Ep 92: Sue Perkins

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

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Welcome to the Off Menu Podcast.

Uncak this podcast about 40 minutes before you want to listen to it and leave it on the side to aerate.

You're in for a fruity treat.

Hello, James.

Hello, Ed Campbell.

How are you?

Very well, thank you.

How are you, James?

A Casta.

Good, thank you.

I'm very well.

Very excited to ask a special guest, their favourite ever, Starter Main Course.

Oh.

Oh, my God.

For the first time.

I forgot what order I say them in.

Starter.

Starter main course.

Of course.

Starter main course, dessert, side dish, drink.

Why would you go dessert side dish, James?

Why would it go in that order?

It's the order that you eat it in, and then the main course inside is in order of importance.

Why would you go starter, main course, dessert, side, drink?

Well, if it's in order of importance, it would be dessert.

No, for you, not for you.

I mean, main.

No, it's the order you eat it in.

And then...

Oh, I'd probably then go drink, side dish, starter, in order of importance.

You're a mess.

The way you normally do it is you do starter, main, side, drink, dessert.

Yes.

That's the way it is on the episode.

Yes.

Yeah, so that's the way you say it.

Do you want to try it again?

Start a main course side dish drink dessert.

Right.

Okay.

Good stuff.

We have a special guest every week.

And this week, our special guest is Sue.

Sue Perkins.

National Treasure.

National Treasure.

You all know Sue Perkins.

Look,

there's nothing more to say, really.

I just want to chat to her.

But the problem is, look, Sue's great.

Sue's wonderful.

Very excited to have Sue in the dream restaurant.

But still, the rules apply.

If she has a secret ingredient which we have decided upon that we don't like, then she's getting kicked out of the restaurant.

National Treasure or not?

Afraid so.

And the secret ingredient this week is baby

corn.

Baby corn.

I hate baby corn.

It is bland.

It's weird.

It's weird hot.

It's weird cold.

It shouldn't be baby.

I hate it.

Yeah.

I mean, I didn't think I had a problem with it.

And then...

I think it was my mum the other day pointed out she doesn't really like it.

It doesn't really taste of anything.

And then I thought, it doesn't taste taste of anything and sweet corn proper corn on the cob tastes delicious yeah yeah i love it so why have we shrunk it down to a version that doesn't taste as nice but also it's not it's not even that is it if it was like if i want a baby thing i want it to be like an amusingly small version of exactly the same food you wouldn't give a baby corn to a mouse and it's like oh this is exactly like the mouse having a corn on the cob it's just it's not the same thing that's that that's the test is that if you gave it to a mouse would it look like a mouse eating a smaller version of the normal one that we have?

No, it wouldn't with this.

It would be weird.

You know, straw dollies, I always imagine that's what their dicks look like.

Yeah, I think you're right.

I think if you're a straw dolly, that's what your dick looks like.

Yeah.

It's a little baby cord.

Awful.

What way round do you go in there?

Sort of small tip at the end.

Yeah.

I'm thinking like a tapered, tapered dick rather than a big old.

Obviously, it's preferable for the straw dolly to have it it the other way around.

Yeah,

but I think it would be tapered like a clanger.

I think so.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Creepy.

So.

Anyway, let's get all that smut out of our system to speak to Sue Perkins, please.

Yes.

Yes.

So this is the off-menu menu of Sue Perkins.

Sue Perkins, welcome to the Dream Restaurant.

Lovely to be in the Dream Restaurant.

Welcome, Sue Perkins, to the Dream Restaurant.

We've been expecting you for some time.

Hello, beautiful Jeannie.

Oh, so good to see you, Perkins.

And, I mean, we're over Zoom and there's an open door behind you.

You're sat in front of an open door.

Yeah, and it looks like that's going into your kitchen, which makes us feel very, that's very appropriate.

It's the biggest room in my house for good reason.

Oh, yeah.

In I like disproportionate houses.

how small are we talking for the rest of the house you've got a massive kitchen and then a boxer room a box room to sleep in yeah it's basically it's just one studio room and then an enormous kitchen and it's I'm sort of quite conscious because it's a sort of kitchen that says yeah I can know my way around

so I have to be on if people come it's not a big thing during lockdown obviously because no one's here but outside of lockdown I there's quite a lot of pressure I feel if I'm cooking.

So do you have like some go-to things that you'll cook if if people come over to impress them, to live up to your kitchen?

Well here's the thing.

I've got what I'm going to loosely describe as attention issues.

So I can't do recipes because the moment I start, I feel trapped.

I feel trapped in the method.

Yeah.

And I'm like this with all things, like I can't read an auto-cube twice.

It drives me mad.

I have to make something new up.

So I don't have any tried and tested things, which is why I don't bake, because baking is really about process.

And and you you you can't play fast and loose with those rules that's chaos will ensue it's it's amazing for someone who doesn't bake or doesn't like baking and hates reading an auto queue that you used to host a great bridge baker

I know it was it was an act of faith every day mainly for the poor people producing it no i love watching other people watching ovens that's my favorite thing it's very vegetative and i love food and so you know for me it's just and there's no water queue and no script when we were were doing it, it was just like absolute chaos.

Uh, you know, I'd sit on a bap and someone say, You're on a roll, and then that would be the beginning of the show.

Oh, we were welcome,

or it'd be uh Croatia week, and I'd go, Hey, that custard's split, and no one would understand, and I'd go and feel sad.

But at least it was parkland that I could walk in to feel sad in.

You know, there was always the context of England's green and rolling hills to mitigate the unmitigated awfulness.

You could go for a broody stroll after a failed pan.

Yeah, there was always lambs.

People were always trying to get us to have our photos taken with lambs.

And I wonder, I remember once wandering and finding a lamb and somebody trying to do a still.

And I sort of gently picked it up and it just did a very loose shit all over me.

And it was very loose.

I don't know what normal lamb shit is like, but this seemed to be almost a never-ending fountain.

They should have used that for the intro.

That would be the best intro.

It was just you.

You and Mel walking along the the field and wordlessly, you don't say anything, you just pick up a lamb and then all this shit goes down you and then this titles start.

Do you want us to say welcome to the Great British Break Off or just nothing?

Actually, no, I wouldn't actually I think I'm very torn now.

It's difficult, isn't it?

Because nothing would be really funny, but also it'd be funny if that happened.

You stood there for a while and then just said welcome to the Great British Break Off.

I think you're right though.

It's to do with the length of time you afford the

sort of

cascadance of shit.

That needs some proper quiet sort of contemplative viewing.

It's like those people that just watch log fires.

Yeah, sure.

It might be a sort of small subset of the population that just like watching lambs shit.

There's a Netflix show where you just watch it's four hours of lamb shitting on a loop.

Like white noise, brown noise.

Just the one lamb, though, which is an ask.

the one lamb.

Does the lamb get smaller and smaller over the course of the four hours?

Like a whoppy cushion, but made of meat.

People sitting on the lamb by mistake.

Slipping the lamb under people's chairs.

Here's a question about Bakoff then.

If you find bacon stressful yourself, you're probably quite empathetic to the bakers when they get stressed.

Here we go.

Very much so.

No, that's not about me.

Okay, all right.

of the most I, you know, one of the biggest news stories of my lifetime is the Pavlova in the bin.

Yes, and I was wondering if you, I can't remember now who had to talk him down.

Oh, I had to talk him down, yeah, and he was effing and Jeffing convince him not to put it in the bin.

Yeah, there was a lot of effing and Jeffing, which was the first time we'd had that on camera in Bake Off.

