Ep 134: Charlotte Church

Transcript

Speaker 1 Hello, it's Ed Gamble here from the Off Menu Podcast.

Speaker 2 Hello, it's James A. Caster here from the Off Menu Podcast.

Speaker 2 And before the episode starts, we'd like to talk to you about All Our Relations, a non-profit co-founded by your friend of mine, comedian Jen Brister, and Georgia Takax.

Speaker 1 Yes, All Our Relations was originally started to support 15 families in Gaza when the genocide started, but now supports 21 families and funds several mutual aid projects, including two seven-day food kitchens and two mobile food parcel delivery schemes, as well, feeding hundreds of families in Gaza every single day.

Speaker 1 They've created an absolutely amazing thing. And we feel like, you know, it's the off-menu podcast.

Speaker 1 We talk about food and we are very lucky to eat wonderful food and have access to absolutely brilliant food all of the time. And I think we need to talk about people who have access to no food, James.

Speaker 2 Absolutely. So if people would like to donate, please go to allourrelations.co.uk or look at the links in Jen Brister's bio on Instagram.
Every penny raised go to supporting people in Gaza.

Speaker 2 Thank you so much and enjoy the episode.

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Speaker 1 Welcome to the Off-Menu Podcast, opening up the shell of the internet, plucking out the pearl of conversation and downing the sweet, salty, creamy oyster of humour. It's the Off-Menu Podcast.

Speaker 1 How do you do it, Ed Gamble? You come up with a different thing each time. And that one was a very good one.
Thank you very much. Yeah, oysters.
Oysters, correct.

Speaker 1 Imagine if that's not what I was trying to do. Yes, my name is James A.
Caster, and Ed and I own a dream restaurant, Ed's the Matri D. I am a genie waiter.
We invite a guest in every week,

Speaker 1 and we ask them their favour ever.

Speaker 1 Starter, main course, dessert side dish and drink and this week our guest is charlotte church charlotte church a wonderful singer of course a wonderful broadcaster i'm gonna say it james yeah is it another national treasure situation i feel like a national treas here um i'm gonna i'm gonna say it's personally for me national treasure yeah look we've we've grown up with charlotte church she's grown up with us yeah you know she's been through many different forms in her life and now she's finally here in her ultimate form on the off-menu podcast yeah this is where everyone comes at the end.

Speaker 1 When they're fully formed, then they're ready to do off-menu. Yes, exactly.
And it's very exciting.

Speaker 1 But as always, if Charlotte says a secret ingredient, an ingredient which we deem to be gross, then we will have to, with a heavy heart, kick her out of the dream restaurant.

Speaker 1 And this week, the secret ingredient is rosemary. Rosemary.

Speaker 1 Now, I didn't pick this. I did.
I love rosemary. I've got a plant in my garden.
I made it very clear in the Tim Key episode that I do not like rosemary at all. Yes.
I don't like it.

Speaker 1 I especially hate it if I bite into the rosemary itself.

Speaker 1 I feel like it's a very unpleasant perfume explosion.

Speaker 1 Well look that's a tricky thing because of course rosemary is quite a hard leaf but I think when it's on things that have been fried or roasted I actually think rosemary when it's a bit more brittle and a bit more crispy is slightly more delightful.

Speaker 1 But the flavour it imparts, James, are you not even a fan of the rosemary flavour? No, I don't really care for it. I could live my whole life having that flavour.

Speaker 1 Again, I don't really care about that flavour.

Speaker 1 It's too perfumey. Too perfumey.
Yeah, that's what I've decided. Even on sheepy.

Speaker 3 Huh? Even on sheepie.

Speaker 1 Even on sheepy, I don't like it. I don't like it in the sheepy.
I don't like it in anything.

Speaker 1 I mean, definitely, you know, I think when I was a kid, there would be more like raw rosemary involved in some things.

Speaker 1 And then definitely that would have been what I bit into for one time that has left me scarred for life. But it was so unpleasant that I can't get over it.
They're even fried or roasted.

Speaker 1 It's repugnant to me.

Speaker 1 How do you feel about this, James? Sometimes, and I've made something recently, a dessert might be infused with a rosemary flavor. Oh, yeah.
Well, then I'm choosing something else on the menu.

Speaker 1 Well, what if you come over to my house, say, and I've made a wonderful citrus polenta cake,

Speaker 1 which is like, you pour a syrup over it, an orange syrup, which has also been infused with rosemary. There's no actual leaves in it.

Speaker 1 Look, I'd eat it. Yes.

Speaker 1 I may even enjoy it, but without the rosemary infusion, it would be better. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So I i would even enjoy that dish i might even say whoa this is like nine out of ten but it would have been ten out of ten if the rosemary wasn't involved right

Speaker 1 charlie won't eat that either no no

Speaker 1 i made it once we took it over to someone's house for a dinner party i thought it'd be nice to take a dessert over and we arrived and they'd also made a dessert it was a lemon tart and charlie ate loads of the lemon tart she didn't eat any of the thing i've made well okay well

Speaker 1 starters i'm glad that you're over it now um also though i'd say you got unlucky there because a lemon tart, you know, is kind of a bit of a trump card.

Speaker 1 Well, it is for it is for Charlie. Right.
Especially. She loves lemon tart.
When we first started going out, she kept saying she was going to write a lemon tart blog. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Where she read went round and only had lemon tarts

Speaker 1 all over the world if she could and write about the best lemon tarts. I think at some point everyone has had that dream about a certain food.

Speaker 1 A different food for each person, but everyone has thought, you know what I'm going to do?

Speaker 1 I'm going to choose this drink, this food, and I have all the words I can find, and I'm going to write a blog about it.

Speaker 1 In fact, I would like to know what the listeners' food items would be. If they had to go around the world trying one food, be it a lemon tart.
And writing a blog about it. Yeah, write a blog about it.

Speaker 1 What would the food item be? Tweet at OffmenuOfficial and let us know. Because I'd be very interested.

Speaker 1 I think it's a dream everyone's had. One person out there.
is thinking, well, it was going to be rosemary, but I'm not going to write in now

Speaker 1 about my rosemary blog. Because then we'll block you.
Yes.

Speaker 1 If any of you say a secret ingredient, you get blocked. Yeah.
Rosemary's bloggy. That's what I would call my rosemary blog.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Great. Thank you.

Speaker 1 Well, also, what's really exciting is that Charlotte Church has a new TV series. It's already started.
It's on Really, and it's streaming on Discovery Plus. And it's Tuesdays at 9 p.m.

Speaker 1 And it's called Charlotte Church's Dream Build. Yes, and I'm sure she'll tell us a lot more about that, as well as telling us her dream menu.
Dream menu in the dream build, maybe.

Speaker 1 I'm on tour.

Speaker 1 Don't forget that. I'm on tour.
Ed Gamble, Electric. UK tour.
Edgamble.co.uk for tickets. Check it out.
I'm coming to a theatre near you. Now it's time for the off-menu menu of Charlotte Church.

Speaker 1 Welcome, Charlotte, to the Dream Restaurant.

Speaker 19 Thank you so much. It's exquisite.

Speaker 1 Welcome, Charlotte Church, to the Dream Restaurant. We've been expecting you for some time.
Here we are. So you say it's exquisite, Charlotte.

Speaker 1 That's always a good word to hear when someone walks into a restaurant. Do you have, in your mind, when you walk into your dream restaurant, have you got, do you know what it looks like?

Speaker 1 Your child's in the dream restaurant. That's lovely.

Speaker 1 She is, sorry.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's nice.

Speaker 1 A bit of atmosphere.

Speaker 19 Absolutely. She's always with me, to be fair.
And she also thinks that the decor is exquisite.

Speaker 19 It's, um, yeah, I think that it's probably loads of beautiful naturalistic materials like bamboo and big walls of stone.

Speaker 19 And yeah, there's an amazing restaurant in Iceland in Reykjavik called Grill Market, which is like, oh,

Speaker 19 it looks sort of like you're inside a volcano.

