to get it with my earphones if you're sucking on an olive.

No, absolutely not.

I can just hear the rustle of you sprinkling cereal crumbs on whatever the fuck you're eating.

I could hear you digging into a bucket of olives.

Yeah.

Squelching as you get down to the bottom.

The good thing is if we did eat together, it would be just eat.

Like sometimes when you're eating with friends, you don't really take in the whole meal.

So and we can happily sit and eat and not talk to each other.

I love the idea that we've gone to the dream restaurant.

We're sat at a table together in silence.

Yeah.

Not even looking.

Actually, how we are on stage of just not acknowledging that the other person's there.

Oh, you've got to be sat on a table just looking outwards.

Yeah, like if we're at our wedding.

Yeah.

I'd have a TV playing with something, maybe.

I could sit with you talking just a little bit every now and again.

How was your meal?

Yeah, nice.

How was yours?

Yeah.

Yeah, nice.

So this is your dream meal, and you're suggesting that you'd be sat together, not really talking, and you'd have a TV over Nicola's shoulder.

Yeah, I would be fine.

I don't know if I've got the mental capacity to think about alternatives right now, but I would be more than happy, more than happy for that to be the scenario.

But otherwise, you're on your own.

I would enjoy being on my own with a TV.

But then there is that joy of

sharing it.

Here comes Blaco with some more blake.

Are you having this like delightful meal on a tray like in Matilda?

Just on your own.

No, I would like a normal plate, but it can be I like a white plate.

I don't like anything too decorative.

Okay.

Even I didn't realise how depressing you were, actually.

Everything you're saying is the kind of stuff that I think I would expect myself to say, and you've like outdone me on that kind of stuff.

A white plate.

Or you know when they write something.

I've got a premium in buffet.

Honestly, yeah, because then you don't get any clashing of the colours.

You know, sometimes when you're eating eating and it will say like the name of the restaurant underneath and you'll think, oh, that's a piece of art and it's not food, it's just the writing.

Or like you're not going to be able to do it.

I've never gone to eat a writing on a plate.

I've never been fooled by the writing on a plate.

Or you think there's more on the plate.

I just like plain white or just something that's flat and normal.

So that you don't get tricked.

I just don't like, yeah.

So you don't go and clang your fork into the plate because you tried to eat a cartoon of a beef extra a while ago.

Yeah.

but i i don't i don't see a huge problem with that i think that's quite a simple way of living and it's quite nice yeah and also i don't think your starter's bleak i think the starter is very nice something

i'm really into that starter yeah and cooked by people that i like the experience is there it would remind me of my goodness now i know you don't like a plate with anything on it but i when you when you started going through this steak starter i imagined a big plate with like one of those maps of a cow on it yeah and each bit of the steak is wet on the body of the cow where it comes from.

I don't like that.

No, I don't.

Well, firstly, I'll know where the bit of the cows are.

Yeah, okay.

That's no fun for you.

Yeah.

Secondly, I don't really want to stare in the eye of the animal that I'm eating from.

I don't know.

Well, you're a butcher, so that's mad.

I literally did stare into the eye of a real human.

Needed to get over that.

But you know, when you're eating, you don't need to be reminded of it, do you?

I know where it's come from.

I know the journey of the cow.

You don't need to be constantly fooled if it's a cow, right?

Yeah.

You'll be constantly trying to, oh, more big.

Ow!

Ow!

Ow!

I have my hand again.

Oh, I was going to take this to the dishwasher.

Oh,

actually, I saw some more of this.

Straight in with your face.

Smash your teeth on the chin.

Oh, I tried to eat the cow again.

Three main course.

Do you want to go first?

I'll go first.

We can topsy Tailsy as we go.

Topsy Tailsy?

Is that afraid?

I hate that you've just said that.

If you need a new double act name at any point, I think Topsy Tailsy would be great.

Topsy Tailsy.

I don't think people couldn't feel more embarrassed for us if we were called Topsy Tails.

Yeah, Topsy Tailsy makes me think that we would be doing an act like, you know, the wood lice in Bugs Life, where they're just flipping each other around like little seesaws and stuff.

A little circus act, yeah.

Yeah, that could be fun.

Anyway, my main course.

This is pretty classic, but I love a curry.

I love a spicy curry.

So

I really thought about this long and hard and at the end of the day, it's a spicy curry that I really, that is my dream meal.

I would like a selection of spicy curries, though, and one non-spicy, like a sweeter curry, like a

maybe a butter chicken or like a masala, just a teak masala.

Actually, yeah, let's go take masala.

And then just like a selection of four or five, just little bowls of curry.

The pechua non, the pilau, the poppadums.

Can I have the poppa dums in that bit?

Yeah, I love the poppadums in that bit.

This is furious.

Uh-oh.

I'm going to let it go.

That is

part of the meal.

You can't really have a curry.

Why would you offer poppa-doms and bread if you're allowed to order it for your main course anyway?

People can hack the menu.

We're happy for people to hack it.

Well, then call me a menu hacker.

Some people who listen to this podcast think it's very strict, even though we've never been strict with anyone, really.

People are like, why do you force people to choose between these things?

We haven't done that.

We haven't forced anyone.

I love all the chutneys.

I like the chutneys that you don't quite know what they are as well.

The funny colours.

you'll get a red one every now and again or a yellow they all taste very similar but we're not quite sure which one i love the um the onion salad i love that lashings of that lashings um

i love a lime pickle maybe like a homemade lime pickle or something like not like the jar ones like a really good one yeah bit mango chutney yeah i love all the dips

not even looking at herself

what curries you got um well this is the thing as well.

I don't really, I eat like a lot of all day.

I try and have a different curry wherever I go, so I sort of just lose track.

If I need to make a quick decision, I'll ask for a madras, but it's a bit spicier.

I like a gel fraisie, but I'll always ask for that spicier.

I like anything that's got the fresh green chili in it, and then you bite into it, and it like gets you going for each mouthful.

I'd like maybe have a bite of the chili and then a bite of the chicken teak and masala so I can get a bit of spice out of the masala, you know.

I don't like anything too dry.

I like a good sauce.

I like it when you get big chunks of pepper in there.

Yeah, no, I'm really up for trying sort of anything

as long as it's spicy though.

That's that's the real big thing.

I like that you've got a system as well.

That yep, a bit of the spicy one, bit of the less spicy one, then you're back into the

because often with spice you lose any sort of sugar.

And a sugar is a very nice inner curry, like a real sort of a dinger of a bit of sugar.

So I will like mix that in, especially if it's creamy as well.

