Ep 143: Siobhán McSweeney

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

Yes.

Ever heard of the Royal Albert Hall?

I have.

We've done live shows there.

And guess what?

We're doing more live shows there next year.

Sure, a lot of them are sold out already.

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

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

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

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

Those shows have been a lot of fun.

We cannot wait to do them live.

Who will we pull out of our little magic bag?

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

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

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

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

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

The day in between is for reflecting.

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

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Welcome to the Off-Menu podcast.

taking the ribs of conversation, lighting the wood chips of humor, and smoking the ribs for many hours to produce a falling off the bone podcast experience.

Didn't understand all of that, but I love that.

Hang on, what didn't you understand?

The wood chips threw me off.

The wood chips.

You know what I mean?

The barbecue, like the wood pellets or...

Yeah, well, you know more about cooking than I do, so sometimes there's terms on like, oh no.

I had some barbecue yesterday.

I mean, you wouldn't use just wood chips, but you know,

the basics were there.

It was like sort of slow-cooked, low-in-the-slow American barbecue style thing.

I was was thinking maybe a st louis style cut of rib his name is ed gamble my name is james a caster this is our dream restaurant and we invite a guest every single week to ask them their favorite ever start a main course dessert cider shan drink not in that order and this week our guest is shioboni

very exciting sheobon's a wonderful actor of course uh most famous for dairy girls yes wonderful so funny plays sister michael and dairy girls sister michael i mean what a show what a show this is our second member of that cast Yes, indeed.

Nicola Cochlan, of course, is the first.

Locked herself out.

Locked herself out a flat, yes.

But very excited to speak to her.

The new series of Dairy Girls is coming soon, James.

And it's also the last series of Dairy Girls.

The third and final.

I suppose you've got to end things sometimes when they're playing younger people.

Yeah.

And time does tend to mess with that sort of stuff.

Exciting, though.

I love it when people just go, right, just two or three series.

We're going to wrap it up.

Yeah.

And it's been so good.

And they're just going to end up with this perfect thing that never got ruined until dairy girls the college years yeah that's true yeah that's true i'm currently watching series 11 of the walking dead and uh i can't believe i'm still doing it

what an awful show yeah the walking dead and they never stop for a sit down even do they the dead

constantly walking for 11 series weirdly there's an episode in this one where they're they're all asleep the dead

what are they doing they're having a nap this never happened before in 11 series.

And then there's one that they have all napping.

It's like, we've got to creep through them and not wake them up.

It's like, what?

But, you know, it's the zombie thing, right?

You don't know how the zombies are going to act.

It might be that for 11 years they're walking around and then you need a nap as a zombie.

Yeah.

You can invent your own zombie lore.

But that's, we're not here to talk about

the Walking Dead, series 11 or otherwise.

Unfortunately, if Siobhan says a secret ingredient that we have decided right now, then she will have to leave the dream restaurant.

And today's secret ingredient is mini marshmallows.

Mini marshmallows.

Mini marshmallows.

Mini marshmallows.

I don't mind a marshmallow, full-size marshmallow.

Yeah, yeah, love them.

Toast it, you know, eat it raw.

I don't mind, you know.

Mini marshmallows.

What's the point?

Yeah.

Because if you're just eating mini marshmallows, you're having a handful that constitutes the size of a full marshmallow.

Quite often, you know, that hard bit around the outside of a marshmallow.

Yeah.

You like to get to the soft bit in the middle.

The mini ones are basically all hard bit.

It's, and I feel like i'm betraying my younger self because i had a lot of mini marshmallows as a kid in hot chocolates yes and really loved it yeah i guess in the hot chocolate format i suppose

no even when i think back now a full-size marshmallow is nicer in a hot chocolate and a mini one just goes very puddly and like yeah you don't get that plumpness a little bit of crispiness maybe different textures in there you just get it very piddly

like white white sugary just uh blob in the top of you.

And it's not really the same.

Rest in peace with the hot chocolate deluxe at Northampton College.

That was great.

Rest in peace.

You see that on Series 12 of The Walking Dead.

That's going to come back to life.

It's asleep.

Don't wait the hot chocolate deluxe.

It's going to get you.

So if Siobhan says mini marshmallows, then she is out on her ear.

I'm on tour.

A few more dates left in April, but then I'm doing some more in the autumn, James.

Yes.

September, October, November.

I'll be back on tour doing show again, which I'm very excited for.

Proud of you, man.

Thanks, man.

Adding extra dates in the face of underwhelming demand.

That's how you do it.

Just got to add them.

Create the demand.

Yeah, keep doing it, even though no one wants to see it anymore.

Walking Dead Star.

That's the way to do it.

No, there is demand.

So do come and see it.

You're doing a Scandinavian tour, of course, James.

Of course, I'm touring Scandinavia, and you can buy tickets for that.

I don't know where.

I was was meant to do it.

I just realized, just remembered, I was meant to do a little video and send it to the promoter and I haven't done that.

Is this your show where you're encouraging hecklers, James?

Yes, it's called Heckler's Welcome.

Fill your boots.

Fill your boots is the whole blurb.

And you are allowed to come and heckle me.

And you can pre-order my new book, James A.

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

You can pre-order that wherever you get your books.

I'm very excited about that coming out.

But for now, this is the off-menu menu of Siobhan.

Sweet.

Fly.

My fly flew between me and the microphone.

I didn't want to inhale it.

I thought you were doing a new thing, but you were

going away and getting rid of the fly because I didn't want it.

It was a tiny fly.

Right.

It was enough that I might have breathed it in.

Leave all that in.

Yes.

Yeah.

Here's Siobhan.

Welcome Siobhan to the Dream Restaurant.

Hello guys, lovely to be here.

Welcome, Siobhan McSweeney to the Dream Restaurant.

We've been expecting you for some time.

There we are.

The genie there.

Oh, hello, Genie.

The genie from McSweeney.

The genie from McSweeney.

We had never had it rhymed before.

There we go.

Genie McSweeney.

It can be a muck genie this episode if you like.

Please do.

Yeah, that's quite exciting.

I like that.

Genie McSweeney.

I was naming my non-existent new puppy and I thought maybe Queenie Maxweenie but I as a vehement anti-royalist I didn't know how to sort of fuck it get a corgi call it queenie maxweenie own it own it maxweenie so it'd be a queen it would be a corgi so maybe i could ask genie maxweeney to give me a queenie maxweeney yeah yeah i'll get you a queenie yeah i think you could count that as anti-royalist if you if you got a corgi and called the corgi queenie call the corgi yeah and and treat her very bad behead yeah yeah yeah chop it head off

that's the only way.

That'll learn them.

That'll get people on my side.

Here is I hold up the bloody corpse of my little corgi puppy.

Yeah, you will.

Think about your monarchy.

That's the thing, isn't it, about being anti-royalist?

I'm not up for the monarchy either.

But then

when you start talking about it, it's very easy to just slide into language that makes you sound like you're from olden times when like you're quite quickly talking about putting their heads on spots.

It's revolution and it's anarchy.

And chop their heads off.

And then they'll go as well, maybe.

Did you see there at Somerset House?

They were filming something, but they were building a guillotine.

And people were going,

what the fuck is happening?

This seems like a natural conclusion to

we're only in March 20, or we're not.

We're in the future sometime as well in a non-specific time.

I went to the Beanum exhibition at Somerset House.

Yeah.

Really great.

Not on my own.

With who?

Some kids.

So there's Douglas, I'm weird.

Your gang?

