Kate Winslet (Christmas Special)

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Welcome to the Off-Menu Podcast, taking the ginger biscuits of conversation, leaving them on the fireplace hearth of humor and awaiting the Santa of friendship. Santa's going to eat some biscuits.

Leave some biscuits out for Santa, James. What do you leave out for Santa, man?

That is it, Campbell. My name is James A.
Cassidy. Skeffer, we own a few.
It's a good chat. What do you leave out for Santa? And every single year.
Every single year? What do you leave out for Santa?

Every week we invite in a guest.

Every single year. No, every single year we invite a guest in to ask them about their Christmas menu.
Yes. So you were right.

And we asked them their favourite ever start and main course dessert, side dish, drink, and Christmas dinner. Yes.
Not in that order.

And this week, this year.

He's had a nightmare. He's too excited.

I am, because our guest is Kate Winslet.

It's only Kate Winslet. Holy moly.

This is Molyman. This podcast has got out of hand.
But now Kate Winslet's agreeing to come on?

Add Kate Winslet to the list of people we thought we'd never ever meet let alone interview yeah I can't wait for

what is going on yeah I'm happy I'm a happy guy you're too happy and I'm look listeners to this podcast will know that your favorite film is it fair to say yep is eternal sunshine of the spotless mind yes so I'm worried because we've got the star of eternal sunshine of the spotless mind coming in yeah and we've we've got to ask Kate her dream menu we've got to ask her about her Christmas we've got to do all of of this and i'm worried that you're going to try and make this a podcast it's exclusively about eternal no brother i'm a professional you know i am i'm going to stick to no format i don't believe you when we've had actors on before i don't bring up their stuff

that's all you do i try and that's fine it's fine to bring up their stuff yeah kate's got an incredible cv of amazing things that she's been involved with

but i'm worried you're going to over focus on one thing what turns Sun Transport as well? Yes, yeah, yeah. Favourite film? Yeah.

It's Christmas, you know. Because we've got to talk to Kate about food, because that's what the podcast is.
And we've got to talk to Kate about her new film, her directorial debut, Goodbye June.

Which is in cinemas now, of course. Yes.
And on Netflix on Christmas Eve. Yeah, Netflix, December the 24th, which colloquially known as Christmas Eve.

Just in case people don't know. If I say Christmas Eve, people wouldn't know when that is.
Oh, well. You never know.

The cast list of Goodbye June reads like if you were putting together a football team for all the greatest actors in Britain. Yeah.

Well, it's like if someone read out the cast list, it was like, just these are the nominations for best actors this year. Yeah.
You'd be like, yeah, it makes sense.

Tony Collette, Johnny Flynn, Andrea Riseborough, Timothy Spool, Kate Winslet, and Helen Miran. And then you're looking at other cast members.

Stephen Merchant, heard of him? Just popping up. He's not being on the part.
Jeremy Swift, that's Higgins. Yeah, Higgins.

Higgins is in this. Yeah, Emmy-nominated Higgins.
Yeah, yeah. That's fun.
That's crazy, man. You can also watch this podcast on YouTube.
Why wouldn't you? No one's going to stop you.

No one's going to stop you. Watch it on YouTube, listen to it, just do as many things as you can.
Yeah. You won't hear this bit on YouTube, though?

No, that'd be crazy. Here's the thing, Ed.

We're excited that Kate Winslet's on the podcast. We're excited to talk about Goodbye June.
But if Kate Winslet

says a secret ingredient,

an ingredient which we deem to be unacceptable. I don't want to do it at this time.
We will have to kick her out of the dream. I don't want to do it.
I'm afraid that that is how it works. Oh, man.

But what's the secret ingredient going to be? Clementine. Because that's her character's name in a temporary summer.
Stop this moment. Ah, stop it.
That's

it. It's got to calm down.
I won't speak about it again unless she brings it up.

That's the deal. No, I think even if she brings it up, you should say we're not allowed to talk about that.
Oh, come on.