And you've got like sort of quite a non-creamy, like a jaunt frazier, isn't too creamy.

So you can just get the creamy sauce going with the jaw frazier i do like a mix as well big curry soup yeah yeah yeah and if you've got any recommendations i'll always take them as well so if you're going to a curry house for the first time and you look at the menu yeah are you just going for the one that has the most little chilies by the side of it definitely yeah naga uh-huh i'll we'll be partial to one of those but some is it a naga i'm probably saying it wrong aren't i i think i say naga but that's i don't know what i'm on about I don't know.

I'll probably if I ordered I'd say n naga I think.

Yeah.

It depends some have like a three chili and some have a four chili sometimes i won't get the four chili because it's uh subjective yeah isn't it you never know what the chef is thinking that day

uh so yeah i'll often i'll often won't risk it on a naga just in case yeah so you've got these little bowls all around you yes in a demi-clock yes yes yeah and you're dipping in you've got everything you've got you've got a full a full thing there a bit yeah big white plate in the middle that can just

yeah the naan on the side i like a naan that's folded as well when it's folded over so that that it gets a little bit bit wet and moist in it.

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah, I know what you mean.

I like that.

Or from the bag.

I quite like a naan na na.

Wet naan bag.

It's really good.

And when you open it, you get the lovely smell that comes out as well.

Actually, I would like a tiny bit of garlic naan as well with that.

I like.

Because are you saving that for tomorrow's day anyway?

That's to um yeah, that is to save.

I'm trying to think actually quite logically of what I would like.

And yeah, I think a garlic naan would be a bit nicer the next day, than it?

Yeah.

Freshwari, yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

Well, this is like, that's quite a feast.

Mm-hmm.

Are we looking at a feast for your main as well?

Not really.

I mean, well, now I feel like the pressure to order a bunch of stuff.

But no, there's like a restaurant in, I forget what it is.

It's next to the Mary Poppins Theatre.

I don't know why that is.

Compton Street.

Oh, Compton Street, yeah.

Called One's Tea Room.

And they do this Iberico.

chasui pork with like a sugar skin and it's one of the greatest things i've ever eaten in my life it's so good.

I really like salt and sweet together.

So it's like exactly that.

It's like a little bit caramelized but you've got like the really nice porky like meaty fatty bits.

Just that with like a nice little clay pot of like rice and that kind of stuff.

The end.

That's how I've never been there.

That's something like that.

It's a woman's tea room.

W-U-N.

Women's tea room.

It's really good.

And it's all like, you sort of go underground and it feels like the sort of 60s or 70s.

You sit in little bamboo chairs and all that kind of stuff.

And they've got like amazing cocktails and oh it's so is that where they're always queuing i've never seen a queue out there you know there's one place on old comedy they're always queuing up there's well the the place next to shack for you yeah no it's not that it's not that close no no no they're always queuing outside that one it's yeah literally on the corner i went with a friend the first time i went and walked straight past it even though it's on the corner that's not an interesting story um

tell you

um yeah it's just really everything about it like there's just like loads and loads of stuff you you can pick off that menu, but those are like my favourite.

They're just so good.

It's just really like aromatic and flavorful and like a lot of salt and sweet.

It's a good sharer as well, like just bringing out a bunch of justice.

Don't try and get in on this.

It's really good if there's two forks that go with it.

Yeah, but you're watching TV or whatever.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You're past this menu.

And I want the most decorated plate you've ever seen in your life.

You want the entire plate to have a sort of a high-res picture of pork on it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Where it looks like a 3D illusion like a street artist has painted it on the play in chalk

so far if I was gonna have a dream meal made out of these I would I would have had Rosie's starter

but I'd have Iqua's main yeah that's a meaty meal so far you've got a plate of steak and a plate of pork

yeah sounds delicious yeah it does those sound like they're the things I want to try I really want to try that pork it's legitimately incredible we've got to go it's so good yeah we had some good pork the other day yes we

at

We went out for my birthday to Sabor.

Spanish restaurant.

And upstairs they do roast suckling pig.

And you can either get a quarter or a half or a whole roast suckling pig.

And we got a half roast suckling pig and it came and

it was amazing.

How big was it?

Like that.

Holy shit.

It was big, wasn't it?

So it was a big suckling.

It was a biggie pig.

It wasn't like a biggie pig.

Yeah.

It was a little.

It wasn't a hog.

It was a bigger pig.

It wasn't a hog.

Yeah, it was a little pig, but it was amazing.

Cooked to perfection.

Guess what they cut it with?

Guess what implement they used to cut the sucking pig?

Their own fingers.

Did they use the shaking

mini saw?

No need.

It's so tender.

It's so tender.

About their fingers.

No.

Where they blew on it.

They cut it with wind.

Yeah, it's sort of dodgy.

In sort of pandemic times, it didn't feel great that they were just blowing all over it.

They put a tiny desk fan in front of the pig and let its skin slowly fall off the bones.

Do you want to reveal?

A plate.

A little plate.

Oh, they got a plate and they just cut it with the with the plate.

Oh my god.

That's so fu like just a normal plate?

It's a normal plate.

It was incredible.

The head is on there.

The face is there.

Yeah.

Which I didn't have a problem with.

No, but uh but the really fun thing was that they were they were hand yeah, they cut it all up with the plate in chunks and the face was just one chunk on its own.

And everything else that they cut up was like face sized as well.

And they were passing the plate around, the the the waiter was and and got to my girlfriend, and she couldn't quite see over the plate and thought that the face was just the same as everything else.

She just thought that was a normal.

And so she just took it so nonchalantly.

Just just got the face and just put it on her plate, really happy, like, thank you very much.

And everyone else, I knew, because I know her, she didn't mean to do that.

Everyone else thought, wow, she's really just gone for that straight away.

She's going to eat the face.

And I had to be like,

that's the face.

She looked down.

We saw her and go, thank you very much.

Put it on a plate.

And then looked down and go, boom!

Yeah, this is so absolutely just fun.

But you ate the face in the end?

I ate the face in the end, yeah.

You ate the pig face in the middle.

You could bite in the face.

Have you ever had, I think it's guanchale, which is cured pig cheek.

I think it's guanchale.

I think I have had it.

It's like a, yeah.

It's delicious.

Pig cheek is like just as good as lots of the other.

The pig's the only animal that you can pretty much eat every single part of the pig, even like the tail.

You can use them in all

very interesting ways.