Speaker 1 Wow. Wow.

Speaker 19 So something like that, you know, something that looks like the earther's birthday.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 What kind of food does Grill Market do? I'm interested in this place now.

Speaker 19 They do all sorts of like really beautiful, amazing food, but they also do things like Minky Whale.

Speaker 1 Minky Whale? Minky Whale. Minky Whale.
That sounds like something from In the Night Garden.

Speaker 19 Yes, but it isn't, unfortunately. It's actually people eating whale.
So...

Speaker 19 But yeah, it's a really beautiful looking restaurant.

Speaker 19 I am thinking that this is the sort of setting that I'd like to set our scene.

Speaker 1 It's very rare, Charlotte, that people come in and say they want their their dream restaurant to look like the earth has birthed it. That's been a phrase we've heard before on the podcast.

Speaker 1 Great.

Speaker 1 I like it. I love it very much.

Speaker 1 It's very much a phrase that's, I think, even better in a Welsh accent. The earth has birthed it.

Speaker 19 I'm glad you like it, darling.

Speaker 1 Good.

Speaker 1 Thank you, Charlotte.

Speaker 3 Are you much of a foodie?

Speaker 1 Would you call yourself a foodie? Or like, how much do you think about food?

Speaker 19 I am a lover of food.

Speaker 19 I'm not sure if I'm a foodie necessarily because I'm not like, you know, it doesn't sort of take up my every moment of thinking, which I think for foodies, it's like, you know, it's just all so important and, you know, sensory.

Speaker 19 And my husband's an amazing cook. I'm really lucky to have that, which means that I don't have to do a lot in order to experience really fabulous food.

Speaker 19 Very spoiled.

Speaker 1 What's his signature dish? What's your favorite thing that he cooks? Unless it's a spoiler. Have you got anything on your dream menu that your husband has?

Speaker 19 No, no, no.

Speaker 1 Oh, mad paste. No, no, no.
Sorry, Johnny.

Speaker 1 Man, go ahead.

Speaker 19 He does a really, really beautiful vegetarian roast dinner where it's like it's jam-packed full of like loads of different vegetables which are really tasty.

Speaker 19 So yeah, his vegetarian roast dinner is absolutely off the chain.

Speaker 1 Are you a vegetarian household?

Speaker 19 We're not a vegetarian household. However, we are trying to be mostly veggie with very occasional ethically sourced meat.

Speaker 1 And whale.

Speaker 1 No, no whale.

Speaker 1 He does a beautiful minky whale on a Sunday, doesn't he?

Speaker 1 Terrible. The one exception is Minky Whale.
Just all vegetables, being very vegetarian, but occasionally we do have a minky whale. Now, you're no stranger to dreams because your new series...

Speaker 1 Is it all about dreams? I want to know more.

Speaker 19 It's not about dreams. I mean, it is in a way, I suppose.
It's called Charlotte Church's Dream Build, and essentially, I bought this amazing house in the heart of Wales.

Speaker 19 And it's Laura Ashley's old house, actually, the

Speaker 19 designer. And I'm going to turn it into a healing retreat centre.

Speaker 1 Oh.

Speaker 19 Yeah, so I mean, it's a huge renovation. It's a massive project.

Speaker 3 She hadn't done it up?

Speaker 1 Yeah, Laura Ashley. You would have thought Laura Ashley might have done it up a little bit.
Yeah. Not a fan of the wallpaper.
She lived in an absolute dump. Is that what you're saying? Oh, no.

Speaker 19 She did it beautifully, but the last guy who owned it before me he half did it ripped out everything and just left it a shell basically so and to be honest that's the only reason i can afford it because he's left it in such a pickle which is you know good for me what's a healing retreat center for those who don't know which includes me What I want it to be, it's going to be called the dreaming and it's a place that you can go which helps you to reconnect with nature and the earth, with yourself and with with other people.

Speaker 19 So, I think that in the modern world, we're all a bit fried. Everything is going at such a rate, such a pace, that I think we're frying our nervous systems.

Speaker 19 And capitalism and consumerism don't make us happy. And there's a lot of people out there who are searching for a bit of joy and a bit of meaning.

Speaker 19 And so, I'm hoping to create somewhere which is just chock a block full of magic and nature.

Speaker 1 sounds great. Do you think that because of like you were like a child star, your life was 100 miles an hour way before all of like the internet kicked off and stuff like that?

Speaker 1 Do you think you've had earlier appreciation for this and how the need and the importance for decompressing?

Speaker 19 I don't know. That's a great question.
It is.

Speaker 1 And I'll be honest, Charlotte, I'm very surprised. He doesn't normally ask those sorts of questions.

Speaker 1 He's really pulled that one out of somewhere. We've done over 130 episodes of this.
He's never asked a question that good before. I'm surprised myself.

Speaker 19 Really? And I'm not sure if I've ever been asked that. So, original as well.
Very well done.

Speaker 1 Thank you.

Speaker 19 I don't know. Since I had kids, I just started becoming a bit obsessed with nature.

Speaker 19 And also, you know, the impending apocalyptic situation with the climate and such, you know, really sort of focuses the mind as to what's important.

Speaker 19 And I think that we need to sort of reshape the narrative around instead of it being like, oh my gosh, this is all so terrible. and you know, what are we gonna do?

Speaker 19 And you're responsible for this, and we need to view it like you know, the Marvel franchise that we're all superheroes. And what are you gonna do?

Speaker 19 Like, what's your superpower going to be in terms of saving humanity? Because that's the size of the task. So, you know, let's do our best to make it fun.
And hopefully, it works.

Speaker 19 And if it doesn't, you know, at least we've had a ball trying to fix the mess that's been made.

Speaker 1 You know where I went recently? I had a similar experience like getting back to nature and just needing everything to slow down. I went to the 100 acre wood.

Speaker 19 Deep in the hundred acre wood like Winnie the Pooh.

Speaker 1 Yeah like the place where A.A. Milne and Christopher Robin genuinely like lived there and went and played in.
Ashdown Forest it's called and it is incredible. I went there two days in a row.

Speaker 1 And it is so amazing.

Speaker 19 Ah, that sounds glorious. Where is it?

Speaker 1 Near Tunbridge Wells. My girlfriend girlfriend drove, so I wasn't really paying attention.

Speaker 1 I was in charge of two.

Speaker 1 You were connecting with nature already, weren't you? Yeah,

Speaker 1 and Spotify.

Speaker 1 And I was maybe playing songs in the car. But then when we got there, it looked pretty amazing.
And I really recommend it to anyone who wants to calm down, clear their head a bit. I went...

Speaker 1 Two days it was so good. First day, I was like, one day is not enough.
I'm going to go back again because I still haven't seen the heffalump tree. And that's a real thing that's there.

Speaker 19 Have you ever heard of shirin yoku or forest bathing? No.

Speaker 19 It's an idea that started in Japan where scientists started looking into the actual physical benefits of being in the forest and not just being in the forest but sort of engaging all of your senses and staying there for much longer than just an like a walk, like a quick walk.

Speaker 19 So, you know, whether you're going for half a day or a whole day, really submerging yourself. And they, I mean, that what they found, that the benefits that it does for the body is insane.

Speaker 19 And also, even for mental health, the colour green, something to do with the color green, really sort of soothes our minds. So, yeah, I'm just like, mother nature is where it's at.

Speaker 19 And I don't think that, you know, saving the world has to be that difficult. I just think that we have to refocus our attention to nature and all of her absolutely glorious spoils and abundance.

Speaker 19 And as soon as we start connecting with that, then we're going to want to do all of the good stuff that we need to do.

Speaker 1 I don't like nature. Oh, here we go.

Speaker 1 Here we go.

Speaker 1 Sorry about that. Max.
I can cope with nature for an hour, Max. Then I've been to the 100-acre wood, mate.
I don't want to go to the 100-acre wood.

Speaker 1 Like, whenever I end up sleeping somewhere that's quiet out in nature, I can't deal with it because there's no sirens or anything.