Look, we are so excited. I don't know if you've worked it out.
We're so excited to have Kate Winslet on the podcast. Yeah, just beyond excited.
It's crazy. Yeah.
Ed's moved his flight.

I've moved my flight to Bergen, of course. Because it's excited.
I would move, you know, I'd move heaven and earth to interview Kate Winslet. Yeah.
I'm very excited about this, Ed. This is a.

It's going to be dream, come true. Did you dream come true?

Right, well, let's get her on the pod. This is the off-menu menu.
Okay, Winslow.

I'm going to drink.

Welcome Kate to the Dream Restaurant. Oh, it's very nice.

Welcome, Kate. Winston to the Dream Restaurant.
I've been expecting you for some time.

Kate, my throat is like knackered, and I was really worried about doing that, but I've got to shout again later on. Have you? You must have good like throat tips as like a...

Throat tips? Yeah, to the... I don't think actors call it throat tips.

I don't know if they do call it throat tips, but then what would we call it? Training? I didn't have any training.

Vocal training? No, I've never done any of that. I've never done any of that stuff.
You just sort of make it up as you go along. Yeah.
Yeah.

Look after your voice.

What if you're doing a film and your voice goes like this? You must be like, I need some

lemon, sugar? I just don't know. I mean, I wish I could tell you that I had all these like clever things I do, but I really, I really don't.
You just make it part of the character.

You sort of have to just kind of, yeah, you just have to kind of go with the flow. I don't know.

I mean, you have to look after yourself because the hours are really intensely long, but not shouting at people always helps. And I certainly don't do any of that.
Yes, that's good.

That's good to hear. What of all your roles is the most amount of shouting you had to do on camera? Oh, my God.

So

I played a character called Elena Vernham, and she was a sort of a fictional chancellor in a fictional country. And she was pretty vile.
And she did a lot of screaming at people.

Yeah, so that was pretty hilarious. I actually did kind of quite love it as well.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. What was the film? It was a TV series for HBO called The Regime.

Um and it was a, it was my foray into comedy and I just absolutely loved it. She was outrageous and vile and you know treated people very badly.

It's nice to have a sort of sanctioned reason to do that, right? You can just have a good old scream at people. Well, I've never really played a character like that.
Yeah.

And I just thought, well, you know, this is something new. I like to kind of mix it up and take risks and do things that might be a little bit unexpected, hopefully, you know.

know yeah yeah got to stay in the game keep getting invited back to the party so hopefully um hopefully that will continue because i do love it it's crazy because in the really early days so yesterday just coincidentally there was this thing came up on my algorithm of james cameron talking about all of his films and he talked about casting you in titanic and the whole corset cape thing before that which i didn't know about that because for me now

that seems bananas bananas that you that you would have been called that or that because you've done so many different things yeah but it was the first time i'd heard it well people people do like labels and i think you know starting out in some of those great early things i was able to do like sense and sensibility and things like that um yeah people do like to sort of pigeonhole actresses and they don't really like it if you step outside of that framework that they have um chosen that you're going to exist in and so so no i'm yeah weird corset kate doesn't make any sense and you were so young at the time this is i think there's a lot of jealousy from other people probably

giving you a nickname like that but then like like,

I just think like, for me, you're just someone who's always done so many different things. It's really weird to watch that and go like, when did that happen? I know, it's bizarre.

I think something that helped me kind of move beyond that was Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Yeah.
Which I remember thinking, okay, this is, okay, this, this could be good.

I could be stepping outside of that and, you know, doing something completely wild and different. And that whole experience actually of making Eternal Sunshine was so amazing.

I mean, Michelle Gondry, who directed it, he's just avant-garde and funny and bonkers, and it was a great experience. I loved playing that character.
There's a lot of improvisation in that film.

I'm glad you've brought this film up, Kate, because I had to message James

when we confirmed that you're coming in and say, don't only talk about Eternal Sunshine on the spotless morning.

Because he will talk about it for a whole episode with a guest who's not been involved in the film at all. Oh, it is a good one.
Why? He's gone quiet. Yeah, he's excited.
He can't wait.