I've never never seen snout being used do you reckon snout could be used I'm sure there's something there must be like meat in there won't there meat in that snout

yeah wasn't there something that's the way you went that you recommended to me I'm a celebrity Manteca maybe Manteca Manteca they did like a snout thing no I don't think there was snout in there I thought you were gonna say a snout fest

how much snout can you eat

I don't think there was snout in there

I don't know I don't know Ed I I reckon I'm sure you could probably eat a snout.

I'm sure.

I wouldn't myself.

Too much.

I'd watch someone else do it first and then.

Yeah.

Well, you would if someone ate an entire pig and just left the snout.

You would be in there like, don't throw that away.

Yeah, I'll leave that.

Leave that.

Do you want my little jiffy bag?

Yeah, great onto my soul.

I think that, yeah, that pork sounds incredible.

Yeah, it sounds so good.

I'm going to seek that out.

Yes.

Sorry, what did you eat your suckling pig with?

We got loads of stuff with it, didn't we?

We got a bunch of different sides, a bunch of different things, but like, you know, we had, because it's like a sharer place.

So we had some octopus that was like butter melted in the mud, like butter.

So delicious.

It was an amazing croquettas.

Really good.

Didn't there some potatoes with it as well?

Absolutely everything on the menu was amazing.

It was such a good meal.

I think octopus is the most disgusting thing in the world.

Have you never seen the videos of them?

How can you watch a video of that and then think that you can eat it?

What do you mean?

Well, I avoid the videos of it because I think they're delicious, genuinely.

I've never seen that my octopus teacher thing.

I won't watch anything where everyone's like, oh, the octopus is as clever as a four-year-old boy.

It's like, well, that's pretty sick.

That's not incredible.

It's quite sick.

If you met a human who had the intentions of a four-year-old boy, you'd be like, unless it was a four-year-old boy, you'd be like, I'd eat you.

Yeah.

Mine's more of like, I don't really care too much for the octopus.

It's the look of them.

It's absolutely grotesque.

When you see them, like...

going through a small hole in a boat.

They fit their giant, stupid fucking head through a tiny hole in the boat and then slither back out or jump into the boat through the tiny hole.

I saw a video of an octopus the other day, like crawling along a beach, basically, like sliding along a beach.

And its head was so big it was like lolling.

It was like lolling along.

Oh my gosh.

What are you watching that for?

Someone showed it to me.

I said you didn't watch any videos of octopuses.

Charlie showed it to me.

Yeah.

We're having one of our great dates.

Yeah.

Charlie showed me it.

I'm seeing an octopus hump its way along the sand.

We went to, on one of our days off the other day, we went to a a beach somewhere in the gig was in Norwich so somewhere around that area someone was like there's loads of seals there and I thought there was just like there'd be like a smattering of seals.

There were fucking hundreds of seals.

I've never seen so many.

They fucking stank.

It was the worst thing I've ever smelled.

And I've never been so embarrassed for an animal because I'd never realized until that point that they've got no arms and they literally just hump their way around.

They're gorgeous.

They look like giant Labrador things.

They do.

They like they look really pretty and cute.

But watching the move, I was like, oh, that's, that's humiliating.

That's a real, I'm really embarrassed.

They hump for a little bit and then stop because they get so tired because they're just giant chunks of fat.

And then hump a little bit more.

They'll like, if they have to find all their different place on the sand.

So they'll hump a bit and they won't get to the right place that they need.

So they've accidentally touched another seal.

And then the other seal will hump itself round and like move the other seal with its humping.

It is, we were there for hours just watching it.

The whole beach, if you're ever in Norwich, go and see the seals.

My favourite thing about them is they get

they get tired and then they just lie lie on their sides with their little fins crossed over their chest like they've died.

They are gorgeous to look at, yeah, but they fucking stink.

I'm really glad to be a human after those chats actually.

Seems like the best, best one.

Dream side dishes.

You've both done a canny thing and put a lot of the side dishes with the main anyway.

So this is like a little extra bonus side dish.

I'm not adding these because I particularly like, love vegetables but I feel like I need a vegetable I don't eat many so I know that it's something I need so just like a lot of greeny like I like a long stem broccoli with like an asparagus and just that kind of stuff and like a nice kind of aromatic-y buttery garlicky sesame seedy it sounds so I sound like truly the most boring woman in the world but I just want like a lot of nice greeny shape

I think it we ought just to like offset the sugar and the salt just something still salty vegetables but at least you know it's a vegetable but we're talking exactly asparagus asparagus long stem broccoli you can chuck some spinach in there yeah some like mange toue greeny beanie like i like a crunchy green bean rather than like a soft green bean yeah what about an edamame i didn't ask you

I feel like you're suggesting an edamame because you want to eat some edamame off my dinner.

I love edamame.

I don't like edamame.

There'll be no edifying.

I don't think you two should have this dinner together.

It would just be me trying to touch it

and getting it away.

Taking little pieces so that you can take it home in a little bag.

Yeah.

Yeah, just any kind of green veg.

Yeah.

That's so unlike you.

You are not a veg eater at all.

No, but...

Any kind of green veg.

But be specific, though.

I think...

Nicola has been specific enough.

Hot steamed vegetables.

How much more specific?

I can give you the length of the asparagus.

Yeah, yeah.

I want to know the exact vegetables.

I think we've heard the exact vegetables.

But then added on the end was any green thing.

I just want to know.

But you know the sort of thing.

Anything steamed green.

Yeah.

And I've been even more specific than broccoli.

I've said long-stemmed broccoli.

I feel like you're trying to push us into saying the wrong thing.

No.

You're trying to push us to say the secret ingredient.

No.

Oh my God.

Are we walking near it?

I'm not trying to push it.

Are we?

I just want to be specific.

I just want to make sure we've been as clear as possible.

Are you not enjoying this podcast?

So you're pushing your secret ingredient.

No, no.

Listen, Listen, the way it's working, we've got two guests on today doing separate meals.

If one of you picks a secret ingredient, and we're both out, that one person is out.

Oh,

wonderful.

That's the only upside to being a double act.

That's the only upside.

The other one has to watch from the window outside.

I just want to make sure we're fair.

You're the least subtle person I've ever met in my life.

Someone's never said just.

Keep talking.

Just any green, anything green in there.

So they bought the green things.

It'd be quite funny to chuck someone out when you've backed them into a corner and made them sat.

Yeah, it is really funny.

Entrapment.

But what do you want?

Yeah, what do you want?

Can I imagine that you said all of your sides in your mane already, so maybe we just stop there?

I don't need anything green.

I'm thinking maybe.

I'm thinking maybe

a little portion of my mum's get bolognese.

