Ep 82: Thomasina Miers

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

Hello, it's James A.

Caster 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.

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James Acaster here.

The Great Bonito wanted me to tell you that this episode was recorded pre-COVID.

pre-COVID times.

So it might sound a little bit odd some of the stuff that we're saying in it like well that's not how the world is right now.

But it was pre-COVID.

So the Great Bonito wanted me to tell you that and let you all know that this episode is recorded pre-COVID.

So thank you the Great Bonito for keeping us all keeping everything in context.

You're a good guy.

Enjoy the episode.

Bonapetito, Mr.

Bonito.

Turn the microphones up to high and listen to the sizzle of great great chat.

Welcome to the Off-Menu Podcast.

That is the voice of Ed Gamble.

And that is the voice of James Acaster in a way that I've never heard it before.

Yes, well, I thought I'm a bit under the weather, and it started off quite high, and so I thought I'd overcompensate by going quite low.

Yeah.

And then it's just all

the podcast where we invite a guest into the dream restaurant and ask them their favourite ever-starter main course dessert, side dish and drink.

Who wouldn't love it?

Exactly.

And our guest this week, James, is Thomasina Myers.

Thomasina Myers, the first ever winner of Master Chef.

She is a chef and she founded Oaxaca.

Oaxaca, for those of you who don't know, is a Mexican food chain.

What?

Street food.

I mean, one of the best chains.

So great.

It's so delicious.

We go there a lot.

I've been going there for some time.

You've got material.

You've got material about Oaxaca.

Yes.

I've got material about Oaxaca.

Yeah.

About stealing the spoons.

Try and remember to mention that.

Oh, I will try and bring it up.

But we absolutely love Oaxaca.

We're very much looking forward to chatting to Thomasina.

She really knows her shears when it comes to Mexican food.

Yes.

But listen, Ed, if she says a secret ingredient, I'm going to chuck her out the restaurant.

Are you?

Yeah, I don't even care.

I'll do it.

And what is the secret ingredient?

This is bound to trip her up.

Because she likes Mexican food, right?

Yeah.

The nacho fries from Taco Bell.

You think she might mention the nacho fries from Taco Bell?

Look, I know that chefs, they get lured in by junk food stuff.

Remember Tom Kerridge?

Yeah.

So I reckon she's going to have a secret little soft spot for Taco Bell and their dream side, the nacho fries.

If she says those nacho fries from Taco Bell, she is out of here.

Man, but what if we kick her out of here?

Yes.

And then we get barred from Oaxaca.

I can't cope being barred from Oaxaca.

That's the point.

We'll get people to go in for us.

We'll send in the great Bonito.

Benito.

In a little discussion?

No, but they barred him anyway because they think he's the guy from Bonito's hat.

Oh, yeah, they do think that I've got

that Bonito's been banned from Oaxaca because they think he's Benito's hat.

So, if she says the Taco Bell nacho fries, she will be removed from the restaurant.

The trap is set.

Okay, well, I can see she's just arriving now, James.

So, uh, get in your lamp.

Oh, sorry, squeezing in the old lamp.

See you later on.

And I'll go and open the door for her.

Here is the off-menu menu of Thomasina Myers.

Welcome, Tommy, to the Dream Restaurant.

Hello.

Welcome, Thomas Ina Myers, to the Dream Restaurant.

We've been expecting you for some time.

Thank you for having me.

You're welcome.

You took the genie in your stride there.

That was a very relaxed approach.

That's a genie that's just appeared in front of you.

Yeah, I know.

A genie waiter.

Yeah, yeah.

He's great.

He's great.

He's, you know, he's handsome.

Yes!

That is, I think, this...

The best episode we've ever done.

You know, I don't know how many episodes we've done, but this is the first time anyone's called the genie handsome.

Yeah, there you are.

Been long enough.

How do you feel now?

Uh, I tell you what, wearing this sombrero paid off.

I knew I'd get called handsome.

What about the moustache?

Yeah, that's true.

I've been growing that for ever since episode one, to be fair.

Yeah,

only now has it reached like the handsome length.

Yeah, pretty happy with it.

What's the most handsome length for a moustache?

Do we think?

That's a good question.

Well, there was, um, there was a guy called Lalo who used to work in the cultural attache to the yeah, he was the cultural attache to the embassy and he had those wonderful curled moustaches.

He once produced Como Agua Pala Chocolate, which is an iconic 60s film of the Laura Esquivel novel.

So this guy is a proper dude and he's got the curled moustache.

You said that name so fast.

Yeah.

I was very impressed.

This is such a highbrow podcast already.

Yeah.

Let's bring it down.

Does it naturally curl?

I think he must.

He must.

Can you you imagine every morning looking at yourself in the mirror?

He's got a really handsome, twinkly, he must be about 75 or 80 now.

Just looking at yourself and just curling with wax your little ends of your moustache.

It must be quite gratifying.

Yeah, that's a nice thing to do.

And throughout the day, something to fiddle with as well, isn't it?

Oh, I've never seen him fiddling.

I think actually a moustache fiddler has got to be quite low down

in the humanity stakes.

I don't want to ever kiss a moustache fiddler.

Does that reduce handsome level?

Definitely.

Quite significantly.

I reckon.

They're twiddling their tash, you don't want to go anywhere near them.

No, one well, a kind of a grooming in the morning, that's fine.

What about a beard stroker?

There's a lot of beard strokers out there.

Yeah, I mean, now that beards are so

omnipresent.

I think it's just like having a cat on your face, isn't it?

So you want to stroke it.

Yeah, I think you probably want to stroke it.

Yeah.

Only time Ed said something that I thought was weird.

Little cat on your face.

are you a foodie

am i a foodie we ask everyone if they're a foodie and we realize how inherently ridiculous that question is well i remember i remember listening to one of your podcasts and you asking this question some people are really offended by that sure and i am never offended by that because what is wrong with being a foodie someone who's obsessed with food thinks about it all the time loves ingredients loves just thinking what flavours go together and basically thinks about food 24 7 what's wrong with that yep there's nothing wrong with that in the way you've described it.

I think people think of foodies as there's some level of pretension to it, but I don't think there necessarily has to be.

Doesn't it have to be?

It's a British thing, isn't it?

Being very repellent to the idea of like, you know, thinking too much of yourself or whatever.

And so they think the British reaction to being a foodie is, oh, that must mean like you're a lardy-da, you know,

even though

classic British stuff, going, oh, I don't want to be seen as a lardy-da foodie, and then vote Boris in.

I mean, come on, guys.

You can't have it both ways.

Oh, no, I don't want to be one of of those lily diatites, but I'll trust them to run the goddamn country.

Sorry, it's not a political podcast.

Not, but

this is a.

This gets my goats.

Angry, young man, today.

What I'll just say.

God, talking of goats.

Now, that's a good ingredient.

There we go.

What an ingredient.

There we go, baby.

That's cool.

Get back to that.

Get back some goats.

Goat barbecue.

I mean, now that is good.

That is good.

It's kind of like mutton, quite close to mutton in flavour, I think.

Can you tell by looking at a goat if it's going to be tasty or not?

I was about to say, because I was actually witnessing some goats last week with my daughter and I was telling her that the difference between a goat and a sheep is that the tail goes up or down.

She was like, that is not true.

But it's true, isn't it?

A goat's tail sticks up and a sheep's tail goes down.

Yeah.

And a shorn sheep does actually look quite like a goat because she was saying, obviously, they look different.

It's not the tail, it's all the fur.

Yeah.

Oh, I've just got the pun of Sean the sheep.

Oh, from the cut, from the Wallace and Conversation.

I've just got it.

You just understood it?

Yeah.

Because if you

Sean the sheep.

Yeah, if you shear it.

Yeah.

Does everyone know that?

I think so.

Oh, yeah.

All right.

He just got it.

Really?

