Ep 152: Paul Hollywood

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.

We get it.

It's more important than ever to get the most out of your money.

Options are key.

Options like Lyft, where you get great rewards, especially with partners like Dash Pass by DoorDash.

If you're a Dash Pass member, just link your DoorDash account and you'll get 5% off on-demand rides, 10% off scheduled rides to the airport, plus two free priority pickup upgrades every month.

New to Dash Pass?

To sign up for a three-month free trial, check Lyft.

Terms apply.

The ocean moves us, surfing a wave or savoring the view.

The ocean delights us as playful otters restore coastal kelp for us.

The ocean connects us.

Visit Monterey Bay Aquarium.org slash connects.

Welcome to the Off-Menu Podcast.

Taking the egg white of conversation, beating in the sugar of humor, baking it in the oven of podcasting, and then putting a load of salt on it for a laugh.

Lovely little reference to when I was on Bake Off Ed, it touched my heart.

Ed Gamble there, James A.

Castle here, the Off-Menu podcast, where we welcome a guest into our dream restaurant and we ask them their favorite ever.

Stark.

And we ask them their favorite ever.

and oh god

Ed it's happening again just because I've got him just because Hollywood's coming on I can't do it

we ask them their favorite ever start a make off the third side dish and drink not in that order and this week our guest is poor Hollywood

that's the reason I was referencing your bake-off episode James your famously disastrous episode of stand-up to cancer celebrity bake-off yeah now I have also done bake off very recently as we record this yeah you've not seen my episode, have you?

Not yet.

No, I've not seen a single episode since I was on it.

Now,

it would be better if I'd won

for the joke.

Yeah, I didn't win, but I did do, I'd say, quite well.

Yeah, you did well.

I knew that anyway, and I'm happy for you.

Yeah.

But yeah, I mean...

Paul Hollywood coming into the dream restaurant, we both got different relationships with him, I guess.

Sure, I mean, you know, he ate my cake and he liked my cake.

Yeah, he didn't like my stuff.

Yeah.

He thought it was pretty funny how bad it was.

And

that episode has followed me around ever since so you know

well it's it's he's sort of the great white whale of this story really to get him in is is pretty impressive because we've we've spoken uh we've spoken to a few people we've spoken to michelle keegan who was on on your episode who who won the episode she was star baker yes

uh nadia hussein who obviously is like the number one uh star baker ever yeah selassie as well we've spoken to one of the one of was he on the first series no but he was he was he was on like he was he was like one of the still still one of the favorites isn't it he's the favorite bakers ever yeah one of the first bakers for people that people were like oh my god i love that guy yeah yeah absolutely love him uh obviously we talked to sue perkins about bacoff yeah oh terry hatcher of course rubbed it in my face that she got a

handshake so there's like a hollywood handshake so there's a few people that we spoke to about bakoff it's come up and now this is uh this is the big tuna this is the big tuna uh very happy to have Paul in the dream restaurant.

He's used to being in a tent, of course, but now he can come into the dream restaurant.

But, I mean, you'd love this, wouldn't you?

If Paul picks a secret ingredient that we have decided upon that we hate, we will kick him out of the dream restaurant.

And today's secret ingredient is aquafaba.

Aquafaba, it's chickpea water.

If you get tinned chickpeas, the sort of water that they sit in, often use them for like vegan baking instead of egg white.

Yeah, I mean, you know, obviously, we want to encourage vegan bacon as much as possible, really.

So I'm not, you know, I don't want to say, hey,

I don't like vegan stuff.

Right.

But when I went on an extra slice,

which was actually a bit trivia, the day before I went into the bake-off tent.

What?

That's just how it worked.

That's weird.

Yeah, so just by coincidence.

But it was vegan week that week.

And obviously, me being the dessert boy I am, I ate all of the cakes that people had bought in

to the studio.

and a lot of them were made of aquafaba and I felt very sick afterwards and I think I think in my head it was like it was the aquafaba that did it.

Yeah it wasn't.

We all know what's happened.

I can see Benito's face.

He agrees with me.

You just ate too much.

You ate too much too quickly.

No, it was the aquifer.

Because you were being rushed off set and you went, I've got to eat, I've got to try everything.

No, I've eaten a lot of cakes before and not felt that ill.

You know, when I did Extra Slice, I didn't get to try anything.

What?

Why?

I think maybe because it was more distanced, perhaps.

Oh, maybe, yeah.

I didn't get to try anything.

No one, no one on the panel got to try anything.

Well, I mean, I was on my way there.

I was like, I can't believe I got vegan week.

Yeah.

And then I was like, this is delicious.

And then you felt sick.

And then I felt sick because of the aquafaba.

Because of the aquafaba.

I will admit that when it comes out of the tin, when you get a tin of chickpeas and it's in there, it's an odd consistency.

It's sort of a bit slimy.

Yeah, I don't like how it looks when it comes out of the tin.

That's another reason for wanting to put it on there.

Really?

But mainly because you ate too many cakes and you blame aquafaba.

Yeah, yeah, because aquafaba made me sick.

But Paul, you know, might choose a baking thing.

So, you know, trying to get him on that.

Yes, okay.

Trying to get him, are we?

Yep.

Yeah.

You would love it if we kicked him out.

I don't want to kick him out because I'm very excited to have Paul in.

And I'm very excited about his new book, Bake, James.

His best ever recipes, the classics.

He says it's the only baking book you'll ever need, which does...

Sort of somewhat hamstring him for the next book he wants to release.

Yeah, it means he can't ever do another one.

No, that's a which is a shame.

But it sounds fantastic lots of amazing recipes in there his favorites cakes biscuits cookies breads flatbreads pizzas donuts pastries pies all of those things doughnuts very difficult james uh as i found out on my technical very most difficult technical they've ever had well no never seen it no but it was not the most difficult they've ever had i think we all know what that is cream hordes no but uh

but yeah this book sounds amazing and i i think i'm gonna maybe i'll give it a go we'll see what see if paul can convince me we'll see we'll see i'm sure i'm sure he can slash i don't think think he's bothered about convincing you, James.

What at all?

It's the last episode of the series, James.

Wow.

Time flies when you're doing a series of a podcast.

It sure does.

That's the phrase.

I can't believe it.

What series is this?

Seven.

Seven?

Seven series.

What do you reckon?

Ten and done?

No, I don't think so.

You used to say that about episodes, though, didn't you?

Ten and done.

Yeah.

Yeah, I did.

Not going to happen, mate.

Not ten and done at all.

Oh, man.

Keep on going.

Fair enough.

Hey, and here's exciting things I'm on tour yeah still you're listening to this I've got more tour dates coming up in September October and November he's added new ones I've added new ones going back to some places that we did very well in last time going to some new places doing a massive London date at the Hammersmith Apollo I'm going to Dublin and Belfast I'm going to Glasgow I'm going to Reading.

I'm going everywhere, James.

Which wedding venue?

Hexagon.

Love a hexagon.

Thank you.

Have a good time there.

Thank you very much.

Yeah.

Edgamble.co.uk for tickets.

But now, without further ado, let's hear the off-menu menu of Paul Hollywood.

Welcome, Paul, to the dream restaurant.

I like it.

You ruined my fucking life!

Now, James, that's not how you introduce the guest, is it?

I'm scared.

Can I leave?

Sorry, I've evaporated

out of the lamp, very in a, in a bit of a mood.

Sorry, Paul.

You've got an angry genie today.

Sorry, Paul.

Ruined my life.

James, give Paul a proper introduction.

Welcome to a dream restaurant.

I've been speaking for some time.

I can't remember you being in the bake-off tent, James.

What?

It's all I hear.

Noon till night.

Noon till night.

Did you get a handshake?

Did you get a handshake?

No.

No.

Not even off-camera.

You're very...

This is what the the listeners don't know.

Is that off-camera, you're very stingy with that?

Because you're like, you know that your handshake means something.

So you're like, no, no, no, no, no, no.

You don't get it.

Not with us.

Not with our group that was on.

What?

It was handshakes all day.

I think everybody got a game.

I was too cocky, maybe.

I don't know what it was.

I didn't get no handshake.

It was...

I tell you what, I didn't get a handshake for my bakes.

Do you remember what you did on your sick?

What you signature bake?

What did you do?

What are you talking about?

You played double me?

James, you're going to have to have a normal conversation at some point during this episode.

I can't remember what I did.

It's just like someone murdered my family.

And it's just like, oh, what?

I've murdered so many people, I can't remember.

But think how many episodes of Bake Off that Paul has done since your episode.

I did flapjack.

I did a bake well flapjack and it didn't go well.

And you may have warned me.

How did you screw up that?

Well, you may not remember that it was a flapjack because it certainly didn't look like a flapjack.

This is the most insulting thing.

I love it.

This couldn't have gone any better for me.

You came along and you told me

my mix looked too wet.

And I was all like, haha, that's because it's not baked yet, Paul, you're silly Billy.

And then it came out and I couldn't get it to, it was just a mush.

It was like porridge.

And you tasted it and to be fair, you told me that the flavour was nice.

Well, bakeball flavour, you can't go wrong.

Yeah.

But obviously, you know, it was a soup, so it was hard for you to say good flapjack.

And then we had to do cream horns for the technical.

That's right.

Yeah.

No.

That's right.

Do you think

that is unfair?

No, it's dead easy.

People didn't know.

That's not dead easy.

It was a rough buff.

What's harder?

Cream horns or raspberry donuts?

Oh, the doughnuts by the market.

I thought so.

Yeah.

You're dealing with yeast.

You're dealing with something that wants to live and grow and run out of the tent.

I haven't watched this episode because I've still got PTSD.

So

I'm not watching any of them.

Cream horns, man.

That is hard.

That is like, they do them in patisseries.

And donuts?

No, they don't do donuts in patisseries.

You had to go to part of a pastry school in France so that they do a cream horn.

We probably both hoped, James, that we had some sort of great book to help us out when we were doing bake-off.

Yes, I wish I personally could have bought the book Bake by Paul Hollywood, but it wasn't out back then.

And the only baking book you'll ever need.

That's the title.

I like to think that.

And the main reason being exactly, the book was written during lockdown, mainly last year.

And

Noel was going off to his room to write his script.