Speaker 1 And that might reduce my blood pressure, but the panic of my blood pressure reducing then ups my heart rate. You grew up in Wimbledon.
But Wimbledon's not that noisy. Wimbledon's rowdy.

Speaker 1 It's not rowdy. Compared to where me and Charlotte grew up, it is a rowdy place.
Right, okay. So you're a proper

Speaker 19 city mouse.

Speaker 1 I'm a proper city mouse, yes. Whereas James is a country mouse and was also a mouse in the recent Cinderella film.
Yes, thank you.

Speaker 1 So we're different mice, but that's why we work well together.

Speaker 19 Do you feel like wonder and awe when you're in the city then? Do you love culture?

Speaker 1 No, I prefer to just stay on an even keel and feel no wonder or awe whatsoever.

Speaker 1 I would say I like to feel fine. He sells himself short there.
He loves culture. I do love it.
He loves restaurants.

Speaker 3 He loves going to see shows.

Speaker 1 I think, yeah, you do love that. And then maybe out in the countryside, you're like, why isn't 21 bringing me some food? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Because all the animals are just getting on with their own thing and everyone's ignoring me. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And then it's really quiet at night and you can just hear a bird now and again, whereas I prefer to hear a shooting, you know.

Speaker 1 Christ.

Speaker 1 We've all assumed our roles that we'd appear at the start of this podcast. Oh, that's great.

Speaker 19 It's Mark. He's the baddie.

Speaker 1 Ed's the baddie. I'm not the baddie.
I'm a city mouse. The baddie.
Me and Charlotte Charlotte saving the world. Well, Charlotte is, and I'm listening to it and going, yes, I should do that.
And

Speaker 1 you're a baddie. Okay, fine.
You're a baddie city rat. I'll take it.

Speaker 19 I'm a mouse. The origins of the word culture, though, when you take it far back, it basically is something to do with the protector of nature.

Speaker 19 So even culture, actually, is essentially, if you go far enough back and deep enough into the human psyche, it's about being a protector of nature. So she will come for you, I have no doubt.
Yeah,

Speaker 1 she will come for you, and you will deserve everything you get when that happens. I'm not going to help you.

Speaker 1 We always start the dream meal with still or sparkling water, Charlotte. What would you prefer?

Speaker 19 I'm going to have still water because sparkling water is actually one of the only things in the entire world that makes me gag.

Speaker 1 Really?

Speaker 19 Uh-huh. It just makes absolutely no sense to me or my taste buds or my stomach.
In fact, it's almost invasive do you drink fizzy drinks yeah

Speaker 1 I mean you said okay you reacted to that like it was a stupid question Charlotte but yeah I think it was fair enough to find out you could cope with fizzy drinks but not sparkling water and for some reason that's invasive and it makes you gag it's not the bubbles I think it's the carbonation and the water together is just like no no no what what is this and it's been since since forever really do you think it's a singer's thing as well like singers you wouldn't drink fizzy water.

Speaker 1 No. Asking for trouble.

Speaker 19 Exactly. It's all a bit burpee.
So, yes, I will have a nice big glass of still water, please.

Speaker 1 I'm surprised you're not having like some fresh water from a spring. Like, you know, like, I would think you would want to go down to like a lovely, like a pure natural water source.

Speaker 19 I didn't know I was allowed to do that.

Speaker 1 Can we do that?

Speaker 1 Someone has done that.

Speaker 1 I think Ross Kemp did that

Speaker 1 on the podcast.

Speaker 1 I might be wrong, but I think Ross Kemp requested. That's the way everyone reacted when I told them we had Ross Kemp on the bottom.
Yeah, yeah, we were all

Speaker 1 surprised.

Speaker 19 Actually, if I'm allowed to do that, then what I would love to do is go back to the Dreaming in Mid-Wales, in the heart of Wales, to the Healing Retreat Centre.

Speaker 19 And there are two incredible waterfalls.

Speaker 19 So I am going to stand with a really fancy-looking goblet at the bottom of the waterfall, and I am going to take this pristine, cool water right from the waterfall. Thank you very much.

Speaker 1 And when you're there, are you out of the way of the waterfall and you're holding the goblet into the waterfall, or are you just standing under the waterfall with a goblet and it's all just going all over you?

Speaker 19 Okay, you clearly have a little fantasy going on there, my darling. This isn't a wet t-shirt competition and standing next to the waterfall.

Speaker 1 James looks absolutely gutted. Absolutely gutted that you've called him out for that.

Speaker 1 Oh, I've never been called a grubby little perv before on the podcast, but I feel like a grubby little perv right now. Sorry about that, Charlotte.
I do apologise for James.

Speaker 19 Don't apologise at all, but...

Speaker 1 Calling that a rat.

Speaker 19 I am dry and I am holding my goblet under the waterfall.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. Oh, God.
James, Charlotte just wants to get on with her dream meal. She doesn't need you peeking out of bushes, hoping she's going to get into the waterfall.

Speaker 1 I swear I'm not picking out of any bushes. I was just

Speaker 1 the logistics of holding the goblet into the waterfall. That's all, but like, it's nice and clear now.

Speaker 19 Versus getting completely submerged.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Those are the two options.

Speaker 3 I thought that was the two options.

Speaker 1 Pop and absorb bread. Pop and obsorb bread, Charlotte Church.
Pop and obsorb bread.

Speaker 19 Most certainly, I want a really diverse bread basket. Yeah.
To be honest, I'm absolutely obsessed with bread. So what I would really love is, you know, like that,

Speaker 19 when you go to posh restaurants, they do like flavoured bread.

Speaker 19 It might have like caraway seeds in or like roasted dill bread, or and also they do like there's sometimes like different flavoured butters as well.

Speaker 19 So, I want quite an involved basket of bread, please.

Speaker 1 That sounds good. That sounds really good.
That's like your street, isn't it? Oh, I love it. Absolutely love it.
The selection of breads, fantastic.

Speaker 1 James, do you want to ask Charlotte if she'll be eating the bread in the waterfall, maybe?

Speaker 1 Not gonna ask that, actually. I was going to ask: do you want us to just hand you the bread in the basket or do you want to tip the bread bowls over you?

Speaker 19 As you shower amongst the flowery

Speaker 1 or the caraway seeds.

Speaker 1 So, do you have specific breads that are going to go in this basket? Do you have like

Speaker 1 your top hit breads, a bread chart?

Speaker 19 Okay, I would love some sort of focaccia with like some sun-dried tomato and olive potentially within the bread. Nice.
I'd love a bit of sourdough.

Speaker 19 I'm going to have something like quite seeded and I'm going to have it with a butter with like that black volcanic salt. Nice.
What's another fabulous butter that either of you have had?

Speaker 1 I like whipped butters.

Speaker 1 Butters that have like...

Speaker 1 Oh, here we go. Here we go.

Speaker 1 I can't believe it.

Speaker 1 You tried to make me the baddie.

Speaker 1 And now you're the perv, but it wasn't even me.

Speaker 19 Just for butter. Just for you, I'll have the whipped butter, which I will whip myself.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Oh, no.

Speaker 1 And then, would you like any spanked butter as well, Charlotte?

Speaker 1 No, that does sound absolutely delicious. I think that was a good addition of butters, James.

Speaker 3 Well done.

Speaker 19 I think so. I think you're well done, James.

Speaker 1 That was really, really wonderfully suggested.

Speaker 1 Let's get into your dream meal proper now and start with your starter, of course. Ed's a starter boy.
I love starter books. I'm a dessert boy.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Are you leaning more towards Ed's way of thinking? Is this an exciting course for you?

Speaker 19 It's very difficult because, I mean, sometimes in restaurants, I don't even order a main course. I just order starters.

Speaker 1 Yes, Charlotte.

Speaker 19 Because they're so tasty.

Speaker 19 Correct. But I also love a dessert.

Speaker 1 So I often have both. Great.
I mean, happy for mains to be the one that gets the... Yeah, that's fine.
But that's what I like to hear.