Kids knew that?

Yeah.

Kids knew that when it came out.

I genuinely just got it.

I thought they just picked Sean because it sounded a bit

because of the sh sound.

Oh, you're an idiot.

Is Peppa Pig a pun?

I don't think so.

Okay, salt and pepper is good on pig, but yeah, I don't think so.

I don't think they're talking about that.

No.

No.

Okay, I just wanted to check because my world's been turned upside down by someone.

I know, I can see that.

That was like, yeah.

What's the past tense?

But if someone...

Sheered, isn't it?

Sheered as sheep.

Yeah.

Yes.

Ed Sheeran.

There you are.

He's got to be next.

Yeah.

Have you had Ed Sheeran on?

No, but when we do have him on,

we can shear him with him.

That'd be good.

But he'd have to be the one shearing, right?

Because it's Ed Sheeran.

Ed Sheeran.

Yeah.

When we'd have to get him to shear.

My not the Tash.

You're going to lose the Tash.

Yeah.

He had to shear my lovely, lovely Tash off.

It's fair enough.

If anyone should do it, it should be Ed.

Yeah, I got to say.

Sheera, not me.

No, not you.

No.

You'll go nowhere near it.

Although, my name's Ed Gamble, which is another sheep-based thing, I suppose.

Gambling lambs.

Gambling in the springtime.

Yeah.

Amongst the daisies.

There you are.

So, yeah, and I do do that.

I've only just got

your name.

So you are a foodie.

Yes.

Yes.

When...

Did you first realise you loved food?

My brother had an action man and I had a Cindy doll.

And we did like making them a kiss.

But and it was cool the way you could make his eyes go

like from side to side.

I thought that was really cool.

Oh, yeah.

But ultimately, I much preferred being in the kitchen with my mother.

So my brother and sister would play in the playroom, and I would cook with my mother.

Wow.

So that was quite early on.

I think that was like six or seven, basically.

It's quite early.

Great.

I basically liked food quite early.

What sort of things could you cook when you were six?

Well, I think basically I just, it sounds a bit uncool, but I just liked liked being very close to my mother.

So I would get a stool and I'd sit very, very close so that my body was kind of pressed up against hers.

And then I'd just look at what she was doing.

And I always thought it was quite fun.

So we didn't really do much as a kid.

My father worked all the time, my mother worked all the time.

It was quite, it wasn't a fun.

But then the cooking was fun.

That was the one thing I could do.

It was always fun.

And she'd just teach me the cool stuff.

Like, you know, she'd always have cheap ingredients, but she'd always make them taste delicious.

So she'd show me how with an onion chopped and then cooked for 20 minutes in butter, it would suddenly be sweet and soft and just smell and taste delicious.

And then she'd just transform everything that went with those onions.

And the same with a tomato sauce or a white sauce.

You know, she'd show me how if you really burnt the flour in the butter and got it all caramelized and then added the milk bit by bit, that just tastes really good and cook out the flavor of the flour.

So, all those like small basic building blocks, that's what I learned when I was kind of really young.

And then it was only when I was kind of getting a bit older, like at school desperate for any money at all i just try and cook for people

or show off to my parents friends like there was this one friend he's coming from south america he was really glamorous and i used to try and every time he came i was slightly in love with him i'd try and cook something more more fanciful so like profiteroles i try and cook partly so i could eat the chocolate partly because i was in love with him i thought you know if i could eat profiteroles even though he was like 20 years old than me or 30 years old

never gonna work you can't deny profiteroles it is hard not to eat while you're cooking them also like make something in the night yesterday i was making pancakes and trying to focus on making the pancakes and during it without even thinking i ate an entire gingerbread man

what did he do to you just i don't know he was just laying there but i didn't even think about doing it i was like i was making i i forgot that i was making pancakes and i had pancakes on the way and just i just saw this gingerbread i was why do you have why who has a gingerbread man in their house good question uh i I was given it for Christmas and I didn't eat it.

It's still lying around.

I forgot about it completely.

It's just in the cupboard.

He had a little Santa hat on, a little ice in the Santa hat.

And I opened the cupboard looking for the pancake ingredients, saw him, and just, without even thinking, just shake down the gullet.

Do you only eat seasonal products on the next

seasonal day?

I have to wait till the next day, yeah.

And I missed Valentine's Day.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But you do have to eat while you're...

I mean, you have to taste while you're cooking.

Yeah.

yeah that's that's the main mistake most like people who don't cook who go oh it doesn't taste right well did you taste it while you're cooking we've got to taste it yeah got to enjoy the process because you know otherwise everything we're going to serve you today i've tasted it have you great yes great i'm glad even though we don't know what it is yet yeah that's okay you will taste it i will taste it here's a here's a question in like a kitchen when the chefs are tasting it do they do as use one little spoon and then that's the last time they use that spoon it depends on the restaurant so i've been in restaurants where they've got like millions and millions of spoons.

Or you're in a restaurant, like in my test kitchen, we have a jug of hot water.

So then you kind of can taste and then you can swim around.

Although, actually, when we're doing that, it's just us two, mainly, me and Carlos, Mexican.

Or you wash it under a tap and you keep the same spoon.

That's what a lot of people do.

Because it seems a bit weird to just use, what, 20 spoons?

20 times.

For my normal meals, I do that.

Each mouthful I have a different

fork, different spoon.

No fingers?

No fingers at all.

just different fork, different spoon.

Sometimes, if it's a really big meal, I'm down to like chopsticks and stuff at the end.

Oh, nice, just anything that I've got in the cutlery drawer.

What about the measuring spoons?

Oh, they're quite nice.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Normally we start with them because there's five in those.

Yeah, yeah, five and one go.

Yeah, five and one goat.

You ate that gingerbread man with a corkscrew, didn't you?

Yeah, had to.

Poor little fella.

You're terrified.

Like James Bond.

That's a good question about the spoons I've had.

Yeah, because I always...

I'm very impressed with that question.

I always

ask that before.

Imagine if it's loads of spoons or whether, I guess, in summer

restaurants, they're double dipping.

Well, you can flip it too.

You can flip it.

Well, so you taste it with the thing,

and you're like, oh, I'm not really chat, and you flip it and you use the handle.

Oh, to put it that way, I thought you meant

just flip it over upside down and it's all eat off the back of the spoon.

I'll see you eating off the handle.

I bought a spoon once for my mum in Italy.

It's a wooden spoon.

So, this is quite clever.

You didn't spoon her, do you?

Sorry, don't know why that came from.

Spoon my mum.

just get that thought out

spoon my mother and i certainly wouldn't have paid for it yeah i i bought her a wooden spoon and it had so one end normal kind of spoon what

i don't know i'm just gonna what's the bit called that's not the handle

the end that's not the handle the book bowl the bowl let's say and at the other end kind of like a smaller bowl right and then between the two this groove that runs from one bowl to the other.

So that what you can do is you're selling the spoon soup and instead of like putting your mouth on that bit all the time, right?

You bring it out and then you tip it back and the soup goes down the little groove and down the smaller bowl.

You have a little sip and then you can go on stirring.

That sounds really messy.

Yeah, it does.

But

when you tip it back, it goes down and burns your hand.

Oh yeah, she's burnt her hand a lot.

My mum owns riddle of birds.

From the spoon.

Yeah, yes, completely from the spoon.

We call his mum Kruger hand.

Little Kruger, we call her.

Little Krugs.

Little Krugs.

Every time we go and visit, where's Little Krugs at?

She comes out.

She'll fall asleep.

That sounds my worst thing in the kitchen.

Much worse than a foodie is a kitchen gimmick.

Right, okay.

I mean, that really gets my goat.

What are your worst kitchen gimmicks?

One present I was given by an unnamed relative.

Okay.

It was a rice cube.

A rice cube?

So it's plastic.

A good pun.

Cube so that I could shape my rice into a cube.