Matt was doing the same.

Prue was writing her porn or whatever she was doing.

And I think ultimately I thought I need to write a book, more of an updated book actually, because the classic recipes I've chosen are, for me, classics and they've been in the bake-off for years.

But it was with the twist of more chocolate, more this.

There's more ingredients around now than there was, you know, years ago when I was writing my first book.

So it was time to update them and get them tweaked and get them spot on.

For me,

it covers all the bases, Danish croissant breads, the lot, you know.

Gringhawns?

No.

No, no,

too hard.

You can't expect a novice to do that.

Because that's too easy.

We have to do it hard stuff.

That's in his kids' baking book.

I can teach myself.

I'm not laughing at that.

Are the recipes written as you would write the technicals?

No, no, no, no, no.

It's all there.

All the methods there.

And for me, it was fun because I tested it on a few friends as well.

So I sent out some of the recipes to friends.

I said, crack on with this.

See how you get on.

And they all came back with good results.

So

I gave them a little judging to see what they were like.

And I should have sent you a few, shouldn't I?

Yeah, you should have.

That could have been, I mean, what a promo for this book, that would have been.

Yeah.

Make these guys.

People thought if Acaster couldn't cook these, then clearly I can as well.

Yeah, but it was never going to happen, was it?

No, no, Paul's never willing to risk that.

If I get a book, I'll send it to the worst person ever in the tent.

Well, you can't even remember me, apparently.

No, I do remember you in the tent, just can't remember you.

But I'm just a blank them out.

Do you know what I tried to do in the tent at one point, and they cut out the edit, and it was annoying.

I tried to trap you under a box.

Yeah.

And

Vylan and I got me put, because you were stealing my dolly mixtures.

I had some dolly mixtures.

Oh, yeah, they were nice then.

You love them.

I do.

You would take a dolly mixture and you would look at me with your rock pull eyes

and you would pop a dolly mixture in your mouth and you're like, what are you going to do?

You'd look at me like, what are you going to do about that?

Nothing, I guess.

But then me and Rylan got a little dish of Donny Mixtures, put them on the floor under a box that we had propped up with a stick,

and then tied a little string to the stick and I hid behind a bin.

And Rylan was shouting you, going, Paul, Hollywood.

And then eventually you came round and you looked at the Donny Mixtures under the box and you looked at me and went, not falling for that.

And you walked away.

I'm not falling for that.

Do you know what that says to me, Paul?

Well, it says that some people weren't concentrating enough on their baking.

It's saying they're not spending enough time reading the recipes.

This was during the showstopper at the end.

Right.

And you had time on the showstopper to listen to the best.

I'd already shanked it.

There was nothing to play for.

I iced an egg in that one.

Yeah.

I put some icing on an egg and said it was proof.

So, you know.

She's more than an egg.

She is more than an egg.

She's more than an egg.

Do people get scared of baking for you just in your life, like friends and family?

Yeah, I think they do a little.

I remember once, a few moons ago now, I was invited to a dinner party and it was someone's birthday.

And I remember going to the

sort of garden.

There was a few people sort of gathered.

So I sort of walked in.

And then the cake came out.

And she said to me, have a look at the cake and judge it like you do Bake Off.

And I said, okay.

So I looked at the cake and I said, that's a great cake.

Love what you've done with the colour.

Decoration looks good.

And actually, Steve, I want to see the texture.

It looks fantastic.

And she said, no, no, no, no, do it properly.

I went, what do you mean?

She goes, do it properly like you're doing bake-off.

Went, okay, bring it up to me then.

So she brought it up and said, the ganache is all over the place.

It's the wrong colour.

It's sunk in the middle and it tastes and smells disgusting.

She never spoke to me for eight months.

Goodbye.

Be careful what you wish for.

Yeah, exactly.

She can't do it.

Exactly.

Exactly.

When we go to parties, people are like, pick it up with the front row.

Yeah.

And Ed is very brutal.

Brutal.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, terrible.

Yeah, I'm horrible.

Don't get invited to parties anymore.

Yeah.

I always find it difficult.

You know, if you go to a restaurant, when the pudding comes, they sort of wait and and go.

And I go, and you go, chefs in the batch sort of know what you think.

Or the bread roll turns up.

Yeah.

That's even worse.

It's right at the beginning.

I know.

So it's at the beginning and at the end.

Yeah.

Gosh.

But I said, no, you should have bought a copy of my book, Bake.

Yeah, yeah.

Then you'll be able to tell.

Which is out on the 9th of June, 2022, of course.

9th of June, 2022.

Put it in your diary.

I'll send you a copy lad.

I'll make sure you get a copy, don't worry.

Do you know what?

I will actually then attempt.

No, you've got to bake from it.

You have to.

They are all tested.

They're all proven.

They all work.

I want you to get into baking, James.

I know you bake all the time, Ed.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's good.

I think, I mean, a lot of people in my family were texting me saying I was robbed, Paul.

I don't know how you feel about that.

Who won?

Example.

Yeah.

I mean, to be honest, Matt.

Matt did a good job.

Well, he didn't win.

Okay.

He got a handshake.

He got a handshake because he bullied it out of you.

Well, no, he didn't.

On his biscuits.

Because Prue said don't give him a handshake.

I i had to give him a handshake yeah his biscuits were fine his takewig was the best uh but his signature was a disaster yeah he did a version of himself lying on a sofa and then what actually happened tasted good

he looked horrible all i remember is i think everyone did pretty well on the signature and i remember we were standing outside and elliot uh example um cornered you and went paul would you say this is the best the celebrities have ever been and you went well i don't really know he went paul would you say that this is the best the celebrities have ever been and you went yeah fine i would say that.

And then about an hour later, he came up to me and went, Paul just said this is the best a celebrity remember the mic.

Example sounds intense.

Yeah, he was.

He was as well.

His doughnuts were all right.

Yeah.

I mean, everyone screwed up their donuts, to be honest.

Yeah, because it's really hard, not like cream horns.

Oh, well, fucking hell.

You, you son of a bitch.

I tell you what.

I would rather a doughnut, from what I can just tell, is a ball

baker a ball of bread with some jam in it.

It's a ball of bread that someone's injected some jam into.

Yeah, that's all it is.

I don't understand your point.

That's exactly what it is.

Yeah, that's all it is.

Cream horns.

Cream horns.

There's so much skill.

You've got to do these pastry horns.

You've got to dip the end in chocolate.

You've got to have the cream on the inside.

There was other stuff that I failed to do along it.

Was it the crystallized

lemon or orange?

I don't know, there might have been.

I mean, for all I know, I mean, Ryan was doing all of that stuff.

My one, I ended up having to serve it to you deconstructed.

And you tried all the ones and you didn't know who had made what, but you looked at me as you were eating that one because you were like, ooh, I know this is you.

I know you did this shit.

Look, you complain about it, but you got, how long's that routine you got out of the bake-off?

That was about a 15-minute routine

in my last stand-up show.

Yeah, it went pretty well.

Very, very, very good routine.

People like that routine.

And I'm a meme now because you probably don't even know that.

No.

You probably don't even know that you and I are a meme together.

No, what's that?

It's me showing you my flapjacks.

And it's just a, this is what I actually said.

So they put, started making it, had a breakdown bon appetite, because that's what I said to you.

Yeah.

And people used it to be like, you know, me handing in my coursework or whatever.

Yeah.

You know, and there's you and Prue and Sandy looking at me with, not with sympathy, actually.

Glee in your eyes.

Sympathy's probably more the case.

Yeah.

A little bit.

I think your horns were flat, weren't they?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The horns, they wasn't a horn.

You know.

Do you find that difficult?

Yeah, yeah.

That's a mirror as well.

Not a lot of men my age, actually, not a lot of people talk about it.

People are posting the picture of your cream horns going, when you've had eight points.

We always start with still or sparkling water, Paul.

Do you have a preference?

Still all the time.

All the time.

I don't understand sparkling.

Apparently, it's quite fattening as well isn't it sparkling water go on yeah is it it's certainly bloats feel bloated after a sparkle i think still water is yeah for me every time i haven't heard that have we had that take on the podcast i think we might have done that i i heard something now i the the source was not trustworthy that something about the bubbles like calories or fat kings onto the bubbles that's interesting really yeah somebody might look into that yeah i mean it's almost certainly not true it sounds like a complete lie doesn't it and greg davis told me that so it's not yeah well he's yeah

he's he's a big dummy.

Because I guess you're the taskmaster of the tent, aren't you?

Yeah, I don't think Prue and I think Prue neither taskmasters for sure.

Prue is a lot more welcoming, I feel.

When Prue comes over to judge, I'm like, well, whatever Prue says, if she says it in a nice way, then I'll probably take it.

Whereas you're very exacting.

Well, I'm very honest.

Yeah, I don't like that.

Well, Prue is very sometimes.

I mean, there has been some weird bakes in the tent that, I mean, I remember seeing some piping, some orange chocolate piping, it was on top of a cake, and it literally looked like something my dog could do in the garden.

And it looked like, you know, it looked like, and I had a rock violer at the time, 11 stone rock viola.

So you can imagine what the cake looked like.

Wow.

Rylan's cake looked like that at the end.

The showstopper just looked like a big poo.

It did look like a big poo.

It was meant to be a mountain, I think, but it just looked like a big dump.

Thing is, when you say it's something that your dog could have done, I'd imagine your dog's a bit more skilled with piping than other dogs.

Yeah, well, yeah, your dogs.

My people

could have done it too.

built on his tea towel holder.

I think he just lets go sometimes.

So I think that's what I was getting at.

Have you ever judged one of those?

Not an appearance.

Be quite a nervous dog.

Most dogs look nervous when they go for a dump, let alone if they're getting judged on it.

Well, they want that.

Oh, he's going to score me on this.

There's no way I'm getting a handshake.

I'm not one of those good dogs who's learned how to give him my paw.

That's all going to go to waste.

That is the most tragic image ever.

A dog who's learned how to give his paw, holding it up and you just ignoring him.

Hold it up.

No,

that was an awful shit.

So you don't get the paw.

Do you teach your dogs to give the paw?

Because that's a big deal.

No, I'm a Hollywood handshake.

Do they appreciate what they're getting?