Yeah, yeah, my gang the bad street kids your street gang of ruffians yeah you made fun of me when i said i was going to go to the beano exhibition yeah yeah i did yeah because you went with some kids and i just wanted to go to the beano exhibition yeah you just wanted to go on your own i thought it was really funny because i didn't know that about ed i love the beano i love the bino oh really we've been in the bino have you yeah that's a that's i must admit i i haven't kept up to date with my beano subscription did you miss out i i i mean it's it's that it's the new yorker national geographic it's just a big pile by my bed i really need to get on top of it

are you much of a foodie Siobhan I love food by a foodie do I no I just like eating

and I like eating lots of food but a food like I don't really care what's in it yeah do you know and I don't sort of oh this is like no is there a lot of it is it tasty yes I'll have it please thank you so is like buffets pretty high buffets are pretty good I think one of the the great I mean we've all had a difficult lockdown, but no one had it more difficult than me because I really took to the bed when I realised that breakfast buffets in hotels, they have a chance that they may be no more.

I had exactly the same realization.

Lockdown was.

But I think they're back now.

Okay.

They're back, but are they?

They're back.

I've seen a few of them.

I mean, they're back, but their heart isn't in it.

It's sort of like they're just back for tax reasons or something, you know?

They're here for the final tour.

What's the style of the breakfast buffet for you at a hotel?

The courses.

So

the breakfast buffet is something that I realize that I approach as if I was a sports person, which I am not.

But like I feel like I have to win at it.

Yes.

You feel it's you against...

the hotel.

And you have to win and you have to get there early and you never get there early or you have to

figure out what the time is.

You have to look at the, they usually have a piece of paper on the elevator going, gets busy around nine, don't come then.

And you're like, oh, what happens at nine?

Why don't you want me to be there at nine?

I bet you that's when the good sausages come out.

Like, are the really, really

crispy rashers?

Yeah.

But am I willing to take that chance?

Are they double bluffing me?

Like, and it's, it's all right, so you don't sleep.

Yeah.

And then you get up and you're like, oh, do I shower?

Am I wasting buffet time?

And you have to make sure that you've eaten enough and come back and shower before the chambermaid comes and that's awful so that's more pressure yeah and sometimes you don't want a 15 course breakfast person

when you haven't slept or showered it's rare that you don't want a 15 course breakfast though i think if you're in a hotel come on you've got to go for it yeah yeah yeah no you start off with uh fruit don't you i don't personally if you want to if you want to talk different different tactics

i'm being careful because i have a 15 minute routine about breakfast buffets in my new tour show so really i don't want to slip i don't want to slip into material.

But no, I go hot first.

No, no, no, no.

And then continental.

Interesting.

No, but you start with fruit, then you go for the ratchers.

Forget your porridge.

No one's here for porridge.

You don't want to fill up on porridge.

You don't like porr porridge is...

No, no, no, no, no, no.

Porridge in general, I don't believe in as a concept.

When it's hardened and put then a flapjack I'll have if I must.

But porridge, no.

It's also because when I was growing up, dad would make porridge in the morning and we'd have on Monday we'd have our fucking porridge meeting.

Like, oh, this is awful, it feels sick.

And then I'd watch him go to the sink, pick up the saucepan of the porridge that's been add water, put it back on the thing, and you're going.

So by Friday, we were eating glue.

There was no oats in it.

It was just like, I mean...

So it's just the pan scrapings with water in them.

With what?

Yeah.

I mean, I don't know why.

Porridge is...

provably the cheapest item.

That's why it's popular, right?

Because it fills you up and it's a little bit of a peace.

It fills you up and it's really, really fucking cheap.

And he's like, oh, I better make this stretch out.

So you'd start on Monday with gruel and you'd end with like

glue.

It's actual glue.

So I haven't been able to look at porridge in the face ever since.

Would your dad be putting anything on the porridge?

Would you be adding anything to the top of it?

Milk and sugar.

Milk and sugar.

Yeah.

I hear Scottish people put salt in it and that's why they haven't got independence.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean

I always think of Scott, you know, for me porridge is a Scottish dish, right?

Because you've got the guy in the kilt throwing the...

What's he got?

A shot at a shot putty.

He's throwing porridge at people.

Yeah, just throwing it at people.

People think he's shot putting, but they're just getting your face on the boats.

Yeah.

He's a shot putter, isn't he?

He's an interesting.

Yeah, he is a shot putter, yeah.

Yeah.

I think of a Quaker, of course.

Yeah, of course.

Rather than the shot putter.

Yeah, quiet little.

Any other porridge guys?

I would like to see those guys hanging out.

Yeah.

But we're not here to talk about porridge.

You don't like porridge.

So you're having fruit, then you're going for the rashes.

Yeah.

Now, I streamlined it when I was working on the last gig.

So you go, all right, the bloody toast machine disaster.

Yes.

Absolute disaster.

We've put a man on the moon.

What the fuck is going on with that fucking

conveyor belt of

it's stupid.

That's the noise it makes when it's puts the toast out, right?

Yeah.

Little mice sort of cycling and sweating everything.

And you've to put that through, of course, about 15 times before it gets anyway to it.

It's a cinder.

It comes out as a completely different item.

It's a small washing machine.

So you get that going.

That'll take a couple of hours for the toast to be done.

And you go straight for the sausages and rashers.

And you have to, this is where the lurking happens, because you need to have really, really, really well-done rashers and properly.

You know, I like my steak rare, but I like my sausage burnt.

I like a touch of carbon in the morning.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Get you going in the morning.

The smell of burnt toast in the morning.

Yeah.

I like quite pinky sausages, I think.

Like

an orangey-brown exterior and a pinky.

That's enough about Asias.

Okay, then,

you know, like, I've given up on the eggs.

I've given up on eggs.

Why Why is this?

Because you can't get it right.

The scrambled eggs is just egg water beside rubber egg.

No use.

Poached eggs, I don't believe in.

Okay.

They occupy the same sort of fancy land as porridge, right?

There's no need for it.

We don't need another way to make eggs.

I know I'd like a boiled egg.

Yeah.

And I like a fried egg, but they're always a little bit too oily and runny.

And it's not worth it.

It's it's not worth it you've got a limited amount of time the chambermaid is making her way down the corridor here you've got a shower why

the do not disturb sign on because it feels too aggressive

It feels a bit aggressive.

So you do not disturb.

I'm not in here, but do not disturb.

It's counterintuitive.

So you put yourself on this countdown where you've got a wolf down this huge breakfast and get there before she does.

Yeah, okay, got it.

Meanwhile, you're trying to find a nice person to give you the coffee with oat milk.

And that's taking a a while because they look at you as if, even though you've been staying in the hotel for three months now and it's literally what you ask for every morning, oat milk,

oat, and you're like, yeah, yeah.

And they're like, porridge?

No, fuck off with the porridge.

We've been through this, Eileen.

Just get me my oat milk.

So

your dad might have been making on the stove.

Was he trying to make his own oat milk for you?

That's why you love it so much now as an adult.

Yeah, oat milk is just runny porridge, isn't it?

Yeah, it's a sort of

porridge smoothie.

little porridge smoothie.

Oh, it's forgiven, daddy.

Come back.

So, you're staying in hotels for extended periods of time when you're filming things, right?

So, every morning you're having that, well, or like on set breakfasts, but

yeah, you try if you're if you're very canny, you can get the two.

So, were you staying in a hotel for a long period of time when you were filming series three of Dairy Girls?

I was indeed.

It's the final series of Dairy Girls.

It is the final series.

So, yeah,

a hardy breakfast was very much needed as we went into the very, very final because

it's sad, isn't it?

The end of an era.

Were tears on set?

Oh, yeah, for various reasons.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But it does sort of, it's changed everybody's lives.