Finally.

All those years of just having piles of rice.

Yeah.

You don't know, right?

You want corners to work with?

So this is after you started working in food as well.

So as soon as this happened, were you just getting loads of presents from family being like, she likes food, she knows what she's doing with food.

I mean, this one, I just don't know where it came from.

And I know I, Jen,

but also the cube.

I don't know why a cube, you kind of think a rice could be a lovely round you know

chini ball round round and rice seems to work round and rice work even a pyramid can be a bit you know 80s structural

but but a cube cubism i suppose in the 60s we could have had a cube but also it's the idea of using that at home like who's going to do that at home and go

i know i'm sort of by myself or with a couple of other people but i really need my rice in a cube right now yeah just spoon it out wouldn't you also what do you eat with with a cube of rice what what con what sauce do you have with a cube of rice because also anything's any sauce that you put on the rice is going to damage the integrity of the cube yeah and then how do you get flavor onto the top of the cube the bottom of cube's gonna be great but then the top's gonna be i mean i don't know it's just i guess whatever you're having with the rice you also need a cube of that to sort of stack it on top to all be cubes like lego yeah lego food you'd build them all up like lego and maybe make a big lego figure of something you'd prefer to eat like a juicy ham jellied juicy ham yeah you could put a cube of ham on on top.

You could put a cube.

A big cube of ham.

Rice.

God, it would be a big cube of ham.

Rice.

Fried egg.

Fried egg.

A cube of fried egg.

A big cube of fried egg.

Ham, egg, and rice.

If you were cubed of fried egg, would you want the yolk still in the middle of the cube so it's all white and you can't see the yolk, but you know it's in there?

Or do you want it on the outside just for the first bites with the eye presentation?

I mean, you might get so cuboid in your head, it might send you over the edge, and then you'd start making cubed egg yolks.

That would be so wrong.

Yeah.

I mean, everything about a cube.

You feel like you're eating in Minecraft.

Yeah, yeah.

Kids love Minecraft, though.

Imagine that.

You make the cubed-wise for your kids, and you say it's Minecraft food, and they love it.

And you could do that with like food that maybe they were more reluctant to eat.

Broccoli bustle sprouts, famously.

Yeah, a cube of bustle.

Yeah, I don't know.

Again, a bustle sprout is nicely round.

That's when they...

You remember, it was a while ago when they were all excited about the invention of the square watermelon.

Oh, yeah.

Do you remember the square watermelon?

Remember that?

I'm just thinking about a blue watermelon now for some reason.

In my head, there's a blue watermelon.

There may well be, but I'm talking about the square watermelon.

I've never seen a square watermelon.

It was in the news.

It was on News Round.

And in Japan, they'd invented a square watermelon, and they cost like $100 each.

But they did it so they could stack them in fridges better in Japan.

I stole a watermelon once.

Did you?

Yeah.

Where from?

Call the cops.

It was from a shop shop in Mallorca.

I was there after my A-levels.

We had a dare about who could steal things and I thought, you know, go for a break.

So I ran down the road with a watermelon.

The most difficult thing to steal.

Yeah.

Did you subtly steal it or did you just pick it up and run out?

I think I was like literally like shaking with laughter as I ran down the street because I was

so funny.

From the true criminal.

Yeah.

Like the Joker.

Out in a way laughing with a watermelon.

Screaming, I just want to watch the world burn.

Yeah, yeah.

There's no way of concealing a watermelon to steal it at all, is there?

She pretend to be like pregnant with a child.

Yeah, but you can't be not pregnant when you go in a shop and then come out fully pregnant.

Matclick conception.

Emat click growth.

In the back of a shop.

Yeah.

Yeah, as you leave and just shout, that food was sexy.

Still all sparkling water.

Sparkling.

Depends, actually.

My daily bread is still, but when I'm sitting down in a restaurant, I love a bit of fizz.

So it makes it feel a bit special.

Here's what I think.

Obviously,

it's a bit of something special.

If it's so lovely and special and you like it so much, why not just have it every day?

Well, I guess your soda stream is not always everywhere.

Like, you know, at Oaxaka, we've got it on tap, the fizziness.

But if you haven't got it on tap, you don't really want to buy a plastic bottle just so you can have fizz.

That feels a bit wasteful.

When you got the first fizzy tap in Oaxaca, was it the best day of your life?

It's so exciting.

It's so exciting.

But then my dentist told me it's not that good for your teeth.

Which is a bit of a letdown.

So in my line of work, where I taste food 24-7,

permanently got food in my mouth.

So apparently that's not very good for your teeth.

So then when the dentist said, and fizzy water is not very good, that made me feel a bit, a bit saddened.

So before then, I was going crazy with the fizzy water.

And now I try and, you know, just obviously I eat all the sweets all I want all day.

But the fizzy water, I've just got to draw a line at.

Right.

Yeah.

Kohler bottles, fine.

Fizzy colour bottles.

Flying saucers, you know, cola cubes, all that kind of stuff, fine.

Yes.

Fizzy water, I've just got to limit.

Now, I know, I like that initially when we were talking about it, you said you don't like to have too much fizzy water because of the plastic bottles in the environment.

And now the truth's come out, and it's just because you want to eat more sweets.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You got me.

This This dentist, are they a bit of a punk?

Sounds like a

bit, you know, like they should keep their opinions to themselves.

Do you think he's like the killjoy?

He's the fun police.

Yeah.

Gone mad.

Yeah.

You mean I can't have some fizzy water?

Fizzy water.

Also, you know, you're tasting food all the time for your job, stuff like that, and they're trying to like take all the fun out of it for you.

Yeah, they're basically saying

it's bad for your health.

Your job is bad for your health.

So you think this dentist should keep their opinions about dentistry to themselves?

Yes.

So what would you suggest the dentist say to Tommy when she goes in for a check-up?

Talk about whatever box sets they've been watching.

And, you know.

Jaws.

Yeah.

Just talk about religion.

Religion.

Keeping off teeth.

Like politics and religion.

Politics and religion.

So essentially, you're saying you don't think they should be a dentist.

They should just be sort of a friend looming over you.

Yeah, yeah.

And just have a sneaky look at your teeth in a way that you don't really notice.

Give them an excuse to catch up with pop culture.

Yeah, exactly you can get on board with stuff and whatever because otherwise if you're a dentist and you just talk about teeth you might think you know when you go to a party at night well what do you talk about can't keep talking about teeth all night i mean i met an ear surgeon at a party once and he talked a lot about ear surgery which you know was kind of interesting up to a point but then after a while you think well you know maybe that's all i need to know about ear surgery i would have said to him i don't need ear surgery after this conversation because you're fucking doing my ears in with stupid stories he would have said that as well.

Yeah, I can feel my ears are about to fall off if you say another thing about ear surgery, you boring bastard.

I like the way you say boring bastard.

Boring bastard.

I need to cultivate that.

And then hear that.

See how he likes the sound of that.

Why did you point your teeth when you said that?

Because I point my teeth when I'm talking about ears.

That's the way I work.

Pop an arms or bread.

Pop an arms or bread, Thomas Eden Myers.

Pump and um saw bread.

Bread rubbed in garlic, charred, black and

olive oil.

Oh my god, I made garlic bread last week.

It's so good.

Yeah,

it's so good.

The saviour of the podcast.

Garlic bread's the best bread.

It's just a revelation.

I was cooking a recipe for my column, and I was like, this has got to have garlic bread.

It was mussels and saffron and pernot because I'm going a bit of French root.

And I was thinking, garlic bread is what we need.

And then I thought, I mean, I can't swear.

I was not going to swear, but

not just parsley.

I was just boy bastard.

You did, actually.

Okay.

Not just bastard parsley.

What about some tarragon too?

Because tarragon and butter.

So I like loaded up this butter with salt and pepper and tarragon and parsley.