Probably not.

But no, he was pretty good at that.

The Rotty was pretty good at that.

Do you ever do it in public and people went past and went, whoa, that dog must be great about basic?

That That dog was about

such a great cake.

I think ultimately you do get a lot of people try and approach me, you know, for a handshake, whether it's, you know, guy coming in, fixing some plumbing, whatever.

And then they go like that.

And you're going, what am I shaking your hand for?

Where's the cake?

Yeah.

Show me the cake.

But I get a lot of people, you know, wanted to shake my hand, which I find bizarre.

I'm not quite sure.

It all started, I think, series three.

And it was just well done.

You know, it's just a well done.

You've done a great job.

And it's sort of gone on from there, really.

I don't know why it's got to this position of the moment.

I mean, it's a great moment.

I love it every time it happens.

What I like is that just before the handshake, there's a look.

So you'll be eating it and you'll look to the floor and you're thinking,

how do I feel about this?

And then you look up at them and your eyes have this little smile in them.

And at that point, it would be cruel not to give them the handshake.

That look is going, I'm about to shake your hand.

And they're like, oh my God, I can't believe that this is going to happen.

And if at that point you went, thanks very much, and walked away, they would probably

do that before.

I've gotten to that point where I was just about to, and I actually pushed myself to that position.

Yeah.

And then I noticed one of the cakes on the left-hand side had collapsed slightly.

And my hand was literally just to come to the table.

And they were, and I could see their eyes on me.

It looked like fried eggs.

And I went, nice one.

Pop it on sore bread.

Pop it on sore bread, Paul Hollywood.

Well, pop it up so bread.

Briskly, I've got to go bread.

He's got to go bread.

But then what type of bread?

Yeah, this is the thing.

It depends where I'm eating.

I quite like a good seeded roll with wholemeal flour.

Because that with butter on the side is just delicious.

But it's got to be baked properly.

Crispy on the outside, a little bit softer on the inside, but with lots of nuts.

When did you start to notice, like, you know, that you had a bit of a...

eye for or a palate for like this kind of when with with with bread especially or baking and going i can tell that this is not as good good as the one i had last time or you know um well my dad was a baker so i grew up you know in and around bread and my dad bacon at home and stuff i used to be a saturday lad as well so i sort of go into the bakery first thing in the morning on a saturday morning help house so i think bacon generally baking bread is a is an art form that's quite difficult to master once you've mastered bread making i think other elements of bacon fairly straightforward but you do know when something's underprewed because it it looks heavy or it's split down at the bottom, and you can tell by the crust as it's splintered, as it's it stayed solid.

And so, you know straight away before even cutting into it, what it's like some sourdough when they do the split deliberately on the top.

Oh, yeah, that's doing correctly tricking you because they're like, Oh, yeah, but you can tell by the split how it's proved as well, just by how it's split.

Oh, wow, that's quite normal as well.

I do make sourdough at home quite a lot, and um, it's getting that slash right, yeah.

Um,

Talking about your dog again.

Yeah.

You're in sourdough, haven't you?

Split and split the top.

I've not done sourdough.

What?

Have I?

I've never made sourdough.

That's really difficult.

I dreams about egg.

Yeah, no, I've never made sourdough.

Dreams about egg baked and stuff.

The thing is, we've got so many nice bakers near us, so it sort of feels a bit weird doing bad.

You're based in London.

Yeah, yeah.

All right, okay.

Yeah, well, yeah, there's loads of them around here.

Yeah, yeah.

Where do you really like if you were going to buy some bread rather than make it, where's your favourite bread from?

I don't buy sourdough bread.

I mean, I used to go to Poulane, which is a very good bakery, Chelseaway.

And

I met one of the owners originally years ago, and their bread is very French.

It's very heavy.

It's got rye in it.

It's been around for like 30, 40 years.

It's beautiful.

And I do like their sourdough.

I think it's very good.

And San Francisco is the other one, but that's a long way to go.

Yeah.

Yeah, the guys over in San Francisco make some incredible sourdough.

I'm going to San Francisco in May.

You're going to love it.

Have you been there before?

I've been there, yeah, very briefly before, but we're there for a few days.

Go to Tartin's.

Tartine.

Tartine.

Go and check out the bakery.

And just go in there if you're

a judge.

Yeah.

I'll phone him.

I'll say, I've got a top baker coming over.

Yeah, one of my scouts is coming over.

I was thinking of Jon Favreau.

He's the one who did the who made sourdough.

Do you got me mixed up with Jon Favreau?

Yeah, yeah.

I watched Jon Favreau's

show on Netflix, and at one point, he visited some bakers who were making sourdough, and he was showing them on his phone the sourdough that he had made and how he got the split.

And that's who I mixed you up with.

But why did you mix me up with Jon Favreau?

I just remembered that someone I respect.

I thought that's very well done on getting out of that.

And they sourdough.

I just thought it's quite a you think, yeah, it's quite feasibly something that you would do as well.

I definitely do the thing where I show a picture of it.

I definitely take a picture of it and go, look at this, James.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

And you probably stick on your Instagram and say, look what I've been baking.

Yeah, and I tag you in it, Paul.

Yeah, of course, yeah.

And then the handshake of me, she comes over.

I did that.

I think Blake Lively,

she did a cake and sort of DM'd me in on the on the on the whole thing on Instagram saying, Well, I hope this deserves a handshake.

So I saw it.

In fact, someone phoned me up and said, Have you seen this?

I said, What?

So I came out and said, Well done with a handshake.

And then she plastered it all over the feeder story.

I was going, Wow, you know, that's incredible.

That's what it means, man.

Dude, during COVID, you weren't able to do as many handshakes, I'd imagine.

No, no.

People don't talk about some of the biggest victims of covid

uh judging they couldn't shake people's hands bake off contestants yeah bake-off contestants who just had to guess if it was good or not yeah no we did we did in lockdown we did that lockdown so everyone was tested so i was all right to do it of course yeah because you were all together in the in the hotel right yeah it was weird seven and a half weeks yeah in full lockdown in a hotel was odd yeah you know we couldn't leave couldn't leave the grounds we were sort of

you know, basically stapled within this area.

And, I mean, it's, there's worse places to be.

Yeah.

But seven and a half weeks is a long time did they have in that situation did they have like a pract they had a practice ten yeah yeah the bakers could practice so they did two days on two days off and in those two days they were busy practicing yeah i mean my whole thing was just two days overall i can't imagine 17 and a half weeks or whatever you just said

having to get up and do practice bakes at a time i'd even argue whether it's two days to be honest

i didn't know what was going on did you you didn't practice at all though did you i did one little practice run-through with my sister I went to my sister's house.

She taught me to make the Bakewell flapjack.

Oh, this is the other awkward thing, family-wise, is that James' sister runs a flapjack company, and he basically

disgraced the flapjack.

Well, bear in mind, though, at that point, she didn't.

So she did the practice bake with me.

She loved doing the

Bakewell flapjack.

I told her what I wanted to do.

I told her.

But you said you want to do a Bakewell.

Yes, I said,

because back in the day when I worked at a school, I would get the tube every morning, I'd get a flapjack from the station, and the Bakewell ones are my favorite ones.

And I'd eat that, and then I'd get to the other side of the tube, and then I'd get a Danish.

So that was my morning.

And I really love the bakewell flapjack.

So I said to my sister, let's make a bakewell one.

So she had to, like, figure it out.

And we did a practice batch, and it was delicious.

And she'd enjoyed it so much.

She was like, I'm going to try and make more different.

You had the icing on the top.

Yeah, it was meant to be.

There wasn't any icing on the top.

I didn't get down to that.

No, no.

I was meant to put icing on the top.

I don't remember now.

It's all flooding back.

That didn't even happen.

I think they even kept it for the grace of God.

They kept it out of the edit that I was going to do icing on it just to be nice to me.

But that's what she does.

And yeah, so now she's got her own flapjack company, Fabjax.

And she started doing it.

And

it's mad that I kind of almost disgraced the company before it even started.

But also, it's why the company is it.

I'll get to send you a batch, Paul.

Yeah, I'd like to try.

My favorite thing is a bakewell tartar.

I love it.

Absolutely.

That's even worse.

It was there for the take it.

It was there for the take.

They told me that as well.

When I said to them, I'm doing bake quote once, they were like, oh, Paul loves that.

I was like, great.

That's true.

I would have done.

I was like, try and love this, Hollywood.

Well, I practice all of mine quite a lot, Paul.

I practice my, I did gingerbread skulls with.

They were all right.

Yeah, but they were very soft.

And when you catch them, you went, oh, they're a bit soft.

And in my head, I went, yeah, I know, that's how I practice them.

Every single time they were soft.

And my family was so...

Yeah, but your flavours...

No, your flavours were spot on.

Another five, ten minutes would have been absolutely perfect.

But I didn't have that five or ten minutes because for the first five or ten minutes, I accidentally put icing sugar in instead of flour.

Wow, that is stupid.

That is one of the most embarrassing things that's ever been said on this planet.

You would have liked them.

Yeah, I would have thought they were delicious, actually.

It's third down.

Did you see the game last night?

Of course you did, because you used Instacart to do your grocery restock.

Plus, you got snacks for the game, all without missing a single play.

And that's on multitasking.

So we're not saying that Instacart is a hack for game day, but it might be the ultimate play this football season.

Enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders.

Service fees apply.

For three orders in 14 days.

Excludes restaurants.

Instacart, we're here.

The ocean moves us, surfing a wave or savoring the view.

The ocean delights us as playful otters restore coastal kelp for us.

The ocean connects us.

Visit Monterey BayAquarium.org/slash connects.

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.

Let's get onto your meal proper, your dream meal, your dream starter.

Prawn cocktail.

This is a big one on the pod.

Yeah.

Yeah.

A lot of people loving prawn cocktail.

A lot of chefs, a lot of bakers.

Yeah.

Yeah, loving prawn cocktail.

The reason is, it reminds me when I was a kid, we used to go to Bernie Inn.

Up north, they had Bernie Inn or Schooner Inns.

They're a bit like the harvester of today.

And going there and having a prawn cocktail was in the wine glass.

It's got to be in a wine glass.

