Ep 103: Bimini Bon Boulash

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

Hello, it's James Acaster here from the Off Menu Podcast.

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.

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.

They've created an absolutely amazing thing.

And we feel like, you know, it's the off-menu podcast.

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.

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 goes to supporting people in Gaza.

Thank you so much and enjoy the episode.

Welcome to the Off-Menu podcast.

Just five minutes in bubbly chat creates the perfect soft-boiled conversation.

Hmm.

No?

Yeah.

All right, you do an egg one.

Welcome to the Off-Menu podcast, Cracking Stuff.

No, awful, really, really bad, really bad.

Look, mine wasn't great.

In terms of like the intros that we've done in the past, it wasn't great.

It sounded like I was trying to be poetic.

I wasn't.

I was just trying to do something.

But cracking stuff is really bad, is ironically very bad stuff.

Okay, well, you don't understand it because...

I do.

It's cracking like an egg.

You crack an egg.

Okay, are you halfway there?

You You crack an egg, and now you say cracking can mean good.

Cracking stuff's also a, yeah, yeah, no, I know, it's a phrase, yeah.

Well, think, think about it again then and laugh because that's funny.

No, because it's bad, it's bad stuff.

Okay, well, you're in the wrong business, Bebby.

You're in the wrong business.

Don't you bebber me.

Uh, welcome to the Off Menu podcast.

It's Ed Gamble and James A.

Caster with a little bit of our classic double that repartee there.

James, what's this podcast about?

We have a dream.

Oh, we have a dream, right?

Yes, it's about Martin Luther King, our podcast.

Sorry.

We have a dream.

I was going to say we have a special guest in a dream restaurant.

And then I went to say we have a dream guest.

And then I said...

We have a dream guest.

And then I thought to myself, yeah, we do have a dream guest, actually.

Should make me keep that in.

And then before I could get myself my brain short-circuited,

look, I don't normally have to think of an intro, and cracking stuff really took it out of me.

And I've deserved it.

I criticise your intro.

I deserve to have it blow up in my face like this.

Yeah, you did.

We have a dream.

We have a dream that a dream guest comes into our dream restaurant and orders their dream meal consisting of their favourite ever start and main course dessert, side dish and drink.

And today's dream is Bimini Barn Bool.

Bimini Boulash Barn Boulash.

Bimini Barn Boulash is a drag queen, a recording artist, a model as well.

signed to a model agency straight out of drag race.

A force of nature.

A force of nature.

James A.

Caster.

What a quote there for the front of Bimini's book.

Bimini's got a book coming out.

Very excited indeed to hear.

I mean, Bimini's also a vegan, so we should get loads of vegan recommendations here.

Every now and again, we have a vegan on the podcast.

And, you know, hey, guys, we should get more vegans on, to be fair.

I mean, that's us saying that we're in charge of who's on the podcast.

We're telling ourselves to do something that we could be doing.

But here's the thing.

The Great Benito is a vegetarian, and he hates vegans.

Yes.

So it's very hard to get vegans past him because he has such allegiance to the vegetarian flag.

The amount of times we've had vegans on this podcast and we've not been able to release the episode because every course they order Benito comes onto the recording and he goes, have a cube of cheese, you little shit.

Yeah.

He tries to feed people cheese

and milk.

There's a milk.

He's a bad little boy.

And we have to apologize countless times for this episode We had to lock him in a cupboard We did and get rid of him so that he wasn't in the room Listen, we're excited to have Bimini Bombo Lash in the dream restaurant.

However, if she says a secret ingredient which we have decided is something that we don't like we have to kick her out the dream restaurant and this week the secret ingredient is Gimini gone gulash gimini gone gulash if bimini bomb boolash says gimminy gone gulash bimini bomboolash is out on her ash not bad not bad actually Actually, really good.

Yeah.

I could see a little bit of panic in your eyes before getting to the last line, thinking what I'm going to say.

And I'm guessing you thought of Ash.

It was definitely going to be out on her ash.

Yeah, now Dash.

I should have said Dash, really.

But you were like, uh-oh, it begins with an A, so I can't really make the full line work.

I can't go.

But then you went with out on her ash.

Yeah.

And that worked.

It's no Eddie, Cheddy, ready for Betty or whatever it is, but it'll do for now.

Listen, that's the high point of your life.

Don't

try and compare everything to your best moment ever.

Okay?

Brady, Cheddy, and Ready for Betty.

Yeah.

You're never going to beat that.

And that's fine.

That was so long ago as well.

And I've achieved nothing since then.

Well, you know,

there are loads of geniuses like that, Ed, who have, you know...

early on in their career done something that you know

what if it makes you feel any better yeah you've never done anything as good since but neither has any other podcaster that's true no one else in podcasts has said anything as good as Breddy Cheddy and Ready for Betty since you said it.

I include myself in that number.

Oh, yeah, me too.

Bimini's book is called A Drag Queen's Guide to Life and is available for pre-order now.

And look out for new music coming from Bimini soon.

Very excited.

But for now, please join us as we hear the dream menu.

Off-menu menu.

Off-menu menu of...

Bimini Bon.

We didn't explain what Gimini Gong goulash is.

Oh, yes, before we go into this, goulash is really the secret ingredient, but we couldn't resist having a dish that rhymed with Bimini's name when we thought of goulash.

So then we went for gimminy gong goulash, but he let us say any goulash.

Do you think, are we stupid?

Are we thick idiots, James?

I just

think we're absolute thick idiots, aren't they?

Listen, if anyone is listening to this podcast and they've never heard the Off Menu podcast before, and they're a big fan of Bimini's, and they're here to listen to her, and then they hear this intro, they're going to think, well, this will be the only episode of this podcast we ever listen to, because these two are absolutely stupid.

They've messed up every single job they had to do in this intro, and they've taken it in turns to mess it up as well.

It started badly.

The guy who started it was rightly told off by the other guy who then tried to prove his point by being worse.

Yeah.

And then that theme continued for the whole thing.

At one point, they said one of the best things that either of them have ever said is Brady Cheddy and Ready for Betty.

If that's the highlight of this podcast, I'm not going back and re-listening to the whole thing.

And then they led into the podcast, the main body of it, and then they remembered there was something they forgot to do, and then they went back and did it.

And now they're completely second-guessing everything else.

All they tuned in for was to listen to Bibini on a podcast, and it's taking ages to get to Bibini because they're still talking shit about Gimbini gone gulash, which isn't even a thing, which no one cared about the first time.

Anyway, so we here we go then.

Podcast

Bibini Bon Boolash, welcome to the Dream Restaurant.

All right, babes, thank you for having me.

Welcome, Bimini Bon Boulash, to the Dream Restaurant.

We've been expecting you for some time.

That was James as the genie waiter making his fantastic appearance.

Unfortunately, because of some internet issues, we'll just let the listener know, we can't see each other today.

We can only hear each other.

So you're just going to have to imagine what James looks like as a genie because he's properly dressed up for you and everything.

Yes.

Oh, well, I'm going to miss it.

Yeah, we've got some internet issues going going over in northeast london so it's out of my hands what are you imagining my genie outfit to look like bimini i hope you've got some shoes on that have got those little it kind of curls up at the end like a really long toenail yes and it's covered in bejewels and bejazzled that's what i'm picturing i'm also picturing some like lovely kind of oversized bejazzled harem pants topless but with some covered in chains and jewels that's exactly what i'm wearing yeah good apart from the bells on the nipples you got everything.

The little nipple bells are quite prominent.

Yes.

The eyes are the nipples of the face.

Yeah, exactly.

There we go.

It's high time someone said it.

The eyes are the nipples.

Hold on.

What?

Exactly.

Exactly.

You're much of a food fan, Bimini?

Yeah, no, I am very much.

Too much of a food fan sometimes, but I'm also vegan.