Softly went

and then slathered on the bread.

And that's the thing I've got with butter.

You can't be stingy.

You can't be stingy.

Now, this is the other thing, butter, right?

Do people finally realise that butter is good for you now?

I feel like there are still some people who think, for me, butter is like a health food.

Weirdly, my parents don't agree, but butter, my granny grew up eating loads of butter.

She was like a model type.

She used to hang around with like muddly people and a few actors and people like that.

She was like glamorous.

She like married a kind of racing driver.

She was cool.

She slathered butter on everything.

Every day, butter on toast.

At work, some of the young kids, some of the young kids think butter's bad for you.

And they have spreadable margarine in the fridge now that stuff that stuff is bad for you

and it's got like non-dec like what are those ingredients in it they're not even like they they're not even natural they're man-made butter is like full of wonderful you know micronutrients and amigas and all that's good stuff people are putting butter in coffee now have you heard about this yeah that is bulletproof coffee yeah that is that's mad it's like i've not heard of this coffee and then uh like grass-fed butter slug of of yeah, grass-fed.

I do think the butter should be from cows that eat grass and not kept in huge sheds.

Apparently, this is the one you've got to have for this coffee.

Yeah.

I'm too scared to try it.

Yeah, yeah.

I've got to say, I eat butter with a lot of things, like a lot.

Like, I mean, this is the other crazy thing that people do these days.

They have a scon and clotted cream and no butter.

I mean, don't they realise that the butter is the saltiness

and then the clotty cream is sweet and creamy.

They're different.

They provide different taste elements to the scon.

Why would you just have clotted cream?

I feel stupid.

I've definitely been doing that.

I've definitely been doing that as well.

You've got to have the layer of butter first.

Yeah.

I mean, it's a whole different taste of it.

Peanut butter on toast.

Claggy and dry without the melted butter on it.

I agree with that.

I totally, of course, go butter, peanut butter.

Yeah.

But the clotted cream.

You've given me permission now.

I'm definitely doing that.

Yeah, yeah.

That's good.

In our family, we take the dairies to extreme.

Mince pies.

Yeah.

So you can buy a mince pie.

That's That's fine because we're short of time these days.

Get some mince meat as well.

You can either buy it or you can make it.

If you've bought it, you've got to stir extra brand into the mince meat.

Then you put your mincemeat in the oven.

Then you take it out.

No, you put your mince pie.

You open it up, put extra mincemeat in, because they never have enough.

They're a bit stingy, aren't they?

Yeah.

Then you put your big dollar, rum, brandy, butter, whatever, in

inside.

Inside.

Oh, here we go.

No, no, no, hang on.

You bake it first.

Mince pie, mince meat, with the brandy stirred in.

got it all over the shot.

In the oven.

Get it out.

It's all like golden and crusty and steaming inside.

Open it up, put in the rum butter.

Yeah.

Pour in the cream.

Yes.

Extra tequila

or brandy if you want.

Yes.

With my fry, he then adds ice cream as well.

But basically, that's the mince pie extravaganza.

So you're just like pimping up as

a whole bought mince pie.

I mean, it's so good.

Hold on.

Are you taking off the lid and putting the cream and the butter

and the ice cream in it and then putting the lid on it?

Yeah.

So the lid goes back on no no not with cream so you put the lid back on with just with the butter so the butter then melts all over the thing and then you pour the cream on top of that and then the brandy goes on if I wanted to though yeah could I put everything in the mince pie and then put the the pastry half you have permission to do that it does sound fun it would have to be a big mince pie you'd have to make you can make a big mince pie from scratch I've got I've got pictures on my phone completely loaded mince pie I do like the sound of that a lot

so good Looking at me and Ed, do you think you can tell which one was raised on butter and which was raised on margarine?

I don't know which I was raised on.

Do you know which one you were raised on?

Yes, I thought I knew Ed as well.

No, I don't think you do.

Are you a margarine boy?

I'm a little margarine boy.

I was a little margarine boy.

See, weirdly, I think we had margarine in our house as well.

Yes.

Yeah.

Well, they did.

They did.

They sold it well.

Yeah.

They sold it well.

They really did.

My parents didn't fall for it.

Everywhere.

Yeah.

Now, if I, it'll be, I don't have margarine in the fridge now.

Yeah.

It'll be butter.

Straight up butter.

I've come that you got both in the fridge, but I don't know why.

I don't know where the margarine came from.

I don't remember buying it.

Butter tastes better.

Yeah.

You got it for St.

Swithin's Day, didn't you?

Yeah.

Did you get it?

St.

I don't even know.

It's a day that I buy margarine on, apparently.

Supposed to be good for baking.

It's supposed to be good for baking.

I was trying to do a joke about you eating things on the wrong days, but then the only seasonal day I could come up with was St Swithin's Day, which is it just didn't seem like the right time.

Ed went to public school.

I was wondering if he was so you can kind of, they probably did something on St.

Swithin's Day, yeah, kissed the girls, kissed all the girls, boys' school, more of a challenge.

We'd all run out of the school, we'd all get on a bus and we'd go and see if we could see some girls.

Hello, happy St.

Swivans,

pucker up!

I did it, Georgie!

A mine on the lips!

I said life, yeah, that's me.

So, your dream starter.

It's really hard, this stuff, right?

Just like

going down to like your favourite one thing.

So, like, for my starter, I cheated massively.

So, when I'm cooking, I like to eat lots of different flavours.

I think a salad is a great starter, but not just like a lettuce leaf with no dressing on.

I'm talking about, you know, you go down to your market and you see what's in season, and then you put that thing on the grill and you chuck in some toasted nuts and you chuck in some you know lovely coloured leaves and you chuck in some cheese or you chuck in some palma ham.

You've made an amazing dressing, you throw in some herbs.

So, like char grilled, jerusalem artichokes, toasted hazelnuts, blue cheese, and radicchio.

Or in the summer, it could be you know, laser rocket, a mustard leaf, and maybe just some brewed, you know, garlic rubbed toast and some delicious goat's curd on.

Just like whatever is lying around and looking really delicious.

Mainly, so there's an excuse to put a really killer dressing on because I think anything with good olive oil tastes really good.

And then, and then, dressings are just amazing.

And again, fat is good for you.

Olive oil is really good for you.

And then, and then just vegetables are so great.

So, it could be char-grilled asparagus with like a chili oil drizzled over it,

some burnt butter breadcrumbs, or you know, just

getting excited by whatever is lying around.

But I like that because

you can make it in advance.

Just throw it on the table.

And also, there's something quite fun about tossing a salad.

You can chuck on the herbs.

The salad leaves can look fun.

There's lots of texture.

You can make it look pretty with height.

I was never good at making pretty food.

When I did Master Chef, they were always like looking at my plates of food, just looking,

what is that?

What is that?

Like, there was one round.

There was one round.

Well, I had this pork chop and then I'd made this plum sauce, which tasted tasted great.

The pork chop was beautifully cooked.

And I just didn't know what to do with the plum sauce.

And it was kind of pink.

And in a fit of panic, I poured this pink sauce all over the beautifully caramelized like charcoal pork chop.

And it just looked awful.

Should have used the sauce to write like a little message to the judges.

I know.

Like, yeah, don't pick me.

But then I went and worked with Sky, Ginjil, in Peacham Nurseries.

And it was an all-female brigade.

And a lot of them were artists.

And they just made the food look so bloody beautiful.

And I got really into the vegetables there, too.

And we used to go into the garden and just pick stuff, like pick the radiccho with these brilliant pink leaves, and then, or the artichokes, or the stuff.

And then, yeah, it was just fun.

And then making like garlicky,

like parsley oils or basil oils or coriander pestas to drizzle on.

So loads of flavour.

Definitely don't skip on the dressing.

And, you know, just stuff loaded on.