And it was just iceberg lettuces and literally just prawns and mari-rose.

Delicious.

And with a bit of brown bread, buttered brown bread.

I think they're fantastic.

Nowadays, you don't.

Well, actually, nowadays, you do see a few of them coming back now into pubs, restaurants.

Every restaurant should have a prawn cocktail.

Love them.

So nowadays they sort of always try and elevate them or go with like the massive mango or pineapple.

Anything like that?

Yeah, but I can't stand having a prawn cocktail.

You know, where they put a full shell prawn on the side.

Oh, yeah.

And you spend the next 10 minutes trying to peel the bloody thing.

And then you're trying to peel in this prawn, chopping it up, trying to mix it with the rest of the Marie-Rose.

Doing It just takes you forever.

Yeah.

And I couldn't be, that's just the lazy chef.

So you like the little prawns?

Oh, yeah.

Just going to have the little Norwegian prawns, the little fellas.

Just defrost them in five minutes and stick them in.

Stick them in a wine glass.

You want a proper old-school Bernie in prawn cocktail?

Absolutely.

With a little bit of paprika on the top.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You've got to have the paprika on the top.

Yeah, it sets it off very nicely.

Yeah.

Do you like prawn cotton?

Is it prawn cottage one of yours?

Yeah, yeah, but I've only, I've not had it much.

And I think I like the bigger prawns or like the what would they be that are about the size of a about the size of a two-pound coin prawns.

Those ones are the little Norwegian shrimp prawn things.

I like them to be a bit beefy.

I don't like the little tiny tiny little ones in the bag that you get out of the freezer.

They they wind me up.

I don't want them.

Why do they wind you up?

They're too small.

They've not got enough flavour.

I like the ones that are like, you know, popcorn shrimp kind of like proper, nice ones.

I know what you mean.

And the lettuce, I would like it to be as fine,

shredded and nice.

I don't like it when you get a big flappy lettuce leaf in there.

There's no way to do it.

It's like trying to figure out how to eat.

You've got a fork because when you go into your mouth, and then you end up going, oh, I'm just throwing that whole lettuce leaf in your mouth.

No, I like you.

And it's flicking up Mari Rose into your arms.

And it's burning with that paprika assistant.

You might have squeezed some lemon juice in there beforehand.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

But yeah, shredded lettuce is a must.

Yeah, shredded lettuce.

You squeeze a lemon in there?

I would have a little squeeze of lemon, yeah.

Just over the top of the paprika yeah yeah so where the paprika sits on the top a little squeeze just so it dampens the uh paprika and then a little stir you're not washing your paprika off the prawns no no no because i think when you've got it in there i mean i like a pint of them i mean a pint prawn cocktail would be fantastic but you need one of those massive you know spoons yeah but i love the idea of getting your spoon in there and then you almost fold the whole thing together to make sure everything's coated with that mayro sauce and then you get tucked in so absolutely i'm imagining a big pint glass but one with with a handle that's like dimpled.

Why wouldn't I be a pint glass?

Yeah, yeah.

And then you've got like a Knickerbocker glory spoon to eat it with, right?

Yeah.

Oh, I'd be in heaven.

And that is a starter.

Yeah.

I like you coating it all beforehand.

That's what I like to do.

You have to.

When you have a bowl of cereal,

I always have to dunk all the cereals on the top.

Yeah, I don't.

Get it all in the milk.

I don't want no dry cereal in there.

Yeah, but then I have to wait.

I wait then for five minutes to soak up the milk a little bit.

Yeah, yeah.

Especially on a shreddy.

You know, you've coated them and you just got to wait.

Just be careful.

Why like a variety of texture?

So I'll leave some dry bits on the top for cereal and then I'll have the wet ones at the bottom.

So I've got like all different things happening in my mouth.

How do we feel about that?

I'm not against it.

It's just not what I would do.

I mean, you tend to get rid of the ones at the top pretty quick.

Yeah.

And then you start digging down to the sort of semi-permeable ones.

They're down at the bottom, they're like mush.

Yeah, then you've got the mush stuff at the bottom.

As a kid, I remember taking spoons full of shreddies and you start with one

and then you go to two and then three and you see how many you can get in your mouth on what's your record spoon about 22 22 shreddies

not to be sniffed at no

i'm just gonna get a t-shirt done yeah good

i stayed at a comedian's house once when i was in open spot so just starting out in stand-up and uh of course you've got an anecdote about shreddies yep it's so this is so up your sleeve

he let me stay around his house even though he didn't know me and then the morning he was like do you want to have some shreddies i was like yeah he went he went do you want them warmed up in the microwave i was like what the no?

What?

No, I do not.

Wait, you haven't farley's rusk.

Yeah, exactly.

This guy, he warmed up his bowl of shreddies in the microwave, and then he sat in front of me and then he mushed it all up with his spoon before he ate.

It's the most disgusting thing.

Even though he had done me a kindness and let me stay over his house, I hated him.

I would do that with Wheatabix.

We wouldn't have warm milk.

Yeah.

But I would mess up, I would smash up my wheat bix once I got the milk in there.

Uh-huh.

I'd do that.

The problem when you do that is when you've got milk on, the milk just goes into the wheat bix and just vanishes.

Yeah, it just absorbs it up.

It's like a sponge.

Yeah.

Yeah, they should use wheatbixes in like floods and stuff absolutely just just layers and layers of it across all the beaches that's why catman's never been flooded

pretty good man we just we just surround ourselves with it the bicks

your dream main course now this is a weird one yeah souvlagi ah now i lived in cyprus for six years and a souvlaghi is the best meal ever.

I mean, it's pretty simple.

It's basically just a, it's a Greek Cypriot pitter bread, so it's quite thick.

Inside, you've got a bit of cabbage, a bit of lettuce, tomatoes, onions,

oregano, loads and loads of neck of pork, which are cubed, and then they're basically over a barbecue charcoal.

So they're nice and caramelized.

And then you've got red wine and oregano and salt on top of that.

in it squeeze the lemon juice across the top boom honestly it i lived off them in Cyprus.

And every time I go there, and I go there a lot,

it's direct line.

I go, there's a couple of takeaways down there, I know, and I'm straight down it.

I want it in the paper as well.

Yeah.

And you have to just tear off the top and tuck it.

And actually, it's quite healthy.

It's griddled meat.

Yeah, yeah.

Barbecued meat and small pieces of pork.

And then you've got salad all the way through it.

It's fantastic.

Oh, I love that sort of food so much.

I love that.

Yeah, Greek Cypriot food and all stuff from Russia.

I mean, you can keep your steaks.

I mean, I did think lobster, steak, pasta, risotto.

And I came back to souvlaki.

Just something simple and tastes amazing.

I had an embarrassing thing last week where I was home in something, and one of the runners was like, What do you want for lunch?

And I was like, Their delivery options.

So he was told me through the delivery options.

And he was just reading out the sometimes that he'd read out the cuisine, sometimes he'd read out the name of the place.

And there was a place called Souvlaiki that did souvlaki.

But you, but you like it.

But there were, but you like you.

So he said

Souvlaki.

And I went, it's pronounced Souf.

I corrected him.

And he was like, I know how it's pronounced.

That's the name of the place.

I was like, I'm sorry, mate.

Sorry.

I didn't mean to.

He didn't like you that.

He didn't like you that.

I was like,

you were being disrespectful to that guy.

And he was like, nope, I'm not being disrespectful.

They've named their place there.

I would go as far as to say I've never corrected a runner on their pronunciation.

No, no, I felt a bit bad.

I mean, I was getting on with him quite well.

I was at that point where I was like, me and this guy,

we get on.

I can say to him, because I thought he was struggling with the penalty.

I thought he was like,

I was like, I'll help him out.

But it came across like I was going.

Yeah.

It's pretty good.

It's too late.

I didn't go for that in the end.

I went for Nando's.

You know?

Which he pronounced Nando's, but it was too late to.

I'll let it go.

I never had a Nando's till last year.

First one.

Really?

First one ever.

Yeah.

What'd you think?

It was all right.

The Piri Piri one, I think.

The Piri Piri one.

Yeah, it was all.

They're all Piri Piri.

Oh, it's all Piri Piri.

It was all right.

It wasn't over the moon.

Would you have like a half chicken or like a...

I think it was just pieces.

I think it was just little nuggets.

Thighs?

The boneless.

It could have been the thighs, actually.

It was brought onto set because someone said, oh, what are you having?

They're going out for somebody to eat.

I went.

Go on, I'll have a Nando's then.

And I did sort of leave it with someone.

I said, well, I like chicken.

Choose whatever.

And I just got this plethora of stuff.

It was all right.

It was okay.

I love

the idea of a runner and nandas going, Paul just ordered a Nando's.

That was definitely what he was.

What truly represents the entirety of the Nando's menu?

What heat do we got?

What heat level do we go for here?

You like the spicy?

Do you know what?

Recently, I'm doing a project at the moment.

I've just been to this country where I had a lot of chilies.

And I was sitting in front of this guy who, it should be coming out later this year.

I was sitting in front of this guy.

We had four different types of chilies.

And I thought they started with a sort of a bell.

Fine, no problem.

I just went crunch, whatever.

And the guy over there went crunch and fine.

Didn't speak much English.

Came to the next one, and I thought they're going up in grades here.

Yeah.

So the next one I picked it up, thinking, I trust the crew.

Just bit into half this chili.

It was a Serrano chili, which

are hot.

And I went, oh, like I felt it.

This bloke just had two of them straight away.

And I went, right.

The next one I went, I'm going to give it a miss.

Then he gave you a mescale, which is a chili.

with chili powder across the top filled with this like tequila and then you drink the drink and then bite the pepper and i I got sent to the moon.

He'd had six, and then the last one were habaneros, which he had ten.

I just had a nibble at the end, which made my mouth just burn.

He had ten, and we're rubbing him in his eyes.

Oh my god, honestly, rubbing in, rubbing all these habaneros in his eyes.

Is he like a champion

man?

He is, he is.

I've never seen anything like it.

He's like a jackass.

I've never seen anything like it.

And there was no sweat, nothing.

It was incredible.