I'd like a little bit of that.

What?

But not a big one, because I don't want to get full up.

Just a tiny one.

Oh, she just cooked some.

She just gave it to go with your curry.

Is it good?

It's lovely.

Yeah.

Oh, sorry.

I think it's good.

Yeah.

But again, I just, yeah, it's fine.

Isn't it?

I mean, it is good, but I don't like it enough to order it in a restaurant.

With all due respect to our mum.

If I got that in a restaurant, I've eaten spaghetti in a restaurant.

And if I get that in a restaurant, because you make it fit.

You say I've eaten spaghetti in a restaurant.

I've had more than one spaghetti in a restaurant.

Order one.

I've got a number of spaghetti in a restaurant.

And I would be over the moon if it was mums.

She really simmers it for rages.

She puts extra, she puts extra tomato in it.

She'll do chopped tomatoes and posata.

Yeah.

So it really like just creates this lovely soupy.

You like sloppy.

You like sloppy food, don't you?

Soupy bolognese food.

I like sticky.

You like sloppy old food.

Yeah.

Sloppy baby.

I really do.

You can go forward.

You created a situation there.

We say, if I ordered a spaghetti bolognese in a restaurant, I'd be over the moon if it was mum's.

Just like a mum I used to be.

You can eat in a restaurant, you eat a whole bowl of spaghetti bolognese, and then just at the last second, your mum just pops her head out of the kitchen.

It's like, it was mine!

Woohoo!

I'm onto the moon.

And you like flat into the air.

Just like spin around before.

Gotcha.

Mum.

Mum would say, gotcha.

Gotcha.

I made the meal.

What, mum?

Our mum doesn't look too far from the mum on the Dolmio sauce.

Oh, yeah?

The puppet.

She's got dark hair.

Except that she's not Italian.

She's from Portsmouth.

She has got dark hair there.

It looks like a mum.

Who's the mum on the sauce?

Because all I genuinely I can think of is the puppet.

Well, in the advert, I just assume that they're on the sauce, too.

It's the puppet mum.

Puppet mum, but

it's only the dark hair.

You're going to google.

It looks like a puppet is the only thing.

That's why I found that.

I'm going to say you're like Swedish chef.

I think Dolmio mum is better.

Yeah.

I think you're going to Google what that puppet looks like when we get out of this room and realise you are quite spectacularly wrong.

You got a photo of your mum on you?

Yeah.

Let's get a look.

We'll judge if this looks like a puppet.

I'll get a picture of the Dolmeo puppet.

Yeah.

Someone Google Grandma Crunch.

The Dol Meo puppet mum doesn't have dark hair.

Does she not?

No.

Oh my gosh, she's got grey hair.

She's got grey hair.

Our mum maybe looks a bit more like the guy then.

Okay.

Because she's got dark hair.

Why does it take you so long to find a photo of your mum?

She doesn't look like that.

Okay, your mum looks a very normal person.

Nothing like any of the Don Meo family.

Mark, it's the dark hair and the smile, I think.

What are you talking about?

That's a normal smile, normal hair.

Glasses.

That's also not a good photo of her.

She looks haunted, yeah.

She's not on her graduation day, so we're not going to get into why.

All the photos

that Rosie is showing us

the mum has a mortar board on.

This Every single photo.

I haven't even thought about it.

Every single photo, she's graduated.

She's graduated somewhere else.

I don't have another one.

It's either that or when she's really young.

With graduating photos.

We're coming out of PhD now.

When you're in the mess straight, you're thinking your spaghetti bolognese, and then the kitchen doors burst out, but she's there in a full mortarboarding gown.

Gotcha.

It's like holding a scroll.

Gotcha.

Coming in tomato sauce.

Oh, no.

Congratulations.

On top of all my mortar boards.

Should have that made in blankets.

So you've got a little

boloner.

Just a little taste.

Little

bolony.

Remind me of

the woman who shut me out.

Okay.

Okay.

Did she say gotcha?

Did she pop out and say gotcha?

Yeah.

Gotcha.

Gotcha.

Yeah, she did.

A little bit.

Gotcha, a little bit.

Dream drink.

So I struggled with this in general.

Can I get like a palate cleanse in between everything?

So things like...

Because it wouldn't be part of like my dream meal necessarily, but it is my dream drink.

Is that okay?

Yeah, yes.

I want

the first cup of tea you make when you've been away for a long time.

Okay.

I just like, I like my tea in a specific way.

Yeah.

And I really miss not being able to drink it when I'm away.

And I want it at like that temperature where it's like...

hot but it doesn't burn your mouth so you can like drink it and it kind of like buzzes all the inside of your mouth but it doesn't take the skin off your tongue

get it or and i'm not trying to trap you again only specifics about this tea because you're saying it has to be how how you like it so like what you're doing how much milk is in it how long you're leaving the tea bag in for i leave i use a pg tips tea bag keep it simple there's no other tea bag that's worth consuming this isn't about you sorry

but can i hey please we can all completely understand why you had to get that thought out your head yeah because there's no other tea bag worth consuming, I'd say.

That had to be on mouth.

I hope that my shirt is tattooed on.

I've got to say as well, made a joke right at the top of the podcast about Brexit taste buds.

I think the first cup of tea you have when you've been away is the most Brexit thing I've ever had in my life.

I really hate it.

I really hate it.

When you've got to sit there and drink all that foreign muck, and you finally get home to good old blighty and you have a proper cup of tea.

That's the taste I want.

I meant more like travel lodge tea bags where it's like a little dirty cup and a UHT milk where it just doesn't taste

bother with that yeah because I like I drink tea and water and that's about it I like drink boots but like and ham smoothie ham smoothie tea man tea is like I drink like an obscene amount of tea wow how many cups a day I can do eight to ten

I drink like big double mugs Wow

do you like tea yeah

that's what I'm getting from that yeah yeah I sound completely all and I haven't had a cup of tea in years.

No, I don't drink coffee.

I know.

I'm barking.

Do you drink coffee?

Do you drink hot chocolate?

I drink coffee all day, yeah.

Do you?

I very rarely drink coffee.

So you're not a hot drink man?

Hot chocolate.

I love hot chocolate.

Oh, yeah.

I love a herbal tea.

Yes.

But I don't think I've had a cup of tea since 2013.

Oh, wow.

What happened in 2013?

Yeah.

Had my wisdom teeth out.

In bed feeling sorry for myself.

And then I didn't get to go to the shops for ages.

Ran out of normal tea.

started just moving on to the herbals.