Everybody that it's touched, like, my life is completely different since playing that nun.

And it was weird taking off the costume for the last time because, like, we know it's the last time.

Yeah.

There isn't sort of like oh maybe maybe her and Frasier are off in some spin I'm like no it's not gonna happen so yeah it's sort of say I did want to burn that wimple by the end of it that like the upshot of playing Sister Michael is that you know everything was loosey-goosey no makeup no need to sort of you know I came back

in the second series I'd been away and I came back with a cold sore and they were like brilliant and I'm like this best job ever best job ever but all the joy of that and like you know sort of a bit of moisturizer or not was taken away by the 47 hours we would need to put on that wimple there were staple guns celete pritz stick we tried every gluing like what'll we do how could I don't know how actual nuns do it I'm sure they don't have 300 they don't have a glam squad they do not have incredibly qualified makeup artists and mirrors

do shows in vegas and stuff like that and then like you know and then the mob comes out yeah so they're a lot of people i suppose yeah

yeah whoopie's got a team yeah

whoopie's got a team whoopee can have whatever she wants queenie maxweenie

well you say you won't do any spin-offs as sister michael but what if whoopee called and said i want to do a big nun crossover

and it would be a crossover the crossover like when king kong fought the other

the the Godzilla, yeah.

I wasn't seeing it as quite such a violent era.

I wasn't imagining you and Whoopee sort of towering above New York City.

I mean, if it was that, I think I'd consider it.

I mean, I'd do anything for Whoopi.

Yeah.

I would do it, but I'm not sure I'd do that.

No.

No.

What other fictional nuns are there that point?

A good gang.

The thingy, the Maria,

sound of music, of course.

No, I wouldn't go next next or near her what a drip

what an absolute drip

still sparkling water is how we always start yes I would like sparkling please Jeannie yes

and I would like it if if you don't have enough sparkling I would like the soda stream

we had the soda stream in our house growing up and it was a truly a wondrous object but I was thinking about it last night and I remember in Ireland we we call soft drinks minerals, those cheap minerals that we used to get.

And it was called TK.

I know what I'm laughing at that.

Apologies, that was rude.

No, no, not at all.

I love it.

Hilarious with their little ways.

Near 20 years, I'm used to the laugh.

The laugh's louder on the other side, believe me.

They laugh with our minerals, but have you seen the state of them?

But, you know, awful 1980s orange.

Like, it was orange.

And it tasted like chemicals.

But I remember I had a cousin and

obviously not the brightest tool in the box.

She came and she got so excited when she saw the soda stream.

She grabbed the bottle of TK Orange and shook it

so much.

And I was like, what are you doing?

She said, I want to get the gas out of this so that we can re-inflate it

with the soda stream.

And I remember she had been a little bit older than me, and she came from Cork City, so she had that sort of,

you know, and I was a country bumpkin and she had older sisters, so she listened to music, whereas I could only sort of go, is it boy George?

I hadn't a clue.

And I remember sort of looking at her and going, ah,

you're thick.

You're no threat to me at all with your city slicker ways.

You barely have opposable thumbs.

Be gone.

And it was a good day.

She didn't fizz up the TK.

She, she, I mean, she, I sort of walked out of the room in disgust.

She was a bit like, but what?

It's a good idea.

Okay.

Huge fan of you.

I don't know if you were paraphrasing there or not, but huge fan of her saying, I want to get all the gas out and re-inflate it.

Re-inflate it.

I want to re-inflate it.

Yeah.

Because sparkly water is inflated water.

It is.

It's happy water.

Like lilo water.

But you know, in Germany you have different forms of frizzante.

You have depending and and do you know and I when I'd be in Germany I'd be like why?

Like if you want fizzy water there's a no, you see as you get older your palate develops.

And sometimes I must admit fizzy water can be a bit too aggressive for me.

A bit too harsh.

A bit too harsh, a bit too too filled.

Yeah.

So you know the trick is open it and leave it leave it deflate overnight.

And then it then it's part and then you can sort of gulp away feeling refreshed, but not like it's hurting you.

Yes.

Yeah, not too aggressive.

So, what in, I've not heard about this in Germany.

They have different levels of fizz, do they?

Frizzante?

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

They have ultra frizzante.

I don't know what it is, but.

Do you feel like you don't know what they're called?

No, I don't.

Hands up, you got me, guys.

I don't know what it's called, but they're definitely different types of like just a gentle effervescence down to like this is how we got rid of the wall,

you know, jackhammer-esque.

They just spray a bottle of warblers at the bottom of the wall and just rumble away.

David Hasselhoff is still hiding in fear from it.

Soda streams don't work now, and that's a shame because, like, they used to work back in the day, and now they kind of like don't really work.

James got sent a soda stream, and uh, he was

he'd really get on with your uh, your cousin in Cork City.

Let's just say that He couldn't make it work.

It doesn't work anymore.

Why?

Why?

I think they just like stopped making them good because, like, I think back in the day, they obviously were doing it.

And I think now they're just like, well, no one's really buying soda streams, so they don't really bother making them very well.

So it just doesn't work.

No, well, you're not, you're doing it wrong.

You pump it up too much and then you can't put it on the thing and you're all fingers.

The fingers just broken.

No, they're not broken.

They don't make them very good in the factory.

Yeah, it's the factory stream.

Pop it up.

Pop it up bread, Siobhan McSweeney.

Pop Pop it up bread.

Is that how you treat your soda screen?

Beginning to see what the problem is here.

Screaming at his soda screen.

You're the first person I've made jump in ages with that.

In ages.

You shouldn't be proud of that.

Yeah, well, it used to be in the early days they'd jump every single time.

And now people are always ready for it because they've had a little list beforehand.

But then I was like...

Oh, this is the perfect time to do it.

Because we were talking to each other.

Yeah, you think we've teed up something else.

Well, I had

the soda scream.

Yeah, I got rid of the soda scream.

Very good.

I would like both, please.

Woo!

Yeah, if possible.

I would like both, and I would like the pop-a-doms to continue throughout the meal, even with dessert.

Lovely.

Yeah.

Okay, great.

I've been very interested to see what this is.

We learned lately that that's not

actually the right way to do it.

We were told.

Well, I agree, but how do other people know this?

Asma Khan, who she's got like a proper restaurant and everything.

She knows what she's doing.

Yeah.

She told us pop-a-doms are meant to be at the end of the meal, just before dessert.

Oh, yeah, that's anything.

So you're more authentic.

You've brought in the authenticity.

Yeah, well, but I want it throughout the whole thing.

I don't want to wait till just before.

Right, okay.

So do you want a big pile of pop a dumbs to sort of snack on throughout the meal, or as this is the dream restaurant, we can do this for you, do you want an absolutely massive poppa dum?

Oh my god, that you can just sort of work your way into the middle.

Could I have like do you know like an arch installation that'd have a cube?

Could I have

know what you're talking about

no but you know like could i have a room made out of popadom yes and could i because it's magic not

make dirty the popadom

when i run through it yeah but i have enough structural integrity that when i run through it you know like a cartoon

and you can sort of see the shape outline of you yeah so i would do that be able to see that yeah then there will be a basket of course yeah and i would pick up the shards of popadom and take it away sort of so i'd work for it in a way i'd harvest so you eat are you eating in the is this where the restaurant is are you in a big cube pop a dom

well no because how what about i'm very into lighting and i don't think you could

the structural integrity for light fittings and stuff no that's that's silly so it's separately a cube pop a dom and you run through it and pick up the shards but but also when you run through it not make dirty.

Yeah.

Not make dirty so I can delete it.