Chili Klaus.

have you seen chilly klaus no chilly klaus does stuff where he gets like choirs to sing songs and then at one point gets them all to bite into like a carolina reaper or something and then carry on trying to sing while they're like going nuts with all the all the all the fire inside them i get the worst hiccups if i eat spicy stuff yeah but immediately if i eat a spicy thing i just get a hiccups that's pathetic well i get well i get and well i yeah sometimes i know what you mean some foods will do that potato sometimes that's me or burping is just coke any coke yeah literally if i want to burp have a swig of that i'm burping for one ten minutes yeah yeah

comedy one yeah yeah

does put so does potato make your hiccup yeah it does sometimes especially mash don't know why mash does it yeah i should make you up a some mash pool then you'd shake my hand because i'm the mash king oh yeah what you put in there cream yeah salt and pepper butter yeah and a little bit of love and uh i'll mash that all up for you and it will be the best mash you've ever had do you pipe it, whisk it or do you just fold it together?

I just use the classic masher

and I'm just there and I'll mash it away and then when you have that mash you won't get the hiccups because that's how good it is and you'll shake my hand.

To put cheese in it as well.

Yes.

Okay.

Do you?

Yeah.

Which

little bit of love.

Yeah I do put cheese in it.

I've bought that up for the podcast before and been pulled up on it.

Yeah.

I think the best cheese I found was the more like orangey cheddar cheese.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

That was the best.

Interesting, okay.

When I was the mash king.

I put a little bit of parmesan in there just a little bit maybe i'll try which is quite nice

i'm not i'm not against that i find it sets off most pasta dishes yeah that's it does what mashed potato

yeah

or that orangey cheddar yeah

don't go to his soul

lasagna with loads of orange cheddar and

i don't think we've talked about the savaki enough i think that's quite exciting oh yeah i mean have you ever been to cyprus no i mean it's it is different to the greek islands and and Greece.

It is a totally separate country.

Most people think it's just one of the islands, but it's not.

It's in the far east of the Med.

And souvlagi is one of those things that once you've tried it, if you enjoy pork, and I like it beautifully caramelized, it's delicious.

Souvlagi are the little pieces.

Souvla are the big pieces of the neck.

So it's sort of fist size.

And basically, you caramelize that of a charcoal.

And honestly, you just...

Wow.

Wow.

It's just the best food in the world.

Yeah, the ironic thing of this,

I'm pronouncing it wrong.

I think I'm saying souvlaki.

It is souv, s-o-u-v-l-a-k-i.

Souvlagi.

Laggy.

Yeah.

So there we go.

I corrected the runner.

Oh, no, no laggy.

Oh, no.

I don't lick that.

I don't lick that very much.

I don't lick it.

I've been, we used to go on family holidays to Cyprus a lot.

Yeah.

And it is, the food is just incredible.

And I was, because I was a fat little boy, it was just, it was perfect.

I'm the other way around.

I was a skinny little lad.

And Now I'm a fat bloke.

So I think ultimately...

I'm halfway down that journey.

We used to go to a restaurant called Aruzos Taverna in Cyprus, and you'd go and

they just bring out the food.

Like Mese.

Yeah, like, but like everything.

Yeah.

And then you're like, oh, this is so much food.

I'm so full.

And then they bring out a full roast chicken and roast potatoes.

And then your dessert comes.

Yeah, just in heaven.

But the thing is, when the mese comes, it always makes me laugh.

They used to come and you'd live there a while, so you know where you are in the mese, you know, you're quarterway through, half of it, through.

And when friends used to come, they'd start talking in, they'd go, oh, it's the mezzan, come another bit of pitter bread.

And they're just waffing it down with the teramasalata and umis and all the other dips.

And they're really packing it, and then another dish will come with potatoes.

They're going, oh, yummy.

And then by the end, the main course got in now.

The main course, I was the starter.

They went, what?

And they feel quite ill at the end of it.

Yeah, yeah, perfect.

But then just fruit comes at the end, just melon, just one big melon.

I love that.

Do you think teramasilata is best said in a Liverpool accent?

I think so.

I think it works.

You really went for it, though.

Yeah, Thermos.

I think it's just perfect, right?

I don't really ever want to hear it in another accent.

I think it came from Liverpool originally.

Did it?

Yeah.

I believe that.

It came from Bootle.

I believe that.

I think it's the only dip that sounds better in the Liverpool accent.

I think so.

The only dip, yeah.

Yeah, I try to think of other ones.

I can't, yeah, I think you might be right, Ed.

Well, Hermus to Ziki.

Taziki, you might.

That might be quite good.

Tziki.

No, Tziki's.

It's really to get you.

You can't get your mouth round.

Yeah, you need all those A's, don't you?

Yeah, yeah.

You need the A's.

Humus.

Umus?

Yeah.

Hummus, I like to hear it in a Dudley accent, I think.

Humus?

Yeah, I think

that's more fun.

There's a whole other spin-off podcast we could do.

Just different dips and just finding the right accent for each dip.

The Big Dipper.

Yeah, the Big Dipper.

We'll call it that.

Also, before we move on, little joke I was going to do and then didn't do.

You said that Cyprus is a separate country.

I was going to say Cypriot country.

A little pun.

Yeah, pretty good.

You didn't do that.

Yeah, yeah.

Could have been pretty embarrassing.

You could end it there now, can't you?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, Benito, we'll turn the volume up on that.

You say it's obviously like a separate country.

Is the cuisine very distinct from Greek cuisine?

It's just slightly different.

And they have a few more things.

There's a Turkish influence as well.

Yeah, so I was going to say, is that coming up?

And more Middle Eastern as well.

Yeah.

You've got this sort of Middle East coming in as well.

So I just think

it is Greek,

but with Middle Eastern you know, little twists to it as well.

But I do, I do love the island, I go there a lot, I just think it's a beautiful place, beautiful island.

I love a lot of friends there, so it's nice going.

I can hide up in the mountains, you know, and just disappear for a bit.

It's lovely.

My girlfriend's dad used to live there, and he's a pilot.

Akratiri, huh?

Akratiri, or was it a pilot in the RAF?

Got no idea what you're talking about.

Acrateri is similar to Taramisolata.

Oh, right.

He goes with chips.

Yeah, yeah.

Paputiri.

Commercial pilot, I believe.

Oh, right.

But like,

he would go in his little

private plane round and just fly around Cyprus and enjoy it.

And he would fly people there.

And when I first met him, I said to him,

I basically talked to my girlfriend's dad, like he's a guest on the podcast.

I said, once you drop people off, do you fly to the other side of the island where people can't see you and do a loop-the-loop?

I can't imagine the conversation he had with your girlfriend after you'd left the room.

Well,

is this guy all right?

No, I tell you what,

he didn't say that because when I asked him that, his eyes lit up and he didn't, and he went, yes.

What?

He went, I do that all the time.

He said, I go and fly to the other end of the island, and people can't see at the other end of the island, and I do loop the loops.

That's what he does.

So he's having you on, man.

My kind of guy.

No, no, no.

If you met him, you'd be like, oh, yeah.

He does do that.

Like, I've really landed on my feet with him.

Yeah, great.

Your dream side dish.

This is a tricky one, this one.

Side dishes with a soulagi is very different, but to be honest, it's very difficult to pick apart a portion of chips.

You know, but again,

when I say chips, you get restaurant chips and you get chippy chips.

Now, chippy chips growing up were I remember my mum was a terrible cook.

I mean, really bad.

I mean, really bad.

We'd say, what's for for dinner?

She'd go, go and look in the freezer.

And it was literally like that every day.

We're trying to defrost the whole chicken in half an hour.

It just didn't happen.

But ultimately,

I do think chippy chips, I like the sogginess of a chippy chip.

I mean, yeah, it's all nice to have these crispy little French fries, which I like with lots of different flavours and stuff on the top.

It's fine.

But chippy chips, soggy, chippy chips.

And from Liverpool.

or in the Wirral, well, anywhere up north, actually, anywhere north of Watford, where you get a bag of chips and you can stick huge sausages inside it and then gravy as well yeah and let it soak all the way through and just have a wooden spoon on the way back yeah i mean i say chips is pretty generic but i always aim towards even if you ran to the chippy for me and if i was having my dream meal with me sweov laggy and you got me some soggy chips on the side i'd be happy is there a particular chippy um there's a couple of chippies actually up north um and i'm not too sure whether they're still around there's one in wallasey village that was particularly good uh where i grew up and they were brilliant i think it was mayflower or may queen i think it was called they did great chips really good chips and there's one in belvedere road as well in wallase which was which i don't think that's there now but they did fantastic chips but again it's that sogginess in the keeping it in the bag and they sort of sweat in the bag a bit and yeah i want that sort of put me and it just falls apart and how much vinegar are you going vinegar on i go vinegar and i go salt and vinegar for sure uh salt first yeah uh then vinegar and then yeah i just yeah are you saturating them with the vinegar

Not necessarily, because at the time when they seal the bag up, they're quite crispy.

And then the vinegar sort of drops down a bit like a plunk, you know, it sort of goes all the way down to the bottom.

Yeah.

And then it's soggy, then it gets a bit soggy.

So you can turn your chips upside down if you want, and then come back the other way.

Oh, nice.

That's a good technique.

Yeah.

Halfway back.

Halfway back in the side.

Flip them over.

There'll be people doing that now.

I'm thinking they're proper chefs, would they do that?

They'll be halfway back in the car, they'll flip the bag over and go, that's a poor Hollywood yeah it's a poor hollywood man so you've got to be careful like you put the salt vinegar in because if you go like that it's just going to go everywhere everywhere like you're smashing yourself i've seen it that souvlaggy has chips in it sometimes no in the uk not this isn't like authentic

but what do you think about that when people do it well i've never had i've never had a soulagi in this country yeah george funny enough it was on bake off last year he's a cypriot lad He's been inviting me up to his house to come and have souvlagi in his house.

And I make it normally at home.

And I've got a little machine, little Cypriot barbecue machine.

And you your batteries in, and it just revolves these little pieces of pork over the charcoal.

And it's delicious.

So, I like making them at home, so I make my own pitters, and then it's ready.

But, George, being a Cypriot over here, I need to go over to his house and have some and have a bottle of Keo as well.

That'd be fantastic.

I'm going to try and make Suvlaki.