We don't have enough vegans on the podcast, so we're very excited to have a.

It was just like we got to two minutes or something of talking, and I hadn't told you I was vegan yet.

And I've been like itching.

It's been difficult keeping it in.

To be fair, I think a lot of vegans worry about that.

And they always have to mention that, oh, I'm always banging on about being vegan because they're worried that's what everyone else is thinking.

But this is a food podcast, so it would be weird if you didn't mention it.

It's part of the manifesto.

It's part of what we sign up to at the beginning.

I've got to ask you this: very important question you'll ask all vegans.

Who are the top three best vegans?

Oh, obviously, me at number one.

I think Pamela Anderson can get the close,

She just misses out on the title as the number one vegan.

And I think as well, Lewis Hamilton's doing some good stuff with their platform in terms of veganism.

So I think Lewis Hamilton could have a bronze medal.

Lovely.

I had absolutely no idea that Lewis Hamilton was vegan.

I don't know why I associate driving fast with meat eating.

He's got ham in his name.

He's got ham in his name.

He's breaking boundaries.

He's pushing it.

He's pushing it.

He's not what you'd expect.

And I think it's really cool.

Do you think he could get to the top spot if he changed his name so it didn't have Ham in it anymore?

Maybe if it was Louis V.

Gah V.

Camilton.

Lewis V.

Camilton.

Yeah.

V.

Camilton.

Also would you like to go and see that musical Bimini?

Would you go and see V.

Camilton?

Maybe.

I'm not that big on musicals.

The only musical I really like is Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

I think that's quite a cool musical.

And obviously Rocky Horror Picture Show, that's a good one.

But in terms of musicals, they're not really my cup of tea.

Was that hard in Drag Race then when you had to?

Because there's always like musical challenges and stuff, aren't there?

Yeah, well, we did the the musical challenge and obviously um for anyone that did watch it you'll know that i my my talents weren't in the vocals but it was more the punk energy attitude yeah this is the attitude and that's that's important as well when you're when you're a musician like it's not all about having the perfect vocals you've got to bring you've got to bring the energy you've got to bring the attitude what punk's about that's my attitude to stand-up comedy as well No, I'm not funny, but I'm quite loud.

I mean, we had to do a stand-up comedy challenge with an empty room with no audience.

So that was difficult.

well that's like ed's entire edinburgh running ed

so we always start with still or sparkling water always sparkling because i think it just adds that level of glamour to a glass of water that you need at all times and i actually carry around my own metallic straw so if the restaurant doesn't have a metal straw i can pop it in me sparkling water at all times i love this now do this straw is it just a standard, just metal tube?

Chrome, yeah, silver.

This one's silver, I use at the minute, but I do chop and change between gold or pink.

It really just depends on the day.

Now, is that a pink straw or is it like a rose gold straw?

Oh, never rose gold.

Never rose gold.

How dare you go?

Rose.

No.

Never rose gold.

No, I'm not into that like pinky dust.

No, I like dusty pink, but not a rose gold.

Not for me, that one.

Bimili, I've got news for you.

I'm currently talking to you on a rose gold laptop.

Do you know what?

So am I.

I've just realised my new laptop is rose gold.

What a hypocrite.

Isn't it nice in this day and age that people can carry around metallic straws for a sustainably drinking sparkling water?

Whereas if you saw someone in the 70s with a metallic straw, we all knew what that was for.

Well, it has multi-uses.

So I think

that's what we need with sustainability.

We We can't just have one product that does one thing.

You need them to have various reasons for existing.

So you want sparkling water with your own metallic straw that you've bought along yourself as well.

Can I have a slice of lime?

Oh, yeah.

Absolutely.

And ice.

Is it always lime over lemon for you, Bimbini?

It's always

line.

That was a Freudian snake.

Always lime over.

Straw comes out again.

It's always lime over lemon for me, I would say.

Actually, no, that's a lie.

Lemon first thing in the morning, but if I'm being, if I'm at a restaurant, I like to have lime in my sparkly water because I feel like it's a bit edgier than a lemon.

Yeah.

I feel like lime's got more of a, like a bit cooler, aren't they, limes?

A bit more punk, yeah.

A bit more punk, yeah.

They've got an attitude.

I'm intrigued with this lemon in the morning, lime in the evening thing.

At what time of day does it switch over from lemon to lime?

It depends on what I've been up to, if I'm honest, but I do think I'm one for a fad.

So if someone tells me I have to drink a glass of lemon water at room temperature first thing in the morning i'll do it every single day if they tell me it's good for me that's the kind of person i am i think so i would say i'd say when the it starts to get a bit darker i think when it gets a bit darker that's when you go for the lime yeah because then who's to know you know

it's darker at that point is it a lemon is it a lime people can't call you out is it an orange is it an orange

Like, what is it?

Are you having an apparel spritz or are you having a sparkling water?

Like who knows at this point?

That's weird isn't it about the why is it the lemon and the lime that people are so into when it comes to water?

Because if someone brought you a glass of water that has a lemon or lime in it you're not going to bat an eyelid right but if they brought you a big slice of orange in your glass of water you're going to complain.

You might complain or you might think they're being really cool or edgy, but I think it really comes down to like, I was, I'm naturally ginger and I think people are just offended by orange and like that tone and that shade.

I think people just have a fixation with it.

So I would say it's, I think justice for orange.

It's prejudice.

People don't want the orange in the water because they're prejudiced against gingerhead people.

Yeah, quote me on that.

I said.

Or a carrot.

That's why people don't want a big carrot sticking out of their water either.

Yeah.

I got called carrot top loads.

So I think that is.

I think that is.

Although, I had a spiced carrot.

I know this is off topic, but I had a spiced carrot in Margate this weekend.

And it was the best carrot I've ever had in my entire life.

I don't think this is off topic.

I'm loving it.

Not off topic at all.

This is bang on topic, Bimini.

Take us through the spiced carrot.

It also had this kind of like yogurt pesto base and it was like soft in the middle but a bit hard on the outside and it was covered in like all of different like cinnamon and and uh cumin spices and it was just cooked to perfection and we were all just like this is the best carrot i've ever had and it was a whole carrot as well so it was like a big old carrot they hadn't tried to chop it up or anything it was just mind-blowing Honestly, I can't remember the restaurant.

I can't remember where it was.

It was on a rooftop in Margate and they've just opened up the place.

It was bloody freezing, but the carrot was gorgeous.

chef's kiss sounds great that's what's getting some really good just like vegan cooking happening at the moment where chefs like treat the vegetables like whole vegetables almost as if they're meat and like baste them and you know cook them in amazing spices and stuff and i i myself had a big roast cauliflower the other day bimini i loved cauliflower it's so versatile oh man it is good cauliflower chicken like you can make vegan cauliflower wings buffalo wings oh they are incredible they're one of my favorite like little starter things to make but um there's i think that's I think you're true.

Like, I think we've, we've become accustomed to like hundreds of years of cooking, very meat-based, especially here in Britain, we're very like where it's like meat and two veg.

I think people are trying, people are being more experimental with carrots.

And I was, I just couldn't believe that the carrot had had this injustice its entire life when it could taste that good.

Would you like the spiced carrot that you had on the rooftop as an amuse bouche for this meal?

Yeah, why not?

Because, do you know what?

I feel bad for my my lovely mum, who is incredible, but she can't make a carrot.

It's always either too hard or just like, it's basically raw.

And this carrot was like,

it was, there was love in this carrot.

I can't stop thinking about it.

I'm watching Walking Dead at the minute.

And there's a scene in that that I saw the other day when one of the characters says to the other one, there's three pots of boiling water.

In one of them, I'll put a carrot.

In the other one, I put an egg.

In the third one, I put coffee grounds.

The carrot went in hard and came out soft.

The egg went in soft and came out hard.

The coffee grounds changed the water itself.