And obviously, there's a lot of it going on backstage, mainly because I'm just foul of mouth, but it was normally it's just

very mellow, as you know, and he he really lost it and i in that moment i was with him it was life and death but then slowly this creeping contextualization of just i'm with a man in a tent whose ice cream has melted this is meanwhile in syria you know it's just

um

so i had to take him out and we had to have a little chat a nice guy and just say come on let's bring some perspective to bear on this

maybe maybe not you know somebody opened a fridge door and it might have affected the temperature wasn't it it was ian's baked alaska wasn't it that was that was it

but i have to say the aplomb with which he just got the foot on the pedal of the pedal bin just it was like something at filma louise when you see that close-up of the foot going down foot on this is how i would storyboard it if i was if they made a movie of it which they will which i think they will now yeah yeah it's a very extreme close-up foot smashing down on pedal bin hard cut to pedal bin lid it just crisply there was no like i don't know about you but every time I do a pedal bin, it's a slow.

Do you know what I mean?

It's a slow pneumatic wheeze as it kind of, not this, Ian, bang, up.

And then it just slid with one motion poetically.

Oh, it was, oh, it was beautiful.

I was there with him.

Like, that, that is me.

That's me baking.

And I've tried to do a bit of baking recently.

I did a carrot cake last week that turned out quite well, but there was a disaster halfway through.

and it nearly went in the bin.

Luckily, I had my fiancé here to say, don't put it in the bin.

Don't be Ian on bake-off.

There's a bit of Ian in all of us, really.

I mean, baker people say, oh, yes, but you can eat your mistakes in baking.

I know for a fact, most of the time, you can't because I've eaten everything that came out of this tent, whether it was raw, half-baked.

I've eaten, I've eaten, somebody made a trio of tarts, and it was essentially a herring and mackerel tart.

And they positioned all the tarts one on top of each other, but the sweet tart was at the top and it melted.

So this sort of rose water

sort of drool ended up on a fish tart.

I've eaten all of it, but I do think that you're right that sometimes we need to be more in and just go enough already.

Half cut for all.

Put it in the bin, get a delivery.

Yeah.

Still, though, a baked Alaska, I think, even if you mess it up, that's going to be delicious.

And it was very hard for me as a dessert fan to watch a man put a baked Alaska in the bin because I was like, there's no way you can't eat every bit of that.

And I wish my head.

I wish.

In that film that you just described, he

puts the pedal down,

the lid comes up and inside the bin all you can see is my face yeah with my with my mouth open and

the i think i think the the uh producers of bake off should look into casting james as a bin in the next series just have him lying on the floor with his mouth open and any offcuts of raw pastry whatever there is just drop it drop it straight into his gob that was actually one of the things that didn't make the edit when i was on it was me hiding behind a bin for a while i hid behind a bin for about 10 minutes uh on the second day because I was trying to catch Paul Hollywood and trap him in a box

and that didn't make the edit.

Do you know what?

It's hard to do.

It's hard to do.

I tried to net him for seven years.

Often, by, I don't know if you filmed it in the same place we used to, but there was a little stream and I would always try and sneak up behind him.

Always wise to me.

I've got a heavy tread.

Always wise to me that time.

And you dunk of lamb shit so he could smoke.

Always, yeah.

Yeah.

Also, was he cocky about it every time he caught you?

So cocky.

He's like, you know, I know you're there, Perkins.

Yeah.

Because for a while, we were, I mean, oh, shit.

Because for a while, Paul and I only spoke through the medium of violence.

And we would, there were a lot of early doors, a lot of props, like, you know, sort of quite lifelike plastic baguettes.

And he was like, we'd sort of be Cato.

to each other's clues oh so we would appear and just i mean really hard as well there was no messing around like a stab like i'd stab like smash a cob into his bollocks.

Or he'd, I'd just finish a sort of very unformed link that wasn't really going anywhere.

And he'd appear and just uppercut me with a baguette that would just knock my teeth together.

And what I loved about it is we never, we didn't formulate a plan to do that.

It just emerged.

And I don't know whether there was some bristling sexual tension underneath it.

Who knows what the real subconscious driver was?

But it was pure violence.

Yeah.

But with really stupid props.

There was once, there was a French plat that I really got him in the twain with it was he was he was legs akimbo delivering some I don't know interminable verdict on something that was never going to make the edit and I just ran and I just I just got it oh it was good when I was doing it it was Sandy and Noel yeah and I can safely say that all four of them really got on together proved they're a big happy family but I cannot even imagine any of them doing any of those activities

finishing a link and then Pollywood swinging a baguette at her face, and that's all we did.

Well, most of the time, if I'm doing a link with Mel, we are trying to wedgie one another.

That's what we've been doing now for 25 years, and I, it's something that I can now deliver.

It was also the beginnings of Bake Off, it was very we were just finding our feet in terms of the format, so there'd be these quite long and I have to say, deeply tedious historical sequences when I'd be in a corridor of a stately home.

It was in it was in 1847 that the meringue was discovered by Muriel Meringue.

And if we did them together, then I would get used to the feeling of like a lot of pants material being twisted,

the hardcore twisted, sort of creating in its own way a sort of genital French plait.

It's amazing how far I can go with a quite intense piece to camera without snapping under those conditions.

It's good training.

It's good presenter training.

I sort of think, I watch S-A-S-A-U tough enough or whatever.

I think, yeah, I could just smash that.

Yeah.

What I've put up with in the line of duty, just smash that.

We could just ask you about Bake Off Forever and be the happiest people in the world, but we need to know your menu.

So we should start off with, as always, still or sparkling water, Sue Perkins.

I'm not an animal, so it's going to be still.

I mean, please.

It's...

I read this thing about...

I've never liked sparkling water, but I read this thing about...

Sparkling water that it demineralizes your bones.

Wow.

Mineral water that demineralizes your bones.

Apparently it leaches calcium and I'm a massive hypochondriac and I will take at face value any negative bullshit whatsoever about medicine.

So if it says it's going to do that in some strange corner of the internet, I believe it.

So what does it do?

It like bubbles away at your bones and like makes them weaker and stuff.

I'm going to heavily caveat everything that I say from here on in with,

I'm not a medical professional.

Sure.

And I only scraped a biology O level.

But

my scant readings at the margin, i mean it's almost touching on q and on that's how marginal the internet reading's been this is the lighter side of q and on though right

exactly sparkling water stuff yeah suanon yeah su and on

something to do with

something to do with fizzy drinks leaching calcium And the process, I imagine, is a source of, as you've suggested, a gentle nibbling.

Like those fish that nibble at dead skin on your feet, yeah.

Exactly that.

So the water gets into your bloodstream, it hits the bone.

again

yeah it hits the bone and there's just it's not ferocious it's not piranha-esque yeah it's more of a it's a trout tickling it's a sort of just that or a sucking a sucking of of of calcium or like a dishwasher tablet advert where you see like the cartoon of all the bubbles getting rid of the place that's what it does to your bones yeah yes like like calgon it's like calgony thing isn't it so it takes it all and then i imagine after a heavy night on the perier you wake up you get up, and you just crumble.

Edward, you're deliberately referencing the Calgon

thing because that's what I imagine fizzy water does to my teeth.

Yeah, it's sort of,

that's constantly in my mind now when I drink anything fizzy as James worries that that's what it does to your teeth.

No, I don't worry.

I don't worry.

I think it's nice.

Oh, he likes that in the morning in a hotel.

Because it cleaves my teeth.