It's my favourite film.

We can talk about it as much.

I love talking about it. I mean,

it was an amazing shoe. And yes, there was a lot of improvising.

I remember there was one night when I was at home asleep and it was two o'clock in the morning and the phone rang and it was Michelle Gondry and he was like, you have to come, you have to come.

I said,

what are you talking about? He said, there is this circus is coming into town and they have all this elephant,

all these elephants, they are coming down Fifth Avenue. You have to come.
I said, okay, okay, when are we doing that? He said, now it's happening.

Now, right now, you have to get in the cab and you have to. I was like, oh my God.

And of course, you get in a cab and of course you turn up and then improvise an entire scene with a load of elephants coming down Fifth Avenue. And it was, it was really amazing.

And that's one of the lovely things about making films is that sometimes you do get to work with people who are brave enough to do these kind of crazy things. Thank God it was a great film, right?

Because imagine if it was just a crazy guy and the film was awful. Yeah.
Like get up at two o'clock, come and improvise with these elephants. I know.

Yeah, it was all a bit of a it was all a bit of a mad risk, but you know, that's what life's about, I think, isn't it? Well, let's talk about your latest film because you're directing this as well.

Your debut as a director. Yeah.
A goodbye June. Yeah.
First of all, not sadness for a Christmas film. I like that.

But you say that. I mean, you say that.
And the thing is,

it is also, though, it is very warm and there's a lot of humour. And

I think it's just such a real and relatable story about family really.

I mean it's a it's it's less about a woman who's sort of slipping away and much more about a family coming together because of that event and I think it doesn't matter what family looks like to you.

We all have to deal with loss at some point in our lives. And actually I think in this country we're not very good at dealing with it and talking about that stuff.

And I remember when my own mum passed away sitting with my dad and thinking,

what do we do now? And actually googling coffins. Like, how do you, I mean, and there's no manual for any of it.

And so, I don't know, there's something about the kind of messy navigation that this family of disparate people has to process in order to kind of come to terms with, A, what's happening, but B, how they're all going to stick together and put aside past grievances and make it okay.

And there's something to me that's just very, very real and human about that. Totally.

Those discussions don't, is it something British, do you think? Because I've been in those situations before where, like, my mum or someone will go, well, here's what I want.

And then you go, No, no, no, we don't talk about that sort of thing. We don't need to.
That's you. You're bumming me out now.
Well, I think, I don't know.

I mean, I think, I don't know if it's a British thing or just is it a culture, is it a Western thing?

I mean, I think when you look at other cultures, there are so many ways in which they process loss and even letting that person go and what they then do afterwards. And

I just think in this country,

there's a very standard

way of dealing with

when you lose a parent or a loved one in particular. And I just, I don't know.
I think making something that perhaps ignites a bit of conversation around that stuff,

I think it's helpful. How was directing for the first time? Because obviously you've worked with some incredible directors.

Did you like draw techniques and little tips from them, the people you'd worked with across the years? Did you wake everyone up at midnight? Yeah.

See a certain amount of

up. There's an elephant at the hospital.
Yeah. Okay, well not falling for this again.

I loved, I honestly, I loved every single second of it. I loved being with the actors.
I loved all the prep. I loved every day of the shoot.
I never wanted it to finish.

I loved sort of pulling people together

and creating a story that, you know, felt resonant and humorous and warm. And even the edit and the sound mix and the music and the great, all of it, I just, I loved every second of it.

And I think I have been lucky i have worked with some incredible people and you know some directors are really all about the actors and others are more about the visual side of things and perhaps don't necessarily have the language available to them to be able to communicate something with an actor and i think having learned a lot over this 33 years of of this career that i've been so lucky to have i've i've certainly i've certainly observed and felt myself you know what is helpful to an actor and what simply isn't and could actually kind of fuck people up.

And so

staying away from the things that I know don't work was something that I kept at the forefront of my mind. The cast is bananas.
Bananas.

Like every character that walks on the screen, you're like, oh my god, it's another national treasure. Yeah, it's insane.
I know, it's funny.