Noticed that actually I was quite enjoying myself, never went back.

Whenever there's a story like this, which is just like a weird part of James's life, I always just look at Benito for the whole thing because he loves nothing more than a story like that from James.

He really have my wisdom teeth out, he really laughs at anything that's like are you laid up for that long when your wisdom teeth are out that you how long could you not leave the house for to like get well?

I got unlucky.

What happened was

I got a thing called dry sockets

where they take out your wisdom teeth how did I not know that and and instead of uh everything just like you know healing back up and cool there was a hole that went from I guess just the you know the outside world down my gums straight to the bone

so then air was getting in through my mouth and touching the bone that was that was down below and it really really hurt.

The hole wasn't from the outside world, James.

Well, that's where that's where the whole holes start.

Yeah, but it wasn't out of your face.

There wasn't a hole in your face.

There's a second hole in the top of my mouth.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that led to the

outside world.

So it would go...

The air would go through it.

Through it through the mouth.

Outside world, into my mouth, down the hole in my gums.

straight to the bone and it really hurt.

So I was laid up in bed.

I kept trying to get emergency dentist appointments and couldn't.

And obviously I was just on liquids only.

So I went through the tea bags pretty fast.

And then it was on to the herbal tea.

Wasn't the tea get...

Yeah, wasn't the tea going...

Filling the metal.

Yeah, it was horrible.

The tea's part of the outside world as well.

Yes, it was horrible.

But it was either that or not, you know, not

of anything.

Yeah.

So you didn't even eat?

You didn't consume?

I had soup.

Oh, my gosh.

So that's getting in from the outside world.

Not a yogurt pie.

But I kind of mainly go over to one side of the mouth, you know, try and get it away from the dry socket.

Like lull the head over.

Yeah, yeah.

God, that actually sounds terrible.

It wasn't nice, and I had loads of clove oil that I put on the

to numb it up so it didn't hurt as much.

I was in a tiny little bedroom at that point.

You could touch all the walls or laying in bed.

And the whole thing, stank of cloves.

No.

By the end, there's a stank of cloves.

This guy calling you bleak.

Yeah.

This guy.

I'd like to.

Who was in a bed where he could touch all walls with his feet and arms and with stank of clove oil.

And I had dry sockets.

Sockings.

Yes, but that was who I was.

Strawber all over your floor and a donkey next door.

Like, that's what it sounds like.

I once made a soup, and it was the worst soup I'd ever made in my life.

And I thought it had like loads and loads of like herbs and stuff in it, and I spent and spices, and I spent ages making it.

And when I ate it, it tasted like porridge and it was fucking filth.

It was, and I was really angry because I spent the whole day making it.

And Rosie came home from work and was like, I can fix this, and put in a handful of cloves.

I reckon there was over 19 cloves in there.

Yeah, it was

the worst ingredient ever.

When you use a clove, you use like one or two, maybe.

And she literally put in a fistful of cloves.

And so, not only did it taste like it was great, it looked like gruel.

It was supposed to be Indian wedding soup.

It was a bad wedding.

It looked like porridge, it was great.

And then, every mouthful you took, you got like eight cloves.

It like coat, like literally coat the your mouth.

Yeah, you'd feel like a sheen on your whole mouth.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Was that the name of the recipe Indian wedding soup?

It wasn't the soup that you were making to take to an Indian wedding.

I would have been the most least welcome person.

We shoved it down the toilet.

Yeah.

And shove is the right word.

Just punching it down like Play-Doh.

Why did you put it in your bed?

Why did you shove it down the toilet?

It was inedible.

Yeah, no.

Okay, I understand you wanted to get rid of it.

That bit I understood you wanted to get rid of it what a toilet because there you can't put it down the sink because it will just clog out the sink oh no that wasn't what we were thinking was the first option people thinking the bin was the first option not the sink then you've just got a bag of wet in the bin if that back that bag broke imagine if that bag broke and the indian wedding suit went all over the bin and the floor

if we would be cursed and for never getting married ever again yeah i would personally put it in a bin bag then take the bin bag straight out

the toilet is so much better than that you don't waste a bin bag.

The toilet is there.

And it's used to getting just

getting anything down.

Yeah, it's used to getting an old water.

You should be married to get an Indian wedding down.

You're feeling all right today.

No, honestly, I've just done an Indian wedding suit with extra clothes.

Well, yeah, a wedding.

No, no, I made it with my sister.

That sounds like me and my friend Alex Rosedale once tried to make

George's marvellous medicine out of his mum's medicine cabinet.

Yes.

He just poured all these pills in and stuff.

Oh God, his mum found us doing it and went absolutely ape shit.

He's like, have you drunk any of this?

Don't make yourself sick.

Make yourself sick.

Had you actually drunk it?

No.

No, no, no.

We literally just poured everything we could find and it was like pills bobbling around in the top.

That is so funny and like so high stakes.

Yeah.

Like so high stakes.

And also so.

I think our age of the 90s of like rolled dahl just causing absolute havoc for all children everywhere.

We used to think one of our teachers was a witch when we were like eight years old, and we just called her a witch all the time, which I think is very funny.

And we enjoyed it as children.

But I imagine, as a teacher, when you've got enough stuff going on, you're just like, fuck off.

Yeah.

Just fuck off.

Stop calling me a witch.

Yeah, this is embarrassing for you.

We had a teacher who genuinely, I think, was a witch.

Interesting.

It was her wig always looking back.

It was genuinely like she used to feel like a high bun

and really like, yeah, definitely like no toes.

Yeah, peppermint.

Yeah, for sure.

She did this when you walked past.

Yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

She didn't like the smell of children.

We've only got one dream drink so far.

Oh, yes.

Mine is, I think in Toronto there's a beer company called Steam Whistle.

It's a Pilsner.

And I just remember drinking it and thinking, This is perfection.

This is great.

When it's cold, I love the glo the uh the bottle that comes in.

It was hard because I also love if I'm it's my dream restaurant, I absolutely love champagne.

I don't know anything about it, but when someone gives you a glass of champagne, it just it's lux.

Lux?

It should luxurious.

Just one bubble after another.

Ambassador.

Well, do you want the beer or do you want a champagne?

Can I have both, do you think?

My shall I have a job?

Maybe beer to start with my curry.

Yeah.

And then, actually, no, maybe a glass of champagne at the beginning like I'm at my own wedding.

I'll bring the soup.

And then beer through the curry, the steam whistle.

And then just probably champagne for the end.

I'll just chop and change.

One in each hand.

I think that's allowed.