But also if I stood in the cube,

I could just sort of like fling myself,

fling myself around the room and sort of feel it crash all around me.

Yeah.

But also not make dirty with my feet or anything.

Yeah, but in that fantasy, you're not going to allow for light fittings.

No, no, because pop-a-doms can't, you're not thinking this through.

Pop-a-doms can't hold up a lampshade.

No, but they also can't withstand someone throwing themselves around it and not making dirty at the same time.

What are your limitations as a genie?

I didn't sign up to this.

You'll be interested to hear that we've never crossed this bridge.

But this is what I'm saying.

I could absolutely give you a big cube pop-a-dom that you can jump around and not make dirty.

Yeah.

But also, I can put light fittings in that.

Or you can, look, they're fairly translucent pop-adoms.

You could put the lights outside the pop-a-dom and you'd get a sort of lovely glow.

I think I'd like that.

That feels a little bit more special.

And I think it would be quite a special moment.

I'd like to be nicely lit.

And I think in a cubed pop-a-dom, I mean, like an overhead...

I'm not a big fan of overhead lighting.

It's a bit much, isn't it?

It is a bit much.

And then I just want to know that there's nothing around my feet so that I can get a proper run

at the corners and things like that.

You know, I don't want to be thinking about lamps.

So if we could have a few lights around,

like foot lights and things.

Some candles even.

Yeah.

No, I could tell you that like that idea as well.

No, I don't know.

Are you worried that the

sir from the candles will make dirty?

Well, my flat burnt down a couple of years ago, and I was convinced it was my fault.

It was not my fault.

It was not my fault.

It was an electrical thing.

But since then, I've been very anxious about candles, even though it was not my fault.

It was absolutely awful.

So it was awful.

It was dreadful.

It was just a bit awful, but also a bit liberating, too, because then you're going, oh, I've lost everything.

Okay.

Oh, yeah, that sounds nice, actually.

No, but it's then you you go, okay,

that's fine.

I'm okay.

Yeah.

Nobody else was hurt.

Basically, I got through a traumatic event, but what people on yoga retreats try to sort of pay for it, you know?

Yeah.

Oh, I've lost everything.

And that's okay.

You know what I like to do sometimes?

I'll go up.

Or in everything?

Yeah, you can't, kind of.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'll go up really high.

Maybe on a really high bridge or top of a building.

Okay.

And I just

hold my phone off the edge.

Oh, you're mad.

I just hold my phone by my thumb and forefinger, and then I just hold it off the edge, and it feels amazing.

I don't let it go, but it's really funny.

You just hold it like that, and you're like, if I drop that, that's my life over.

That's it.

So are you comparing you dangling your phone off a bridge to Siobhan literally losing everything she owned?

Yeah, yeah.

I imagine if I lost my phone, it'd probably feel the same.

Uh-huh.

Come here to me.

So when you're...

When you're on this bridge

and you're holding over your phone,

what do you feel when you pull it back then?

Like a loser?

No.

Like a coward?

I feel exhilarated.

Like a tourist?

It's like, oh, I just have a close call.

So you're getting all the adrenaline.

So you're tricking your body into thinking that you've achieved something brave by being an absolute coward.

Yeah, it's like exhilarating.

It's like it's like...

That's why you're a comedian.

It's not the same feeling, yeah.

It's exactly the same feeling.

You know, it's the same rush people get from skydiving, I guess.

Is it because you stopped doing stand-up for a bit?

Totally.

Is this what you've replaced stand-up with dangling your phone off the edge of a really hot I did a thing with Joe Lightset, we had to go up a bridge, and it was like, and it was all these just wooden slats, and they had these gaps in between them, and they were perfect size for an iPhone.

And I just kept on doing it.

And I really liked Joe's reaction, which was he was just panicking that I was going to drop it.

So I'd hold it there and watch him really freak out about it and try to get all the crew to do it.

I went up, I did a travel show last year around Northern Ireland, and there's these iconic cranes in Belfast.

and I managed to go up one of them.

They're called Samson and Goliath and I went up Samson.

Hear her.

She went up Samson and what a way to find out you don't like heights.

On camera.

On camera in a boiler suit.

There was one step I had to take

and there was no, I'm like, but surely health and safety would mean that then they're like, no, there's none.

And I'm like, but no, you have to have some guard.

Like there was, you know, like the mind the gap in the tube.

Yeah, you mind the gap, right?

But you're like, I can see it.

But imagine if that drop was hundreds.

And they're like, just step over it.

And you're like, no, because there's no guard.

And they're like, well, you know, you have to.

And just make sure you step over it.

Just don't go down there.

But it's not a choice, is it?

Yeah.

But by the end, there's footage of me skipping along the very top of the crane.

I was very brave.

So imagine dangling your phone over the edge.

Every time you say dangling your phone, I keep thinking that you're like just exposing yourself on Blackfire's Bridge or something.

I do.

Dangling your willy.

Is that what the phone is?

Trying to get a good angle.

Holds it with his thumb and forefinger and dangles it over the edge.

Judo Life at losing his mind.

Yeah.

He's trying to get the crew to do it.

You were fired off that show, weren't you?

Yeah.

Yeah.

That was it.

What kind of bread are we talking, by the way?

Oh, we've gone into the poppin'.

The poppin' off.

No, the bread would be Irish soda bread.

It would be specifically the bread that my mother made every single morning when I was in national school.

I would wake up every morning to the smell of fresh scones, fresh brown bread and fresh apple tart.

And she would deliver these freshly baked goodies to all the local shops.

And it would be her sort of little cottage industry for pin money, you know.

And I hated the smell of it.

Like I would get, like when I think back

how ungrateful I was, but you know kids are the worst.

They really are the fucking worst.

I would wake up to the smell of freshly baked scones and go, oh God,

not again.

And I would, I would like sort of stomp around.

In fairness, I would get my lunch and my lunch would be freshly baked bread.

And because I once said I liked peanut butter, I had peanut butter for 12 years.

peanut butter on freshly baked bread, then wrapped in tin foil and put into a lunchbox.

So by the time lunch came, you opened opened the lunchbox, the condensation on the roof of the...

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

You'd unfurl the tinfoil and the raw dough that the bread was so freshly baked, it had resorted back to its primordial self,

had melded.

with the peanut butter to create something that I could only describe as Friday porridge.

It was yet another gluey,

gluey gruel sort of thing.

You're like, oh, it had no integrity whatsoever.

but now I would in with the benefit of hindsight and a bit a bit more maturity I would I would kill for that brown bread again and specifically Bandon Co-op butter there's something about the salt quota this butter doesn't go rock hard when you put it in the fridge.

Oh wow.

And there's something about the clarifying process.

Somebody explained it to me and then it got boring so I stopped listening.

But it's got something to do with the clarifying process.

So it actually doesn't go rock rock hard.

And it is perfectly salted and it's our local um farmers cooperative in benden amazing i thought you said banned in co-op band in co-op as if like they started co-op has gone no that was once banned in the co-op is so salty yeah

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Dreamstarter.

Dreamstarter would be crab claws from, I mean, obviously, they wouldn't still be like from 1996, but you know, I'm not eating, they're not old crab claws, but they were in their genie.

You would have to transport them from 1996

from the summer of 96 in a place called Tmal Sheens, where my best friend grew up in a pub restaurant there and introduced me to crab claws.

It was the first time I ever had crab claws.

And I was like, what is this?

And even now, when I smell butter, garlic, lemon, and parsley, I I feel happy and, you know, holiday.

It's a holiday smell, like a really free, fun couple of pints and fresh air

kind of smell, do you know?