So what does that mean, James?

Not really keeping up with Walking Dead very well.

It's confusing.

A lot of it is like going over my head.

But I thought that sounded pretty profound when they said that.

I love that you're clearly not watching any of this stuff with zombies.

You're like zoning out and looking at your phone and stuff.

And the only time you've concentrated is sort of quite a bullshit proverb about carrots.

Well, I'm used to listening about food all the time now.

Could face this podcast, whenever anyone mentions food.

Maybe it's you're not meant to judge something by its cover because you don't know how it's going to turn out.

Maybe that's what that means.

That's good.

I think so.

Like, I think it's quite profound, actually.

Felt pretty profound at the time, Bimbini.

Thank you.

Pop it up some bread.

Oh, pop it ups or bread, Beboni bomboolash.

Let's go with

bread.

I can tell you you know your food.

You think about this a lot.

What sort of bread are we going with?

Do you have a specific type of bread?

Do you have bread from a certain place that you love the most?

Yeah, so see the thing is right i think ultimately you can try all these different types of breads and some of them are gorgeous shout out to the expensive sourdoughs that i've eaten in dalston

but i will say i don't know if you can beat a white crusty roll yeah a white crusty roll that crumbles when you eat it there was a shop that i remember growing up as a kid and i think this is why i've got this like this this memory of it that i used to go every saturday to my auntie's house and it was just like a little corner shop but they made this like fresh bread in the mornings and we would get like these crusty rolls just with butter as well like not even with anything inside just like the crusty roll warm with butter and it's i of i honestly don't think you can beat that yeah i mean you've come you've convinced me i've just i went somewhere else where you were describing that that warm crusty roll there that sounds absolutely amazing yeah it's like it's a bit basic but i do often as well as if you have a soup and you're popping it a white crusty roll with a bit of butter on it in your soup you can't beat that i mean that's just like that's just like mouthwatering stuff right there and i think i think the white crusty roll is underrated i think probably a lot of people will try and go really fancy with like to tell you about the the breads and i have had many a bread in my time but i will say i i just don't think you can beat it what kind of butter are you having on it salted unsalted well vegan butter obviously and also there's there's a there's a sainsbury's dude this really banging vegan butter now and it comes in like a slab of butter and it's it's hard like how butter would be and it tastes and it spreads just like it's it's like the closest closest i've had to kind of that like lerpac experience that i grew up with so i think yeah it was obviously be the vegan butter salted always because i put salt on everything here's an important question go on do you bake I've I have baked in my time some some really terrible attempts but um yeah I have baked I have a business proposition for you Bimini would you like to open a bakery with me called Bakery Bun Boulash?

Bakery Bun Boulash or Bimini run by Bimini Bum Bakery.

Yeah, I'm up for that.

Let's do it.

I think there'd be a queue out the door.

I think we'd sell a lot of crusty white rolls.

Yeah, crusty white rolls.

That needs to be like the main, the main source of

the hype that we build around it.

Because I think everyone goes too fancy now.

I think we just need to bring back a bit of simplicity.

Yeah.

I say that while I'm like in this white faux fur coat and like not really simple, but yeah

I say we only serve the crusty white rolls because I personally I don't know what you think about this I like the places that just do a limited menu now the less stuff on the menu the better because you know it's good you know it's good yeah and like you can you can maybe switch it up in a few months time if you fancy it but ultimately people come for the food that they know they're gonna love that's why i go back to some of the restaurants i go to is because i know that i'm gonna get good stuff i i like places that have their like main things on the menu and then maybe sometimes i'll switch a few dishes around.

But like ultimately, if I'm going back for years, I want to be having the same stuff because food brings nostalgia.

Exactly.

It's like you're saying about the buns remind you of your auntie's house and stuff.

And these are the buns that you can serve at the Bimity Bun Bakery.

I'm thinking shelves of those and you're wearing the white faux fur coat as well to serve them.

So it's white rolls, white walls, white coat.

And I'm actually wearing a bra and panty two-piece made out of strictly white crusty rolls.

Perfect.

What would you like James to wear?

Because obviously he's going to be there helping out.

Is he going to be dressed as the genie or does he need something else to fit in more?

Well, we'll see.

Do you know what?

I think, James, I think you dress how whatever makes you feel comfortable.

If you want to be the genie, you can be the genie.

You could be the genie of your own life.

I feel like if we're working at the bakery together and you've got your outfit on that you just described, I'm going to feel a little bit out of place if I'm not wearing the same thing.

So if that's the uniform.

Okay, well, we'll make you like either a thong

out of the white crusty roll or like kind of a borat mankini, but out of white crusty rolls, like that kind of vibe.

Yes.

How's a thong going to work made of the white crusty roll?

Would it have to be like uncooked dough for the bit of the back?

I do love uncooked dough.

Yeah, I do.

I feel like I sometimes I feel like uncooked dough is better than the actual product at the end.

Is that weird?

Well, I get it with cookies.

I don't, you know, there's a big thing about cookie dough, of course, like raw cookie dough.

Yeah.

It hasn't quite stretched to bread yet.

Yeah.

I feel like I'm quite weird.

I quite like um like making bread when we use like the water and the flour i i quite like just eating that raw is that weird i've not heard of it it's not good for your stomach it's not good for your stomach but it's it's just i don't know what it is i i could probably survive for a bit on on just water and flour would you want that as your bread course no white crusty roll let's go it's it's cooked it's baked yeah how about okay how about how about this before we bring you the bread course um james as the genie waiter, will bring over the dough that we're about to bake the rolls out of, and you can give the dough a little taste just to make sure it's up to up to scratch, and then we'll whisk it away and bake it for you.

How does that sound?

That would be great.

And do you know what?

There's always off cuts of dough that gets like put in a ball or thrown away.

So I will happily eat that.

By all means, pop into the kitchen and eat out the bin.

Yeah.

I'm actually starving right now and I'm trying to do this thing, this like crazy thing where you try to cut down on your bread intake.

And this conversation is

going to be a nightmare for you then.

Yeah.

Are you hallucinating?

I'm not hallucinating yet, but I think if we go further on, I like, I just love it.

And I eat it too much.

There can be days where I just, all I've eaten is bread.

And I'm like, I need to eat something else because I've just literally eaten like an entire loaf or like a whole baguette with like nothing else.

Like all of my favorite foods are kind of bread-based.

So we might see the appearance of more bread-based things on the menu as we move forward then.

I think so.

I was going to try and avoid it, but ultimately like my favorite food is pizza.

So that's like it's hard to avoid when it's bread-based yeah

it's funny it's funny that that we're like we're doing this because i remember like last summer when we were in lockdown the first lockdown we were all sat in the garden me and my housemates and we had this conversation from start to finish about like because obviously we'd listen to the podcast so we all went round and was like really talking about and we were like really getting into it like you can't have that as your start like no way

what was the biggest controversy someone said poppa doms over bread I think we were all like, really?

Poppadoms over bread?

Like, we were all shocked.

But, I mean, I would have popped ons, I feel like, if I was, if definitely if I was having like an Indian dish or, or like, something maybe with like East Asian or like Southeast Asian.

But I think ultimately bread for just everyday use, really.

It's your fave.

And you like them raw.

No one's eating raw poppadums.

No.

Well, could you do that?

Actually, to be fair, no one besides you was eating raw bread, to be honest.