Like satisfying, hearty, beautiful yeah that's like I quite like that I think that's a good starter just to whet the appetite in a normal bowl or and this is in the first place I had this was Waxaka a tortilla bowl a tortilla bowl crunchy tortilla bowl crunchy tortilla bowl I love revelation for me when I went when I had that for the first time did you at your establishment

Did you eat all the soggy bottom bit which was soaked up with all the juices of

the dressing?

Yeah, especially in the refi beans.

at the bottom all the refi beans and stuff it'll all get all sogg up at the bottom with the bowl and then you really scoop that up have a lovely time at the bottom of that bowl yeah just kind of bathing and yeah yeah i was like no one else knows about this i'm real clever yeah yeah i'm glad you got that i'm impressed yeah it used to be my uh my regular oaxaka order i basically go through phases all the time wherever i go yeah i do the same thing for a while and it takes a lot to change it once i've changed it you still got the cactus tacos they're james' favourite i was just about to say are Are they?

They were my favourite and then they went away and I was heartbroken.

Yeah, that was Christmas.

We we've currently got my favourite, which is going to come off in the summer.

I'm kind of mourning and eating them even more.

Grilled mushroom, marinated ancho chili, which is sweet, not spicy, rounded, deep, earthy flavour, marinating that like ancho oil,

grilled and then served with grilled cheese and a kind of salsa verde, fresh, bright, citrusy, tamatilla salsa, corn tortilla.

Grilled cheese, mushroom.

Very nice.

The grilled, the bit of grilled cheese that you've had on like the steak as well.

I've not had something like that before, and that is just brilliant.

Yeah.

I think you should serve bowls of those.

I know, yeah.

In some cantinas in Mexico, they serve just the cheese in this whole, like they call it chicharon, which is basically crackling, you know, pork crackling.

Yeah.

But they do a cheese crackling.

They just do this whole like

of grilled cheese.

Oh, I mean, that's my dream.

Just a big bit of grilled cheese.

Big whole bowl of grilled cheese bites that you can.

And you know what you can do with that stuff as well, which is really fun, is you can just crumble it.

So when you really grill it, it really goes crunchy.

You can just crumble it over stuff.

Just like little kernels of crunchy, crispy, caramelized cheese.

What's the secret of those cactus tacos?

There's something in there.

There's something in there that keeps me coming back.

Is it the sauce?

What you putting in the sauce?

Well, I think the ones you're talking about, it's new potatoes,

kind of, we saute onions, garlic.

New potatoes in the sauce.

No, not the sauce.

The sauce, the cactus sauce.

I don't remember any of these tomatillas.

In the actual taco.

No, I think this one, the cactus and courgette one.

Are you talking about that one?

Yeah, that's a summary.

There's a bit of new potato.

There's some garlic, onion,

olive oil, mint, tarragon,

charcoal, courgette,

chunks of it.

And then the cactus, which they have in smoothies in the morning in Mexico because it's so good for you, cactus.

Delicious, the cactus stuff at Oaxaca.

I always get whatever cactus stuff is on there.

Do you?

Every time.

Yeah.

I'll look for it.

Did you know that Mexico is mega-biodiverse?

This is what a scientist at Kew told me the other day when I was doing this event.

It's mega-biodiverse.

So in England, we have 1,500 plant species.

In Mexico, they have 30,000.

Wow.

So when you go to Oaxaca, they have like, they have all these crazy world herbs, chepil,

yieva de cronejo, ojasanta, all these crazy things that taste so different different to our herbs.

So that's why we use tarragon.

Ah.

And parsley and chives and mint and all these different things to try and get some of the flavours of those crazy herbs.

Oh man, I can't wait to make those tacos.

James, you're never making those tacos.

You're never making those tacos.

You can make those tacos.

I can cut up a cactus.

Buy a cactus from the garden in shop.

You can sort out an onion.

Don't use a cactus from the garden centre.

Don't eat the spindles.

They're bad for you.

Yeah, I won't eat the spindles.

But you can't.

That's all you got to do.

Am I being an idiot?

You can't go to the garden centre, buy a potted cactus, and then chop it up and put it in a taco.

You've got to eat an edible one.

You've got to eat an edible one.

You've got to eat an edible one, James.

If it goes in my mouth, I'd eat it up.

I'm not coming to your house for cactus tacos.

That's edible.

Probably find a bit of plant pot in there.

No, no, no, no, no.

A bit of soil, maybe.

Good for you.

Texture.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Thank you for watching.

Good for you.

Biogeem.

Bio-gut.

Bio.

Bioguts.

Bio.

Bio dude.

Yeah.

Good for that.

So your starter is you've listed a huge amount of different salads and potential ingredients.

It's a salad.

And I know it's a salad, but does it have all of those things in it?

It has whatever.

Where on my desert island?

Am I on a desert island?

You're not on a desert island.

You're in the dream restaurant.

I'm in the dream island.

Do you want to transport the dream restaurant to the desert island?

So the dream restaurant,

it depends what time of the month we're in.

Whatever time of month you want.

Oh, shh.

Whatever month you want.

You're telling me I have to be more specific.

You have to be more specific.

I don't know.

I think it's pretty funny to have a professional chef on and the start of his a salad.

Okay, do you know what I'm doing?

Curveball now.

I'm just going to change it right now

as we speak because I can't be more specific.

So I'm going to go, I'm going to have a cheese souffle

and I'm going to have a Castel Franco salad on the side with toasted hazelnuts and pickled shallots.

What's Castel Franco?

It is a really cool bitter leaf from northern Italy.

It's white with little pale pink flecks in it.

It is the prettiest prettiest salad leaf you've ever seen.

Wow, like a butterfly.

Yeah, it's like a butterfly.

It is.

So, cheese souffle and butterfly salad.

Yeah.

Got it.

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Main course.

Mutton.

A beef.

Mutton.

Okay, sorry.

Barbacoa.

Mutton Barbacoa.

Barbacoa is Ed's favorite band.

Let's break that down.

Mutton.

Old sheep.

Old sheep.

Old sheep.

Flavour.

Good flavour.

Gale hanging down to the ground.

I mean, the goatiness in that mutton.

I mean, it's got flavour.

It's been eating grass for a long time.

It's had a lot of life experience.

It's got depth.

It's got stories.

Get the shoulder.

Put it in the oven.

Let the oven do all the whole work.

You can cook it as long as you want.

Last one I cooked was two weeks ago.

I had to have all the people from the Guardian Guardian Feast team for dinner.

What?

Yeah, like

I had to cook for Otterlengi.

What?

I know.

Nerve-wracking way.

Petrifying.

Oh, petrifying.

Dear God.

Petrifying.

Best Instagram account in the game, by the way, Otterlengi's.

Oh, yeah?

Makes me so hungry.

I spend like an hour scrolling through.

Oh, it's a food.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

It's food.

It's not just selfies.

Having a great time.

Yeah.

He might have a different personal one as well.

So he came over for

Mutton Shoulder.

Yeah.

Who else do you have?

Ronald McDonald?

Yeah, he came too, and he really liked it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He said, this beat's the bloody Big Mac.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And the ham burglar?

He came over and went, you're lucky the lamb burglar is not here.

Different guy.

Yeah.

My cousin.

Yeah.

Same outfit.

Yeah.

Wool, made of wool.

The lamb burglar.

He's behind bars.

Yeah.

Cut up.

You've just learned about sheep puns and now you're doing some of your own.

He only does half.

Yeah, he just got shot the sheep, but now he's doing behind the barn.

Very, very impressed by you, Ed.

I'm proud of myself.

Well done, buddy.

Well done.

Leaps and bounds.

Barbacoa.

And then you came bound.

Barbacoa, they make in the Sanchez Valley of Mexico.

They dig a pit.

Oh, yes.

They put wood in it.

They marinate their lamb or their goat with ancho chili, soft, sweet, rounded, deep, earthy, guajillo,

deep, reddish, bricky colour, less flavor, but great colouring.