If you were to put, James, a mouthful of fizzy water, like, and hold, I mean, this might have been asked before.

hold that mouthful of fizzy water how long do you reckon before your teeth just eroded you know what sue that's never been asked before

okay all right let's go into some specifics you would sue a non now i'm annoyed that that's never been asked before well first of all it would just feel nice because they'd be getting cleaned by all the bubbles the difficult thing is that is keeping it bubbly so obviously in my head i think if it maintained the same amount of fizz uh for the whole time and never got less fizzy then i reckon it would.

How long does it take a tooth to dissolve in a thing of Coca-Cola?

Overnight, they say, don't they?

Man, that's quick.

Yeah.

Well, again,

caveats here as well.

Edenon.

Edenon has just said one of his special facts.

You leave a tooth, any of your teeth, or your mouth overnight in cola.

Yeah.

That's it.

Gone, dissolved.

Yeah, it's the pogues by sort of 8 a.m.

That's all that happened to him.

He's very healthy otherwise.

He just had a mouthful of Coke.

Absolutely healthy.

Randomly left it in.

He fell asleep with some Coke in his mouth.

So yeah, I don't really like...

It fills me up as well, Fizzy Water.

If you want to be full before a meal, that's the point of the bread, isn't it?

You don't want the two warring factions of fullness.

You don't want the bubbling...

sort of aggressive mineral, sort of calcium leaching water and bread.

So still water, just to have a sort of neutral canter at the actual meal itself.

You might not have bread, of course.

I might not have bread, and therein lies a very serious question that I suspect you'll be posing.

Do you like other fizzy drinks, so?

Not since the Sue Non investigation into the fizzy drinks.

So you are consistent with the bubbles, though.

Absolutely.

Now, it's an absolute policy.

And don't even think about bringing them in the house because who knows what they're doing behind your back?

No,

I don't, actually.

I don't.

I kind of,

I sort of overdid it as a kid.

You know, I was of that generation where it was just you're off the teat at around about, you know, two weeks is enough for breastfeeding.

Get her on the Fanta.

And it's, it's,

brightly coloured, tartrazine-filled, busy drinks with a sort of,

yeah, they were the mainstay of my childhood.

So I kind of, I'm just scared of them now.

And I don't like beer for that reason.

No?

Really?

Yeah.

Quite a flat ale, like a light ale, a pale ale I can deal with.

Tastes nice.

Who knew Sue Perkins was afraid of bubbles this is this is a great exclusive for us what a scoop

yeah this is the kind of stuff that the great bit eater is gonna leak to the sun yeah

but yeah I am I am scared and champagne I can't stand it right consistent yeah absolutely if nothing else would you ever ever in your life get into a jacuzzi oh forget it

But for different reasons.

So for me, it's not that it's going to leach calcium from my bones, but a slick of somebody else's bodily fluids.

Yeah.

Like I once got into a hot tub with a shaman at about 5 a.m.

He said he was a shaman.

He was called John and he was wearing a grass skirt.

And

he

basically said he wanted to perform a ritual.

And the ritual, which was a cleansing ritual, involved blowing raspberry vodka at my asshole.

And I went with it because I'm very open and I don't wish to be in any way demeaning to other people's beliefs.

And I, since then,

I have a very deep aversion to getting into a hot bubbling sort of arena with anybody, particularly someone in a grass curtain.

So I'm going to put it out there: I don't think that was the hot tubs' fault.

That story.

No, that story took quite a few turns.

And at no point did I think it's the hot tubs' issue here.

This is, I mean, for somebody who sort of looks quite square and nerdy, like I do, I often sort of find myself, it's not an unusual situation that I would be in a hot tub with a shaman.

Sure.

Because I just accept and go with.

These are my I live my whole life like it's an improvised.

Yeah I mean for me yes and would stop at the Raspberry Vodka up the arsehole.

No, it's yes and and it's never no buts.

It's always yes and it's yes but

yes and oh

but it's it was a very it was it was a very intense experience I will say it was very well aimed and

unforgettable.

I'll tell you the experience of listening to it.

Yeah.

The experience of listening to you telling it.

Here's my experience.

I was there and at the beginning of it, I was like, right,

at some point during this anecdote, I'm going to have to interrupt Sue and shout Pop of Doms or Bread because we've got to get on to that next section.

Listening to it, listening to it, listening to it, and then going, it's the only time on this podcast, the whole time we've done it, I've gone, actually, I'm not going to shout pop a dumbs or bread.

I'm going to ask more questions about this because this is ridiculous.

No, it's the kind of story where you don't want to, you almost don't want to ruin it by asking too many questions because the bullet points alone are funny.

It leaves a lot to the imagination.

But I think, I guess what I really want to know is

how John the Shaman

phrased to you this proposition and made it sound like it was a ritual when it clearly isn't.

Is that really the question you want to ask the most?

Well,

I guess there are other questions I would like to ask.

It's a complex buffet, isn't it?

I hadn't realised how complicated it was till I said it out loud.

Imagine being in the thing,

being in the hot tub, and John the Shaman in any way making this sound legit to Sue and being able to.

Sue, do you?

There's a, nowhere in the hot tub, there's a really great ritual we could do.

And

I've got some raspberry vodka, which is very convenient.

Do you have an arsehole?

Like,

if you have that, then we can combine them and we could do the

ritual that I like.

Look, this was, this was

at Mate's house.

There was a

collection of really good eggs, quite esoteric, quite, the shaman didn't stand out.

It was a sort of cabal of quite out there people, and I was really into it.

And the hot tub came after a lot of vodka.

It was like, oh, let's just all settle down and get in the hot tub.

It was then he said, and

he said, you know,

I can sense you.

I can sense you're unresolved.

Everybody in the world is unresolved, but they always get you with that.

Since you're unresolved, and I said, yes, really hammered at this point.

Yes, John.

I am unresolved.

He said,

there's two things I can do in this situation.

And he genuinely said, but I don't have my eagle feather with me.

That's what he said.

So in many ways, I dodged a bullet.

That's all I can say.

I feel, although, had I been on dry land and had the eagle's feather, this could be a, it could be the sort of anecdote that I would never say out loud.

We don't know.

But he said, I haven't got the eagles,

I haven't got the eagle's feather with me, but we can do a cleansing.

And I think the raspberry vodka was the nearest.

It just needed to be a spirit.

And that, so he didn't, I didn't feel I needed to challenge the nature of the alcohol.

So

it wasn't the raspberry flavour was not key to the...

Fuck, I didn't even challenge the arsehole either.

It's awful.

I didn't even chat.

I just was like, oh, I've had a few.

When I was a bit younger, you know,

I was better put together.

I was like, yeah, have a look at it, everyone.

And it was just bang.

And it was like an explosion from his mouth.

It was like a real.

And, you know, yes, there was an awakening.

So, in many ways, he achieved the desired effect, which was I was not unresolved anymore.

I was very resolved, and I was very resolved to never be in a foaming hot tub ever again.

This is the first time on off-menu that when we ask you for each course, we're going to have to ask you which end you want to consume it through.

Yes, I want it blown reptilely, please.

A high-tensile.

I don't know what kind of mechanism.

It's like a soda.

It needs to be in a soda siphon and then delivered.

Yeah.

I hate to ask more questions about this.

I'm really sorry that I've got more questions.

And I wish I didn't.

But, like, I'm just thinking about the listener.

That's really blowing her nose, by the way.

Yeah, just so you know.

Not a really nice thing.

I think the listener will be what.

Because I was listening to that story and okay, yeah, and then this happened.

And

I mean, this is going to sound too graphic a question, but I'm wondering if

John the Shaman

had a

like

a straw or something that he was blowing.

Just before, thanks for asking this, mate.

Yeah, because obviously I wanted to as well, but I'm glad you were the one doing it.