I've got a barbecue with an attachment, like a rotisserie attachment thing.

That's the one.

I'm going to give that a go.

No, you have to make sure you ask the butchers to cut from the neck, right?

And you want a little bit of fat on there as well, because obviously, that's where the flavor you don't want just lean pork, it's just dry up.

But then as it's cooking near the end cover it in red wine just drizzle it in red wine salt and then dried oregano on it as well just to finish it off it's just fantastic are you marinating the pork before you a little bit of yoghurt yeah with mint um a little squeeze of lemon juice and just you can basically marinate it for overnight if you want or just for an hour is minimum but yeah I'm definitely gonna do that.

That sounds very good.

I'm gonna do that this summer.

I love it, honestly.

Change your life.

That's healthy.

It's not if you eat eight of them, which is what I'm gonna do.

Well, that's what i'd say clever with that yeah

i'm smart i'll get around yeah yeah yeah i always i always say i'm gonna have more than one because i get sometimes i get to cyprus on a holiday and on the way from the airport to the hotel i'll stop off on my favorite takeaway yeah and go give us a give us two like i only get through one i'm going i can't eat that i'm gonna keep that so i go to the hotel and stash it somewhere you know when you book the holiday how often do you think about having the soup like on the lead up to it about 10 minutes before a bucket it's all right it's on my mind yeah

because i'm actually looking at the time i arrive to see if the takeaway is still going to be open yeah so i'll time my arrivals before the takeaway closes yeah um so i yeah and then as soon as i'm on the plane i'm going ah

yeah i'll be up on the ceiling about six hours it's such a good feeling i always overdo it with stuff like that um went to copenhagen recently yeah and absolutely obsessed with that sausage roll yeah at heart bakery oh my god and literally we walked for an hour and a a half from our hotel to get to the bakery.

Two of them straight away, straight down.

And then on the last day of the holiday, I was like, I might go and walk and get another one.

It's an hour and a half's walk.

So I looked up on Google Maps.

An hour and a half's walk.

I looked up on Google Maps.

There was another branch just around the corner from the hotel.

Oh, geez.

So I could have done that first of all.

So I just went and had two more just before the flight.

Absolutely.

It is phenomenal, though.

And then you get schnegel.

You get schnegel, don't you, in Copenhagen, which are the Danish pastries, which is sort of twisted.

I really have a schnegel.

I went straight to the whole meal as well.

It's delicious.

I'll get a schnegl next time.

I'm going to be there later this year on my Scandinavian tour.

Ah,

are you going to go to Iceland?

I don't think so.

Because I went there during City Bakes.

I did the series called City Bakes.

We traveled all over the place.

Went to Iceland and we made this bread, which we buried in the volcanic sort of

heated waters, and we left that for 24 hours.

Then the guys took me to their pub to try shark, and it was that fermented shark.

And I was like, what?

He said, you've got to try it to delicacy.

And I went, what?

And you

everyone in the everyone in the pub left but he doesn't seem to understand he just keeps saying what

they all left the pub and literally they're all outside looking through the glasses at the bar with this barman he gave me this container he says it's in the container so i opened up it was like one you know these russian dolls yeah eventually i got through to this little pot and opened it up and i went that doesn't smell all right It literally takes about a minute for it to hit your nostrils.

I had a little bit in the mouth.

I went, it's a bit like a crap stick.

But then within 10 seconds, the ammonia burns your nose and the smell.

Oh, geez.

Literally, it took the pub about three days to clear it.

So why?

But it was worth it for the prank.

Why have they got it then?

They don't waste food.

I mean,

in Iceland, I had meringues made with sheep's blood.

Wow.

They don't waste the blood.

And if you emulsify blood with sugar, it actually emulsifies and you can make meringues with it.

Wow.

So they made these grey meringues.

And he said, try its meringue.

It didn't tell me what was in it.

So I tried it and I went, that's really unusual.

It tastes good though.

So it's made with blood.

I went, what?

Really?

And they're like, I was the what guys turned up.

I gave him a blood meringue.

Guess what he said?

What would you do if someone turned up on Bake Off and made sheep's blood meringue?

Well, it tastes great.

Yeah.

I mean, it wouldn't be on vegan week.

But I mean,

it did taste like, but they don't waste anything.

You know, if you're going to eat an animal, you know, they don't waste anything, the eyeballs, the whole thing, tripe.

I mean, they eat everything.

And you think, fair play, they're not going to waste everything.

Okay, that was the survival thing in Iceland.

Yeah.

That's what they mean.

Probably not meringues.

Yeah, I was going to say,

we need some meringue.

And we've got nothing to eat.

Let's make a meringue.

Have we only cream?

You brought up meringue and cream, and I thought about asking you about Baked Alaska gate, but, you know, that was...

I'm sure you've moved on from that.

We asked Sue Perkins about it when she was on the pod.

She talked about it for a bit.

It was bad there.

I know you're all probably still obsessed with Baked Alaska Gate.

Yeah, we are obsessed with when he he threw the baked alaska in the bin well he threw it he did throw it away and the problem is we we were upset that he threw it away sue came running over to me i was in the green room uh ian he said he's just throwing his baked alaska in the bin i went what

so i came back

i came back and i went what have you been doing he said oh it was a mess

basically his ice cream was never going to set yeah and i think it was diane uh was there and diane had opened up the fridge or moved somebody out of the fridge but it wasn't literally out for a minute So his recipe was essentially wrong anyway.

But the fact is he threw everything away.

We had nothing to judge.

And what does that tell, you know, for the kids watching it?

What it means is if you throw a hissy fit and chuck everything in the bin, you're still going to do all right.

That's not what we were trying to say.

So hence him leaving.

Yeah, because you are like, even if it showed up like a complete soup like

James's did, you will still taste it and go, I see what you were going for and that was the flavor you were going for.

And even if it was just a meringue, all the ice cream are gone, at least we're eating something.

Yeah.

But to do nothing and just have a fit and throw it in a bin is probably not the best thing I felt for.

I think he regrets that, to be honest, I'm sure.

Okay, what though?

His sister now has a Baked Alaska business.

It's going really well.

She re-thried over lockdown.

You did meringue, didn't you?

Oh, yeah, I did.

Yeah, that was a showstopper.

Yeah, you put salt on top of it.

I put salt on top of it for a laugh.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I asked Peru if she noticed the secret ingredient.

She said, no.

I thought it was salt.

She was like, okay.

The ocean moves us, surfing Surfing a wave or savoring the view.

The ocean delights us as playful otters restore coastal kill pores.

The ocean connects us.

Visit montereybayaquarium.org/slash connects.

We get it.

It's more important than ever to get the most out of your money.

Options are key.

Options like Lyft, where you get great rewards, especially with partners like Dash Pass by DoorDash.

If you're a Dash Pass member, just link your DoorDash account and you'll get 5% off on-demand rides, 10% off scheduled rides to the airport, plus two free priority pickup upgrades every month.

New to Dash Pass?

To sign up for a three-month free trial, check Lyft.

Terms apply.

Your dream drink.

Beer.

Just lago.

But it has to the...

The beauty of that is it has to be very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very cold.

And I actually particularly like drinking it from the bottle.

And I like it when you're in a hot country.

Yeah.

And the problem is, you can't have a pint.

I know, living in Cyprus, six years, you can't have a pint because in the summer, by the time you get halfway down, it's roasting.

Yeah.

It's like a cup of tea.

So you only have to have bottles and you have to keep the bottles icy.

I like it when you go to one of these bars, certainly if you're on holiday, and they bring the frozen glass out and they decant the bottle into a frozen glass.

You pick it up and you go, oh,

the first one doesn't touch the side, give us another one,

and it just tastes amazing.

I think

a good lager is good.

I mean, I have to be in the mood for bitter.

And there are some good bitters in Kent, you know, some of these home breweries and stuff, but

a good, good citrusy lager, I'm happy with that.

Yeah,

a Citriot lager?

Is that Keo's nice?

Yeah, Keo's nice.

I quite like Moretti as well.

Moretti on draft is particularly good.

Yeah, I don't mind.

As long as it's cold, it has to be really cold.

I like that.

I do like a frozen glass.

When we were recording podcasts during the lockdown, when it was summer, we would, before we started an episode, sometimes it was a Friday, we'd go, we're going to go and put our glasses in the freezer.

So we knew at the end we were going to go have a...

Me and Benito did that.

Do you remember Benito?

What?

Yeah.

I didn't do that.

Yeah, you're not in the game.

I was one of the cool kids.

I was getting on this.

I think we were putting our glasses in the freezer.

I was like, frosted glasses.

What?

I think ultimately.

I thought that was your catchphrase, Paul.

I don't know.

I shouldn't have said that.

What?

Apologies, don't sue me.

I think ultimately, you've got to look at,

I've done a bit of traveling over the years, whether it's for film crew or just holidays.

And I still go for a, if I see a pina glad, I'll have one of them.

Yeah.

But you've got to have the cherry in the spot.

And if you've got a firework at the top of it, oh yeah, bring it on.

Well, it's the dream restaurant.

So do you want a cold bottle of lager with a sparkle?

With a pina glada chaser?

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Sure, yeah.

Of course you can, definitely.

Both in a frozen glass.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm preferably in a pool.

I'd like to be up to nipple highs yes in a in a very warm pool with about 36 degrees yeah as i'm wading through the water creating a you know a bit of a wake behind me yeah you know kids all getting washed in as you enter the bar and then you get there and then you grab your cold beer and while you're there you say and make me a pina colada lovely yeah i mean that's just life isn't it yeah this is funny as well because like again when sue perkins was on she she talked about being in a jacuzzi she did talk about being in a jacuzzi but that ended very differently didn't it Yes.

But

if you want, you can have the same experience as her.

In jacuzzi.

Yeah, there's the same experience that she had in the jacuzzi.

You can add it to your dream menu if you like without knowing what it is.

No, I'm going to stick with the pool.

You don't want the mystery jacuzzi experience.

There's a story about Mel, but over here, I'm not going to say.

But I think ultimately...

I think wading nipple high in water to try and get to the bar before it closes.

You want it to be water, you don't want it to be nipple high in pina colada.