Speaker 1 I don't think I've ever really been brave enough to just go in and just order starters. Also, I'm too greedy.
I'd have to get a main as well. Yeah.

Speaker 19 But I'm going to go for a French onion soup, which is served with Croyer cheese

Speaker 19 and a massive crouton in the middle.

Speaker 19 Yeah.

Speaker 19 And I'm going to have this sort of with a smattering of freshly picked herbs from the garden.

Speaker 19 I'm really getting into growing vegetables and permaculture, so the idea of like going outside and literally harvesting something super fresh and then putting it straight in your meal is very appealing to me.

Speaker 1 What is permaculture?

Speaker 19 Permaculture is one of the best ways to grow vegetables, to grow food, basically.

Speaker 19 It's a whole system which is about being, rather than a sort of trying to control nature and growing things in neat little rows, which a lot of the time depletes the soil, and you're growing a lot of things together.

Speaker 19 So, you're sort of really taking into account the interconnected nature of things.

Speaker 19 So, you know that if you've got chickens by fruit trees when the fruit season's over, then they're gonna sort of peck the remainder of the fruit and break the pest cycle.

Speaker 19 But also, that if you grow tomatoes and strawberries together, because of the colour, the strawberries will grow bigger and sweeter to compete with the tomatoes.

Speaker 19 But there are all sorts of different plants which create different chemicals which then will aid something else growing.

Speaker 19 So you're just sort of growing things in a way that's really great for the entire ecosystem rather than just like for human food. So yeah, permaculture's awesome.

Speaker 1 Wow, that's like me and you, Ed. Is it? Strawberries and tomatoes competing with each other and we both end up being juicy.
Well, we definitely end up bigger. I'll tell you that

Speaker 1 when we get together.

Speaker 19 But what about sweeter? Do you end up sweeter?

Speaker 1 I think so. Well, it turns out I'm very sweet and James is a bitter old perv.
Oh, oh dear.

Speaker 1 This is the side of you I didn't know existed, Charlotte, this interest in growing things and nature and all of that and this new show. I think it's great.
It's wonderful. Yeah.

Speaker 1 We haven't had anyone talk about this sort of stuff on the podcast before. I was very excited.

Speaker 19 Oh, really? I am happy to be repping for nature and the earth. I suppose, for like for me, this interest is like

Speaker 19 as soon as you do get interested in it, and you know, whether that's you know, you love going to the beach, you love climbing mountains, you know, it can be in an extreme sports sort of way, or it could be in like a, I just love hanging out in forests, or I love animals, or whatever.

Speaker 19 There's so much variation, like, there's endless diversity and complexity within nature. That as soon as you actually

Speaker 19 start looking and your interest is piqued in one area, oh my god, it becomes such a soul-nourishing interest and hobby because it's never-ending. I absolutely love it.

Speaker 1 There is something satisfying as well, like you were saying, about getting the herbs from your garden and putting them on your food. They do taste better because of that, right?

Speaker 19 Oh, absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt.

Speaker 19 When you grow and harvest your own vegetables, I think, you know, in part because you've been a part of the growing process, you know, you know what the effort that's been put into

Speaker 19 making these things grow. But also,

Speaker 19 so many commercially grown crops and stuff nowadays are like, they've got about 20% of the nutrients that they should do.

Speaker 19 So even in terms of like for nutrition, for health, it's really brilliant to grow your own vegetables. Never mind, you know, all of the stuff it does for your mental health.

Speaker 1 Now, if I may steer us back to our usual fare, of course. This big crouton, is this big crouton the size of the whole bowl of soup and you lift it up like a lid? Ooh!

Speaker 1 Sounds like it's going to be. Oh, that's nice.

Speaker 19 I think it's a circle within a circle. So, like, the bowl is one of those like French ones with a lid, absolutely.

Speaker 19 But I think the crouton is like a little circle within the bowl covered in Croyer cheese.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And what's the technique? What's the tactics when you eat it? Are you seeing that crouton and the whole crouton's going in straight away?

Speaker 1 Or are you having a bit of the crouton, letting it soak into the soup? Or is it crouton first, then soup? Are you going down in layers or are you mixing it all up?

Speaker 19 Ah, that's so, that's difficult. I'm just going to eat it bit by bit.
I don't want it too soggy. you know

Speaker 19 i don't want it too soggy um so it is going to be one of the first things i have but also i don't i want to have a little bit of that cheese with every mouthful so you know, I don't want to blow my load with eating all of the cheese straight away.

Speaker 1 No, James, stop it, I'll take this. Shut up.

Speaker 1 I knew that was going to happen. I'm just trying to.
Even when Charlotte said it, I saw a little glint in her eyes. I'll just tee that up for that.
Get ready for this. Well, what we could do is...

Speaker 1 I have a genuine question now, and because you said that, my question that I genuinely want to ask sounds pervy off the back of what you've said. Go on.

Speaker 1 Charlotte said she likes a bit of cheese with each thing.

Speaker 1 And I was going to ask if you are someone who you have things like element by element, or if you like an ultimate mouthful so you have all the little elements together.

Speaker 1 So you get some of the onion soup, some of the cheese and some of the crouton in each mouthful. That was what I was going to ask.
That's fine.

Speaker 1 Yeah, well I've had to really think about how I worded that.

Speaker 3 What were you originally going to say?

Speaker 1 Do you like to have a bit of everything in each mouthful?

Speaker 1 I didn't want it to be flipped on me.

Speaker 19 I am an ultimate mouthful sort of woman, James.

Speaker 1 Yes, yes.

Speaker 3 Bit of everything.

Speaker 19 A little bit of everything with every bite, absolutely.

Speaker 1 Yes. Fair enough.
Yes. But what we could do, because it's the dream restaurant, and you obviously don't want to run out of cheese.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 We could put you a little bowl of cheese or a little bowl of melted cheese on the side so you can keep replenishing.

Speaker 19 This is hilarious because actually

Speaker 19 the way in which I was brought up, right, was in a very nutritionally deficient way.

Speaker 19 I was raised on like turkey dinosaurs and microchips and spam

Speaker 19 and my family are obsessed with cheese on a plate.

Speaker 19 Love it. So, there's nothing else happened apart from it being melted cheese on a plate.
That's it.

Speaker 1 So, I mean, I've never heard of melted cheese on a plate as a side dish. I absolutely love this.
How are they melting the cheese?

Speaker 1 Are they melting the cheese separately and then pouring it onto the plate, or is it on the plate and stick the whole plate under the grill?

Speaker 19 The cheese is on the plate and it just goes straight under the grill. The cheese melts on the plate.
That is, that is considered a bit of tea.

Speaker 1 So, the plate must be like boiling hot, so you can't touch the plate, you're gonna burn yourself. Yeah.
So,

Speaker 1 have you all got a fork and you're getting yourself a bit of cheese and eating it? Or what's going on? I can't even picture. In my head, it's this flat bit of cheese.
Yeah. Are you grating it on?

Speaker 1 Because I'm imagining the cheese is getting grated onto the plate, then grilled. Or is it just a block of cheese on the plate and then that melts?

Speaker 19 It's just a block of cheese on the plate.

Speaker 1 A block.

Speaker 19 And then it gets melted.

Speaker 19 You often will just put a tea towel under the plate so it's bearable and then crack on with the melted cheese.

Speaker 1 Just eat that. It's just Welsh fondue, basically, isn't it?

Speaker 19 Yeah, totally. Cheese on a plate, babes.

Speaker 19 Working-class Welsh fare.

Speaker 1 Cheddar? Is it Cheddar? Is that what we're talking here?

Speaker 19 Oh, it's probably a bit of Cathedral City. It's nothing posh, you know?

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. Lovely.
Wow. Right.
So would you like, you can have some working-class Welsh cheese on a plate, babes, on the side?

Speaker 19 Yeah, why not?

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Speaker 6 You check your feed and your account.

Speaker 15 You check the score and the restaurant reviews.