Yeah, listen, I mean, if he'd not got his eagle feather, but had brought a straw, sort of weird in a way.

That's intent.

Straight from the mouth.

Oh, man.

So it was like.

Oh, god yes it was like sort of like a massive slurp and then

like that and it was a shower which subsequently i've had done a couple of times admittedly not rectally and admittedly clothed with camera crews and like you know fairly feeling a bit safer on dry land sure yeah just a big sp like a really high pressured spit yes

it's a conundrum isn't it that now i've unveiled it it's a conundrum because like i mean

i want to know what he's up to now if you've kept in touch if you know what he's doing.

We didn't keep in touch, no.

He was an absolutely charming man.

Yeah, that

I think possibly still shamanizing on the waste on the west coast.

Possibly storming the Capitol building.

We don't know.

It could have been one of two ways.

It's

eagle feather then.

Oh yeah.

Oh that's de rigueur.

De reguer.

Yeah.

So yeah, I don't know how we got into that.

We just asked you if you like hot tubs because you don't like bubbles.

Yep, and I did not expect it to go that way.

It's intriguing that you won't drink fizzy water because you think it's bad for you, but you'll let a man called John blow raspberry vodka up your ass.

What can I say?

You know, we're all made up of contradictions.

You contain multitudes, Sue.

Yeah.

I mean, to be fair to Sue, she googled it and there wasn't anything on the internet about that being bad for you.

It would give you an away.

It would be fine.

Yeah, yeah.

If you're feeling unresolved, this is the way to go.

That's all it said.

Pop-adoms or bread.

Pop-adoms or bread, Sue Perkins.

Pop-a-doms or bread.

Right, I thought about this.

And poppadoms are a giant, one giant crisp, right?

Who's not going to want to begin a meal with a giant crisp?

It also kind of works better for the menu that I'm planning, although that may change.

But I love bread.

I could name you a billion types of bread that I would happily have along with a meal, but come on.

Just to start start with something as wrong as a poppadom.

It's great.

It sets you up.

It sets you up for all manner of ills for what is to come.

Do you know what I mean?

I mean, it's just a disc of fried nonsense that one feels one has to karate chop publicly.

Have you done that?

The ritual of like, load them up.

Hey, hey, bang, there you go.

Why?

I am worried that the pandemic has ended the Poppadom karate chop.

I think it's going to take a long time for public confidence to regrow enough for people to start karate chopping popadoms for the table.

You know, you're right.

I'll tell you what else.

I'll tell you what else I'll worry will go away thanks to the pandemic is blowing raspberry vodka up someone's eyes.

It's a sterile fluid.

It's sterile.

It's happening in a hot tub.

It's fine.

It's fine.

You're right though, those old customs,

the single karate, lone karate chops, a stack of poppadoms.

Yeah.

I had not thought about that.

You see, these are the hidden costs of COVID.

The hotel breakfast buffet.

Oh, gone.

Although I don't do do that anymore because I once ate an earring from some muesley and that really put me off.

Oh god, even thinking about it makes me gip.

Oh god.

I thought, oh, there's a tense, there's a high tense old hazelnut.

And it was an earring, an old ear.

Oh, and the fat.

Oh, I'd eaten it.

Oh, Christ, I fucking go there now.

So I won't do it.

I will not.

How will I possibly hotel?

I will not go for an open bowl of granola ever forget it.

And I, oh, the sickness is present now, I recall it.

But you said you ate it.

well it i crunched on it and then i'd eaten half of it by the time i fished it out um and then i felt so oh dear so you're right yes i'm happy for the breakfast buffet to be the casualty but but the kikarate chopping yeah the chopper dumb gone but i think i think a poppadom it's it's filth it's salty it also is a great

It's a great balancing mechanism, the pop-adom.

It's got the rigidity.

Should you wish to load it with stuff?

Will you be loading it with anything in the dream restaurant?

Well, I mean, listen, you've not said it comes with anything, so but what I might do is keep it to one side.

So I might karate chop my own pop-a-dom.

I understand that people at the table or other diners might not want to join in because we're in different times.

That requires a different response.

But I've karate chopped it.

I've probably gone for half of it.

I might keep half.

And then later, we'll see if there's a point where I want to use it as a sort of board onto which I can put things.

What dips are you usually going for with a poppadom?

Um, you can forget lime pickle, that's just weird.

I don't think the poppin' a second.

Yeah, I know.

That's controversial because I always tend towards sweet.

So it's always going to be about the mango chutney.

Yeah, the yogurt is weird because it doesn't, it just cascades.

Yeah, I agree with you.

It needs to be thicker for me to go with a poppadom.

Look, it's very delicious,

but it's, you're right, it doesn't, and it also makes a poppadom a little bit soggy and reduces that rigidity.

Have you ever had a poppadom cheese sandwich?

I can't recommend it enough.

No, and I want one now.

Are you talking about poppadums going in a normal bread sandwich or are you talking about replacing the bread with poppadums?

The latter.

Karate chop, you've got your two perfect halves.

Thinly sliced.

It's going to have to be thinly sliced because it won't tolerate a thick wedge.

Yeah.

The mouth hits the poppa dum, it cracks.

It sort of explodes into shards and you go into a slight panic and then you hit the cheese and it's all right.

Everything's okay again.

And they combine to make this weird, sort of savoury, creamy, corn flaky textured mess delicious what kind of cheese cheddar absolutely we're going for the most basic entry-level cheddar don't don't waste a truckle on it don't don't waste a truckle don't unwax a cheese just go for something that's come in a multi-pack from your nearest sort of costco it doesn't matter and are you putting are you putting mango chutney in the poppadom cheese sandwich because a chutney and cheese sandwich delicious oh sweet god that's an elevation yeah and that's why i'm here because i have have, I have, I have, I have rudimentary thoughts, but together we can elevate them.

Yes, that's perfect.

It's not, not that I'm giving you that as a recipe, by the way, because I don't want you to get distracted halfway through.

No, and also if it's a recipe I can't follow and it's gone.

It's a suggestion, which I can play with over time.

Great, great, great.

How did you discover the Popadom cheese sandwich?

Well, on the rare occasion that I'd actually got some Popadoms left.

Now, as we know, they become a soggy, unappetising mess the next day, but pop them in the oven and they can work wonders.

wonders so i thought

okay it's hot now it's hot and toasty slightly singed around the edges what's going to work cheese and i've got i haven't got it anymore i don't know what i did with it but i've got one of these weird my mum used to have them she's always weird things like a little cheese slicer but also those egg mandolins like an egg guillotine yeah that sort of comes down and just perfectly weirdly slices the yeah but i've got um i've got the cheese uh slicer and thinly did that and it's slightly melted so karate chopped it slightly melted Unbelievable.

So I try and order extra pompadomes now and do it the next day.

It's a shame that you mentioned the cheese slicer really because I had imagined you karate chopping everything in the recipe and just karate chopping the cheese up.

Oh no, I mean, I mean, it depends what cheese.

I mean, I'd roundhouse kick a brie, but I would.

You're right.

A simple karate chop to a cathedral city is probably better.

You'd need to be pretty good at karate to get a thin slice of cheese with a karate chop in here.

They may come as a shop, but only an orange belt.

Only an orange belt.

I'm not there yet.

Not there yet.

That's very cheesy.

That's the cheesiest of belts.

It's called a red Leicester belt, I believe.

Imagine being able to so finely karate chop you could slice cheese.

What a waste of that power.

It really is, isn't it?

It really is.

I would watch a series, though, of Sue trying various martial arts moves out on cheese.

Kung Food.

Kung Food.

Kung Food.