But like, still.

did you hear how excited bimini got at even the suggestion of raw

straight away i know i kind of like is is pricked up yeah i was like well i'll give it a go

so let's move on to your starter the the meal proper begins what's your dream starter bimini so i'm gonna go with a soup but not any kind of soup because obviously it goes great with the bread um but i will go with leek and potato soup and it is only because it was one of the only things that my mum could cook really really well and do you want it cooked by your mum

I think so yeah because she got this like really good texture with it and it was like kind of really like she'd like blend it all and it was it was it was really kind of creamy and probably really unhealthy but I remember having it as a kid and The thing that like it makes me remember is because my mum would always cook like when she could, but I remember thinking, I remember started cooking at about 14 because I was like, I want to start cooking for myself because I don't really like this that much

it's a bit bland sorry mum when you listen to this I love you but her leek and potato soup is her standout and I think she used to live in the Bahamas when she was younger and all of the locals used to call it heather soup her name's Heather so you used to call it Heather soup and because it was like the only thing that she could cook so she would like make it for everyone and just have this like abundance of heather soup to everyone and it was just leek and potato soup but um it's got it's got memories it's got nostalgia for me the thing is why would you learn how to cook anything else if you do a dish that everyone names after you sure i know well exactly and they all thought it was like the most mind-blowing thing that they'd eaten and it was literally just leek and potatoes but um when my mum and dad like when they moved to the bahamas when they were younger i think my mum said like they literally didn't cook for like the first six months They just like ate out, which is very luxurious.

Yeah.

They didn't buy cutlery for six months because they would just go for dinner all the time which i mean i would love to do that i think i'd have a fork for an emergency even if i knew i was going to eat out for six months i'd definitely keep maybe one set just in case yeah i mean the fork could have come in handy because they did get held at gunpoint once so they could have had that fork to help them give me all your soup

yeah

that's what it was they were trying to get the heather soup they're trying they want the the recipe for the leek and the potato but then if i if i was given the option of any of the cutleries to protect myself against someone with a gun i'd probably plump for the the knife.

Oh, yeah.

It depends on not a butter knife though.

That ain't gonna do much.

No, that's true.

Think it through.

All right, fork then.

Actually, I'd tell you what, I'd just get a gun and I'd if I had to eat soup, I'd eat it with the gun.

Yeah, I suppose that.

And I think gun is technically cutlery anyway.

Yeah, that's true.

Yeah.

I mean, like we said earlier, sustainability, it's got to have more than one use now.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Use the barrel as a straw?

Yeah, why not?

Here's my main question about hever soup.

How much soup was your mother making?

Your parents have moved to the Bahamas and your mum has made so much soup that the locals are calling it hever soup.

I think that's amazing.

I mean,

she's making it for everyone.

She must have been having a lot of people over to have a hever soup and then going, you're gonna have to eat this with your hands.

We haven't got any cutlery.

Well, I remember when I was younger going to my friend's house with my mum and I think this is like, so we're from like a Scottish, Scottish family and Scottish, Scotland, they like their meat and two veg.

So it's also not, yeah, my mum's only used to a certain thing, but I remember her coming to, we went to my friend's mum's house and she'd made this like tomato and mozzarella salad and i remember my mum being like

oh this is lovely what's in this and she was like mozzarella and tomatoes are essentially just those two

my poor mum bless those she was like oh this is amazing and then she like made it like for her like next barbecue and she was like oh do you like my my salad the tomato and mozzarella i was like oh yeah it's really good

but now what now i'm older i'm like oh it was just tomato and mozzarella it wasn't anything groundbreaking.

You got your metal straw and you've drank your water out of it.

Are you going to pop that in the soup?

The straw?

Have you ever had soup for a straw?

Do you think I'm an animal?

I would eat the soup with my hands.

Of course I wouldn't use the straw.

No,

I have...

No, I will say I have...

It depends on the bowl as well, actually, because sometimes the bowls can be too deep that you can't really give it a lick.

But sometimes when the soup's so good, you've got to lick that bowl.

It's the same with food.

Me and my boyfriend, I don't like, I'll lick the bowl.

I don't care.

I don't think, like, if it's just, I would do it in a restaurant, maybe, but I would do it at home.

I unfortunately do that sort of thing in restaurants all the time, and I'm roundly told off for it by my fiancé on every occasion.

But I know that by the time I'm halfway through licking the plate, she can't do anything about it.

So I just do it.

I just do it again.

Well, exactly.

And it's a compliment to the chef.

A real compliment to the chef is to just lick a message into it.

So

I just lick good food.

So it says that, and then it goes back and the chef knows what a compliment.

Yeah, once when I was eating, I was at the breakfast club and a man was watching me eat quite intensely.

And he sat quite close to me and looking at me eat and he was looking at my food.

Was it erotic?

No, I don't think it was erotic.

I think he was just fascinated by me.

Not in a sexual way.

I think I just, maybe I was just, you know, I was eating quite voraciously.

And he was staring at me and he wouldn't stop staring at me, even though I made it quite clear that I knew he was looking at me.

So I made an arrow out of the bacon and wrote idiot in beans what pointing towards him because he was looking at the plate so much so i made an arrow out of the bacon and wrote idiot in the beans

i live for that like passive aggressive pettiness that's so good

sorry edge did you line up each individual baked bean so it said idiot or did you like with your finger i tried to for a bit but then some of it was in sauce so some of it i just had sort of shaped the sauce but to be honest once it got to idi i think he knew exactly what was happening well maybe maybe that's why he was staring.

It was like,

this person's making words out of beans.

What are they doing?

But the beans word was a reaction to what he was doing.

So, you know, and he did look away after that.

But, yeah,

it's the only time I've written a message in food.

Can I ask you one a question?

Yes, please.

Do you count

how many chews of your food you do?

I personally do not.

Edward?

I have done in the past, but only immediately after I'm told that I should be chewing my food more.

Because how many is it supposed to be, Bimini?

There's like a rule isn't it?

28.

That's crazy.

I've tried.

It's crazy.

I've tried.

I'm like, because I'm a very quick eater, and I've got it from my dad, I think.

Like, growing up, they'd call me like a human dustbin because I would just literally eat.

But I would not chew my food.

And I think, yeah, sometimes I've had in the past issues with my bowels.

And perhaps that's why.

Well, in your defense, you were mainly eating soup growing up.

So

how many chews you're meant to do at that?

You You know what I mean?

Well, exactly.

It's already chewed up for you.

Is that how your mum made it?

I think it's a tricky one.

I do want to eat slower and enjoy my food more, but I actually think I'm eating so quickly because I am enjoying my food.

Yeah.

Well, I'm definitely like you.

I eat really fast.

Yeah.

And sometimes I swallow something and think, well, that wasn't ready to be swallowed.

That cut my throat.

Yeah, oh, dear.

Oh, no.

Why did I do that?

So excited for the next bite of exactly the same thing.

Should have enjoyed that one that was already in my mouth.

Sometimes having to swallow a really big bit of food where you're like, you shouldn't have to go for three gulps while that's going down.

I feel like an aniconder.

I know, yeah, I do need to be more conscious of it, I think.

Well, if you want, Bimini, we can set up a counter in front of you,

like a digital kind of like clock that counts your chews for you as you're eating so that you know that you've done enough chews for every course.

I think we'll try and go with half of 28 because i have tried to do 28 and it's literally gone by the time i get to 28 so i don't think i've ever got to 28 before so i think yeah we'll try and meet in the middle at 14.

i'll settle for that

now We think we already know what your main course is going to be.

You've told us your favorite food, but we don't know the details.

Are we looking a trip to Pizzatown?

So I wasn't going to, I was going to go with an Asian-inspired dish, but my heart of hearts is saying pizza and my so my boyfriend is italian that's one of the reasons i'm with him

one of the many reasons but that does help pastas pasta is something that i love to have as well a lot of carbs my diet is very carb heavy i do realize that but stefano he he makes great italian food we always go for Pirezzza, which is a restaurant in Camden.

They've got one in Brighton as well.

Don't know if you've heard of it.

It's all vegan pizza and it is the best pizza you will ever eat.

I'm not even, I'm not even like being vegan and biased here.

It won awards.

It beat the dairy and meat awards for like pizza of the year, like three years in a row.

It's so good.