Speaker 15 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.

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Speaker 1 Let's go on to your main course then. More natural ingredients, more permaculture? A word that I've learned today? Get involved?

Speaker 19 Now I'm going for experience. Because as I said, like I often get a bit bored of main course.
Like I love the variation and the tastiness of the starters and sort of little plates.

Speaker 19 So actually for my main, I need a little bit of entertainment. And I don't think anything's as entertaining food-wise as a Japanese tepeyaki grill.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 19 Have you been to one of these places?

Speaker 1 I

Speaker 1 know. I've never been to one of these places, but I've seen it on so many different TV shows, and it looks so fun with the chef's doing all tricks and stuff.

Speaker 3 Benny Hana.

Speaker 19 Exactly. Like Benny Hana, and there aren't many of them in the UK.
So basically, you all sit around. So there's lots of, it can like seat maybe 15 people, let's say.

Speaker 19 So you're all sat around this massive hot plate, and there's a chef in front of you who is like making this incredibly tasty Japanese food, but is doing loads of tricks and chucking eggs about and, you know, doing all sorts of fast cutting.

Speaker 19 And it's just really entertaining. Sometimes like there was one thing that they do in Benihana at least, which is they make like this volcano, this onion volcano.

Speaker 1 Another volcano.

Speaker 19 And then they pour some liquid, some oil in it and set fire to it. And it's like, wah, it's this big volcano.
It's loads of fun.

Speaker 1 And just to be clear, when you say hot plate, you don't mean the kind of hot plate that you would put cheese on under the grill and then you bring it back and it would be on a tea towel.

Speaker 19 Absolutely not. No, it's not cheese on the plate hot plate, but a big, massive, stainless steel hot plate.

Speaker 19 And so, the sort of things that you might have at a teppenyaki grill is, you know, if you had different meats, it'd be like teriyaki chicken or sort of different Japanese flavours with a meat, and then your rice, your sort of garlic-fried rice or egg-fried rice, and then they do loads of vegetables, but just sort of really tasty, fries, lush.

Speaker 1 It's a very clever selection for the off-menu dream restaurant as well because you've essentially picked one main course that is loads of different foods.

Speaker 19 Absolutely. So I can have like a little bit of all sorts of tasty dreamy morsels but but I'm also being really entertained.
I am titillated at the dinner table.

Speaker 1 Who would you most like to be your chef? If they if anyone could could cook this, who would entertain you the most while doing the cooking?

Speaker 19 Oh, that's interesting.

Speaker 19 I think Stuart Lee would be

Speaker 19 really fuming to be cooking for me.

Speaker 1 But that might be really funny.

Speaker 1 I mean, I think you've absolutely picked the best person you could have picked there.

Speaker 19 Either Stuart Lee or Mariah Carey.

Speaker 1 Always two sides of the same coin. People are always having to choose between the two of them.
It's quite hard.

Speaker 19 I just think that, I think she'd be so mad and fun. She's just amazing.
So, yeah, I mean, if Stuart Lee and Mariah Kerry could come and,

Speaker 19 you know, do a sort of back-to-back tepp and yaki.

Speaker 1 I feel like they'd get on really well. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Match made in heaven. Peace of the pod.
I'm not sure.

Speaker 1 Stuart Lee necessarily and deliberately so has the sort of zingy energy needed to be a tepanyaki chef. Yeah.
He takes his time over things, doesn't he? He likes to take his time.

Speaker 1 He teases things out over a long period of time. You'd basically be looking at a man cook the same piece of steak over and over again to make a point.
Yes, he likes repetition.

Speaker 19 Iteration, yes. But mind you, I mean, if you're a chef at a Tepe Nyaki Grill for an evening, that's what it is.
It's iteration. It's over and over again.
So maybe he's perfect.

Speaker 19 Maybe I'll suggest it to him. But also, like, he would be so withering towards the idea of

Speaker 19 being entertained whilst you ate would probably be like he would find, you know, infuriating, which I sort of agree with.

Speaker 19 The food itself should be entertainment enough, but alas. But also, I think that Mariah would really balance him out.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 19 I love Stuart Lee's comedy. I think that it's so purposeful.
And I think him and Mariah would just be delightful together.

Speaker 1 Maybe they should tour together. Oh, yeah.
I'd love that.

Speaker 1 There's no one that wouldn't go. That's sort of something for everyone, yeah.

Speaker 19 That's so funny. I'm just trying to

Speaker 19 imagine the poster.

Speaker 1 I'm trying to think about how that would actually work.

Speaker 1 Especially if there's tapenyaki grill involved. Yeah, that's the Holy Trinity.

Speaker 3 First half you have Stuart Lee doing comedy.

Speaker 1 Mariah does a few songs. Second half, they're both on stage doing Tepanyaki Grill.

Speaker 19 And tricks and amazing tricks.

Speaker 1 It's nice to speak to someone who's really using the dream restaurant to the full potential. So, you know, we're in a restaurant that's been birthed by the earth.

Speaker 1 You're having water out of a spring and you're having Japanese grill cooked by Stuart Lee and Mariah Kerry. The water's from from the waterfall.
Yes. And it's very civilised.
Yes, just normal.

Speaker 1 Just the cup straight under and

Speaker 1 everyone's normal. Yes.
Everyone's normal. Thank you.

Speaker 19 So very normal. Don't panic.
Everything's fine.

Speaker 1 It's all right.

Speaker 1 Let's go on to the dream side then because this is like you've got loads of little bits for that main course there.

Speaker 19 I'm going to have some really delicious leaves.

Speaker 19 Just because, I mean, I was gonna go with just like a bowl of steamed vegetables because a lot of the time we don't eat enough vegetables, you know, and actually, just some like al dente, nice steamed vegetables is absolutely what's required.

Speaker 19 But one of the best things that you can eat is green leaves because, like, the energy that they sort of draw in from the sun, it's basically just one of the best things that humans can eat, is green leaves.

Speaker 1 But you want chips, right? I mean, that's the other thing I was thinking.

Speaker 19 Yeah, go on.

Speaker 1 I'll have some chips.

Speaker 1 Look, you've sold nature to us already. We love the idea of the healing retreat center.

Speaker 3 We've had all of that.

Speaker 1 We should get closer to nature, but come on. Chips is nature.

Speaker 19 But really salty chips as well.

Speaker 1 Right, yeah, of course.

Speaker 19 They're like, it's like as you're eating them, you're just like, this isn't, this is not okay. The amount of salt on these chips, but I'm having such a lovely time.

Speaker 1 Salt is part of nature as well. So salt and potatoes, you can't get much more natural, Charlotte.

Speaker 1 Exactly.

Speaker 19 Quite right. I totally agree.
Yeah. So, I mean, I have had quite a variation of things at this juncture.

Speaker 1 This is a crazy meal.

Speaker 1 Well, the green leaves. I want to know more about these green leaves, though.
So what leaves...

Speaker 3 They're not like from trees, right?

Speaker 1 They're not like

Speaker 1 from a sycamore tree or anything like that, are they?

Speaker 1 What are you talking about? Well, there's loads of different leaves in the world.

Speaker 19 Well, no, some of those would be, would be very poisonous, I imagine. Yes, you know, things like all sorts of different like lettuce leaves.
It isn't just iceberg lettuce.

Speaker 19 You can out there's so many edible leaves that we can eat. Spinach, there's loads.
It's sort of the foundation, the basis for all life on Earth, that process of photosynthesis.

Speaker 19 And the actual matter that

Speaker 19 green leaves are made up of is exceptionally good for human beings. So yeah, it's really great.
If you can change one thing about your diet, add loads of green leaves.

Speaker 1 Are you not eating green leaves on the reg, James? No, uh, not on the reg enough, no, definitely not.

Speaker 1 You know, I'll make sure I have some veggies and stuff, but uh green leaves, I find them quite boring.

Speaker 19 I think that it's about changing your perspective towards them.