There we are.

Oh, Ed.

God,

this is a fucking day off.

You prince among men.

But we've got the title.

So is it set in a different continent each ep or

a different food stuff?

How's the format break down?

I think I would have it that it's like a YouTube series.

Each episode is like 30 seconds long, but we do travel the whole world.

So every episode is in a different country.

And it's you.

just there with a different and you know the title of the video will be the martial arts move and the cheese yeah And it is just you doing a roundhouse kick on a brie.

So I think for the Japan one, what I'd want is an enormous tofu hanging like a punch bag.

Yeah.

And then just warming up, just getting some basic moves in there.

And then

also, you know, you do the form in karate.

You'd need some foodstuffs that you were doing it with.

So you'd bring the hand out

on it would be something.

Yeah, that is good.

Or we need to work it up.

We need some.

I mean, I'm no good at development because my brain is,

it can't do deep drill but you know I think there's something in it.

We can do that.

We can definitely we'll work up a PDF.

If I may tweak the format yeah I think I would like it that every episode we've got someone who ordered a cheese board on off menu one of the get one of the stupid idiot guests who have ordered a cheese board on off menu in the past and they're sitting down to their cheese board and then they're interrupted when you like fall through the ceiling or something and then just do the karate move on one of their cheeses and then yeah yeah'cause the the cheese board would be on like a plank right?

Yeah.

so you could just you could just kung fu chop through the whole thing, you chop through the cheese and through the plank, absolutely right.

Yeah, you would murder sort of what you ideally want is to, when this inevitably becomes a teeny version, you've got somebody who's got a cheese board, you make them eat it in an atrium.

So you've got a glass ceiling, and ideally, what you want is I've been helicopter dropped.

I come through the glass ceiling,

I smash straight through in a kind of you know, fighting pose, right through the cheese board, and it's supporting, you know, stuff.

that's it gone.

And around me, it's just sort of you know, detritus of sort of regional speciality cheeses, yeah, atomized.

I'll never miss an episode.

I have some training to do, but it's good.

I've now got a focus.

What are you doing?

I'm just punching cheese.

Just work out.

I'm starting with a rock for, but I'm going to work my way up.

I'm going to get to a boudoir by next spring.

I'll be there as your assistant as well, just picking up all the shards of cheese and gobbling them as you punch it.

Yeah, you would be.

But you've done, you've karate chopped your pop-a-dump, so you've got that.

You've got textural elements.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because cheese without texture is pointless.

It's like eating a duvet, isn't it?

It's pointless.

I'll eat straight cheese.

I'm a guy.

I'll eat a cheeseboard.

Cheese board with no crackers.

I can do.

There's no words for this.

Do you not even have a grape to punctuate the funk?

No,

get it off the plank.

I don't want a grape.

I can go straight cheese.

Just give me a knife.

Or not.

No words.

No words.

Just actions.

And I'll tell you what the action's going to be.

Sue's going to chop up all the cheeses with her hands.

Ed's going to be gobbling them all up.

And then the final karate move is going to be Sue grabbing Ed by the back of the shirt and the back of his belt and throwing him into Trafalgar Square.

Final karate move.

Where you lie in a sort of cheese sweat for the next 10 years.

Look, I can see James has relaxed now because you're clearly not going to pick a cheese board for dessert.

So that's fine.

There is no way.

That's the devil's work.

When someone says, what's for dessert, you don't see a cheese board.

Cheese board is not dessert.

Thank you.

Somebody said, what is it?

French have this weird, you know,

they talk about foods that open and close the stomach when they're talking about devastation menus and stuff.

Raspberry vodka opens it up.

Lovely.

Wow, that opens everything.

That's nose to tail.

It really is.

Everything is attendant and expectant.

But for me, cheese closes down everything.

I can't really do it.

I have no interest in it.

You know, other than in between a puppet, which is a delightful place.

Yeah.

Starter, your dream starter.

Well, I don't eat meat anymore, but I've done a menu whereby I could still be eating it because it's things that have made me so happy when I think of them, when I think of eating them.

So for my starter, I'm going to have Krispy Duck with pancakes because it reminds me of the first time I ate

interesting food, which was when I was 19.

And I was taken to a Chinese restaurant never been to a Chinese restaurant before by my friend Nick

and we went with her dad and it was the first time a that I'd eaten crispy duck but also had food where you pick things like you had the little shredded spring onions you had the shredded cucumber you had the thick viscous sweet spicy hoistin sauce then you rolled it all up but the best thing of all it was my first restaurant with a proper lazy Susan and it was like what What brave new world is this?

And the whole middle of the table just revolved and it was like, I am never leaving i'm never getting up i want one in my my ideal kitchen would just have

almost a series of concentric spinning circles with food on it and millions of people around and it'd just be this endless sort of rotating cavalcade so that is just such a i mean i've gone i've been lucky i've gone all the way around the world since and eaten very weird shit very very weird things but that was my gateway food into other cultures and it came so late

I kind of had a, I ate really well as a kid, but it was just standard British.

The idea we'd have a takeaway or we'd occasionally go to a harvester's and it would be like a slightly wetter extension of food that we'd get at home.

But this was like, what is this?

It's got texture and spice and what you might call flavour.

So that was, and it's, it laughs it out loud.

It's kind of weird it came so late in my life, but it was, it was massive.

And now I think back on what Nick and her family must have thought, looking at me going,

freaking out.

Just spinning the lazy Susan around and around.

What is this spring onion?

Also, I love that, like, you know, it was the first time you'd seen a lazy Susan.

It was the first time you, you know, had to put your own meal together and stuff.

And just imagining you, like, doing your own meal, then hearing the phrase lazy Susan and just being like, I'm making my own dinner.

Thank you very much.

I don't think I am lazy.

I'm working pretty hard over here.

I don't usually have to make my own pancakes, guys.

Every culture has a self-assembly dish.

Like for haters, it's just like, oh, God.

You put something in an oven.

What do you want?

You know, and you've stuck a firework in it sometimes, if it's somebody's birthday.

How much applause do you need for this?

You know, yes, it sizzles.

I mean, also, it's that thing of running.

I mean, I'd never do it now.

As I said, don't eat meat, but the running of the fork and the meat shredding.

Way before pulled pork, way before all these sort of food trucks and trends, they were, you know, they knew how to roast meat slowly so that it would have that texture.

But you still have the crispy skin which has been so almost cured and then you you've got you the heat from a bit of spring onion you've got the smoothness of a bit of cucumber sweetness from the sauce oh my god yeah it almost makes me want to eat meat again but not quite it's so delicious but it's also the lazy susan for me it's not just the fact that this is a uh as you say the irony of it being served on a lazy susan when you're doing all the work is perfect It's a perfect joke.

And your name is C.

And my name is C.

Every time you have a Lazy Susan in front of you, yeah is there jokes about that

and I have to make the joke very early on otherwise it will come at me and then that will really annoy me how do you do what joke do you do do you say I can't even be bothered to turn this yes yeah yeah I say can someone turn this for me I just every time and it's met with it's gone from sort of

a sort of weak laugh to now well through to silence and now just hostility there's a sort of hostile expectation that's going to happen and in those moments I enjoy it even more it reminds me of a lot of early gigs where before we'd even come on, there was just hatred.

And that's almost my happy space.

So, yes, I will make the same joke every time.

So, oh, God, not again.

Sorry, I can't be asked.

But it's, I would love it.

Yeah, James will love it every time.

All right.

Well, when the pandemic is over and we're karate chopping pop a doms with gay abandon, I'll make the joke.

And then you'll be sad.

I will.