Yeah.

Champagne in a pilsner.

Yeah.

It's very different.

Isn't it very different dream drinks here?

Like, at this point, if you had to...

you know, have something off of each other's menus.

What do you think is like the worst thing that you could be be given from the other person's menu?

I could eat all of yours, but probably a sand bucket full of olives would would be lowest down.

There wasn't sand in the bucket.

There's probably a bit of sand left on the bottom.

A little bit.

No, I'm supposed to look at olives, I think.

I'm a clean bucket woman.

Probably olives because you can just get them from a shop at any point.

And I wouldn't want, I don't think I'd need your bread.

No.

You like a bit of bread.

I didn't say I didn't like it.

Said I didn't need it.

Yeah, I've seen your eyes light up when you get a good sandwich.

Again, I didn't say I didn't like bread.

I said I didn't need your bread.

We're learning why you don't talk to each other on stage.

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.

So we arrive at your dream dessert, and we haven't even had you like try and predict each other's at any point.

Do you think?

Oh, yeah, this would be a good time to predict.

Do you think you might know what the other person's going to choose as dream dessert?

I could guess at yours.

Shall I?

Yeah.

Shall I, boys and girls?

Yeah.

Topsy and tails are coming in there, man.

Boy.

My guess would be a baked Alaska.

Wrong.

Oh, okay.

Oh, I see the delight in your eyes when you said mum.

Yeah, wrong.

Even if it was wrong.

Wrong.

Stupid.

To be fair, even if it was right, I would now do an absolute 180 and choose it.

I'm thinking of all the desserts I want now.

Why did you think baked Alaska?

I do like baked.

Because you, yeah.

Well, for that reason.

Yeah.

Quite straightforward.

Yeah.

Mum makes a cracking one.

And gotcha.

Gotcha.

Don't make a woman.

Probably mortar board of the air.

Yeah, from free throw.

Yeah, that is the baked Alaska.

And she just stays there forever.

She just freezes in the

air with no cereum.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I do like to bake baked Alaska.

I don't really like desserts.

So that's like one I'd choose if I had to have a dessert, but I don't really like them.

So what's about to happen now?

I want a bowl of stale Watsitz, please.

Go fuck yourself forever.

What the fu what?

What?

Are you joking?

It might be the worst one we've ever had.

It's the worst one we've ever had.

What the?

Living fuck.

It's the worst one we've ever had.

How the fuck?

How what's that?

Not even I could get on board with that.

What?

Even somebody who likes Watson can't get on board with that.

A bowl of stale Watsons for dessert.

I'll be doing my own solo show.

We were talking about baked Alaskas a minute ago.

A bowl of stale Watson's.

How is that a pudding?

It's not, but I don't like puddings, really.

Why won't you put that

baked Alaska, which you admitted you liked a minute ago, and put the stale Wats it somewhere else in the meal?

Because I don't want a dessert.

Like I never order a dessert when I go to a restaurant.

I never ever ever want it.

So I can never say that.

She doesn't.

Thank you.

Can we talk about why stale Watsits?

You know when you go to a party in 1997, it's like a kid's birthday party.

Yeah.

And you've like, everyone's picked at loads of stuff and there's bowls of stuff.

The Watsits go stale and they taste so lovely and chewy.

I fucking love them.

And I like, again, like picking.

So I don't want to like, I want to eat and really enjoy my main meal.

Yeah.

So I don't want to be like holding myself back for a dessert.

But I can just pick at a Watson and I can just pick at them until they're done.

The worst dish anyone's ever chosen on the podcast ever.

Not just dessert.

Any course ever.

A bowl of stale Watson.

It's nearly.

What the fuck?

Thank you.

I think with it's alongside Daisy May Cooper's pizza hut

hut salad.

Look for dessert.

Pizza huts are Hut buffet salad for dessert

with like croutons and bacon and stuff in it.

That was bad and made me angry.

This

is way worse.

This is not even a good version of the thing you've chosen.

So you've chosen, you haven't even said a bowl of Watsits.

You said a bowl of stale Watsits, which I've had a stale Watsit and it's disgusting.

I fucking love them.

It's why they're not sold that way.

I buy Watsits and I will open the bag, go away on tour for a week and then eat them when I come home.

Oh, and have it with your tea that you've been missing.

Stale what's it is English wedding soup.

Yeah.

What the?

As mad as I think this is, there is actually quite a nice like joy in eating like something that's puffy but is slightly like cracky.

Right, I mean it's in your mouth.

Well done for making a taste even worse.

Yeah,

made a bad thing sound even worse.

There's a joy as eating something that's puffy but cracky.

What?

What?

Well you get the night, you get the the sort of soft crunch and then it goes into

that's horrible right well i might be coming around to the what's it's no you're not there's no way you're coming out you're saying you're coming maltread to try and wind me up and it's working is it yeah

would you feel the same feeling with like chipsticks or anything else that's sort of like maisy i like a stale chipstick but stale again

What the hell is the matter with?

They're like too, they taste like communion bread, you know, like church bread, skips, but like fishy church bread don't want that but yeah, it's only like chipsticks and what sits.

I just if I stopped using the word stale and said infused with more air, would that make you feel better?

No, it wouldn't make me feel better.

Okay, it wouldn't.

Maybe it would make me feel slightly better.

Also, now you are coming around to it.

No, I'm not coming round to anything.

If you said for your dessert you want a bowl of Watsitz, I'd still go through the roof.

But the fact that you won't stale Watsitz, I'm going up into space.

Absolutely.

Horrendous.

See, Rosie, she's over the moon at the moment.

Horrendous.

Oh, man.

Do you know what?

I absolutely don't regret trying to push you to say the secret ingredient earlier.

I wish you hadn't.

I wish you'd said it.

It was Rocket, by the way.

I wish she'd said it.

And you'd have been out of the restaurant.

You never would have said stale Watsitz.

I would have stood outside eating my little stale bag of Watson's, watching the rest of you enjoy a nice evening with our Dormio Mar.

You won't be outside eating your stale bag of Watson's because we would have chucked you out and you wouldn't have got anything that you planned on having in here ever again.

I suppose it's like a cheese board, really.

It's a similar sort of something salty and cheesy at the end of the day.

It makes it even worse.

Congratulations.

Yes, even worse.

The worst cheese board ever.

Stale Watsitz.

Oh my good God.

What?

Rosie.

No pressure.

Stale chipsticks.

After seeing your reaction, I'm slightly nervous about this, but it is sugary.

I would say sugary.

I would like a really big bag of pickamix.