You could put this one, I had pasilla de Oaxaca, or pasilla mije, which is a smoky chili from Oaxaca.

You can only get it in Oaxaca.

They hardly grow any of it anymore.

It is, it's kind of smoky and kind of petroleum-tasting almost.

It's so incredible, the flavour of that chili.

So you basically get all these dry chilies and you take out the seeds and you taste them a dry frying pan just gently quickly because otherwise you burn them you just want to bring out the flavours then you cover them boiling water rehydrate them and then you grind them with allspice cinnamon stick human seeds clove black pepper you dry toast onion garlic tomatoes a bit of tortilla you put it all in your upload

You've got this really deep reddish paste, whole head of garlic.

I did the garlic, didn't I?

And then you cook it then you marry and you slide it over your shoulder for a couple of days a mutton shoulder yeah yeah yeah i did try it on my shoulders once but it stained that's why i cover my shoulders all times i to lengthy straight on them

all over those shoulders all over those shoulders

and then and then i put it in the oven overnight because i was really worried about cooking for for yotam

and would it be good enough so i had to like i had to really slow cook this this shoulder to make sure he liked it.

Yeah, and then the next day, I stirred it with more of the paste, added the chocolate, added, you know, a bottle of red wine, cooked it down, cooked it down until it became this kind of concentrated, like pasty, slow-cooked shreds of mutton meat thing in my big cooking pot.

And then we had it with corn tortillas and fresh law, wedges of lime, uh, guacamole.

That's what we had.

That's one of my favourite food descriptions on the podcast ever.

That sounds so good.

Do you have have a pit?

Do you have a pit to cook it in?

No, but I have got.

So my father's just built my kitchen.

My father's just built all the staircases and windows and kitchen in my new house.

Wow.

He's cool.

78.

Pretty good, no?

And I got these.

Can I mention a brand name?

Yeah.

Gagenhow ovens.

I find it hard to control my eroticism

from these ovens.

They are so amazing, these ovens.

Horny ovens.

They are so horny.

The way the door opens is so, so cool.

Shout out to Gagenhow.

Actually, the gas hob is not, it's um, it's Fisher Poichel, which is also great.

Shout out to them too.

Yeah, they're also great.

I need kids' toys.

Um, this door, you're saying it's real sexy how it opens.

How's it open?

It just, there's something about the kind of smooth click, and then it just goes

and it just glides open.

It's just

sound nice, actually.

It's just who Who does the ovens on the Great British Bake-Off where you open the oven and then you slide it inside?

Memories.

You know, they blow my mind.

It's like a DeLorean or something.

Fuck that.

Opening those ovens.

Did they ask you on?

Did you cook on that?

I've never been on it with a lot of people.

I've been on a disaster.

The word disaster gets thrown around quite a lot.

Delightful.

It went so badly, it became a meme.

Mine are high too.

You don't want to kneel down for an oven.

No.

Oh, kneel down.

Yeah, they're way too low.

Yeah, you want to get high up.

It's ridiculous.

Yeah.

So, really, the kitchen is stacked against you on that show.

No, James.

They were nobbling you.

They were nobbling me.

They were nobbling you, mate.

I wanted a pit, and they wouldn't give me one.

A pit?

You wanted a pit?

They wouldn't give you a pit.

Shit.

Great if you went on bake off and you just dug a pit in that tent

and then you just made your cake in that.

And I'm not using those ovens.

I'm doing pit cooking.

Might be wasting your time, your precious cooking time.

Digging it up.

Yeah, but it'd be a good episode, though.

Yeah.

I'm going gonna go back on it

rematch i don't think you're welcome

how did how did the dinner party go did everyone lose their minds it was really fun actually i did feed the mescal so that was good

yeah always do that ed loves that everyone loves you you love that too we had a brilliant night where we had far too much of that yeah that was the last night that i loved it though at um

too much we went to a posh food testing thing in a test kitchen santiago lustra's uh santiago uh he's lovely and it was so good and we got absolutely hammered yeah with professor green

yeah we did we got he liked mexican it was a great night it was a really good night it's a great night but his restaurant's opening soon i think yeah it is coal yeah i can't wait i'm gonna go back i want those skate tacos again he's a dude he's a dude sorry to plug another mexican restaurant apologies santio is a dude yeah we love him yeah he's good also though you all will destroy him is that right?

We're like, destroy him.

Yes.

Take him down.

You aiming to destroy him?

Santiago, I'm coming for you.

Yeah, if you're listening.

Santiago came to my birthday party and drank so much tequila.

Told on you.

That should be a part of the podcast, is that we have chefs come on and snitch another chef.

That's a good idea.

That sounds so delicious, that mutton barbacoa.

Yeah.

I want to try it.

It's essential that you pair it with really wispy shaved slaw, like really finely sliced radish, so you can see through them, and carrot and a bit of red cabbage, white cabbage, so it looks pretty as well.

And then crunchy Mexican foods a lot about contrast of texture, I find.

You know, so you can have soft corn, unctuous meat, crispy slaw, lovely salsa, fiery heat.

So would the slaw be your dream side dish, or is your dream side dish something else?

No, that's the slaws on the taco, James.

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So, what is the side dish?

Okay, so the side dish is really good.

Okay.

Okay, so you get some spuds.

It's quite nice with new potatoes, this dish.

So you boil them or steam them till they're tender, and then you smash them a bit, which is quite fun with a rolling pin or your hand or depending on how angry you are.

Yeah, or jams or...

Throw them against the wall.

Yeah.

And if they stick, they're cooked.

Does that help you?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sounds good.

Is that with all food?

I don't think a new potato,

a new potato sticks.

You're wrong there.

It's a fraud.

He's a fraud.

And then you mash it, and then you don't mash it, you just smash it a bit.

You just squash it a bit.

Yeah.

So you break the skin a little bit.

You lean on them a bit.

This is not a full mashing, but I'm coming for you if you mess it up.

So you'd lightly crush the new potato.

Yeah.

Ben, my favourite instrument in the kitchen, you get your pest and mortar.

It's a big one.

It's none of these piddly small ones where you can't do anything because everything's flying out.

It's a really big, heavy one.

And in the bottom of of it, you put, you know, three or four really fat cloves of garlic, not the supermarket kind, but you know, the stuff you get from a proper food purveyor, like a market or something.

Big fat cloves of garlic, smash them up with some sea salt, some peppercorns, loads of thyme.

You can put rosemary in there too, or oregano or margarine, but thyme is great because you can buy it in the supermarket.

And smash all that up.

Then you put lots of olive oil on, like, you know, masses, 100 mils, five, six, seven, eight tablespoons.

Mash it it all up to this garlicky thyme, black pepper paste, and you smear it all over the potatoes.

And then you put it in the oven, really hot oven, and then you roast them until they're all crispy, crunchy, golden, garlicky, delicious.

How big is this pestle of mortar when you said about it?

I bath in it sometimes.

Right.

Yeah, bubble bath.

And the pestle, actually, which is the pestle?

Which is the mortar?

Good question.

The mortar goes.

The smasher one.

The baseball bat.

Yeah.

Okay.

And the pestle's the bowl.

The pestle is the bowl.

Pestle on its own is quite a funny word.

Yeah.

But you never hear it on its own.

No, I'm just going to just get me a pestle.

Yeah, I've got the mortar.

I've bought my mortar.

It sounds like one of those things you put up your bottom.

Huh?

What is one of those things you put out your bottom?

What's that called?

One of the things you put up your bottom?

What is that?

What is that?

There's loads of different things that you can do.

Yeah, there's loads of motion.

You've spoken to enough medical professionals in your time.

You said about your ear doctor friend, your dentist.

I'm sure you've spoken to some ass doctor who's gotten many, many, many stories about all the people that are.