And then I'll get the raspberry vodka out and you'll be really sad.

I'll be really happy with with it with the latest Susan job.

Can I make a confession to you, Sue, about your name?

So, and this isn't, I don't get confused.

Like, I know that you are, you are Sue, and that Mel is Mel.

I know that.

Okay.

Yeah, as sure as eggs is eggs.

I do know that.

Yeah.

But

I always, pretty much all the time, go to call you Mel

because I think in my head,

you look more like a Mel

and Sue, and no, and Mel is more like a Sue.

I answer to both, though.

I answer to both.

Oh,

absolutely.

Yeah, it doesn't matter.

And she does too.

I've seen her go down the street and somebody goes, oh, Sue, and she'll just go, yes.

It doesn't matter.

It's all, it's all gristed in the middle.

It's all good.

I'm wondering now, I'm looking at myself, which is not an uncomfortable, which is not a comfortable thing, rather, on gallery view, thinking, this is going to really freak me out now.

Do I look like a male?

That's going to stay with me.

You know, when you're really pissed, really, really shit-faced, and you look into a mirror and you're trying to work out what you are and who you are, that is going to come to me in those moments.

Yeah.

Am I a male?

Yeah.

Am I a male?

I just think you look more like a male than a sue.

And I think Mel

looks more like a sue than a male.

Every time you say this, I get really tense.

Yeah.

It's like we're all just treading on eggshells.

I have no problems with your name because Alex Horne once referred to you as Superkins.

So now that's what I think of you as Superkins.

I always bow when I see Alex Horne.

We used to do a sh in Edinburgh, our shows, his show was straight after mine.

He knew what it's like.

There's this

lovely camaraderie when you know, especially when you share a dressing room in a venue, or you know, your shows are but one another.

And it just, yeah, we would just bow.

And as he took over the smelly room that I'd inhabited from another smelly comic, and so and onwards forever.

And I still do it, and I love him so dearly.

So, if he calls me Super Kings, I'm happy with that.

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Main course, what would you like for your main course, Superkins?

Right, I'm going

I'm going curry and I'm not going to be specific.

I make a curry about five nights a week.

Sometimes it's a chickpea curry, sometimes it's lentil-based, it might be Sri Lankan.

My favourite, which is what I'd plump for, would be southern Indian.

Loads of curry leaves, coconut.

And don't, I know you're going to push me to a side dish, but let me say this to you, right?

A planet is nothing without its moons.

Not a single moon, multiple moons.

And for me, the joy of an Indian meal is there's a constellation of stuff around it, okay?

If you try and restrict it to just a dal, I feel hard done by, okay?

I will feel aggrieved.

So I would go for

a, yeah, summon Indian curry.

Maybe even, this is going to make your stomach turn.

Maybe even beetroot, a beetroot curry.

Wow, wow.

But it doesn't have to be, if you don't like that, you can put, you can have an okra one.

You can have, it's a thing, you can put anything you want in it and it's utterly delicious.

So I have a camper van and when times were better, I would go out and I would just drive to the middle of nowhere.

And in my camper van, I've usually got a couple of books.

I think somebody gave me a penknife.

In the full and certain knowledge, I couldn't even open it.

No idea, but it's there, and it's good to know it's there.

And I've got a little flip-up thing above the kitchen, and all it's got is Indian spices.

And every night, in I will open up the door and I will make myself a curry because it's easy.

Once you know, you've got to put this, this, this, and this in it in a bit of oil so it pops.

And you've got a can of coconut milk, everything else is just gravy.

I love it.

So that it would have to be that, And on the side, I'd have a masala dosa.

Have you ever had that?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So this is the same.

I'm obsessed with things that are now, it's following on from the sort of peeking duck, I suppose, is that it's stuff wrapped in a big, you know, comforting mitt of kind of pancake-style stuff.

So in this case, it's a rice pancake.

But oh my God, I could talk for hours just eulogizing about how delicious that would be.

And I've traveled a lot and that's always been the thing.

I travelled up the Himalayas once with a couple of hot piratas in each pocket, which was useful for not only my sciatica, but also just bust one out when you're hungry.

When the altitude feels it's got the better of you, just smash that.

You meet a holy man, he's hungry, you want to get, just smash out the other one.

That's a gift.

You've exchanged something meaningful.

And when you say a holy man, do you mean a real holy man?

Oh, no, they were all, all the holy men I met were just eyes on a stick.

And, you know, I'm quite old meat now.

It's not like they must have been desperate because, you know,

you'd get to a sort of, you'd think it would be the end of the pilgrimage, and the sort of saddie would come out of nowhere out of the ether.

And there would always be a ceremony which would involve just sort of gawping up my jugs or smearing ash on something.

I mean, I don't wish, and I'm saying,

as I've said at the beginning, I respect all beliefs.

But in my experience, and I've travelled most of the way around the world now, and I have a lot of perves

that will use the mechanism of spirituality to have a good old ogre, possibly a touch, possibly a touch.

And also, I mean, I've sort of written about this before, but when you go somewhere new and somebody gives you a really firm grasp, how are you to know that that's not culturally appropriate?

You know, so there's a lot of just thinking, this is probably

grabbing my buttocks is probably something to do with this form of Buddhism.

Then you just accept it.

It's only afterwards there's a slight shadow of doubt.

Like with the shaman, it all comes back to the shaman.

There's a slight shadow.

Is that really...

Well, I'm wondering when the doubt crept in there.

When you meet another Buddhist, when you get back home and you offer them your buttocks.

Yeah, and they just bow and think, oh,

she's a little strange.

But yeah, it's all that sort of food

in the midst of a pandemic, in the midst of winter.

It's easily made from store-cupboard stuff, really.

And Amazon or other more reputable and local retailers can provide you with curry leaves which is all you need to make it taste of what it should taste like you know a lot of your meal i've noticed sue is circles you've got a lot of circles in your meal this is incredibly perceptive of you because uh i'm always drawn to circles i doodle them almost constantly and i i'm gonna have to show you now which is no

because it's a podcast but right i'm gonna show you what i'm making at the moment and this is gonna blow your mind this is gonna absolutely blow your mind here Here we go.

Oh, oh, a knitted burger.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

And that is circles, man.

Look at this.

Circles.

Circles all the way.

This is what I was doing before

I was on the podcast, right?

I was just crocheting some circles, which have formed this magnificent, great, almost fully operational burger.

Yeah, because

we've got the popper dumb, of course.

We've got the pancakes for the duck

on a lazy susan yeah and then the and then the doser as well so we've got a lot of so let's not forget the arsehole the arsehole of course circular yeah it traditionally so traditionally so everything you've mentioned every anecdote everything is for the circular the lazy susan

and my agus

no i have to say this since i've learned that i have to say everyone that wombats poo in perfect squares yes that was in the news recently i believe wasn't it weirdly circular anus yeah oxo king yeah

have have you knitted any other foods no but I'm quite into it now so uh amigarumi is a sort of Japanese crochet of sort of creating lifelike things and there's an incredible thing that I've seen which is you know when you go to sort of reputable like indie burger joints and you get like um a composite paper sort of cardboard tray they've replicated that perfectly and there's fries and ketchup and I still can't work out how they've done ketchup but anyway I'm into it I'm banging into it I mean have they knitted the wool or are they just like sure to get a bunch of loose wool and just put it

from the lamp from Bake Off?

I managed to just while it was shitting on me, it spent such a long time I could tease out its beautiful brown fur.

And I thought, I'm going to keep that because one day I'm going to knit a hamburger.

I'm going to knit a hamburger.

And I have.

That dream's become a reality over lockdown.

It's all good.