And they make all of their own vegan cheeses in-house.

It's all nut-based and not all nut-based.

Some of it's different.

And they do like hemp bases and like they're really experimental with it.

And it's really, really banging.

They do this one in particular called Parmigiano

party which is kind of pork it's like vegan pork stuff and it is just so good it's like literally what we'll get the entire every time we go there the parmigiano party and and the thing is that stefano being italian and vegan i think like his his family were more shocked that he was vegan than he was gay when it came out like they were

they were like what

He didn't hit them with that double whammy at the same time, did he?

Not at the same time, no.

I think the gay was a bit before and then it was a vegan but the vegan was the one that they had to get most accustomed to

have you taken his family to puretzer do you think they could handle that um i think they could handle it they haven't been to puretzer no i've taken my my family to puretzer and my mum like my my granddad didn't come i remember i remember giving my granddad a vegan burger he's like 81 and scottish like old school he's old school and i remember giving him this vegan burger and he ate it and he was like that was lovely it was really tasty and i was like oh that was vegan he was like oh yeah I could tell that and I was like you couldn't

he was just saying that

but yeah my mum loved purezzo like my mum loved the pizza and she was like she couldn't believe it was all vegan can't we've even never heard of this place I really want to go there now they also do dough balls as well I was gonna say because I know you love your dough what are their dough balls like raw dough balls they have this not well no but they are cooked but they also have this the vegan cheese that oozes out of it it's melted like they're vegan cheese they should like bottle that stuff up and sell that in supermarkets because it's the best.

Like, I don't want to swear, but people go hard, like, go quite nasty on vegan cheeses.

Whereas, this stuff is like otherworldly.

It's literally like all made in.

It's just, yeah, it's just so tasty.

But, um, like, we go to Puretza probably once a month, like when it was open.

Like, we were going that often, like, they knew us by name there.

So, and they also do a dessert, which we've never had, just purely because we always have too much bread.

But it's an Oreo pizza dessert, which is more bread.

and it's we always get to the point where we outbread ourselves so we can't have it sold whenever i see that on a menu at a pizza place where they do a dessert pizza as well i think who who is getting to that point where they order a dessert pizza and obviously it's james a caster but yeah and i'm hoping that an oreo dessert pizza is a base then loads of oreos then another base on top like a big oreo well yeah i've not had it yet so i can't i can't confirm or deny but i'm sure it's banging i was assuming it was like a black base like somehow they got the crumb into the dough and then spread the

sort of creamy Oreo stuff on top.

I'd love it.

Or fold it over like a calzone.

I don't think it's calzone.

Yeah, calzone.

Yeah.

Were you questioning the pronunciation there, Bimini?

Whether it's calzone or calzone?

No, I wasn't, because I'm, my boyfriend's Italian and I say everything like with the most London accent.

So I'd be like,

Bambino, or like Parmigiano party.

Like, I'm sure that's got to say it in a different Italian way.

Or like, yeah, just like, it's, it's always like Stefano as well.

It's It's always like Stefano.

I suppose family wouldn't say like that, but like, it's just the London twang.

I'm not coming for your pronunciation, don't worry.

He's got a, he's very good.

Like, he's lived here for for since 2011.

And I must say, his grammar sometimes is probably better than mine.

And it's his second language.

And I'm like, he pulls me up on stuff.

And I'm like, excuse me.

But I'm not going to pull you up in your Italian because I don't know it.

But no, he's very smart.

So I respect that.

But like, yeah,

he doesn't try and do my accent.

You're glancing over at the specials board whenever you go into this pizza place?

I think that that's the most that I look at specials boards.

I'm quite excited when going to pizza places about the specials board.

I'd say anywhere else, I'm mainly ordering off the menu.

Whenever I go to a pizza place, I'm probably most likely to go for a special.

That's interesting.

No, they do have cool special like cocktails and special pizzas, like pizza of the month, which we will get sometimes, actually.

We'll get them on the specials board.

But a lot of the times as well, because it is a pizza place, they do do other stuff other than pizza, like pastas and things, which I love as well.

But I do think if you're going to a pizza place, get a bloody pizza.

Got to get the pizza.

Anyone who orders pasta at a pizza place winds me up so much.

I'm not joking.

I get so wound up.

Sometimes you'd say to people, it's this great pizza place.

You've got to come and have a pizza there.

And you bring them.

And then they look at the menu and they go, I always have a spaghetti bolognese.

And I think, well, it's a nice friendship while it lasted.

It's so rude.

This feels like a massive sub-tweet on me, James, from when we went to Roberta's in New York and I got the Cachio Pepe.

Well, we all got that because Todd Barry had chosen it on his dream menu and we all got it.

No, but when we went the first time, I got pasta.

I didn't get a pizza, I got pasta.

Yes, well, sadly, Ed, I can't sever my relationship with you.

We do a podcast together.

I have to just grin and bear it whenever you make a bad choice at a restaurant.

It's just an act of defiance that we could just do without.

Yeah.

What can I say?

Bimini, you know, you think you're punk, right?

You go into the pizza restaurant and you're ordering a pizza like the rest of the chumps.

I'm in there fucking the system and and ordering a pasta get a cachio pepe like a true punk rocker cachio pepe flip the double bird and walk out you know what fair enough i'm pretty sure bibbedi smashed the window that on the on that day ed got a cachio pepe and a pizza i'm pretty sure you did it just yet i mean i'm not i'm not saying i'm not saying people like my my good friend ed gamble who gets a pasta as his side dish out of order i'm saying like it's more the people who only get a pasta but especially if it's a spaghetti bologna, I'll get really wound up about it.

I mean, really, we should move on to the side, but I'm really getting into this pizza chat.

Bimini, have you ever had pasta on a pizza before?

No, I haven't actually, but I do, when I make pasta, I put potato in pasta, which some people find quite controversial, but I think that's a trick that people are missing.

Honestly, like pasta with potato in anything with pesto base, it's just carbon carb.

It's just brilliant.

What sort of potatoes are you putting in?

Are you like chopping up boiled potatoes roast potatoes what's going in there maris piper we'll get maris piper cut them up boil them with the pasta but you boil the potatoes first for a bit and then add the pasta make sure it's in a big pan plenty of water so the pasta doesn't get stressed because stefano says that is a thing and he is italian so i respect that and then you make your you make your sauce and your base whatever it is and it's just it's great it's people now have pasta with potato and i'm pretty sure we invented it yeah maybe we didn't i would say the thing that's really going to stress a bit of pasta out is if it's bubbling away in the pot and then the potato comes in for a swim well no because the potato is already in there so actually the pasta is stressing out the potato

because the potato needs the potato needs longer time than the pasta but you do need a big pan because i've cooked many a pasta in my time where the the pan has been too small and stefano gets very angry at me for stressing out the pasta stressing out the pasta yeah how would stefano feel about this i got an arancini the other day a big old aranchini ball and i got a uh how big it was about a cricket ball size okay and there's loads of different ones and i asked the spaghetti carbonara one and i bit into it and it just was a rolled up spaghetti carbonara covered in bread crumbs so i bit into it and it just like blossomed and it was just all spaghetti carbonara inside like long strands of spaghetti just a full spaghetti carbonara in a ball it was delicious oh my god well i bet that sounds delicious but that doesn't sound what you sound like what you wanted well

it was what I didn't know I wanted.

Okay, well, that's good.

Sometimes the universe answers us in many ways, and maybe that was what the universe was giving you that day.

Yeah, I think so.

I don't know if Stefano would approve of it, though.

I'll ask Stefano.

I think sometimes people do try to be experimental with the Italian cuisine, and I do think

it's so successful and so delicious for a reason that you don't have to try to make it something that it isn't.

Like the supermarket Iceland famously do chicken tikka lasagna.

God, no.

No.

No.