Okay.

Yeah?

But

here's the caveat, and this is why I'm slightly scared to say it.

I really love pickamix.

You know, the old, like old, like in Wilco's, you get the Candy King or like an old sweet shop.

I like the sweets to feel a bit, yeah, the Woolworths.

I like them to feel a bit old.

Great.

Great.

Stale cheese.

No problem.

I wouldn't say

stale because I don't think sweets can go stale.

What's your problem with stale Watson's been a lot of stale sweets?

Oh, I don't know.

Let me look at what coarse one.

Fucking dessert.

So that would be why.

That would be why.

If you put stale Watsitz earlier in the meal, I'd have let it go.

We would have had a bit of a laugh about it.

This is a crime.

If I'd said once, there were a few years ago they made ice cream flavour monster munch.

Would you accept that?

Yeah, I'd be more open to that.

Oh, well, that's not my choice.

I was just channeling myself.

I know it's not your choice.

But if you said ice cream flavour monster munch, I'd be like, oh,

that's definitely a dessert.

It's a dessert flavour.

I'd like to hear about this.

I'd ask questions about it.

I'd be very intrigued.

I'd maybe even want to try some ice cream flavour monster munch.

I have no interest in ever eating a bowl of stale Watsons, especially not for dessert.

If I had a meal and the end dessert, someone bought out stale Watson's.

It would be the worst meal I'd ever had.

It certainly wouldn't be my dream meal.

So what's in your picky mix?

Fried eggs.

Fried eggs, definitely.

I love anything sort of strawberryish.

I love laces.

I love the big snakes.

Schneides?

Schneider.

Schneider.

Oh, that might be on any time.

It's really funny.

I love the pink bottles that have the white foamy on the bottom.

Oh, I'm not.

No?

Yeah, we're getting into territory I don't enjoy now.

Okay.

If you say white chocolate mice, I think we've pretty much parted company.

I would prefer a white chocolate snazzle.

Is that what they're called?

Razzle?

Razzle.

I know what you mean.

The little discs that are hundreds and thousands of miles.

If I was going into chocolate terror, I'd rather have the razzles.

Snazzles?

What are they called?

Razzles.

Schnazz.

I don't know what it was.

Like a freshman.

Which basically lies a Manelli now.

Yeah, but

I'm a Canadian pick and mix.

Or what else do I like?

Take a few of the chocolate ones in pick and mix.

Yeah.

I'll only take a few.

Every now and again, you just need a slight different change of pace.

So a little white chocolate thing would come in.

I do like a pink chocolate piggy sometimes.

I've seen the pink pink chocolate piggies.

Oh, you never.

No.

You haven't been to the right pick a mix.

They're pretty common now.

Like little pig heads.

Pink pigheads.

Well, I love a pig head with a stab.

Your girlfriend's just in the Warwicks population.

Fucking them out with a plate.

Opens the bag.

Oh, god.

I've got a little plate, just get them out.

Your mum pops up the pick a mix.

Jumps.

Always in the mortar board.

Always at the mortar board.

Just pops out, literally pops her head out of the pile.

Gotcha!

Had the beadles about of like cookery.

Congratulation and cookery.

I also had this other thought where, because I was thinking dream restaurant, I was trying to think of like perfect meal, but also dream rest restaurant.

Do you remember in Willy Wonka when he eats the cup he eats the teacup?

Yes.

I was wondering if you could like if I could get hold of that, just to know what that taste was like.

So maybe if that was aside my pick a mix, because pick a mix would be my ideal, like my death row kind of thing.

But if it's dream, that's something I can't get hold of, it'd be Willie Wonka's little teacup.

Does he drink, he drinks from the chocolate river and then he drinks and then he bites off the side.

And I always just was so interested if

it possibly

grumbly

tell me where you want that chocolate river teacup.

Yeah, I was just thinking about the chocolate river teacup.

That's amazing.

You burst into Willie Wonka.

Leave Kate and walk out of the room.

Do it over the table.

Thank you.

I just needed you to say my name.

Do you want chocolate river in the cup or just the cup?

Yeah, I'll have a bit of chocolate river.

That's the whole experience, really, isn't it?

Yeah, a bit of chocolate river.

Pre-gloop falling in.

Pre-gloop.

I'd have a bit of gloop in there, actually.

Yeah.

Yeah, why not?

If it's good,

okay.

Let me toast the boy.

This new character you've established in the course of this one.

Give me a glass of champagne.

I'd like me toast the bar.

Bring on the glue.

Is there like foam bananas, foam prawns?

Yeah, I have a few.

I'd have a few, but I'm not huge on the prawns.

They sometimes give me a bit of a headache, the shrimpy things.

I would prefer more jelly-ish.

I love it when you get like a wine gum, but they're like the old ones that would say like the actual thing, or they say like burgundy on them or pork.

and they, if you sort of like bend them, then you can see the top crack.

Do you know what I mean?

Like when they're old and nice, cracky, cracky and puffy.

Yeah, yeah, cracking and puffy.

Cracky and puffy.

Cracky and puffy.

I'll take my, oh, I love the bobbly, red and black disc thingy, you know, the little, what are they called, the red and black, bobbly things.

The berries, yeah, the berries, the red berries.

I love, only a few of them had them.

Woolworths used to have them, but I haven't seen them since.

It's the smile, flat, smiley faces.

You're getting green, orange, yellow.

No.

Pretty much that.

I love the

spider.

Sometimes they're octopuses or a spider and the bum will be jelly inside of it.

Do you know what I mean?

You're making them up now.

You're just making them up because we're not stopping you and you're going, I need to come after some more.

The spider with the bum is jelly.

The bum is jelly.

There'll be people who will know what I mean.

The bum will be like slightly raised, or the octopus will be slightly raised, and it will have like more goopy stuff in it.

Uh-huh.

I like that.

Colour bottles?

Yeah, I will have one for the sake of being a classic, but I'm not a huge on the bottom.

They're my favourite.

The sour cola bottles.

I like the bottom of the colour.

Did you think the blue and blue ones?

Not really.

Oh, my gosh.

I really like the traditional cola bottles.

Hey.

Does anyone else do this?

I bite the lid, like the top off, and

pretend to drink the cola.

I was with you until the drinking game.

Yeah, yeah.

I always do that.

Every time I have one, bite the top off and go, glug, glig, glug, glug, glug.

No?

No?

You guys are missing out on a load of fun.

Do you like the cherry cola bottles?

Yeah, I like them.

Yeah, they're good.

Yeah, they were the best.