Speaker 19 Because if you actually, next time you look at some spinach or some lettuce or or whatever that you think oh gosh whatever just think about the process of what that's taken to grow and stuff and the amount of sunlight it's taken in and and as soon as you start thinking in those terms then all of a sudden you're just like oh yes it feels so like

Speaker 19 nourishing and vital that you're just like absolutely put it in my face.

Speaker 1 Whereas if you think about the process of making chips, it kind of puts you off. Now imagine them going into the fryer.
You go, oh, no thank you actually yeah especially like

Speaker 19 if it's if it's the good shit that then you know that oil's been used for months

Speaker 1 like my nana used to do it she she'd leave it she'd leave the chip oil just i don't know how long get a plate with a bunch of chips lob it in the oil yeah bring the plate out deep fried so we

Speaker 1 She might not change the chip oil, but she was washing the cheese plate, right? Yeah, come on.

Speaker 19 Absolutely washing the cheese plate.

Speaker 19 She also used to cut the potatoes into chips and then leave them in water and all the starch would come out but it's it's something that's that I never really see people doing that and then as a kid I think I was so vegetable deficient that I just used to eat the raw potatoes

Speaker 19 the raw chipped potatoes.

Speaker 1 Do you think that's why now you're so into vegetables is you're just trying to make up for the fact you never had any as a kid?

Speaker 19 Potentially. Potentially I'm making up for lost nutrition.

Speaker 1 How about for your your dream meal at your side? Would you have like a bowl of green leaves, a bowl of chips, and just alternate between the two? So you're...

Speaker 1 I find that would probably balance my guilt out for having all the chips. It would just be all balanced.
I feel quite normal by the end.

Speaker 19 To be honest, at this juncture, considering that I've had this incredibly rich French onion soup, I've had loads of Japanese foods cooked by Stuart Lee and Mariah Carey.

Speaker 19 Why not add some salty chips and some green leaves? Yeah, totally. It makes total sense.

Speaker 1 Yeah. James, when you asked about the leaves, you said they're not just leaves off trees, right? Yes.
Did you mean that?

Speaker 1 Do you think that, were you worried that Charlotte was eating leaves directly off trees? And do you think that when you walk past trees, you could eat the leaves?

Speaker 1 And follow-up question, have you been eating any leaves off trees? Okay. I'll answer the last question first.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 1 I wasn't worried. because I'm so ignorant about the subject that I didn't know if it would be bad for you or not.

Speaker 1 Charlotte is really into connected with nature and I thought maybe Charlotte has found some leaves off trees that are edible that you're allowed to eat and is really enjoying them.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean I hate to say it was a genuine question.

Speaker 1 I genuinely was sitting there thinking, well, I'm not sure here. Green leaves could mean anything.
Let's make sure we were all, yeah, I was thinking about nature so much.

Speaker 1 That's what my head went to first, was leaves off the trees.

Speaker 1 So I think broadly, don't eat any leaves, even off the bush that you're hiding behind i'm not gonna be hiding in a bush i'm not a little perv you just keep telling yourself that james

Speaker 1 hiding in the waterfall

Speaker 1 that's what i'm hiding let them come to me are you having any any uh any dressing on these leaves or are they just the green leaves in their pure natural state i think they're just the green leaves to be honest i've already got so many flavors going on

Speaker 19 I can't possibly add a dressing.

Speaker 1 I don't like dressing. I've told you this before.
No,

Speaker 1 you like everything undressed, don't you? Oh, I can't believe it. I can't believe it.

Speaker 1 I saw it. As soon as I said it, I realized, oh no.

Speaker 1 Here we go. Can't believe this has gone this way.

Speaker 19 Oh, sweetheart.

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Speaker 19 let's get onto your dream drink i think i'm gonna have a glass of Cloudy Bay.

Speaker 1 Sauvignon Blanc, is that right?

Speaker 19 Yeah, it's a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc and I think it was like really popular probably back in the 90s and I don't drink it very often because it's expensive but it's lush.

Speaker 1 I never used to really like white wine but I've had some New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc before that is just really good. Yeah we don't think

Speaker 1 wine comes up a lot on the pod for dream drink but I think reds are heavily outweighing the whites at them. So it's nice to see someone repping the white white wines.

Speaker 19 Yeah, repping the white wine and destroying the stomach lining.

Speaker 19 I had to train myself to drink wine though. When I started drinking as a teenager, all I could drink was like vodka in a mixer.

Speaker 19 You know, it was like I couldn't, I didn't really like the taste of alcohol and particularly wine. Like it was just baffling to me how anybody would drink wine.

Speaker 1 You're one of our only guests who's been responsible for introducing a new drink to the public consciousness as well, Charlotte. What drink was that? Do you not remember? Cheeky Vimto?

Speaker 1 The Cheeky Vimto.

Speaker 1 I mean, I know, I've heard of a Cheeky Vimto. I didn't know you were the origin of that.
Did you invent that?

Speaker 19 I didn't invent it. I learned it off a builder.
A builder.

Speaker 19 He was staying at my mum and dad's hotel and he taught me about the Cheeky Vimto.

Speaker 19 I was just enamoured for a good few years with the Cheeky Vimto, mainly because I've got the palate of a four-year-old who doesn't eat very well.

Speaker 19 Essentially, the Cheeky Vimto was all about if you were hungover and you had to do a second day of drinking at a festival or something like that, then a few cheeky vimtos

Speaker 19 is just life-changing.

Speaker 1 Remind me of the uh ingredients.

Speaker 19 So it's uh ruby port, not tawny port, none of that bullshit.

Speaker 19 It's ruby port and a WKD blue, and it actually tastes like vimto and it's like rocket fuel, but it gets you into like a like a phase of drunkness where you're like, Yeah, let's go

Speaker 19 from being like, Oh, I can't do it. I feel a bit sick and I really want to go home now.

Speaker 1 I think people graduate from that sort of stuff from when they're teenagers, right? Because that's a property.

Speaker 1 I used to drink turbo shandies and things like that, you know, the smirn off ice in the lager. And then we go, oh, we convince ourselves we're much more grown up now.

Speaker 1 And you see people in their 30s drinking espresso martinez. It's just the same thing.

Speaker 19 Yeah, absolutely. I totally agree.
It's nonsense, really. We all just want to go back to the turbo shanty, cheeky vimpto days.

Speaker 1 Did that follow you around for a bit, the cheeky vimpto? Would you turn up at bars sometimes and they'll just make you one without you asking?

Speaker 19 No, no.

Speaker 19 Everybody was like, she's got loads of money. I'm not giving her any free drinks.

Speaker 1 I never used to get drinks bought for me.

Speaker 19 I mean, I would. I was ridiculous.
I used to buy everybody drinks all the time, like whole bars full of people drinks. But I mean, it it was loads of fun.

Speaker 1 Oh, there was a moment there.

Speaker 1 You said, I used to buy people drinks all the time, whole bars full of people drinks, and then your eyes just suddenly, you had a faraway look in your eyes, and you weren't looking at us anymore.

Speaker 1 And I could tell you were somewhere else, and then you returned to, yeah, but it was a lot of fun.

Speaker 19 It was, it was loads of fun. I loved that sort of carefree party, I suppose.
And then for me, as I've gotten older, I've got three kids now.

Speaker 19 And so, you know, your life becomes know just more responsibility laden and that doesn't mean like I can still party and if I if I choose to p go for it then I can party hard but it's just so much less now than it used to be which is great obviously but I did I did absolutely love those days of just like just dancing with wild abandon whilst having like one shoe on and somebody

Speaker 19 it was just wild chaos and loads of fun.

Speaker 1 Do you think when when your kids start turning 18, will you sit them down and there'll be the ceremonial handing down of the cheeky vimtai recipe? Yeah.

Speaker 1 You'll be needing this.

Speaker 19 I mean, it's sort of,

Speaker 19 yes, absolutely.

Speaker 19 I think it's sort of, you know, it's sort of terrifying when you think about it in terms of your own kids and all of that. But undoubtedly...

Speaker 19 They're definitely going to be a chip off the old block.