A pessary, it's a pessary.

A pessary.

What's a pessary?

It's when they put something up your butt.

I thought there was a suppository.

What's a suppository?

That's something that goes up your butt.

Yeah.

But.

But, yeah, I guess what?

although what we've learned is you can but anything can go up there

apart from your your puzzle because it's too big, right?

It's too big.

You could fit a butt in the pastle.

You fit a butt in the mortar.

Butt plug.

What's the same butt plug that?

She's lost it.

Yeah.

Tomasina's absolutely lost it for the listener.

She said butt plug.

She's absolutely losing it, laughing her head off.

Absolutely losing it.

I just can't stop laughing now.

We'll do well to get her back in this episode.

Absolutely losing it now.

I don't know if it was.

In the first episode, we don't even make it to the drink.

Yeah.

The guest said butt plug and then laughing.

I can't stop laughing about it.

Mainly maybe because you're thinking of the pestle as a bathtub.

And so there'd be a plug in the bathtub, wouldn't there?

Oh, yeah.

There would be a plug in the bathtub.

Maybe that's.

A plug in the bathtub, yeah.

I didn't

know a butt plug.

Okay, just put it together.

Just wipe the tears away from your

entire face.

I'm back, I'm back, I'm back.

So that sounds, I mean, the potato sounds delicious.

The potatoes sound delicious.

Even though we arrived there, yeah, the butt plugs.

That's not your side dish.

No.

The butt plug is not on the menu in any way.

But the potatoes sound delicious.

I keep saying that.

What?

Does that potato dish have a name?

Please don't say butt plug again.

Crispy garlicky spuds.

Crispy garlicky spuds.

Spud plugs.

Your drink?

Now, a lot of tequila going on in Oaxaca.

I had the tequila flight once.

Very nice.

I'm straight up margaritas.

I love tequila any which way.

I mean, tequila is just the best drink ever.

So basically your garve plant sits there in the sunshine for 10 years, sunbathing.

And then all that solar energy is like put inside a bottle.

I mean, no wonder it makes you feel so good.

And dance, dance.

Don't you want to dance when you drink?

Tequila is different from Mezcal, by the way.

Have you worked that out?

That when you drink Mezcal, you don't have the same feeling.

But when you drink tequila, I mean, I know that

my more snobby Mexican aficionado friends think it's just Mezcal.

But there is something joyful about tequila.

When I go to a music festival, I'm always armed with a bottle of of tequila.

Yeah, that is like dance magic.

I'd say Mezcal doesn't make me want to.

As much as I enjoyed drinking all that Mezcal with your head, I did feel pretty sad.

Yeah, Mezcal made me want to get an Uber home.

Yeah.

But it was delicious, though.

I had coffee.

It tasted like coffee.

Schmoky.

It did taste like coffee.

It was very nice.

Yeah, and I love whiskey.

And Mezcal and whiskey taste, they've got lots of comparisons.

Schmoky, peaty, delicious.

But yeah, I think tequila is

a diamond drink.

Tequila with chocolate is very good.

So chocolate ice cream,

homemade chocolate sauce.

No, vanilla ice cream, homemade chocolate sauce with lots of tequila in it.

That is killer.

Oh, wow.

Sounds amazing.

That sounds really good.

Exactly what I'd like to drink.

Is that a drink?

No, that's not a drink.

Well, tequila poured over anything, actually, any pudding.

You know, sorbet.

you know, in a mousse, in a, yeah, I mean, tequila can pretty go with that.

You could do a

like a chocolate and vanilla milkshake with tequila in it.

Would that work?

Yeah, you could do that.

But we're all agreed that if you pour tequila over anything, it makes it a drink.

No, we've not said that makes it a drink.

If it's in a glass.

If it's in a apple pie.

In a glass, and pour tequila over it as a drink.

No, you've lost your mind.

What is your actual dream drink, Thomas Sr.?

Is it a tequila-based drink?

Well, I was going with the salad riff here, thinking, is it going to be wine?

Is it going to be whiskey?

Is it going to...

I love beer too.

I love a shandy.

Really nice ale from a pub with a bit of alcohol.

And you're just doing what you did with the starter where you're naming all the drinks and then you're going going to stop and look at us as if that's your choice.

I remember a supply teacher once at my school

was t teaching a lesson and whatever we had to like write about our weekend or whatever and she was like so you know for example I would say if I'm talking about my weekend me and my friends we went to oh there's this lovely lake near my house went for a lovely walk round it it's in the sunshine and we stopped at a pub and uh we each uh we had a we had a shandy and then a kid at the back of the class went you're hard

I absolutely loved it.

One of my favourite heckles at a teacher.

We had a Shandy, you're hard, miss.

Now, I enjoyed

that story for a number of reasons.

Firstly, the story itself.

And secondly, when you said Shandy, Tommy Cena very quietly whispering into the microphone, And Shandy.

Is that what you said?

Didn't even hear that?

I I that's slander.

We're recording this.

Since butt plug, you've become an absolutely

so blue.

I was so close to my own story, I didn't even hear the heckle.

I was in a story about a teacher getting heckled and getting heckled myself.

And Chandi!

Are you suggesting my supply teacher told us all that they stopped at a pub and whanked each other off?

No, that's disgusting.

Yeah, that is disgusting, actually, Jake.

So, what's your drink?

I think tequila.

With anything or just straight up tequila?

I really like sipping tequila with beer.

That's really good.

So, like, you're sitting down, having your meal, and you've got a really good beer, and then you're sipping your tequila alongside.

We can get you a cold beer and a little tequila alongside.

Sipping tequila.

That's great.

What do you think about this, though?

I've got a friend who does really big sips.

It's me.

I'm the friend, big sips.

That's his nickname.

I do big gulps.

He does real big sips, and whenever we're out for a drink, he finishes his drink way quicker.

So sipping tequila would not last two seconds with him.

That's where you have the beer.

Yeah, but I'd do that in two or three, I think.

Just Just such big sips.

It's crazy.

Are you asking me to help this man?

It's a psychological feeling.

What do you think of it?

Like, it looks the same as anyone else taking a normal sip.

So it's not like he goes

and is really like going for it.

He just goes, normal little sip, and then puts it down, and half a glass is gone.

And I'm like, how did you even do that?

Like a pelican just draining it.

That's why I tend to burn out on a night out at around 10.30, though, I think.

Yeah.

Because I've had such big sips.

Maybe you need to get that like sparkling water alongside you.

Yeah, or maybe a sippy cup.

Like a kid's sippy cup.

Not gonna

be good for your look.

No.

I don't know.

I can make it part of my thing.

I could start dressing as a baby.

Yeah.

Start dressing as a baby with a little sippy cup.

Yeah.

And then when anyone goes, why are you dressed as a baby?

I was like, my sips were too big.

What sort of beer are you having?

I like a brown ale.

A brown ale.

Or a brown lager or

a kind of light ale.

I quite like the old fashioned, like John Smith or London Pride or

what I discover when I was feeding my baby, because you're supposed to like drink Guinness.

Brown ale?

Brown ale to your little babber.

As a mother, as a feeding mother, you're supposed to drink lots of Guinness.

And then I discover this thing called Milk Stout.

Now that stuff is delicious.

It's light stout, but it's got a bit of lactose in it.

It gives it this kind of milky, slightly, not sweet, but just less bitter it's bloody delicious so would you like a milk stout and a sipping tequila no i'd like an amber amber i'd like a i'd like a brown lager an amber you only want the milk stout if you're breastfeeding right uh well no i actually still like it even when i'm not anymore it's quite good but maybe in the winter not really with my sipping tequila just separately just as a like thing sometimes like an amber ale yeah and a sipping tequila yeah lovely Here's a question for you.

When does a sip become a gulp?

You're obsessed.

Listen, man, it's your.

I'm trying to help you.

Okay, that's true.

That's fine.