At Paul's Corner shop, around the corner from where I grew up in Kepin, that would be my go-to.

We did

the giant cherry cola bottles.

Yeah.

Very excited about those.

Yes.

And they never counted the sweets in it.

So

let's just say I did all right.

Is the business still going?

Yeah, it is.

Yeah.

And feel quite...

I mean, anytime I go back to Keprin, if I ever go in that shop, just feel weird.

Yeah.

Feels like, oh, I'm a little kid again.

Yeah.

And I went in there to buy...

Yeah, me and my friends were going to my mate's house, went in there to get some beer beforehand, and it felt very weird buying alcohol at Paul's corner shop.

Yeah.

I felt I was going to get ID'd.

I was like, here we go.

Is it still Paul who works there?

Yeah, but they've, well, I don't know.

I think maybe it's his family still, but like they've, yeah, it still pretty much looks the same.

Did you get like those like 20p like ice poles and stuff in there as well, or those like weird little plastic tubes that were just filled with blue?

Yeah, yeah.

Get those on the way back from school.

Yeah.

And solero shots.

yeah

we never spoke about them on the pod they were great they are so so good and like genuinely quench your thirst yeah genuinely and the spider-man isolated remember then the pink ones remember them no no

mating up with spiders again

he's going genuinely asked

you're going to match the scene

the spiders what have you the spiders were there and the young tubers were there and

candy man was there

i mean i hate to keep on bringing your mum up, but it does feel like you're going to get us so that we believe one of these and then your mum bursts in some of the catchphrase and leaves.

She's come all the way up to London.

Gotcha.

There's not a spider with a jelly in his hand.

Bye, girls.

I'm very proud of you.

I'm going to read your menus back to you now.

See how you feel about them.

Water course.

You both said sparkled in water.

Poppadoms or bread.

We've got poppadoms and bread.

Nicholas, we've got poppadoms.

Rosie's got the bread and spoonfuls of butter.

Starter.

Nicola.

Bucket of fantasy olives and sun-dried tomatoes with chorizo.

Rosie, six to seven types of thinly cut steak with garlic butter.

From

in Toronto.

Main course.

Ibirico, cha!

Stew and sauce.

Uh-huh.

Pork.

Yes.

And rice.

Rosie, selection of spicy curries, tikka masala, pechuari and garlic naan, pillar of rice, poppinums.

I don't even let her get away with this with all the tips.

Lushes of onion salad.

Side dish.

Nichta.

Green veg with butter and garlic.

Rosie, mum's spag bowl.

Gotcha.

Gotcha.

Drink.

Nickel.

First cup of tea that you have when you come back from being away.

Rosie champagne and steam whistle pilsner.

Dessert.

Rosie, slightly old pick and mix with Willie Wonka teacup.

And that's it.

End of the episode.

Maybe the the end of the podcast.

Maybe the end of the podcast.

Certainly the end of my career, I think.

Yeah, well, listen, we're not going to be working together again.

That is.

That was a risk I was willing to take.

You've crossed the line.

I can't believe it.

Thank you for crossing the line.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

I can't believe it.

Do you like to say goodbye, James?

Forever.

Thank you very much for coming to the Dream Restaurant.

Thank you for having us.

It's a pleasure.

It's a pleasure.

Thank you so much.

Cheer later.

I've heard the none of my life.

More bubbles next time.

Well, there we are.

A lovely episode with Flo and Joan.

Yumma, yumma.

They got through it all without saying rocket as well, which I'm kind of annoyed about.

I thought we got two people.

Definitely one of them is going to say the secret ingredient, but neither of them did.

We didn't get to chuck one out and have the other one in.

That would have been so funny.

Yeah.

I think we've got to book more people in pairs now so that that will happen one day.

And give increasingly broad secret ingredients like rocket pretty broad but it's gonna have to be dinner yeah before we're gonna get them i say we get on jade adams and her friend babs together and we make the the secret ingredient hundreds and thousands again yeah and we chuck jade out yeah because no way that jade will be able to resist saying immediately saying hundreds and thousands definitely have it as a start as a start

bowl of hundreds of thousands get out jade it's just babs now just babs i'm on tour edgamble.co.uk for tickets the show's called electric i'm enjoying doing it.

But also, Flo and Joan are on tour.

The wonderful Flo and Joan here you just heard there.

The show's called Sweet Release.

Go and check it out.

Floandjoan.com for tickets to that.

Very exciting stuff.

What more is there to say, Ed?

I'd like to thank Willie's Pies.

Yeah.

Willie's Pies for sending us some pies, some amazing pies.

Really good pies.

Did you get the Bakewell?

Yes.

As well, that was very, very nice.

That was great.

They sent us a curried mutton.

They sent us a chicken and tarragon and they sent us some bake.

Well, and boy, oh boy, especially that curried mutton.

I think they change their flavours every week.

Go and have a look.

I think they delivered nationwide.

But thank you very much for those.

Absolutely delicious.

Really nice.

And, you know, I mean, I know it sounds obvious, but the pastry is delicious.

And that's what makes a pie, man.

The filling?

Sure.

It's important.

And they nail the fillings.

But it's the pastry I'll fall in love with, Ed.

Yeah.

And boy, oh boy, am I in love with that pastry.

And also under this jumper wearing a Willie's Pies t-shirt that they sent me wow says pie and mash on it also ed i'd like to say a big thank you to hotel shockala for giving me my chocolate day yes james had his chocolate day on my birthday yep i went there and they taught me how to make uh hot chocolate for my velvetizer yeah and uh and i also did some savory cooking with chocolate i did some uh white chocolate mash yeah and we did some like braised uh beef with with this uh dark chocolate sauce and people can do this themselves as well people they can go for a day out you can contact hotel shockala you can go on the website website and you can book yourself a day in the kitchens there and learn how to make some chocolate.

Maybe even try some new flavours that haven't gone on the market yet.

I was very worried because we were going out for a meal that night for my birthday, weren't we?

Yes, you were worried.

And I was worried because you were eating all your chocolate.

Yep.

And texting me going, oh, God, I'm really full.

Yep.

At 11 o'clock in the morning, I went for my chocolate day and I got out at one.

And I'd eaten a lot of chocolate.

I was very worried about it.

And I knew I had Ed's birthday meal in the evening.

So I walked home for three hours in order to walk it off.

Did some exercise when I got home, and then went to Ed's meal.

And I was ready to go.

You were.

You were.

You didn't.

Good boy.

Thank you very much for listening.

We will see you again next week, probably.

Bye-bye.

Goodbye.

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.