So you have in the curry and the doser, that's your main and your side.

Yeah, can I have that?

So the doser's potato and onions and uh mustard seeds and curry leaves and then i make them but you quite say you have to think about that two days before because you ferment the batter everything's but i love a batter i don't think i've talked my love of batter is it's it's the thing that i i uh i cleave to in times of stress you can always just make a pancake at any time yeah you can make a pikelet and from then you can upgrade to a crumpet you could make a drop scon uh there's it's it's a world.

It's a whole world.

You can make a soccer, which is that if you've had that, that's like a chickpea pancake.

Fucking incredible.

Wow.

Batter is the way to go.

Have you had a Welsh cake?

I've had a Welsh cake.

I only ever have Welsh cakes when I'm staying in hotels in Wales and they leave them in the room.

Do they leave them in the room intentionally?

Yes,

it's not the previous.

I forgot my passport.

Apologies to all Welsh nestlers.

I don't know where that was.

No, if yours, forget your charger.

No, no, you don't forget your charger.

Oh,

they've left my fucking Welsh cakes.

These are good accents here, by the way.

Yeah, I noticed he didn't join in.

I'm not very good at accents.

You know, I'm not very good at it.

Go on.

Go on.

Do an impression of a Welsh man

leaving his Welsh cakes in his hotel.

I'm about to say this is going to ensure Welsh independence within the next year.

What's about to happen?

Okay.

That's fine.

I'm happy to help out in that department.

Oh, Crikey.

I love my.

I've left my

I love my dropscott in there in my hotel room

It's actually uncanny, yeah, it's amazing sort of distillation of whales it wasn't just do you know what I mean it was an embodiment

So we're on to your drink now which is also circular?

Well the glass is circular.

I mean I can't make liquid circular unless I make it into a fluid gel and that's molecular gastronomy and that's probably a little too much for lazy Susan.

I would, well I have a cup of tea with every meal so I was torn between my two favourite beverages, a cup of tea and vodka, particularly bison grass vodka.

And I just sort of think I'll go for the latter because why not?

It's so delicious.

It's pretty weird going to go with a curry and Chinese, but you know, I'm all about representing.

And I think you have to just

try these things.

It reminds me of my mate Ollie, who I travel a lot with, who is, they do this thing whenever we go away.

The idea is that one person orders for the group in a place where you can't read the menu.

And he once got a microwave toad.

And I always think of him.

And he ate it

because that's the game.

You eat whatever appears.

You eat it.

It was a big,

wet, bloated toad that kind of collapsed into a sort of gooey,

gooey mess.

And we played the game I got a tarantula.

uh a deep-fried tarantula that sounds quite nice see i think it's almost the the thing that puts me off the microwave toad is the fact it's been in the microwave it's just gelatinous it was i mean the way he describes it is horror but in the spirit of ollie i think i will pick vodka even though it doesn't go because it's you must you must embrace all flavours and textures even if they don't seem more harmonious you're torn between the cup of tea and the vodka you are the only guest on off many so far who's worked out a way of having both at the same time if you would like to bring john into the dream restaurant to give you a vodka while you have your cup of tea Yeah, that's

true, because there's another delivery mechanism.

If I don't have the vodka orally, can I have it as an addition to the tea?

Of course you can.

I don't think I'd be saying that this morning.

I really didn't.

To be honest, that's always been a rule in the drink.

And

no one's ever used it yet.

We've always had it that,

you know, it's a little unspoken loophole.

Oh,

it's good to test the boundaries of what the restaurant can deliver.

I mean, that's an ask for some of the serving staff, but I am a very generous tipper.

That's all I'll say.

And there'll be a compensatory mechanism with hard cash for whatever they may have seen that will have scarred them during the course of the day.

Oh, whoa, hold on a second.

This is John doing the blowing.

No, you're the waiter, actually.

You're the genie waters.

I'm afraid John is not available at the restaurant games.

I know.

But maybe we can, because I don't want to spare people's blushes.

I can self-administer in a sort of

quasi-douche form.

I'm happy to do that because I wouldn't want to make anyone else feel uncomfortable.

Sure.

So I'm sipping my tea.

I've got my southern Indian buffet, and I'm just almost simultaneously.

That's the great thing about batter-based foods.

Pick them up, like a doser.

You've got one hand free to administer a raw alcohol douche.

Because the eagle's feather was not available.

Someone runs a very good Wikipedia page for this podcast where it says everyone's choices.

And I'm looking forward to your entry for drink.

Raw alcohol douche.

Yeah, so

bison grass, preferably zhabrufka, but any bison grass vodka would be very, very, yeah, if they could pop that in as a detail, I'd be really appreciative.

Of course.

Because that's the important part of that.

You're having two drinks.

You're having a cup of tea and the bison grass vodka.

Yeah.

And we're set on it's that way around.

It's the vodka

douche and not the cup of tea douche.

Well, let's open that up for discussion.

I mean, what would one rather?

The bracing raw alcohol or warming mellower tones of a standard Bill Brown.

Well, I'm worried that the vodka is for people who are unresolved, right?

So So it depends on what I'm saying.

Yeah, I'm not unresolved anymore.

I'm very resolved on that matter now.

I mean, that's the great thing about it.

Then why not go for the cup of tea?

You're right.

And also, I started this by saying I don't like to do things twice.

So we were absolutely right.

It's a shot of vodka down the conventional chute.

And let's see how, you know, let's see how a clipper goes up the old, um, up the old fun basket.

Yeah, okay.

One lump or two.

Um,

Oh well, I mean

would I do the thing is on a if it's going that would I would I add my normal normally I have tea with skim milk and a bit of honey

and I'm I'm gonna stick to that.

Yeah, I see no reason to change.

I mean it's does does flavour come into it as much when it's

well I don't I'm not aware of taste buds in the in the in the rectal chamber, but um

I suppose after that I'll be able to tell you you know we'll see the honey will thicken it up a bit at least.

Yes, there's a viscosity that will come as a welcome relief, I think.

And also, it's antibacterial, is it not, honey?

So

it all works.

I mean, I hadn't thought about it before, but now I say out aloud, it makes perfect sense.

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We arrive at your dessert, which I already know is going to be something that I approve of.

We're absolutely fine here.

It will be circular because it's going to be a steamed pudding, which is the, it's the king of all the, you know, because the thing about a steamed pudding is it's just

filth.

It's like, you know, do you know Autolum, the French dish that they have to eat with a towel over their head?

Have you heard about this?

Oh, yes, I have heard about this.

So this is the songbirds drowned in brandy, and it's such a shit thing to do.

It's such a vile, awful, anachronistic, bullshit thing to do that they would put the...

put the towel over to say, yeah, we're embarrassed, we've done this.

So for me,

there's a similar, albeit less violent, sort of notion around the steamed pudding, which is just this is just filth, suety filth.

So, let's just cover it in a bit of custard, or perhaps a lot of custards, and then put some ice cream on top.

And just use all these sort of dairy-diversionary tactics to mask the untamed horror of what you're about to eat.

So, I suspect somebody else will have picked a sticky toffee.

And I thought, I'm going to pick something that people only have once a year, but I look forward to all year, which is Christmas pudding.

Yeah,

I love Christmas pudding and no one in my family likes it and everyone's like I don't want to make it and on my own I will put it in the steamer, I will lacquer it with brandy, set it on fire, put some brandy butter around it, put some cream, get some ice cream, get some caramel, get some whatever I can put on it and enjoy it for that one day a year but it's everything I love about pudding.

It's wrong, it's filthy, it's tasty.

There's billions of different ways you can do it.