I just think sometimes you've just got to leave it.

I think that's the line, isn't it?

Just leave it, Iceland.

We come to your side dish.

Let's go with Cajun.

Oh my God,

I'm about to contradict myself again,

but

Cajun salted fries.

That's not too bad.

That's not too far, is it?

That's not too like, that's not like chicken tikka lasagna.

That's just like Cajun salted fries.

So good, but cooked to perfection, really crunchy.

Tell me, Bimini, because the involvement of Cajun spicing in fries now makes me think, what shape are these fries?

Are we curling them up?

I'm trying to think if I want anything else on them.

I want them to be quite bitty.

Got to be crispy.

I think they've got to be...

Do you know what they are?

They're just a bit smaller than your average chip shop chip, but they're cooked crunchier.

There's actually a chip shop, because I was just in Margot, so this is just fresh in my memory.

They have a chip shop there, which was really tasty, and they've got it right.

But that kind of level of like chip that's cooked soft in the middle, but really crispy on the outside.

Not burnt, though.

It's not sharred.

You want it to be like just cooked just before sharing.

Charing.

Charing?

Is it sharing?

I would say charin personally but you can say sharing yeah because charing's lovely uh charin sounds nicer actually yeah okay let's change that in the dictionary um but yeah that not just before it's not burned and then it's it's covered in yeah cajun occasion and salted and just super delicious and i do think you do need a side of garlic vegan mayo just to dip in or sriracha as well to add a bit more spice because i i do like spice we'll give you two dips okay that's lovely thank you i would say vegan garlic mayo is one of the things that is absolutely indistinguishable from non-vegan.

If you get a vegan garlic mayo, it's exactly the same as a non-vegan garlic mayo.

It's absolutely delicious.

Well, mayo's really stepped it up over the last couple of years.

I went vegan in 2015 and there was fuck all really to eat.

So that's what I guess the love of bread cake for.

But

it's evolved over the years, which I'm very grateful for.

And we now have our own section in supermarkets.

Progression is happening.

People are noticing us.

There's a bit more respect, not a lot, but a bit progression with the mayo.

I'm here for that.

Yeah, there is one person who can tell the difference between vegan garlic mayo and normal garlic mayo, though, and that is your grandfather.

Only if you told him afterwards, though.

Only if you told him afterwards, exactly.

This is the thing.

I like trying, I don't, it's not like spiking my family.

I don't spike them.

But one of my pet peeves about cooking or making food for people that are non-vegan, that are my friends, that they say the phrase, this is good for vegan.

And I'm like, no, it's just good.

That's not good for vegan.

It's just good food.

It really, it really grinds my gears, that one.

That'd be a good TV show just called Good for Vegan.

And someone hosts it.

And people don't know if the food is vegan or not.

They have to eat it and say what they think and make the guess.

You've just come up with Channel 4's new reality competition show, yeah, yeah,

I think you'd be a good host for it, Bibini.

Yeah, you'd be great at that, Bibony.

Well, let's do it.

I think you need to pitch it because that's actually a really good idea.

And I feel like people are going to listen to this podcast and then jump in it.

So I think you need to get in there quickly.

Yeah, there's a few ideas we come up with on this podcast, actually, that I think we need to get in there quickly and do this.

And Benito stops us from doing it.

And then I know other people are going to make a lot of money from it.

What other ideas are there, James, that we've come up with on this podcast?

Oh, we've come up with loads of ideas, haven't we?

I'm just trying to think now of someone.

Laying on a conveyor belt and going for the glaze curtain at a donut shop.

Yeah.

Is that something that you'd be interested in, Benbeni, if we make a show where we lay down celebrities on a conveyor belt and put them through a glaze curtain at a donut shop?

If it was vegan glaze?

If it was vegan glaze and also I got creative control over the outfit.

Yes.

And also as it goes back round, somehow I'm in a new look every time it goes round and it just keeps going.

Like it's just a different look.

It's like an actual concept.

it's like an art show it's like a fashion show it's like a muglaire fashion show but actually in a glazed kitchen brilliant there we go art fashion food you have actually just refined that idea to something good thank you bibini

your drink what is your dream drink for this meal i am gonna go with a chili salted margarita a picante would we call it a picante have you had it called that before I have not.

But I have had it called margarita with chili and salt all around that rim.

Rim, rim, rim.

But we could call it picante.

Is that what it is?

No, that does.

Yours describes it way better.

Yours is a tomato mozzarella salad style thing.

I know exactly what it is now.

I've just had it called picante before with a half a chili stuck in the top of it as well.

Oh, okay.

Okay, well, that could be called.

I think it's got to be frozen, though.

Yes.

The margarita's frozen.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Now we're talking.

I introduced my mum to frozen margaritas recently.

She'd never had them before.

Made sure she ordered one.

Changed her life.

Was she hyper?

She was just saying how delicious it was all the time.

Remarking on how delicious it was.

They are really good as a cocktail.

It's a really great blend of lime.

Yeah.

See, lime.

There you go.

The edginess of the lime.

The tequila.

Tequila being like that, like the only alcoholic drink that's an upper, which I think is important sometimes if you don't want to go downward spiral with gin, which I've done many a times.

um so i think i think margarita is margarita is the word it's the way forward talk about your journey to this particular type of margarita what other margaritas did you visit along the way that weren't quite as good but that led you to this point so we've we've my me and my housemates we we do love a margarita it reminds me of our summer lot kind of the lockdown last year um when we were locked down together we had a garden in like we moved house recently we don't have a garden as much anymore but we had this lovely garden it was really sunny and we would have like margaritas in the evenings.

And it reminds me of that time.

And I think we experimented quite a lot.

I would say some margaritas were terrible and offensive to the entire culture that it comes from.

But others, margaritas were spot on and banging it.

Sometimes we've done it where we've been having drinks and the ladle comes out.

So this is another multi-use purpose.

We don't have shot glasses.

We use a ladle.

So we'll do shots of tequila out of a ladle.

My housemate, when she gets the ladle out, you know it's about to get real.

That's when it's about to go down.

But before the ladle comes out, we're usually a bit more kind of PC or a bit more reserved.

So we'll just have the lovely margaritas.

But I'm always up for experimenting.

As long as it's vegan, if someone says to me, try this, I'll never say no.

Can you remember the first time you had this particular margarita with the chili?

Probably was only a cup, about a year or so ago, I think I was introduced with a chili.

And actually, I think the reason I got onto margaritas, because before that I was always a gin and tonnet drinker the reason I got into margaritas because I'm a big fan of real housewives of Beverly Hills and they all drink margaritas on there and I they look so glam and they're always just like getting really wasted and I remember being like oh they all drink margaritas I want to start drinking margaritas and then I got onto margaritas and was like no wonder they drink margaritas it's brilliant and From then on, I am a margarita stan account.

Obviously, on the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, they all drink margaritas and then absolutely scream horrible things at each other.

Is that something that you look forward to of an evening?

We don't scream at each other.

But like even when I was filming the drag race reality show, I didn't scream at anyone.

But they do do that and it is very entertaining to watch.

I haven't seen the real housewives of Beverly Hills.

Do they have a ladle?

Do they do

drink out the ladle?

No, no, they're all rich.

They're all really rich.

So they don't have ladles.

They have actual shot glasses.

But they are missing a trick because the thing with a ladle, you've seen how deep a ladle can be.

You don't know how big that shot is going to be.

You just neck it back and then you're either passed out or you've got a bit more going you.

But the ladle's deceiving.

At this dream meal, would you like us to serve head the soup with the ladle for your starter and then bring it out at the end of the meal to do shots out of?

Absolutely, but I need my housemate Ella to come out with me and she has to give me the ladle because it is her ritual to get the ladle out.

Great.

Every time someone mentions a ladle,

I just always think of the episode of Friends where they say, see your ladle.

Do you remember that?