That would be nice, but that would be a hell of a lot of wading a lot of cream yeah i mean it'd be a workout wouldn't it it'd be a serious workout no i think wading through quite you know very warm what 26 degree yeah pool to get to the bar yeah and before someone nicks the last seat don't want to be in pina colour and that's it's it's an underwater bar you know what i mean with the seats are so yeah yeah yeah i was just thinking about wasps and in a pina colada pool yeah be horrible wouldn't it and your your icelandic friends would be like you can't waste any of that yeah you better drink the whole pool they'll make them they'll make something from that yeah yeah Give that to people.

Nipple height is so specific as well.

Yeah.

Yeah, interesting.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

Because I guess it's sort of high enough that you feel quite submerged.

Yeah.

But your arms could stay dry to do things.

You can still stay to grab the drinks.

Yeah, exactly.

So it's got that release.

Yeah.

I think nipple high is about right.

Nipple high is about right.

To your neck, I think you're struggling because you've got to lift your arms up to get out, you know?

Yeah, it's a bit much, innit?

Neck high.

Nipple high is perfect.

You're going to be able to have your arms on the side like that.

You know, that's that's the listener.

Especially if you've got one in each.

Yeah.

You've got got one in each hand.

Um, what firework do you want in the top of the pina colada?

Caffeinewear, uh,

I reckon a 15-pound rocket.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think there was uh

I think 16 firecrackers, yeah, or just a sparkler would do, yeah, rammed into a strategically placed glasse cherry, yeah, lovely, yeah, that is similar to Suits Experience.

We got it's the pineapple as well, aren't it?

So, you want that sort of pierced, yeah, do you like a glacé cherry?

No, no, it's

sugar, yeah, awful in it.

You love it.

Hate glasses cherries.

Do you love sugar?

I love sugar.

Hate a glacé cherry.

Yeah, I don't like chocolate.

I like morello cherries and there's sort of that little sourness to the cherry.

Chocolate and morello cherries in a bread.

Wow.

Amazing.

Yeah.

That's so good.

Yeah, that's more like it.

Yeah.

A glace cherry on an ice bun is not.

I take that off.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Thanks for waiting in the bun, you stupid cherry.

Yeah, then you cut it and butter it.

I was butter an ice bun.

Interesting.

Have you ever had an ice bun with lemon curd running through it?

No, no.

So it's lemon icing on the top.

Yeah.

And inside, you have lemon curd piped all the way through.

Wow.

Very good.

But you butter an ice bun as well.

Oh, yeah.

Wow.

Interesting.

That's what I told you.

My dad does every year.

He buys stolen at Christmas.

And I walk into the kitchen and find him buttering a slice of stolen.

I'm like, how long do you want to live?

Do you know how much butters are stolen?

Like three pounds.

It's like buttering fried bread.

We arrive at your dream dessert.

Very exciting.

This is a very clean one, this one.

And simple and dead easy.

And it's a lime posset.

Now, I think it's such a clean.

I only had one recently, a couple of days ago, and I make them if I'm having a dinner party.

It's the best thing to make because it's so simple.

Basically, it's the zest and the juice in cream, which you warmed up over a pound.

And once it's warmed up, you then decant it into a preferably a very good champagne glass.

Leave that to set in in the fridge for a few hours and then serve it with a little shortbread.

And it just sets beautifully.

It's like it's creamy.

And then you get that zing of lime and you go in, oh, and then a little bite of the shortbread, which again must be crumbly.

Again, in the book, fantastic recipe.

But I think what you do with the shortbread is you bite into it.

It's crumbly, it's buttery, melts in the mouth.

And then you've got that lime kick, which has got that texture of just ripe whipped cream.

It's just stunning.

For you, what edges it in front of a lemon posit?

Because lemon posset.

I love a lemon posset.

Lemon posset is probably the most common posset, though.

Yeah.

Oh, it's the biggest possit.

A lime.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

It's the main posset.

But you're putting lime in it.

Limes are one of my favorite, favorite citrus fruits, which you should have known that.

You both should have known that if you've done baked off.

Yeah.

She's done our research.

Absolutely.

Do you make me a key lime pie?

Eatonford said, can you make us a cream horn?

And you just made a key lime pie.

You'd only got a handshake and one star baked grapefruit.

Has anyone ever done that on a technical just made something completely different?

Just looking at hanging and made.

Yeah, there you go.

It's like if someone throws a question at you, instead of saying, what?

You basically twist it into something that you do know about.

Yeah.

I mean, I've done that loads of times.

When journalists ask me a particularly difficult question, I talk about baguettes.

To give them a recipe.

Let's rank the citrus fruits.

Well, yeah, I'd like to get into that and I'd like to get into what other posits are there apart from lemon and lime.

Yeah, I think orange fruits are important.

Teachers do an orange.

I'll work with that, yeah.

Okay, well, let's rank the citrus fruits in terms of possets and general.

Yeah, so we got lemon, lime, orange, grapefruit.

Grapefruit.

What else are we talking about?

We've got tangerine, mandarin, all the derivatives of the easy peelers.

Yeah, sure.

Finger limes.

Have you had a finger lime?

No, I've had a key lime.

Finger limes are crazy.

They've got these like little pods in them that is incredibly citrusy.

Yeah.

And they're quite small, but then you cut them open and they look like little aliens.

They're weird, but very trend, very trendy in

cooking.

It's my first year judging on Great British menu, and everyone had a fingerlime or something.

Oh, really?

Oh, yeah, I forgot.

Ed is also a judge.

I didn't realize you'd be good.

I'm an easier judge.

At the minute.

I'm going to take

a few more series,

see how easy it is.

But I do think citrus holds a lot of key to elements of baking because you don't need a lot in and it packs a punch.

It's like when I'm judging people say I've got lime in it or it's got grapefruit orange or lemon.

You go, well it better add because when you bite into it,

you want that slight

intake of breath to get the kick and then that bitterness.

And then at the end, that sweetness that lingers in the mouth.

It's beautiful.

Yeah.

Oh man, I was just eating a jar of lemon curd for about two weeks.

I was just kept going to the the fridge and just having the lemon curd and it just tastes exactly like lemon meringue pie filling and that's what i told myself yeah it is that's what i i told myself i was doing you should have made the base and a bit of meringue for the top yeah yeah but you know i'm still scarred i'm still getting over that

um right let's do so lime's number one what's number two lemon lemon's number two the classic orange or grapefruit here i'm gonna guess you're gonna go orange before grapefruit

ah me and my granddad every morning um always had a grapefruit half a grapefruit for breakfast always religiously he had this grapefruit and i used to watch him going

i couldn't eat that but now because i'm getting older i'm thinking i quite fancy a grapefruit from a freezer.

Yeah, do you think it's an age thing with grapefruit?

Maybe.

I don't know.

It's like revving you up in the morning.

Maybe.

It's healthy.

I mean, it's really healthy.

Although, my wife used to have frozen grapefruit in the morning.

So she'd leave half a grapefruit in the freezer and then get it out and leave it to defrost for a little bit.

And then it's like having a sort of sorbet in the morning.

Yeah.

Oh, that's nice.

Interesting.

That's a nice idea.

Yeah.

Rob Deere in a comedian used to do that with grapes.

He'd just put grapes in the freezer and then have them all the time as well.

I did the same with Maltesers.

Yeah.

I think a Maltese from a freezer is a thing.

When you bite into it, it goes, it literally just explodes in your mouth.

A mold freezer.

Malt Freezer.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You're really better.

Yeah, just going to get that in there.

Did he sugar the grapefruit, old grandpops?

There was a little bit of sugar on there, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Not too much because he was diabetic, actually.

So he used to put a little bit of sugar, but not much.

I'm talking about diabetics.

Any mention of diabetes.

Nice to welcome someone else to the gang.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm really glad we've got a posset in there.

Yeah.

That's something that I just don't really ever think about them, but when they are on a menu, it's very exciting.

Yeah, and a lime posset.

I'd never thought of that because you think, obviously, the lemon is the leader of the positive posse.

Yeah.

And then the lime sort of is, you know, hanging in the background, more of a henchman.

Yeah, yeah, tacking the lemon up in arguments and stuff.

Yeah.

I think he's the one that's the smart one.

Yeah.

And I think ultimately, when you've had a big meal and you think, I couldn't hear hear anything, but then you look at it and go, I'll have to puss it.

Yeah.

Because actually, it's light enough to be able to almost have it like a soup.

Although

I did have one a few months ago and they hadn't set it.

And they brought it, it looked great.

And I was like, so I got me again a long spoon.

Yeah.

And I stuck it in because I cleaned it from the prawn cottage.

So I stuck it straight in and it went because it was just liquid.

It hadn't set it.

It was livid.

Should have shot it.

Well, it did.

And then it complained and it wasn't set.

I had to shot this.

Come here.

I had to shot this positive.

My dad made a lemon posit once from a Gary Rhodes cookbook, and it's honestly the richest thing I've ever eaten.

But I think he must have given everyone each the whole recipe for four because it was in a wine glass, but in a massive Bordeaux glass, like almost up to the top.

Just peaked.

Yeah, exactly.

People were just like, oh, slap a butter on the top.

Spread a bit of butter on that, lovely.

There you go, guys.

I've buttered your posits for you already, so it doesn't need any more.

It arrived, arrived and I went, what?

What?

What the?

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

Water, still water.

Copper ones or bread, a seeded roll with butter.

Starter, a pint of prawn cocktail.

Main, souvlaggi.

Side dish, soggy chips with salt and vinegar from a chip shop.

Drink, very cold bottle of lager.

and a pina colada chaser nipple deep in a pool

can i can i check are you nipple deep in a pool for the whole meal or are you just getting in there for the drink?

I think I just go in there for a drink.

Yeah, prawn cocktail nipple deep doesn't feel nice, does it?

Just for the listener, just for the listener here as well, when you say nipple deep,

you're not doing a handstand.

No, that'll be a bit shallow.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Just making sure.

Some of the listeners might have thought you were handstanding it in a pool.

Nipple deep.

What trunk?

What little stories?

What trunks are you wearing in this scenario, buddy?

Oh,

they're just baggy shorts.

Okay, cool.

Down to your knee with a nice net in.