You can do it with lots of alcohol, lots of nuts, fewer nuts, more fruit.

But it just makes me so happy and it's hot and I like a hot pudding.

I don't like you, James, as a dessert fiend.

Yeah, yeah.

You can have, I love a tiramisu and all that, but I want it steaming.

Yeah.

Furious.

Because

you want the hot pudding, so then you can add lovely cold elements to it and have the best of both worlds, B-O-B W.

And

you've got your own ideal thermostat.

You know what the optimal temperature of your pudding is going to be.

It's just, you can just take it down slowly with a bit of the old, with a bit of whatever, unctuousness.

I've only got into Christmas pudding, I'd say, in the last five years, but now I love Christmas pudding.

I've said it on the podcast before.

My favourite bit about Christmas is Christmas pudding on Boxing Day, cold Christmas pudding, fry it in butter in a pan and then put ice cream on it and brandy butter.

Absolutely correct.

So good.

Absolutely.

And we do that today.

What?

It's February, mate.

What have you got Christmas pudding knocking around?

How fast can the two of you get over here and unload some of this fucking christmas pudding that i've got in this house

so basically remember in the joe brand episode ed which we recorded in november and i've just eaten some christmas pudding because my girlfriend had made had made like a test batch the

day before

and then she made a massive humongous christmas pudding that was delicious and and uh but we didn't eat it all because my girlfriend doesn't like Christmas pudding.

Oh, yeah.

So it's all down to me.

And there's this massive Christmas pudding there.

Not only have we got a massive Christmas pudding, like I had, you know, two servings of that Christmas pudding, maybe.

Two large servings, but there's still more than enough for like a standard Christmas pudding's worth of it in the fridge.

And there's the backup Christmas pudding that she bought from Marks and Spencer's in case that Christmas pudding didn't work.

So

I have two Christmas puddings in my fridge at the moment.

And I constantly don't know what to do about it.

But now you've said about the frying thing, I'm going to try it.

Make a strudel, right?

Just,

oh my god, just get some phyllo pastry, lay it, get all that out, crumble some nuts, break up the Christmas pudding, roll it around, bake it.

I'm real.

Do that.

That sounds great.

I'm going to do those things.

And now I'm really excited that I've got the Christmas pudding.

Yeah.

It's every flavor that you want.

And it's not just that, you know, cinnamon is not just, which is the dominant.

I mean, they're not just Christmassy flavours.

You know, like nutmeg, like

an egg custard tart.

It's like, oh, but all of that crammed into one thing.

You can put some star and ease in there.

You can put whatever you want.

It's happy days.

I say just all year round.

That is, and you're right.

The next day,

yeah, bubble and squeak, whatever, great.

But a fried Christmas pudding, imagine battering it.

Imagine a deep fried Christmas pudding.

Imagine, oh, sweet Christ.

Yeah.

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

It's nuts.

completely circuit the menu here we go yeah still water yeah you have poppadom's karate chopped with mango chutney or you would like the poppadom cheese sandwich with mango chutney to try that out you have both starter crispy duck pancakes on a lazy susan main course southern indian curry we're leaning towards the beetroot one with a side of the masala dosa drink

And here's where the podcast ended.

Browski buys and grass vodka through the mouth.

Orally.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Orally.

Cup of tea with skimmed milk and honey.

Say it.

A douche administered.

Dessert, Christmas pudding, brandy, ice cream, custard and caramel.

And do you know what?

Do you want like Christmas pudding eight ways?

Like something like that.

Like all the things we just discussed.

All the different ways.

All the textures.

All the textures of a Christmas pudding.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You can have all of that, just a whole every way.

You're right, made into a fluid gel, made into a crisp.

You could get it as a just the smell piped in as a gas.

Yes.

I'm going to literally, as soon as we finish this, I'm going to

eat it.

I'm really jealous.

You know what I've just genuinely just done as we're talking?

I've gone on the supermarket delivery app that I use and searched for Christmas pudding.

And surprisingly, they're all out of stock.

Bollocks.

I think that's a delicious menu.

It's mental, but I'm happy with it.

Douching aside, I think that's a

wonderful menu.

Sue, thank you very much for coming into the dream restaurant.

My pleasure.

I loved it.

Thank you, Sue.

Well, there we have it.

A wonderful menu from Sue Perkins.

I now want Christmas pudding so badly.

I'm going to have some.

As soon as we finish this, I'm going to go on a fry some Christmas pudding.

Ed Gamble recipe.

Yeah.

You fry it with some butter, right?

Fry it in butter, baby.

I've got some butter scotch ice cream in the freezer.

Oh, yeah, you're sorted, mate.

You're absolutely sorted.

You're going to have a joyous time.

I've got a bottle of bison grass vodka, so I'm going to go

and do the stuff with that.

And Benita's going to make himself a cup of tea.

That was

a great menu.

Very revealing anecdotes.

I enjoyed that very much.

It was lovely to have Sue on the episode.

And also, she didn't say baby corn.

Thank the Lord.

Very glad because I was enjoying Sue's company so much.

I'd hate to chuck her out.

It's not like Jade Adams when I couldn't wait to kick her out the restaurant.

Also, when she was talking about that veggie curry though, I was thinking,

oh, baby corn could make an appearance here.

She was listing veggie.

She put beetroot in the curry.

She's not going to shy away from putting a straw dolly stick in there.

We may have overlooked it.

I think we may have not, you know, we'd done a lot of tangents.

I think at that point we were trying to be quite resourceful and economic with our questions.

Yeah.

If we'd drilled down, we might have discovered there was some baby corn in that curry.

We may have been asleep at the wheel there.

Apologies to any sticklers.

But I'm kind of glad we were asleep at the wheel because I was enjoying the road that Sue was taking us down.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

James, we've been, we've continued to be sent some wonderful things.

The Great Bonito, indeed, was sent.

Is it vegan?

A vegan honest burgers

recipe box.

Now, I've had the honest burger, vegan burger at one of the restaurants before, back when they were a thing, and it was was delicious.

So, lovely to hear that the great Benito enjoyed his.

Yes, he seemed very happy when he told us about it.

We both complimented him on looking so nice today, and then he must have been his vegan burger box.

It must have, we can't definitely tell you that eating a vegan burger box from Honest Burger will make you look better.

It's just what's happened to Benito, who is a good idea.

But you know, we don't normally give him compliments and we both do today.

So normally he looks like the beginning of Benjamin Button.

But here he is

like a little fresh baby boy now.

Hey, Ed, does Sue Perkins have a podcast that people can listen to?

Sue Perkins does have a podcast indeed.

It's called An Hour or So with.

I have done it, James.

I have spent an hour or so with Sue Perkins in the past.

And don't worry, she's also had some great guests.

I would love to listen to the episode with you on it, though, Ed.

That's what I should start doing.

That should be my gateway into podcasts to make me feel easy about things.

I'll just start listening to podcasts where you're the guest, and then that will make me feel a bit better.

Yeah, I've done a lot of them and that'll ease, that'll definitely ease you away in.

And maybe then maybe listen to the things where you've been a guest as well because you've done a lot of podcasts.

Yeah, but I don't want to listen to those ones.

I mean, I was there the first time, you know.

That's true.

That's how I feel when Benito asks us to listen to the edit of this.

Yes.

It's like, I don't need to.

It was all great.

Also, you know, I make my request of what I want to stay in and it doesn't stay in.

James, that was a lot of fun.

We'll be back next week, I'd imagine.

See you next week, Ed.

I look forward to it.

You're a good host.

Okay.

Yeah,

you're a good guy, and I like you very much.

Bye, everyone.

Bye.

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