Fine.

That was a gulp.

Oh, so the gulp is when it goes down.

The gulp is the going down bit rather than the size of the amount of and the gulp is, yeah, it's not about volume.

See, look at this.

I've got that much water left.

Yep.

That's like a centimetre.

Is that two sips for you?

Yeah, or three.

Really?

They're definitely three.

Yeah.

There it goes.

I don't even know how you did that.

That was just much

CGI.

He needs help.

That's just a normal that's a normal sip.

It's not a normal sip.

You didn't see it from the outside.

It looked freakish.

Nothing normal about that.

Yeah.

How much was it?

You disconnected your jaw like a python.

We arrive at the dessert, my favourite of all the courses, and I'm feeling pretty optimistic because you've mentioned mince pies in great detail, and you've mentioned putting tequila over ice cream.

It sounds like a good course we've got coming up here.

I mean, it's just this is quite a boring one.

I didn't put much salt into the pudding, actually.

Oh, no.

Interesting.

Interesting.

Because quite often I just make these like

chili-spiced tequila-infused chocolate truffles.

And then we just hand those out at the end of a meal.

And then I thought, sounds delicious, though.

So then I thought back to, yeah, because I like cheese as well.

I do like cheese.

Can your face?

I mean, you know.

I mean, my husband, for instance, would like a Welsh rabbit for pudding.

Well, your husband can go to hell.

Your husband sounds like a good guy.

I'm on board with that.

But listen, pudding, I think classics are the best weight.

You can pick cheese if you want, Tommy.

You know, I don't know.

Well, I think you have to.

You want to join your husband in the eternal fires of cadence.

I think basically any booze with pudding, because it can't be too sweet.

I think a pudding's too sweet, it slightly ruins it.

Yeah, that's fine.

Booze offsets it and also makes you drunker, which is a happy coincidence.

Creme brulee is pretty damn good.

Yeah.

Toasted caramelised sugar is good always.

So I like that.

And then creamy underneath.

You could put a bit of, you know, Sauterne in there.

You could put, you know, you can put any kind of booze in that cream.

I don't want to put stuff on my creme brulee.

I want it pure, purest.

Or a tart.

I mean, a tart is a wonderful thing.

Yes.

a crumbly,

yeah.

Yeah, you just made yourself laugh at the word tart now, haven't you?

You laughed first.

I did laugh, yeah, you did, James.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, because you knew what was going on.

Oh, you're insinuating.

I know where this is going.

A crumbly, buttery pastry that like melts in your mouth, like is just so good.

So, like, a treacle tart or a kind of nutty almond pastry tart with maybe some fruit on it, baked.

So, it's all caramelized and crispy and crunchy, and a bit,

yeah,

a bit, what's the word?

Not crunchy, chewy, slightly chewy when it's gone kind of caramelized.

That is good with lots of double cream poured over.

Yes.

So which?

Maybe I'll have the tart.

Maybe I have to do it.

I think you convince yourself of the tart though.

Yeah.

What kind of tart is this?

It is a frangipan.

It's a fruit frangipan tart with some

booze poured over vanilla ice cream.

Double cream.

Maybe it's a treacle tart.

Do you like a treacle tart?

Or the creme brulee?

No, the creme brulee's out of the running now.

Creme brulee's out.

It's gonna be...

Treacle tart?

Treacle tart with cold pouring cream.

Yeah, sounds nice.

Not too sweet.

Pretty sweet, though.

Lots of fresh lime.

A bit of treacle, lots of golden syrup.

Old breadcrumbs, using them up.

And that cold pouring cream.

Nice.

Delicious.

Old breadcrumbs.

That said's nickname.

Yeah, old breadcrumbs, big syrups.

Region menu back to you now.

Sparkling water.

Bread rubbed in garlic charred.

Starter, cheese souffle.

Olive oil.

With olive oil on the bread, absolutely.

Starter, cheese souffle with the butterfly salad.

Or casel franco.

Olive oil.

Olive oil on the starter as well.

Main course.

Mutton barber

with shaved slaw.

Side dish of crispy garlicky spuds.

Drink, amber ale with a sip of tequila on the side and dessert, a treacle tart with cold pouring cream.

Delicious.

I would most like that mutton.

I want to try that so bad.

And I want to try the sponge actually, but you gave the recipe on that, so maybe I think people should try and make that.

I hope it's so easy.

It's got the full recipe there.

But by the way, they shrink, the potatoes shrink.

You always have to make double what you expect to eat, and they still always go.

Thank you very much for coming into the dream restaurant, Thomasina Myers.

Thank you for having me.

Thank you so much.

There we have it.

Oh, she said natural fries.

No, she didn't, James.

She didn't say nacho fries.

Then who don't kick out the restaurant?

Well,

you kicked her out the restaurant, but she was leaving anyway, so

it didn't make sense.

Oh, I was very rude to her.

You shouldn't kick the guests in the bum when they leave.

That's what I do every time.

It's customary in the genie world.

An amazing menu, wonderfully described, gotta say.

Delicious.

Mutton barbacoa probably goes up there with one of my favourite dishes we've ever had on the podcast.

Yeah, I loved that description.

Also, a lot of detailed descriptions, not just like you know, what the food's made of and you know, the ingredients, but how to make it.

Yeah.

So,

listeners, come on, get involved.

We want to see you making those potatoes.

Send us some pictures.

If you make the potatoes, listen to the podcast.

She tells you exactly how to do it.

Make the potatoes, send us a picky.

Go back, listen to the Marcus Samuelson episode.

Listen to how he made Noki.

Make it.

Send us a picture.

Listen to how Susie's grandmother makes the lemon drizzle cake.

Make that.

Tweet them all at Bonito.

Listen to how Joel Domit makes a fizzy strawberry protein shake.

Make it.

Yes.

Throw it in the bin.

Don't send us a picture.

And make sure when you tweet any pictures, you say, dear Benagorgan,

I have made the dish.

Please don't kill me.

Please don't

eat me in the upside down, Bennegorgon.

So don't forget to message the Bennegorgon on at OffMenuOfficial and at OffMenuOfficial.

Instagram and Twitter, respectively, or the other way around.

And pop yourself onto our website, offmenupodcast.co.uk.

Tomasina, a wonderful guest.

Obviously, go to Oaxaca.

If you've not been, what are you doing with yourselves?

Yeah.

Check it out.

You got to go.

You got to go.

They've got a cookbook all about how to cook Mexican food at home.

Get that as well.

Remember, cook some dishes from that.

Take a picture.

Send it to the Bedagorgon.

As an offer, really.

As an offering, please, Bedagorgon.

Don't kill me.

Yes.

So thank you very much for listening to the Off Menu Podcast.

We will see you again sometime soon.

Goodbye.

Goodbye.

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Oh, hi, James.

Have you heard the news?

Oh, yeah, go on.

You and I are modern boys because the off-menu podcast is now on YouTube.

This is embarrassing.

Why is it embarrassing man you love youtube i love watching clips on youtube sure now people can watch clips of off menu on youtube and full episodes but it's embarrassing man it's not embarrassing at all it's really cool we're on youtube with the great and good the coolest people in the world are on youtube me you logan paul who's logan paul the dad from succession at off menu podcast that's what Benito's calling us now.

And we're on TikTok.

This is embarrassing, man.

It's not embarrassing, man.

we're cool we're like olivia rodrigo and ed people have been asking us battering us bothering us actually they want to watch the stephen graham supercut from the stephen graham episodes they can see all of his reactions to us everything that he did or benito has bent to their whims and he's going to put it on youtube he's going to do it Follow us at Off Menu Official on TikTok at Off Menu Podcast on YouTube.

You can watch clips from the podcast.

And on YouTube, you can watch full video episodes.

People have been asking for it.

And you're finally getting it.

Full video episodes.

so you can see every single nuance on our little faces.