Ed always thinks about, you know, we've got some, there's a, there's some mums who listen to this podcast.

You've got to think about the mums.

They're going to want to know what those shorts are.

Dessert.

Lime potet with shortbread.

Yeah.

Which I believe is, I mean, is that made by your own fair hand?

I'd be happy to make it.

Yeah, you can make that.

Maybe with a little zest of lime in that as well.

Oh, nice.

Is shortbread an easy one to make?

Yeah, it's not.

And that's in bake.

That's in bake.

It is.

There's flour.

You've got butter and sugar, and that's pretty much it.

And then you put whatever zest you want in there.

But once you've chilled the paste down, bring it out, roll it out, cut it, bake it straight away with a little bit of sugar on the top.

That sounds good.

That's a lovely menu, Paul.

Really simple.

Yeah.

But it's highly effective.

It'll do the job.

Yeah.

I think, James, when the book comes out tomorrow.

Yeah.

No, it comes out in June.

Yeah, but when this episode goes out.

When the book comes out, whatever time you are living in when you hear this,

I think you should bake something from the book.

Yes.

And then we'll put some pictures up.

I will.

I will do it.

Yeah.

I will do it.

I will bake something from the book and you can put it out of the off-menu account.

Yep.

Maybe we need to go.

I'll tell you what we need to do.

We need to go to carry this on, but in a pool I know in Cyprus.

Yeah.

Nipple deep.

Nipple deep.

That's what it's complicated, though, when there's more.

There's a few people in the pool getting it nipple deep because we've all got to get our nipples aligned.

Well, yeah.

That's what it's like.

We have a wave machine.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, wave machine.

That's a very specific wave machine, all aiming different waves at people's nipples.

Gets the nipples.

It's going to have to be a sort of laser thing.

Yeah, we'll figure it out.

We'll figure it out.

I'm sure we can do it.

We can do anything.

There's anything we've done.

Yeah, exactly.

Even on a hill.

Also, we're going to have to step it.

Also, we're going to have to stop steps.

I think if you were nipple deep in a pool, I would give you the nickname Nipple Deep Paul.

Yeah.

Nice.

You've done this before, haven't you?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Everyone would be talking.

You met Nipple Deep Paul.

Yeah.

Nippledeep Paul, he loves it.

The Icelandic guy's.

There he is over there, and I go, what?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, the what guy.

Yeah, no what guy.

We know him.

Thank you very much for coming to the Dream Restaurant, Paul.

Thank you, Paul.

Always listening.

Well, there we are.

I think that actually ended really nicely, James.

Yeah, I feel like a lot's been resolved for me.

I feel a lot of healing took place there.

You came in very hot.

I just burst out the the lamp in a rage.

You burst out the lamp in a rage.

I was also prepared for things to get heated.

I knew that you would.

And I had a few things to pick Hollywood's bones about as well.

But it turns out he's actually quite sweet and disarming.

So we just had a really nice chat.

We had a chat afterwards as well.

He gave us a little cuddle.

Goodbye.

Yeah.

It was lovely.

That was to avoid the handshake.

That's how it felt to me.

But he shook my hand when I arrived.

What?

He shook my hand when I arrived.

Didn't happen to me.

What?

And Benito?

Benito got a handshake.

Yeah, and in the photo.

Yeah, you didn't see what happened in the photo, did you?

No.

Because we'd actually said before, yesterday, we said, oh, I said to you, I'm going to shake his hand

in the photo, and you can look really angry about it.

In the photo, I shook his hand, and then he offered his other hand for you to shake, and you didn't even see.

I didn't see that.

Oh, what?

What?

Oh, no.

So you've still never had a Hollywood handshake?

But, hey, declining one, that's cool.

Yeah.

People think I'm real cool and they see that.

No, they'll immediately know that you didn't see the hand.

Well, not unless they listen to this, but.

Of course, Paul did not say aquafaba.

He didn't say aquafaba.

And to be fair, by the time we got to dessert, I would have felt bad kicking him out.

He was a nice man.

I would have felt pretty bad being like, get out of the kitchen.

Plus, we would have missed out on that lovely lime posset, which I really, really want now.

Yeah, absolutely.

Paul's new cookbook, Bake, My Best Ever Recipes for the Classics, is out tomorrow.

If you're listening to this on the 8th of June, 2022, It's on the 9th of June 2022 that that book comes out.

It is published by Bloomsbury.

Bloomsbury.

Hardback £26.

E-book £18.20.

Go get it because it sounds fantastic.

Lots of lovely recipes.

I'm going to be cooking some things from it.

James, you have now promised to cook something from it and take a picture.

I'm going to do it.

I'm actually quite excited about it.

Yeah.

And yeah, Benito will make sure that the evidence is provided for the public.

And when me and Paul go to George's house for Souvlagi, yeah then i'll show him the pictures yeah okay see what he says he'll go who's that guy

what can't remember what what i'm sorry i'm sorry what

um i'm back on tour uh from september onwards uh go to edgamble.co.uk come and see me on tour I have a book coming out as well.

I don't want to go head-to-head with Paul on this one, but it's a completely different subject.

James A.

Gas's Guide to Quitting Social Media, Being the Best Who You Can Be, and Curing Yourself of Loneliness, Volume 1.

Comes out in August.

You can pre-order it to feel silly.

I'm very happy with it.

It's a bit like baking yours, though, isn't it?

It's about baking, sort of baking your personality and the ingredients of what makes a man.

I've not read it, but something like that.

It's sort of about masculinity for the Snapchat generation, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's what it is.

Yeah, I thought so.

I thought I knew.

I knew, I knew.

Absolutely bang on the money.

Yeah, I thought so.

It's the end of the series.

End of the series.

You know, always a very emotional time.

Some of you might be thinking, what the hell am I meant to do next week?

yeah you know when when when this podcast doesn't go out uh my recommendation you know go back and listen to one of your favorites yeah one of the classics listen to this one and then go back and listen to them all in reverse order yeah or do all the bake off ones we you know do the bake off collection the bake off collection keegan perkins selassie hussein hatcher So many great Bakoff episodes, and there's plenty more people from the Bakoff cinematic universe that I want to get on, James.

Yeah, yeah.

We will steadily get get everybody one by one.

Yeah, we will.

I guess Tom Allen, Joe Brand, both from the Bakoff cinematic universe as well.

That's true.

So add them to that.

Yeah, I will.

That's great.

That's great.

We're doing well.

I want to get Mel.

Yeah.

I want to get Noel.

And Leith.

We've got to get Leith.

We've got to get Leith.

If there's anyone who won't put up with our shit, it's Prue Leith.

Yeah, we've got to get Prue Leith and see how much shit she'll put up with.

That's the aim.

And we've been sent loads of lovely stuff, James.

Food shout-out.

Food shout-out says the jingle that we all know and love.

We've been sent beers from a couple of different places, actually.

We've been sent some beers from Lakedown Brewing Company, who are based in Sussex.

There's a lovely can in front of me now, actually, of a New England IPA.

Beautiful can design.

And I do like a New England IPA, so I will happily tuck into that.

Yeah, delicious.

I got sent a Jim Carner home kit, cook at home kit.

I I think you're getting one at some point.

I mean, I'd already got one of those.

I paid for it.

Yeah, I've done that as well for New Year's.

And it was the best cook at home kit I think I had.

It was 2020.

Yeah.

You know, the nicest meal I had at home that year.

Yeah, there's a lot of cooking at home, a lot of takeaways, a lot of cook-at-home kits.

That one was like, suddenly, I was literally transported into Jim Carner itself, which I've been to before.

Well, I think we're both in agreement that Jim Carna's probably one of the best restaurants in London.

So good.

The food's so good, so the fact you can get a meal kit of it is pretty good.

And I'll be even more excited about it when I get one and I'm not on tour.

Yeah.

We've also been sent some Beavertown beers.

Yep.

Beavertown, one of the best.

Thank you, Claudia Jesse, for shouting them out and getting us some Phoebes.

Sorry, Benito's puppy is in here.

Benito's got a puppy.

Benita's got a puppy, and there's some little whimperings going on.

Someone wants some Beavertown.

He heard us mention Beavertown beers.

He's doing a little bit of wimping.

Don't worry, buddy.

You'll get some Beaver Town.

We'll get some for you.

He's proper cute.

And so is his dog.

Great.

There's some coffee as well.

I'm a coffee boy, so I'm very happy with this.

South Coast roast.

Some ground coffee here.

And it gives you the roast date.

So you know when it yes, toast.

So very excited to suck into that as well.

I'll be taking this home with me.

And we've been sent some noble water, James.

Yes, sustainable water, all in TetraPacks, so it's recyclable.

That's exciting, isn't it?

It is.

And I love water.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I tell you what, it's underrated.

It is.

I now, it's part of my routine.

First thing I do in the morning, big pint of water.

Yep.

And I tell you what, that helps with your poops.

Ah, not enough people talk about that.

Congratulations, Ed.

Thank you.

Well, we do on this podcast, of course.

Yeah, of course we do.

Thank you very much for listening to this series.

You've all been great, I guess.

Yeah, I don't get to see you listening to it, but I'm sure you're all great when you're listening to it.

Yeah, yeah.

I'll bet.

Yeah.

Better brilliant.

Bye.

Bye.

We get it.

It's more important than ever to get the most out of your money.

Options are key.

Options like Lyft, where you get great rewards, especially with partners like Dash Pass by DoorDash.

If you're a Dash Pass member, just link your DoorDash account and you'll get 5% off on-demand rides, 10% off scheduled rides to the airport, plus two free priority pickup upgrades every month.

New to Dash Pass?

To sign up for a three-month free trial, check Lyft.

Terms apply.

Oh, hello, it's Amy Gladhill here.

Hello, I'm Harriet Kemsley.

Single ladies, it's coming coming to London.

Well, we're already in London, I suppose, in a way, but we're doing a live show, aren't we?

It's true on Saturday, the 13th of September at 7 p.m.

at King's Place.

So we've got your Saturday night sorted.

We've done all the organising for you.

Come along, have some drinks, alcoholic or non-alcoholic, both are available.

And you can get your tickets from plursive.co.uk.

Or just head to the link in our Instagram bio and just clickety click click.

London, we're coming.