I don't remember that.

I'm afraid I don't, but I guess.

I've ever said

there's a guest character who's quite funny.

I can't remember what they're called.

And

Phoebe says, oh, you know,

if that person came in and wanted a ladle, they'd say, see your ladle.

And it was a

really stuck with me forever.

Melee stuck with me forever.

Always think about it.

Can't hear the word ladle without thinking, see your ladle.

Well,

I guess that's, you could say that's where your comedy stems from, that joke.

Yes, yeah, Phoebe from friends.

Phoebe's saying what joke another person would possibly make.

Yeah, that is my entire comedy persona.

And now it's starting to make sense why you end all of your sets with see your ladle, everyone.

Yep, see your ladle never get never gets anything.

And I walk out, go back into the dressing room, head in my hand, so we're bombed again.

Yeah, I can't believe it.

Look, I've kind of been putting off the dessert a bit and trying to bring up other subjects because earlier you said that sometimes you go to the pizza place and you don't have dessert.

And that made me quite trepidatious.

And I'm feeling quite trepidatious right now.

Oh my goodness, I never said that.

No.

I never said that.

You're twisted my words.

I said I don't have the Oreo pizza dessert because I've had too much bread.

But I certainly have room for dessert every time I eat.

You're so relieved, aren't you, James?

Ah, let's do this then, Bimini.

The dream dessert.

I would say I love savoury, savoury most, but I I do have a sweet tooth.

There's always a bit of room for dessert.

Well, as long as there's room, I'm happy.

But what I say, Bimini, is if you don't, if you don't want to have a dessert at this dream meal, you don't have to.

You can pick something savoury in place of the dessert.

So don't worry.

Here we go.

Don't worry about it.

I'm going to go with the dessert, something sweet, because we've been very heavy on the bread and the savoury.

And I do love savoury, and we've had a lot of really banging, savoury food.

So I do have room for a dessert.

And I will

say that the particular dessert that I am gonna go with is it's a toss-up drum roll please

it is

either a strawberry cheesecake or a sticky toffee pudding one of those two served with a dollop of ice cream for the strawberry cheesecake or vegan custard for the sticky toffee pudding warm for the sticky toffee pudding cold for the cheesecake.

I'm happy to go double dessert here, but I guess we should probably try and make you choose.

Let's talk about both and then me and James can decide whether we're going to make you choose one of them if you clearly are in favor of one of them more or whether we go double dessert.

They both represent me.

They both represent both sides to my personality.

I've got the sweet bit of kind of pink kind of very like like sexy side or I've got the sticky toffy, bit more gritty, bit more punky side.

I just feel like they both represent me and I would it would be a shame to choose but I feel like if you were to put me to choose, I would have to probably say sticky toffee pudding.

Now, I was with you with the sort of the two sides of your personality.

I was like, I like where Bimini's going with this.

The sort of sexy strawberry cheesecake side.

I was with you there.

It's when you described sticky toffee pudding as punk that I got slightly lost.

How is sticky toffee pudding punk?

Well, I feel like sticky toffee pudding, I just think it just, it just doesn't really, it doesn't really know what it's up to, but it defies.

It's sticky.

Yes.

But it's sweet as well.

And

it's...

Is it a pudding?

Yeah.

I don't know.

Does it know if it's a pudding?

It is a pudding.

Okay, well, okay.

Maybe I was just, I was clutching at metallic straws there, but

I think it's packed.

Oh, I absolutely loved.

I loved hearing you tie yourself up in knots there.

Just go, is it a pudding?

And then everyone clearly just going, yeah, no, it is a pudding.

We all know it's a pudding.

It's famous.

It's one of the most famous puddings.

Sticky toffee pudding.

You know what?

I was like, I'm out of my depth now.

I'm out of my depth now.

I'm not going to bullshit you.

Like, you know what you're talking about.

I think you get sticky toffee pudding at a school dinner, don't you?

And stuff like that.

That's punk.

Is it?

Having dinner at school?

Yeah.

I think any pudding that you get at a school dinner is punk.

I think so.

But I would see sticky toffee pudding more as like

a very traditional sort of almost Victorian British dessert that you'd eat in like a gentleman's club or something.

Steampunks.

If it's Victorian.

Steampunks.

Steamed.

And it's a steamed pudding.

Yeah, and it's steamed.

So there you go.

I would say that I've been to many a gentleman's club and I've never eaten a steampunk pudding.

I didn't mean necessarily that.

I don't know what my job would do.

What sort of gentleman's club are we both talking about?

Well, maybe a lot more classy, because I, well, no, I, I mean, I'm all for, like, a lot of my performance styles are heavily inspired by kind of the stripper and burlesque scene.

So I love a gentleman's club.

I'm all for that.

I'm pro, pro that.

Very much so.

Oh, see, I was imagining like the sort of dark wood, like traditional gentleman's club.

You'd see like old politicians in there or something.

I'm now picturing like a Hugh Hefner's kind of gentleman's club where there's all the politicians cheating on their wives with Playboy Bunnies.

Yeah, and what are they eating?

Sticky toffee pudding.

Sticky toffee pudding.

Yeah.

With chili margaritas.

What a night.

So your entire menu, Bibity, is served at the Playboy Mansion now.

That's your dream restaurant meal becomes Playboy Mansion's menu?

Well, I just feel like this is a full circle moment for me because Pamela Anderson is someone who I've heavily looked to for inspiration because she's someone that has been very overtly feminine and proud of that femininity but also uses her platform to advocate for social injustices.

And she was in the Playboy Mansion.

Now I'm in the Playboy Mansion doing the same thing.

Me and Pamela Anderson, full circle moment.

Here we go.

Brought brought it back to Pammy amazing

and that is why Lewis Hamilton is at number one because I'm not on a racetrack eating my dinner I'm at the Playboy Mansion having a lot more fun Pamela Anderson is the original babe yeah she was a 90s bombshell love Pammy in my life the first person that other kids at school told me was sexy yeah same and was a and was a babe yeah was Pamela Anderson.

So for my whole life, just because, you know, I was born 1985.

So the age age I was when the other kids in my class started talking about people being sexy and people being babes, Pamela Randerson was the one that everyone was talking about.

So for the rest of my life, whenever anyone mentions babes, I'll always think original babe, Pamela Randerson.

OG babe, totally.

And because of Barbed Wire, the film that she was in, and the catchphrase of that film was, don't call me babe.

Yeah.

Don't call me babe.

So if anything, you should stop now because she did ask you to stop calling her babe in that film, James.

Uh-oh.

Oh, no.

Oh, oh no also i think for me similar similar experience but maybe different is that um i knew i was gay

because i wanted to be pamela anderson i didn't fancy pamela anderson so i remember thinking okay well these feelings are maybe not normal and then i grew up and became a drag artist and used Pamela as a lot of sources of inspiration.

So there we go, full circle again.

I think that would have been more fun than my experience.

My experience was just all the other kids telling me that Pamela Anderson was a babe and was sexy, and then I just agreed with them all because I didn't really know what was going on.

That was it.

And when they released that, do you remember they released the Virgin Cola Pammy bottles that were supposed to be in the shape of Pamela Anderson?

Um, and I went out and bought one of those, and I thought the bottle was sexy, and that's how I realized I was straight and disgusting.

I love that, but I mean, I wonder if that would, I wonder if that would fly today.

Oh, I don't, I'm not sure it would.

I feel like the bottles wouldn't be modelled after crevaceous women anymore.

No, it's absolutely mad.

And then you bought one as well, your little perv.

Yeah, me and my friend went to the petrol station to buy one because we'd heard they were releasing bottles in the shape of Pamela Anderson.

I think we were hoping for like actual tits on the bottle rather than just the shape of it, but absolutely disgusting, little boys.

Well, I think the fact that you fancied a bottle is quite, it's quite the.