A couple of pints, fresh air and crab claws.

I don't think I've heard anything better ever.

Yeah.

That sounds absolutely amazing.

Really, really lovely.

And also, you know,

I just started uni then as well.

And that...

feeling of finally finding people who didn't think or they probably did think I was weird but like they were just as odd themselves.

Finding your own tribe, really.

Because secondary school was great and people were very nice and blah, blah, blah.

But I did always feel like quite an outsider.

So it's nice to sort of like that summer of going, oh my God, I'm not the only freak in the village kind of thing.

Or at least there's two of us now.

Yeah, that is a nice.

It's a pivotal moment, isn't it?

Yeah.

And then I'd say you grow up.

and get more and more your own tribe.

And then every now and again, you're confronted with someone who isn't from that and you want to murder them.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I had someone come up to me in the street the other day and try, actually, talking about Joe Lysett all the time now, but they thought I was Joe Lysett.

And they were pretty hammered.

And

they're

a proper lad.

And they were just going, and they went, Joe Lysett.

I went, no, I'm not.

I was talking to my girlfriend at the time.

He's like, no, I'm not Joe Lysett.

He's like, yes, you are.

And he kept doing that for me.

And he came up to me really close and he went, and he was kicking and going, you are Joe Lysett.

And then he raised his camera phone really, and he was just going to, and I said, please don't take my photo.

I've not jealous it.

And he was like, I'm going to do it.

And his mate was really laughing and jeering it.

And I was like,

I haven't been around these people since like school.

Like,

you realise I've had my whole life just going like, no, not these people anymore.

And then you're like, oh, you're still here.

Yeah.

You still exist.

Yeah.

And what was annoying is that he went away and then realized I was James A.

Castor and then came back and did the whole thing again

with my actual name.

Did he think you had forgotten?

yeah well how much time did he think it passed well definitely with the first one he thought i was fobbing him off and then he thought oh if i just go back and clear up that because he thought why what he was annoyed because yeah yeah

i got his name wrong and then he realized that you were going to fob him off again yeah yeah and then then he then he just went to be honest the second time he didn't even try and take my photo because he kind of went oh no you just don't like me and then he went away while his mate continued to shout stuff at me oh like pretty good stuff fuck off fuck off fuck off you know there was all this sort of of thing you know about the echo chamber on social media.

I'm like, yes.

What kind of absolute animal would you think I would be if I was hanging around with people whose opinions I didn't agree with?

Here's my friend Mark.

He's an awful racist, but you know,

need a different opinion in my life.

See, I don't believe with her economic series either, but it's good to have diversity.

I'm like, fuck off.

No, I want that echo chamber.

Preferably, I want it shaped like a pop-a-dom.

How many crab claws do you have in there?

Because I would always have an even amount because I wouldn't want one crab going around.

A little bit lopsided.

Yeah.

Yeah, I don't think about the rest of the crabs because if you do, you sort of go, where's the rest of the...

Like, what are they doing?

They're using it.

I'm sure they're using it.

Somewhere.

You could use them as frisbees, I suppose.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Maybe that's what the fella in the oats thing is.

The shot.

He's throwing a crab shot.

He's throwing a crab shot.

Really?

are you having these crab claws hot or cold hot are they hot of course they're hot because you can have them cold i don't you can have anything technically cold but it doesn't make a rubber eat crab claws cold you know you cook them and then you stick them in the fridge or whatever and they're lovely then you dip them in like mayonnaise and stuff and they're delicious no no no this i mean i understand that that's fine that's sort of a stand-up by the fridge thingy isn't it no i don't think it's necessarily i think that it is served in some places cold like seafood on like ice like the hotel yeah i suppose yeah but that would be incorrect yes yes.

And they're not allowed into my Papa Dom echo chamber.

They will not, they won't break in.

They can't get through.

They would make it dirty with their cold crabs.

They would make dirty, yeah.

No, this is warm and it is a big piled high.

I have never counted the crab claws, but now that you've mentioned it, I would like an even number.

I would also like them to keep coming.

Sure.

Throughout the meal.

There's going to be a pattern.

Yeah.

I would like them to keep coming throughout the meal and them never really to get that cold for the butter to not solidify.

Yeah, for

let's keep going.

Let's keep the party going.

Like, yeah.

How are you cracking into them?

Hands, is it pulling the two little bits of the claw apart?

So it would be just the very tip of the claw.

So it would have an exposed bit of crab flesh.

Yes.

And I would.

James on the bridge.

I would hold it with it, just like your phone.

I would hold it with my thumb and forefinger.

roll it around

I would I would bite the crab claws and then I would have a little instrument from Ogie's ma'am Mary Maloney would have given me like a small little fork thingy and you'd you she'd teach you how to cut down to the very you know the black the black tip of the claw

thing that's where the sweetest meat is and if they're very fresh it comes out whole so you poke around there and you come out and this like this little sliver in the shape of the curve comes out and that's the sweetest bit of the crab meat that's nothing more satisfying nothing and you feel like you haha a bit like the the the breakfast buffet i won yeah

take

that crab

take that if it doesn't come out whole i just feel like oh sweet so so genie i would like every single one of them to come up and sometimes if you do crack it it comes out in itself either way it's coming out smoothly yeah yeah please it'll all come out smooth great i promise oh yellow and it'll keep coming

while your pop-a-doms keep covered as well.

Don't worry, and and basket, and I'd go and well, you know, to walk it off a little bit, I would then go for a little stroll among the shards of the pop-a-dom.

Yeah, yeah, stamp, stamp on them, you're getting a nice and pounded eventually.

Oh, yeah, but they would never turn to dust, but they'd give that lovely crunch of an autumn leaf.

Yeah,

great.

Your main course, your dream main course?

My dream main course.

Now, I broke my leg last summer while I was filming something and I broke it incredibly badly and I'm still recovering.

It was a, it's a very, I'm only beginning to realize how traumatizing it was.

Yes, that sounds a bit, but it was.

And there's a lot of my recovery I don't actually remember because I was in an awful lot of pain.

But thankfully there are cameras because I literally had to go on set after coming out of hospital.

But when I came out of hospital I was still in a wheelchair and I couldn't really move at all and the leg needed, the dressings needed to be changed a couple of times a day.

Yada, yada, yeah, I was on quite heavy medication, blah, blah, blah.

Where I'd been staying in West Cork, I had steps up to it.

They'd put me up in a lovely place, but there was no way on earth did it have wheelchair access or the care I would need.

So production, the most extraordinary production and people, they worked above and beyond, thought in their infinite kindness and wisdom that the best place for me to recuperate for the rest of the shoot would be the Skibberine Old Folks home.

So I got wheeled in to the Skibberine Old Folks home and plonked in a room there and every couple of days I was wheeled out to go on set.

And then at the end of the day, I would be wheeled back.

It was the most hilarious and strangest time of my life.

But I distinctly remember being on set, waiting, you know, being in pain, being on caught, everybody working so hard, really, really hard.

And it being glorious.

But getting, knowing that I was finally getting back to myself when I was going, oh, I hope this is the last take.

There'll be many turnarounds.

I need to get back.

It's...

Is it sausage and chip night?

Let's get bring old folks home.

Because the sausages and chips, man.

Yeah.

Oh,

my.

Oh, my.

It was, it was just, it was, it was food for the soul.

It was, it was a bam.

It soothed me completely.

It was, so, it was, they were perfect.

The chips were crunchy and fluffy, not dry.

Plenty of them, but not too many because, you know, I was still recovering and I didn't have a huge appetite, but I wanted to feel like myself.

And food is so emotional, isn't it?