Speaker 1 Yeah, these are all phases we have to go through, I think. But you come out the other side and you end up with a lovely glass of Cloudy Bay.
Exactly.

Speaker 1 And you've got a treatment center now so like you know

Speaker 1 all the people all the people do you ever stand there at the doors and you're watching people come in and go I think I bought this entire room

Speaker 1 drinks one night.

Speaker 1 I'm the reason they're here.

Speaker 1 So we arrive at your dream dessert. I'm excited.
You said you have a sweet tooth as well as liking starters so I know I'm in good hands here.

Speaker 19 I mean again I changed this because firstly, I thought I was going to go for a chocolate fondant with a pistachio ice cream because, you know, a well-made fondant, I mean, you really can't beat it.

Speaker 19 But then again, I went on the experiential side and I thought about I've set up a learning community in Cardiff called the Arwen Project, and they do a lot of outdoor cooking and stuff.

Speaker 19 And we will often roast marshmallows on the fire.

Speaker 19 And so there's just something so delightful and communal and comforting i think there's something deeply comforting about roasting marshmallows on a fire with potentially like some chocolate some melted chocolate to dip those into with some really well made hot chocolate potentially some other bits and bods of fruit obviously fruit that we've grown ourselves berries and you know nice things that we've grown ourselves that we can also dip in the chocolate But again, I've gone for something that's less of just sort of solid what food I would go for, and something more that like has a feeling to it that's experiential.

Speaker 19 So, roasted marshmallows around an open fire with hot chocolate, melted chocolate dipping sauce with berries that we've grown ourselves.

Speaker 1 Yes, 100% behind every single bit of that. I absolutely love it.
I was delighted with everything you were saying. I could have listened to that forever.

Speaker 1 I love it. I love toasted marshmallows.
It It was the highlight of every Acaster family barbecue because we knew that at the end they were going to get the marshmallows out.

Speaker 1 We've got the big jumbo-sized marshmallows obviously. And we'd put them on a fork each and just roast them over and get.

Speaker 1 I really took my time with it. I toast them for a long time.
I wanted it even toasted all the way around. Your dad just eating raw marshmallows and putting his head over the phone?

Speaker 1 Yeah, my dad just putting it over his head like a feed bag and

Speaker 1 making the undignified noises as he eats all the marshmallows out the back.

Speaker 1 But like, you know, I'd love it when you get that really crisp skin of the marshmallow, and you can sometimes just pull it off of the whole marshmallow, and underneath it, it's this really almost liquid marshmallow that you've got on its own, yeah, and really gooey.

Speaker 1 And then you, oh, and you can just go for it again.

Speaker 19 You take that skin off, and you can go for it again. But there's also, I think, a sense of achievement that comes with it.

Speaker 19 Because if you've taken your time, it's not caught fire, you've not been, you know, impatient enough that you've put it in the open flame, it's beautifully golden. I mean, it's, it's,

Speaker 19 it's incomparable.

Speaker 1 Yeah. It sounds lovely, and it sounds like a lovely social interaction and hangout.
I don't know. The only reason

Speaker 1 why it's not my sort of thing

Speaker 1 is because my wife went through a phase of doing marshmallows over a candle in our sitting room. Wow.
That's great. No, it stinks.
It absolutely stinks. It's horrible.

Speaker 1 Doing individual marshmallows over a scented candle. That's very weird.

Speaker 19 I've definitely done it on the gas hob, but I think that's sort of brilliant. Did it work over a candle? Yeah,

Speaker 1 you've got to really take your time. So if you're okay with taking your time with it, you've got to really to get every single bit covered.
You can do it.

Speaker 19 I think that's genius. And I wonder if it is a scented candle then, would it have, would you infuse the marshmallow a little bit? That's like, that's...
excellent. She's a wise woman.

Speaker 1 She's no, she's a disgusting animal. And

Speaker 1 a chocolate scented candle, maybe. Yeah.
Infuse it with the smell of the the candle.

Speaker 1 Well, you two feel free to move into my house and you can all do marshmallows over candles and I'll go out to a city restaurant.

Speaker 1 When you say it was a phase, how long did it last for? A couple of months. That's great.
Yeah. Regularly doing that.
Brilliant. I love hot chocolate as well.
That's very exciting.

Speaker 1 I've got a velvetizer at home. Regularly have hot chocolates.

Speaker 19 What is that? What's a velvetizer?

Speaker 1 It's like a...

Speaker 1 pot that you you put milk in it and then uh a hot chocolate sachet but it's basically just ground up chocolate and then you put that on an element of some sort, put a lid on it, press the on button, and then it just basically heats the whole thing and churns it so that you get a really velvety hot chocolate.

Speaker 1 This is smooth, pristine. That was the worst thing anyone could have ever bought you.
Yeah. To have hot chocolates that regularly.

Speaker 19 Oh, I think that's amazing. You've just changed my life, James.

Speaker 1 That's like I'm getting a valveizer. And put booze in there if you like.
Have yourself a boozy hot chocolate.

Speaker 19 Ah, wow. Wonderful.
Thank you so much for sharing.

Speaker 1 You're welcome. I love that you've got the chocolate chocolate dipping as well with the fruits.
I love dipping grapes, banana, and strawberries into chocolate. They'll be my top three.

Speaker 19 What sort of chocolate, though? Because I'm just a bit like, I'm just a bit of a Cadbury's girl. It's basic.
It's not big. It's not clever.

Speaker 19 It's just some Cadbury's, which should probably be their new slogan.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, I think, yeah, brand-wise,

Speaker 1 I'm not picky, but I reckon melting a mixture of like, I'd say, 70% of the chocolate you're putting in is milk chocolate, and the other 30 is dark chocolate makes it really nice if it's melted chocolate.

Speaker 1 Thought about this, I like it. Yeah, that's my tip.
But you can't, you actually can't mess with dairy milk, though.

Speaker 3 Really?

Speaker 1 Like, it sounds basic, but dairy milk melted or otherwise, it's pretty much up there, isn't it? But I also do like the proper dark stuff as well. Yeah, I really like dark chocolate.

Speaker 1 Actually, tell you what, I like them all. I'm not even gonna pretend.

Speaker 19 But also, like, there's there's crazy health benefits, isn't it, when you get like 70% cacao and up. It's like super good for your health.

Speaker 1 But I think that's always predicated on people say, and if you have like an 80% dark chocolate, you won't want a lot of it. You can just have a couple of squares and then you can just leave it.
Nope.

Speaker 3 Not true.

Speaker 1 The whole bar down, just as bad as milk chocolate. Yeah, just chomp it all down.
Yeah, it's chocolate.

Speaker 1 Are those the fruits that you're going to have that you're going to dip in the chocolate, by the way?

Speaker 19 Yeah, absolutely. Why not?

Speaker 1 Well, don't let me sway you. I'm just saying, I really want to shout out.
Also, I have one other question about this dessert, but I'll let you do the fruits first.

Speaker 1 I'll just quickly say Charlotte did say that she wanted to have fruits that they'd grown themselves. And I'm not sure, however good their land is there, I'm not sure they're growing bananas.

Speaker 19 We could grow bananas.

Speaker 1 Yes, absolutely. You just need it.

Speaker 19 Yeah, we could grow bananas if we had like a polytunnel. Maybe you keep it at a certain temperature.
But you can do that. You can grow all sorts of fabulous things.

Speaker 19 We can definitely grow some lovely wild strawberries. We could probably,

Speaker 19 if we've got some slightly heated polytunnels, grow some bananas. We could definitely grow some grapes.
I love growing raspberries. Raspberries are super easy to grow.
And then

Speaker 19 if you've planted them in the ground, they spread. They go all over the place.
And then you've got an abundance of raspberries, which is always great.

Speaker 19 Yeah, and I think we'll have some blueberries as well because blueberries are so good. So they're all the fruits that would be on offer for dipping.

Speaker 3 Wonderful.

Speaker 1 Final question.