We sort of didn't, we just thought only of, when I say we, I mean myself and Jo Anders, the writer who happens to be my son, but he so didn't, he so didn't really believe that i was serious that we could turn this into a film this script that he had written having having never written a screenplay before i kept saying to him right okay let's sit down we're going to put together our just dream list of people who would play these parts which crew we would go to and everything and uh we came up with this list of extraordinary actors and we never thought that really any of them were gonna say yes and they all did so the trick then was casting people of that caliber in these amazing roles and making them disappear and making it feel like a family.

And I think a lot of that is helped by the brilliant children that we had. I was going to say as well, like on top of all of these incredible actors, you've got...

quite a lot of children involved in the production as well. Seven kids, which I was never, actually it was eight because the six-month-old baby was identical twin girls.

But I've never been afraid of working with children. And actually as an actress, I've always really loved it.
And interestingly, back to that thing of like how other directors handle things.

A lot of directors are scared of how do you direct children. And the reality is you can't really teach a child unless they're very gifted.
You can't really teach a child how to act.

You can just encourage them to be.

And so I did spend a lot of time trying to work out how I could create an environment that the children just sort of felt like they were all on a play date with their friends.

And so that started with: we have two five-year-olds in the film. And one of those children is a little boy with Down syndrome, a beautiful little boy named Ben Shortland.

And Ben's character was actually called Benji and it was just really fortunate that we found this child.

So I never had to teach him how to think of himself as a different name because that probably just would have been too many things for him to have processed. And so I thought, well, hold on a second.

This is a great strength. We've got this gift.
We have this child whose name is Ben.

Everyone else should just think of themselves as their character names.

And And so all of the children, I just very gently said, particularly to my two teenagers, I said, look, let's just all call ourselves in our character names. And that's what the children did.

They introduced each other to one another as the characters that they were.

So there was never any A, confusion, but B, it meant that when we were on set and in this sort of very playful environment, they were completely off script and would be calling each other in character names.

And everything then, therefore, for me, was totally usable. And when I never forget an extraordinary thing, I thought, my God, this really did work.

When the little boy who plays Tibbalt, we still all still call him Tibby. His name is actually Elias.

But when I walked him on to set to meet Helen Mirren for the first time, she started a couple of weeks into our shoot and we were already into a flow. And she was there in the hospital room.

And I said, do you know who that lady is? And I full on. absolutely thought he was going to say that's Dame Helen Mirren or the queen or something like that and he said yes that's Nana June.
Oh, wow.

And he was, I was like, okay,

and my work is done.

And so it just meant that I was able to roll the cameras without the children knowing.

And we as adult actors would be established in a state of make-believe that they would just fold into and follow along. So it was really about playing for them.

And that definitely helped in terms of bringing the joy because children bring the joy and in everything, in every situation in life.

And it made a really big difference in terms of just them feeling relaxed and being able to improvise very freely. With the children, we pretty much abandoned any scripted lines.

And I would say, don't learn anything, please. And they'd be like, what? You know, the older ones particularly, having been very studious and learned all of their dialogue really well.

And I said, and please make lots of mistakes. We love mistakes.
Okay, go. And they were like.
mistakes? Because then it's just giving them permission to be and be really free.

And all of those lovely natural things that they came out with were captured and made it into the film.

And I mean, are you ready for this to be brought up to you once a year when it's Christmas time? I mean, you got that with the holiday already? I still get it with the holiday.

So now you're going to get to.

I just have no idea. I mean, it's such an amazing feeling that we even made the film and so special to have gone through this with my son.
You know, he's always written all of his life.

I mean, our fridge is still covered in poetry that he wrote when he was seven or eight years old.

And so I think it didn't really surprise me that he declared that he was thinking about maybe writing script and he got a place on a film film writing course at the National Film and Television School and was asked to write a screenplay and he was encouraged write what you know and so he took inspiration from the most significant thing that happened in his life which was the loss of his grandmother when he was a teenager my mum and he was so struck by how everyone in this huge family of ours was able to come together and just geographically how unusual that was to all be in this same space.