And it makes you feel like yourself, especially your body if there's a limb like literally hanging off you

you want to feel like yourself and who who who you were before all this and and you can't really get it with with other things food really does that special special thing and it was the most comfort like the sausages were beautiful they were very juicy on the inside but they were sort of black and brown that dark and they weren't they weren't soggy they weren't baked people have put care into these sausages and they were beautiful pork meat and they had chef ketchup not Heinz chef ketchup which is I don't think I've seen it here it's a brand in in Ireland but there's something about it that is a bit more I presume a bit more sugary or something than Heinz or and also has a sort of a thicker texture like Heinz is a bit watery now isn't it like it's sort of like a puree passata kind of real blancetan but it has to be served at room temperature the thing with ketchup you can't have cold ketchup it needs to be room temperature if not warmer in fact i wouldn't recommend microwaving the the ketchup,

but I'm not saying don't do it either.

And that would be my main course.

It would be served with a cup of tea and the feeling that I had done a good day's work, I was due a good night's sleep, and I wasn't in awful pain, and I was getting back to myself.

And the best food in the world makes you feel more like yourself.

And that plate of chips and sausages did it.

Was this once a week in the Skibberine Old Folks Home?

Yeah.

yeah i mean this i've never heard of anyone say that the folk the old folks home food is good like it's good they've got a rep for being terrible right they i i i

couldn't believe like all my preconceptions of those places was blown out of the water when when when i stayed there you had people who genuinely liked their job that i found weird They were really, not only liked their job, but they were really passionate about it and would go above and beyond.

They were also very funny, like that wonderful, dry sense of humour.

They were very knowledgeable.

They were being paid, fuck all.

And it was just really affirming to know that there are these places where through no fault of their own, people we love will end up there.

And to know, in spite of all the horror stories you hear, there are people working their arse off.

And they're doing it because they're passionate about their job.

You know, it was lovely.

And so many funny things, so many, so many funny things.

What was really like, because it took a while for me to realize that my friends and colleagues were sort of looking at me slightly askance, was the fact that I loved it so much.

I was like, can I go back?

You know, it's like, you know, poor Siobhan, she's in the old folks.

I'm like, it's great crack.

We will sing song on Mondays.

It is so much fun.

Like, you know, they had a lovely garden.

It was exactly what I needed to heal.

Yeah.

And I'm so grateful to them all and

oh god i think i'm getting a bit yeah it was it's been horrible and that was very nice and the food is part of it have you book yourself in for a food i have just for a little bit of a a retreat maybe it should be that yeah because it's a shame that those places have like a really bad rep for like the food's rubbish because like it's like people are just going to go well it's a rubbish situation having to be there so therefore the food is now going to be well you don't have to make it good i'm only basing this on my grandma when i used to visit her in an old folks home i think she just liked complaining.

Well, the thing is, everybody was complaining about the food.

I'm like, lads, this is fantastic.

Have you tried catering on set?

Like, this is great.

Yeah.

You're really, really fine.

And also, I think, yeah, it's people not being particularly happy they're there.

And also, it wasn't a novelty anymore.

And I was happy to be fed.

They had lived.

Your grandma has lived her entire life.

Yeah, yeah.

She was counting the fish in the fish pie.

Oh, right.

She was going, there's four flakes of fish in the fish pie.

It's an absolute disgrace.

Well, I mean, that is a disgrace.

Fair enough, yeah.

It's more mashed potato than

fish.

I hate that.

I hate that in Shepherd's Pie as well.

Oh, mountain of mashed potato and a little river of brown sludge at the bottom.

You need to have it 50-50 at least.

I just want not much mashed potato.

I want it to be as crisp as possible on the top as well.

Yeah.

I want to be able to lift off the top layer of a mashed potato.

It's the crispy skin.

Nice.

You want to be able to smash through it and still see your body shape.

Yeah.

So you could have a little mashed potato cube beside my...

I'd love it.

Just the outer layer of the shepherd's pie.

Yeah.

Would you have it make dirty or not?

I'd make it dirty.

Yeah.

Would you?

I'd make dirty as much as possible.

I don't think you should make it dirty.

Because whatever about a pop-a-dom, that would crunch.

The under part of the crispy skin of a shepherd's pie, that's mushy, man.

It's going to be like when snow turns to slush.

Yeah.

You want that as well?

You can't eat that.

How are you going to get in your basket?

You haven't thought this through.

Dirty basket.

I'll have a dirty basket you can't have a dirty basket oh dear dear but we've got a dirty basket

your dream side dish oh yeah i didn't bother with that

because you've already got the chips and you've got a cup of tea i got the chips the cup of tea now the cup of tea is very specific yeah it's uh barry's tea are you taking notes barry's tea bags made with i know it's a cliche but london water is awful I don't care how many people it's gone through.

That's the nature of water.

It's what they do to it afterwards.

Why is it like that?

It shouldn't be solid.

Sometimes I make tea and it's like, it's solid now.

What has happened to this water?

So it needs to be good water, soft water.

Where's the best water?

Cork.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Done.

And 18, she...

My aunt used to measure out the milk

in spoonfuls and she would put one in and I thought she was mad.

And I've tried it.

She was not mad.

mad she was a genius

so one spoonful of semi-skimmed milk that's the green stuff right yeah yeah so that would be beside it in a mug around this size so it is it's a good amount of tea but it doesn't go cold too quickly and it's not too hot for too long because that's the problem if you don't have a lot of milk in your tea you're just you're just waiting for it to cool and then the break's over so as a side dish you have to remember i still have the mountain of crab claws yes yes i have a i have a cube of popadom yeah so i i think i'm fine for a side so you're passing on the side I'm passing on the side

and remember the slightly warmed chef ketchup.

You know, I like a lot of ketchup

earlier when you said chef ketchup I don't think I'll be alone in this but like

you were talking about like the you know the old folks home and you were saying and chef and I was like oh we're gonna learn the name of the chef at the old folks home and ketchup.

I was like because I've never heard of the brand chef ketchup.

I just thought that's a man called chef ketchup at the old folks home.

I did not think that actually I'd like to retract my my initial thing and say that I agree with you.

I just thought you meant like homemade ketchup, so like Chef Ketchup.

But you were in the

air called Chef Ketchetchett.

A man called Chef Ketchup was working at the old folks.

Oh, Chef Ketchup.

Yeah, Chef Ketchup made all the food.

Yeah.

Would that be predestined or a nickname?

Because he's big and red.

I thought it was his real name.

That was his name.

From the ketchups down the road.

Yeah, I was like, oh, I thought it was chef.

Alan.

Alan Ketchup.

He's a chef.

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Are you also going to pass on dream drink as well because you've got the tea?

No.

No.

I want a frozen margarita.

Yes, and you can have one.

In huge agreement with this.

Yes.

Any specificities?

No, but perhaps not the...

I went to visit my friends in the States and she brought me to supermarket and I saw pre-mixed margarita mix.

And she had a very young child and I ostensibly was going over to help because her husband was away shooting.

And I sat down and I drank the whole

because she had one of those American fridges where you get the crushed ice.

I was like, oh, dear God,

this is amazing.

And it came in like in a huge...

like a keg almost like a hu what what like not a flagging but like those huge old-fashioned sort of jars where you know what you mean.

You'd almost have moonshine in it.

This was this pre-mixed margarita mix and I would have the crushed ice and I sat on the couch and complained about the heat in Atlanta and drank the whole thing and for the rest of the week had the worst heartburn

of my life.

Like for days and days and end.

I was like, I am mostly lime now.

I'm shriveled up.

So not that.

But any other kind would be nice.