Speaker 1 For toasting the marshmallows, would you like to go back to that volcano with the stream of lava and toast the marshmallows over the lava?

Speaker 19 No, because I've got everything I need right there at the campfire.

Speaker 1 That's great.

Speaker 1 One of my favourite things is when James offers up a flight of fancy and a guest just goes, come on, mate.

Speaker 19 Not only is it, is there too much sulfur in the air there, now that I've just left all of my loved ones behind who are singing songs and storytelling.

Speaker 1 yeah you have to explain to your family that you've got to go to a volcano now because the waterfall creep wants you to go there that one that guy who was encouraging me to get under the waterfall wants me to go near a volcano now for some reason

Speaker 1 oh you funny bunnies

Speaker 1 thank you um so

Speaker 1 This is a, I'm gonna feed you back your menu now and see how you feel about it. Water, you wanted a goblet held under a waterfall.
Less said about that, the better.

Speaker 1 Pop dumbs or bread, you want a diverse bread basket. Pocaccia, sourdough, seeded, and butter with black volcanic salt.
Also, you agreed to whipped butter.

Speaker 1 Starter, you would like a French onion soup with Gruyère and a massive crouton. Oh my god,

Speaker 1 so much. It's great.
You would like the cheese plate on the side.

Speaker 1 Main course, teppanyaki grill, cooked by Stuart Lee and Mariah Carey. Side dish, green leaves and really salty chips back and forth.

Speaker 19 Drink, a glass of cloudy bay, Sauvignon Blanc, and dessert toasted marshmallows with hot chocolate melted chocolate dip and homegrown fruit around the campfire with your loved ones yeah i mean stewart and mariah are quite welcome to join us yeah i'm sure they have loads of great stories and you know mariah will be great for the kumbaya that will inevitably come yeah

Speaker 1 that'd be good i'd like to see mariah carries in kumbaya that'd be great that'd be lovely

Speaker 19 i'm happy with that that that is actually even though it's I mean, it's a real journey, that meal, isn't it?

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's what we like though. You've transported us to so many different places.
We're connecting with nature. We've got stuff from your past, stuff from your present.
It's lovely.

Speaker 1 I think it's a beautiful menu. Yeah, characters popping up, little guests.
It's a real shame what James did quite early on in the episode, but apart from that, I think.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 1 I would like to apologise actually before you go, Charlotte. I would like to apologise.

Speaker 1 I'm trying to work on it. I'm a

Speaker 1 randy little boy, and

Speaker 1 I sometimes act out on the podcast when I feel frustrated. And I

Speaker 1 apologise so much for all the grubby things I said.

Speaker 19 I think we pushed them on to you, to be fair, sweet. Sweet.

Speaker 1 Yes. While you say that, I saw earlier he's got his trunks on under his jeans.
I've not got my trunks on. I've got a little waterfall.

Speaker 1 Charlotte, you've been absolutely brilliant. Thank you so much for coming to the Dream Restaurant.
Thank you.

Speaker 19 It has been absolutely wonderful.

Speaker 1 Thank you.

Speaker 1 Well, there we are.

Speaker 1 What a wonderful menu. So nice to meet Charlotte Church.
What a lot of fun she was. And thank God she's finally exposed your true character, James.

Speaker 3 I can't believe it.

Speaker 1 This is the episode that does it. I guess that's what I've got to be like from all episodes from now on.
I've got to adopt the persona of the grubby perv. of anyone that we interview.

Speaker 1 That was such a fun episode. And she didn't say rosemary, James.
Didn't say rosemary, so it gets to stay in the dream restaurant, which is good. I wouldn't have wanted to.

Speaker 1 And I was actually a bit worried. Because, you know, rosemary actually is.

Speaker 1 Most people like it. Yeah.
And so I was a bit worried that actually, what have I done here? Am I about to have to kick Charlotte Churchill?

Speaker 1 And she did mention getting some fresh herbs from her garden.

Speaker 1 So we came from the garden.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, some people might think, oh, you guys didn't drill down into what the fresh herbs were, but it was going on top of a French onion soup. You wouldn't put a rosemary on French onion soup.

Speaker 1 And you wouldn't have in green leaves or anything as well. So

Speaker 1 and you wouldn't dip them in chocolate, chill out, and then tap and yaki grill. No, they're not tap and yaki grill.
Exactly.

Speaker 1 Charlotte Church got to stay in the dream restaurant and she got to stay in her dream build.

Speaker 3 Yes, a very exciting TV show.

Speaker 1 Really?

Speaker 2 Tuesdays, 9 p.m.

Speaker 1 Charlotte Church's Dream Build and you can stream it on Discovery Plus. Yes, you can.
Well done, James. Great plug.
Yes. Speaking of plugs,

Speaker 1 if you are listening to this on a day it came out, tomorrow my tour starts. Ed Gamble, Electric, edgamble.co.uk for tickets.
I'm in Leicester tomorrow. Then I go to Birmingham.
Then I go to Margate.

Speaker 1 Then I go to Beckshill. And then we go everywhere else.
He's a funny bunny. I'm a funny bunny.
That was my favourite moment of the whole recording, James. Yeah.
She said, you two are funny bunnies.

Speaker 1 And you went, fuck you.

Speaker 1 Fuck you.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I've been. Very polite.
As nice as you.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I've been polite. Anything you want to plug, James? No, well, not really.
Not in a minute. No, James doesn't have anything to plug.
Nothing.

Speaker 1 Thank you very much for listening and we will see you next week. Bye.

Speaker 1 Bye.

Speaker 19 If you enjoyed this podcast, can I interest you in a totally different podcast that's not about food and doesn't have James A. Caster or Ed Gamble, but I would say is quite fun.

Speaker 1 No, thank you.

Speaker 19 Oh, okay, not to worry. If you change your mind at a later date, it's called Nobody Panic.
Right. It's hosted by me, Tessa Coates, and my friend Stevie Martin.
Which is weirdly me.

Speaker 19 And we tackle all kinds of how-tos from big things to small things.

Speaker 19 How to stop saying sorry, how to poo, how to break up with someone, how to quit your job, how to relax, how to have a conversation, how to deal with unrequited love. A smorgasbord of thing.

Speaker 1 Absolutely.

Speaker 19 We have a nice time. People seem to like it.
If you like, you can come and see what all the fuss is about.

Speaker 1 All that fuss. What's it called? Nobody panic.

Speaker 19 You can find it on all of the podcast apps that you would imagine it would be on.

Speaker 1 Please have a listen.

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Speaker 1 Oh, hi, James. Have you heard the news? Oh, yeah, go on.
You and I are modern boys because the off-menu podcast is now on YouTube. This is embarrassing.
Why is it embarrassing, man? You love YouTube.

Speaker 2 I love watching clips on YouTube. Sure.
Now people can watch clips of Off Menu on YouTube and full episodes, but it's embarrassing, man.

Speaker 1 It's not embarrassing at all. It's really cool.
We're on YouTube with the great and good. The coolest people in the world are on YouTube.
Me, you, Logan Paul.

Speaker 2 Who's Logan Paul? The dad from Succession?

Speaker 2 At Off Menu Podcast. That's what Benito's calling us now.

Speaker 1 And we're on TikTok.

Speaker 2 This is embarrassing, man.

Speaker 1 It's not embarrassing, man. We're cool.
We're like Olivia Rodrigo.

Speaker 2 And Ed. People have been asking us, battering us, bothering us, actually.
They want to watch the Stephen Graham supercut from the Stephen Graham episodes.

Speaker 2 They can see all of his reactions to us, everything that he did. Or Benito has bent to their whims, and he's going to put it on YouTube.

Speaker 1 He's going to do it. Follow us at Off Menu Official on TikTok.
At Off Menu Podcast, on YouTube. You can watch clips from the podcast.
And on YouTube, you can watch full video episodes.

Speaker 1 People have been asking for it. And you're finally getting getting it.

Speaker 3 Full video episodes.

Speaker 1 So you can see every single nuance on our little faces.