Maybe it links, maybe Freud would go crazy over this.

Yeah.

Yes.

You said that's how you knew you were straight but let's let's be very clear you fancied a bottle

that's just admitted the theory that sexuality is fluid yes

oh i love it absolutely probably the best joke that's ever been done on the podcast

absolutely phenomenal truly

right

i'm going to read you your order back now bimini you tell me how you feel about it water sparkling with ice and lime, and your own metallic straw.

Gorgeous.

Amuse bouche.

We're giving you that spiced carrot from Margate as the amuse bouche.

Oh, yes.

Poblons or bread.

White crusty roll, warm with Sainsbury's salted vegan butter and a little bite of the uncooked dough.

Oh, yeah.

Starter.

Heather soup.

Leaked potato soup cooked by your mum.

Heather soup.

Oh, my mum's going to be very proud of that.

Her one dish.

Main.

Parmigana party pizza from Paretza.

Go on, yes.

Side dish.

Cajun salted fries with vegan garlic mayo and sriracha dip as well.

Drink.

Chili salted frozen margarita and dessert.

We landed on the punk rock of desserts, sticky toppy pudding with a hot custard.

Amazing.

There we go.

That sounds like a bang up meal, if I don't say so myself.

It does sound good.

And then just at the end, we can see your friend Ella storming into the restaurant.

Sorry, the Playboy mansion, holding a ladle above her head.

Yeah.

And she has to come up at me with aggression.

And I also don't know how much tequila is going to be in that ladle.

Yeah.

yeah.

Thank you very much Bimini for coming to the dream restaurant.

Thank you for having me.

That's been lovely.

There we go James.

The off menu menu of Bimini Bonboolash.

Delicious.

Beautifully described dishes.

Great recommendations of places to go to.

Yeah.

A laugh.

What more could you ask for from an episode of Off Menu?

Very little.

Oh, maybe a professional intro.

Oh, come on, mate.

Why are you still on that?

Because because i know we're about to do an outro and i just want to us to have that in mind and up our game no because you've already made it not professional because you've just you've just pulled me up again if we were being professional we would just got on with it ah didn't mention gimini gong gulash no bimini bombo lash did not mention gimmin gong gulash which was lucky because we were very much enjoying her company yes Pre-order Bimini's book, A Drag Queen's Guide to Life, and look out for new music coming from Bimini very, very soon.

Can't wait.

Can't wait to hear the new tunes.

Thank you so much, Bimity, for coming in the dream restaurant.

Also, we need to say thank you to some people who have sent us food lately, Ed.

Yes.

I mean, since episode 100, it's been a veritable onslaught of delicious foods, James.

It has because episode 100 was us doing our dream meals.

And the people who we mentioned are mighty generous folks.

Simon Rogan.

and the lads.

Simon Rogan and the lads brigade sent us some Berkswell puddings, which was my dream side dish.

And let me tell you, when you get sent your dream side dish to make at home, you get a bit worried.

You think, I've said this was my dream side.

I've gone on the podcast.

On record.

On record, I've said it.

Maybe it will turn out it's not my dream side.

And I'll eat it and go, oh, actually, I don't like this as much.

Oh, man.

I've been in heaven, Ed.

Oh, man, me too.

Just absolutely delicious.

I was saying to you, I had my first hangover of the year the other day.

I didn't drink for the first three months of the year, April, tiptoeing back into drinking again, having a nice time.

First proper getting drunk at the end of April.

And that hangover, I ate six Berkswell puddings.

And I was like, hangovers are great, actually.

Yeah.

And I've really wasted the first three months of this year.

Well, I wasn't hungover and I ate four.

So God knows what's going to happen if I have a hangover.

Yeah.

It's going to be absolutely awful.

The Berkswell puddings are just some of the most delicious things I've ever eaten.

Oh, so thanks to Simon Rogan and Tom Barnes and Ollie Marlowe all at Simon Rogan at home.

Thank you.

Ed got sent a wheel of the cheese.

The Birkswell lads sent me a wheel of the cheese, James.

And I'm talking

a huge wheel.

Not like you couldn't put it on a car, but you could put it on a child's trike, the front wheel of a child's trike.

If you wanted that child to grow up to be a horrible cheese and biscuits loving freak.

Well, thank you to the Birkswell.

We don't think you're freaks, actually.

We think you're great.

So thanks for sending that, which means I'm always going to have cheese to go on my Birkswell puddings.

Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum.

Also, James, I don't know if you remember, one of my dream dishes was the Berber and Q cauliflower.

Yeah, I do remember the whole roast cauliflower with tahini and rose petals and pine nuts and all sorts of things like that.

And they sent me one, they sent me one, they do a meal kit of it, and it comes with hummus as well, and pitters.

I had an absolute party by myself.

Ed's favorite kind of party, self party, yeah, not a Parmigiano party.

No,

an Ed Self party.

Also, I shouted out some Popadoms Popadoms from Namaste Kathmandu, and they're giving me free food for life.

A wonderful curry house in Edinburgh.

And some other news, James is moving to Edinburgh.

Also, yeah, I'm going to be moving to Edinburgh very quickly and never buying food again.

I can't wait.

Thank you to the good people at Fallow who sent us some amazing burger kits, including these things called corn ribs, where you chop up corn on the cob and deep fry it and then put this incredible kombu seasoning on the top.

Let me tell you, they sent extra kombu seasoning.

James has made corn ribs four times by himself since then.

Yep, I keep on buying corn on the cobs, cutting them into quarters and making corn ribs at home.

I love it.

And a big squeeze of lime on every single corn rib.

Bimini would love it in the evening.

And All's Well sent us their gin and bacon meal kit, which was fantastic.

There was this pork collar in there, this slow-cooked pork collar with bacon jam that was just, oh, so good.

And of course, I loved the gin and tonic dessert.

The gin and tonic cheesecake.

But thank you very much for all that delicious food.

I have genuinely never eaten so much.

Yep, delicious.

Thank you so much.

And Ed, may I say, after all that food I ate, I was bready cheddar and ready for Betty.

Have I used that right?

We should also say that Bimini was a bit annoyed at the end because she was going to say see you ladle.

She'd been planning it for like the whole time since James said see you ladle.

And then Benito ended the recording so yeah from inside his little cupboard locked in there little vegetarian cupboard eating his yoghurt and he just stopped it short he managed to get his revenge somehow little yeah spiteful vegetarian not liking vegans stopped it really early but Bimini would have said see your ladle and it would have been the perfect end to the episode it would have been the perfect end to the episode so sorry Bimbini and sorry listeners anyway bye bye

Hi, I'm Gina Martin, a campaigner and writer.

And I'm Stevie Martin.

I'm a comedian and writer, and also we're sisters.

We are sisters.

And we're doing our new podcast, Might Delete Later.

It's a podcast about social media, about going back, looking at your embarrassing ones, things you like, things you don't like, and we're talking to all different types of people.

So many different types of people.

We've got writers, we've got comedians.

Maybe we'll get a politician.

Maybe we'll get a dog.

Maybe I'll talk to a plant, deal with it.

Who knows?

It's like a little snapshot into people's social media lives.

Yeah, and hopefully it'll make you think more about how you use social media and how you feel about it.

So do subscribe on all of the platforms that you usually get your podcasts on and visit at Might Delete LaterPod on Instagram because we're going to be putting up really fun videos and the things that you didn't see in the podcast episode.

Ooh, exciting.

Thanks, dudes.

Hello, I'm Carrie Add.

I'm Sarah.

And we are the Weirdos Book Club podcast.

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

The date is Thursday, 11th of September.

The time is 7pm, and our special guest is the brilliant Alan Davies.

Tickets from kingsplace.co.uk.

Single ladies is coming to London.

True on Saturday, the 13th of September.

At the London Podcast Festival.

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

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