And also, I've been trying to find the chili salt you put around the edge of it.

The chili and lime salt, there would have to be a lot of that.

And if I wanted to just put my finger in, and it's basically like the best part, Doritos, you know, the bottom of the powder Doritos.

Well, we could do, I mean, this is the dream restaurant.

Instead of chili and lime salt, do you want the powder from a bag of Doritos around the rim of the glass?

From the chili Doritos, yes.

Chili Doritos, yeah.

That's quite a good idea.

That's a really good idea, yeah.

Yeah.

That's got stuff.

Bob Mortimer would do that.

Yeah, yeah.

He loved inventing things.

He made mashed potato out of crisps.

No.

But I mean, you've got to give you credit for really thinking about that.

Yeah, you thought about it.

I'd figured out how he'd do it.

A lot of mastication, I think, would be involved.

No, no, fair enough.

It would be the crisp residue that you find in your mouth.

You know, when you'd eat a bag of crisp.

Yeah, yeah.

And then you pick out that one.

It would be a lot of that in a pile.

Yeah.

No.

No, Bob.

But the frozen margarita, a great choice.

Yeah, lovely choice.

We've had it before in the podcast because it is one of the

most powerful things.

And also tequila doesn't make me mad.

It turns out I'm quite pleasant on tequila.

Yeah.

There was a bit of a like, you know, you're a bit of a cunt on gin.

I'm like, I did not know that.

I did not know that.

So far, under very controlled examination, experimental conditions, tequila seems to be the one that I can continue drinking without starting a fight

or

worse

over a long period of time.

That's the one thing that they'll go, okay, let's keep her on the tequila.

Keep her on the tequila.

What night was Frozen Margarita night at the Skibreen Old Folks home?

They didn't have frozen margarita.

But you know, it was fine.

I had very nice painkillers.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Probably painkillers in one of those little plastic cups with chili and lime salt around them.

No, that would be nice.

We arrive at your dream dessert.

Very exciting.

It's been an emotional roller coaster.

Yeah, it's been a while.

Whole journey for your life from childhood to your uni days.

Into the old folks.

To the old folks.

Yeah, we've really.

Is this dessert going to represent your death somehow?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It feels like that.

Imagine, yeah.

No, but

it is

like it does sound a bit like, oh, I'm picking this because of thinking, blah, blah, blah.

I haven't been able to find a Black Forest Gato

that tastes like the Black Forest Gato I ate in the Black Forest.

Wow.

And I have been trying.

to find it and people fuck it up by trying to be fancy.

Don't be fancy.

Get the little,

the chocolate sprinkles, vermicelli or something.

Coat that on the outside.

I want your your tinned sour cherries i want your kirch

don't get fancy with fancy kirsch i want your shit kirsch i want cream proper cream of course i'm not an animal and moist chocolate sponges and a good ratio of the sour cherries to the sponge.

Don't mess around with it.

It's a classic for a reason.

Don't try to go all fucking Nigela or whoever the fuck you think you are because somebody once liked your cake that you brought into the office.

Getting really angry about this.

Do you know how much

black forescato I have had

because people try to mess around with it?

I spent a summer in Triberg, Vodi Hoekste Vasseval in Deutschlandist, in the Black Forest where the highest waterfall in Germany is.

What level of frisante is the waterfall?

Oh yeah, very good.

No, it was too high up.

I didn't bother.

I was too busy enjoying.

Yeah, we know what you do.

You'd be dangling.

Charlotte Church at the bottom of the waterfall.

I mean, I guess, like, when you were in the Black Forest, you must have been like, well, I have to have a Black Forest Gatto while I'm here.

Well, I was working as a dishwasher in the kitchen, and I was very confused.

And I did not have as much German as my German teacher or I thought I might.

So I didn't didn't really have much to do.

So I'd sneak into the fridge and eat Black Forest Gato day in, day out, and never got sick of it.

In retrospect, it would have been sort of like...

What's it called over here?

Is it a Toby place where you have like...

Toby Carvery?

Yeah, that's it.

It would be sort of like the Black Forest version of that.

I would argue that you loved that Black Forest Gato so much.

Firstly, because you were in the Black Forest.

Yeah.

So you thought it was just

fantastic.

And also, you were sneaking it.

Yeah.

And there's no better taste than sneaking.

Oh my god, was that the added ingredient?

I think so.

I think for your dream meal, we might have to put the black fossato in a separate room.

It's actually snuck.

And you have to sneak it.

Would I have to do all the laser thingies to get through it?

Sure.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But what if a shard of Papa Dum has fallen from my clean basket onto the ground and without me noticing, and I put my foot down and makes a khan?

The security comes out.

And then I have to run, but I have a bad leg yeah oh yeah I have a bad leg so I can't run up to that black forest ghetto are you oh it's gonna taste so good

oh my god that that's the missing thing that's forget the ratio yes this is yeah yeah you've got to sneak it yum yum yum yum when I was a dishwasher I would um sneak the lumpy bumpy when that was in the uh the the fridge of course the walk-in fridge what's the lumpy bumpy either a chocolate lumpy bumpy or a toffy lumpy bumpy if you're lucky uh toffy lumpy bumpy doesn't sound lumpy lucky.

So like it's mainly cream.

It's mainly thick cream on like a

layer, a thin layer of sponge as the base and then a thick cream and then like a very thick chocolate or toffee glaze.

that also has embedded in it chunks of chocolate and toffee and fudge.

Lumpy bumpy?

I would sneak the chocolate lumpy bumpy or the toffy lumpy bumpy whenever my heart desired and that was my Black Forest Gato in the Black Forest.

I'm telling you, listen, we had it good.

Yeah.

Good, good times.

I would sneak cheese out of the fridge at home, take a big bite out of it like it was an apple.

My mum would make pate.

She said that she came in once and looked like a dirty protest had happened.

And I looked like Augustus Gloop.

It was all over my face.

I had two handfuls of it.

Pate behind your back.

Pate behind my back.

And she went, Siobhan, have you been at the pate?

And I went,

No.

No, I have not.

I'm gonna read your menu back to you now see how you feel about it

water you want sparkling left open overnight or from a soda stream yes poppadums or bread you wanted a room full of poppadom that you can burst through well not make dirty and then eat the shards throughout the meal and you would like your mother's Irish soda bread with some bandon

co-op butter starter crab claws from the summer of 96 yes throughout the meal

throughout the meal made by Ogi Maloney wow yeah

I missed that the first time round and I would have been on that very quickly if I had to.

And Ogie Maloney's mother gives you the fork.

Mary Maloney

gave me the fork to take it.

I heard that Mary Maloney gave you the fork, and I let that go.

But then I didn't know that Ogie Maloney was involved.

Ogie Maloney makes the crab laws.

Yeah,

that is very cool.

Main course, sausage and chips with chef's ketchup from the Skibberine old folks' home with a cider pea, baby's tea bag with cork water, one spoonful of semi-skimmed.

Yes, thank you.

Drink a frozen margarita with chili Dorito dust around the rim.

And dessert, Black Forest Gatto from the Black Forest Snuck.

Yes, make sure, yes, the sneaking apparently.

It's not the cherries that made it, it was the sneaking.

It was the adrenaline.

It was the sour taste of copper in my mouth.

It was the adrenaline coursing through my veins.

That little make you fight for your dessert.

I feel like I've learned a lot about myself.

Thank you guys.

And we've learned a lot about you.

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

Well, there we are.

What a wonderful menu.

I loved that.

Delicious menu.

Journey through.

I mean, I'd eat all that food and also,

what a lovely life.

What a lovely bunch of stories that you've got to do about that.

Really nice stories.

And it does.

You know, normally if someone's saying like sausage and chips are in old people's home, we'd normally absolutely kick the shit out of someone for saying something like that.

But what a nice story.

And yeah and actually thinking about it i've a lot of respect for canteen sausage and chips yeah that's the thing big shiny sausages and then like a shovel of chips yeah when siobon said that i thought back to when i used to work at the school as a classroom assistant you know the canteen wasn't great but there'd be certain days i would think oh it's that day today you know that particular one and i'd look forward to it even though it was no no siobon was saying this one was good yeah but even with that one it was objectively a bad meal that i'd look forward to once a week but it was the best of the lot so why i'd have that little, oh, it's that.

And as soon as she said, oh, it's sausage and chips night tonight, I was like, yeah, I know this feeling.

It reminded me of just going swimming when you've just been swimming.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I was like, when she said sausage and chips, I was like, I think I've just been swimming.

Yeah, going to Keprian Leisure Village.

That's not exactly what I thought, but and then having the awful food afterwards.

So you've just done a bunch of exercise and then having the saltiest chips in the world.

Putney Leisure Centre, I was thinking of personally.

Okay.

No, you've never went to the KLV.

Never went to the KLV.

It would be PLC and it would be, yes, top diving board.

10 meters.

Don't mind if I do.

Wow.

And only every other time would I psych myself up too much and then have to come down the steps because I'd scared myself out of it.

But most importantly, Siobhan did not say Mini Marshmallows dreams.

Good.

Good.

Good.

You wouldn't get them on a Black Forest gato.

No, absolutely not.

Especially not the proper Black Forest

snuck gato.

Snuck gato.

Yeah.

I'd love a snuck gato.

I I love that episode.

Uh, and Dairy Girls is starting very soon, series three, channel four.

The final series of Dairy Girls.

Make sure you watch it.

And if you haven't seen the other two series, catch up and then enjoy the third one.

Yes, do.

I'm on tour, edgambleelectric, edgamble.co.uk for tickets.

James has got a book out.

You can get that wherever you get your books.

Buy my old books as well if you want to.

Yeah, why not get all the blooming books?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We have got some lovely thank yous to do for

beautiful food that has been sent to us.

First shout-outs just from me, James.

You might want to cover your ears for this.

Two of my gigs on tour, I have arrived to find that some companies have delivered me some amazing cheese.

I have had so much nice

cheese.

One of them is from the Box of Cheese, who are like a cheese subscription and delivery service.

Based in the New Forest, I believe, sent me some absolutely fantastic cheeses.

And then when I went to Newcastle, I was given some amazing cheese from the Doddington dairy.

a huge box of cheese along with some amazing little biscuits for cheese oh it was fantastic left that backstage thank you so much to them that venue that that Newcastle venue so when I was there last there was loads of ice cream in my dressing room yeah that they got for me and that and because that they know about the podcast so yeah big thanks to is this the opera house is it what is it yeah the Tynes Tyne Theatre and Opera House.

Yeah, yeah.

Amazing, amazing, beautiful.

Amazing venue.

Wonderful staff who have treated me and Edge to our opposing dessert choices.

Yeah, what a fantastic place that was.

Audience liked to whoop.

Yep, or take their tops off when you're driving away in your car.

My experience.

It was men.

It was a fella.

Yeah, it was a fella.

Yeah.

Didn't happen to me.

Well, I went out there.

Everyone put their coats on.

Yeah, yeah.

I drove away.

A man took his t-shirt off and shook his titties at us.

Oh, no wonder you're not doing a UK tour.

Huge shout out to Hotel Shokala.

Oh my God.

They sent us so much stuff.

So lovely.

Thank you, Hotel Shokala.

It's made my year.

Like, they let me

just...

Isn't this the dream I've had since I was a kid?

Yeah.

They go on the website and just select anything that you want on there.

Yeah.

And that's what I did.

I chose so many chocolates that I really wanted to try.

And they sent me all of them in a big box.

And I've been working my way through them.

And they're so delicious.

And also, they're going to let me go down to the HQ or the kitchens that they've got there and have a full chocolate making day and be a little chocolatier.

I get to make my own because this is all because of the shout outs to the Velvetizer that we've been given

on the pod.

Yeah, and they were like do you want to come and make your own Velvetizer chocolate that's gonna be your own sachets that you can take home and make your own flavor.

Oh my god James.

So I'm gonna get to do that.

There's

coming in.

I might have a day there too.

They've asked me if I want a day there too.

They also sent me the same chocol because they said said what do you want us to send you and i said exactly what you sent to james yeah great which you know i didn't realize that it was in a situation where you went on the website and pick what you want because it was so much yeah yeah you really ran with that i would have been like maybe three these three things yeah and how many 25 different yeah it's like there's like six chocolates in each packet yeah and i had about yeah 25 of them 25 25 packets of six each uh i wish i'd ask for the big boxes now i like the big boxes yeah so i didn't ask for any of the big boxes because i just wanted to try individual ones i didn't know to be fair to me how many were in each packet but i was like that one that one that one that one that one yeah i wanted a a cylinder of the orange tangs and they were amazing have you had you had the i've not had the tangs yet i've not had a lot i mean they're so tangy we as we speak we went to the comedy awards uh a few days ago and i've not really had many but i did it was at home and let me tell you when i got back from the comedy awards i checked into the hotel chocolate oh yes that is but i think i might have checked into the hotel chocolate actually well when i got back from the comedy awards

It was pretty great.

We lost.

But thank you to Hotel Shokola because we felt like we won.

Yes, absolutely.

Kraft Gin Club have sent us, I mean, I guess it looks like a bottle of gin and a way to mix a fantastic cocktail and loads of snacks as well.

They've absolutely smashed it.

Thanks very much to the Kraft Gin Club.

Thank you.

And sorry that, you know, we said stuff about gin in the main episode about turning people dark.

Not everybody.

Not everybody's into gin.

Possibly.

I love gin.

Gin's an upper for me.

Baked in bake kits.

Like they've sent us these baking kits, including one for cookies, which is like a big bottle full of the ingredients.

And then you like empty the whole mix out and mix it up with other stuff.

And full credit to them as well for not making a bake-off reference in the letter or anything like that, or the little note they gave, because, you know, a lot of the time, I get, you know, if I get sent stuff that's like not even just anything food related and they'll go, bod up a cheat, James.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

These ones could have gone full on in it because it's bacon.

And they didn't do it.

They just were like, there you go.

I mean, it looks so simple to make those cookies.

Even you couldn't fuck that up, mate.

We'll see about that.

Challenge accepted.

Look forward to you just baking the whole glass bottle with all the stuff in it straight in the oven.

Uh-oh.

Also, Ed, I'm holding in my hand here the original Veronica Farm Fudge, handmade, rum and raisin flavour.

This one.

Oh, that sounds good.

Delicious creamy fudge blended with local SC Dogs white rum.

Wow.

That's, I mean, look.

Fudge is right up your street, right?

Yep.

I love fudge.

I'd say more than anything in the world.

I will have one cube of fudge and being a diabetic man, it will be just like injecting me with adrenaline.

Go to space.

I'll go to space, mate.

I'll take my pants off and go to space.

Yeah, exactly.

So thank you very much to all those places for sending us stuff.

That's marvelous.

I can't wait to get stuck into all of that.

But now, let's say goodbye and see you next week on the Off Menu Podcast.

Goodbye and see you next week on the Off Menu Podcast.

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Oh, hello, it's Amy Gladhill here.

Hello, I'm Harriet Kemsley.

Single ladies is 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 7pm at King's Place.

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

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