And we gave her a really great passing that frankly she could only have dreamt of. And he he remembers thinking, my God, we're all here because we all somehow came from this one woman.

And he took that as his emotional backdrop and from there created this fictional story about a fictional family who are going through the same thing. It was amazing, really.

It was such a, if I never get to do it again, I just feel so proud actually that in this 50th year of my life, when when it is much harder, I think, for actresses to transition into directing than it is for our male counterparts, I just feel really, really proud that we've done it and we're very proud of the film.

We always start with still sparkling water on the podcast.

I'm tempted though, because we've already bought a paternal sunshine, to start with dessert and go backwards and forget each one as we go on. That's fine.
I think we should do that.

It's good to mix it up. Good to mix it up.
Benito looks absolutely gutted.

He doesn't want us to do it, so he won't do it but just so you know if i had things my way yeah yeah yeah yeah that's what i'd do yeah okay uh but still i'll spark them more okay it's going to be still still every time yeah i don't like but i don't like bubbles with my meal i feel like my stomach starts to feel full before the food's gotten there and i want my stomach to be full of food yeah yes i don't want it to be full of bubbles unless it's champagne in which case it's a whole other conversation sure oh my god i'm really sounding like a wanker now no you've been having champagne before we've had much bigger wankers on the podcast, don't you, Murray Kay?

Yeah.

Us two. Yeah, us two for a start.
You'd be two wankers to start with. When we did our menus, Jesus.
Yeah. Disagree.
We've done our dream menus and basically every we do it every hundred episodes.

And you can plot the timeline of how much more pretentious we've become every couple of years. This guy started off.
He was salt of the earth when we started this podcast. Total wanker now.

Covered in Michelin stars. This is ridiculous.
Ridiculous. Oh, my God.
Is there a particular still water you would like? Is Is it bottled? Is it tap? If it's tap, where's it from?

I don't know. I do usually, I have to say, I do usually go tap

just because

I don't like plastic or even glass wastage if you don't have to have it. So, yeah, I'm often the one who says, oh, tap's fine.
Straight out of the tap? Yeah, I think so. Yeah.

Where's got the best tap water in the world? Oh, my God. That is asking.
Oh, I don't know, really. Probably Cornwall.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, I think so.

Although a a lot of Cornish people, I'm sure, would beg to differ because rumour has it there's apparently quite a lot of tin in Cornish water from all the tin mining from years ago. Really?

Apparently so. I really have no idea if that's true or not.
It's pure speculation. And I'm sure my publicist is sitting there.

Please don't keep that in.

Maybe you've just got a taste for tin. Yeah, because if you like

if you like the tin water. Maybe.
Then maybe it must do something for you, right? Yeah, if it's your dream meal, if you like, we can add some extra tin to the water. Yeah, like merely.

I don't know if I want that to happen to me. I don't know if I want to be have added tin.
I'm not sure how I feel about added tin, actually.

Extra tin. We'll get you the Cornish water, though, and we'll test it for tin beforehand just to make sure.

Yeah, we'll filter it or something. Pop lobs or bread.
Pop lobs on bread, Kate Winslet. Pop lobs or bread.
Quite loud.

Bread. Definitely.
It was a bit loud, wasn't it? Free time. Yeah.
Love bread. Love it.
Oh, my God. Love it.
Especially with butter, thick butter. Love.

How thick are we talking in terms of proportion to the bread?

Well, if it was a piece of cheddar cheese, just imagine the thickness of that slice, and that would probably be the thickness of the butter that I'd put on the bread. Fantastic.
Yeah.

I think, you know, when I'm in public, I'll have to just calm myself down with the amount of butter I'm putting on stuff.

I sometimes feel actually I have to slightly hide it from people, especially if I'm in America. Oh, really? Yeah, particularly LA, where people are not too crazy about the amount of fat that they eat.

but i quite like eating fat it was delicious especially in the form of slabs of butter yeah it makes me it brings me great joy yeah yeah on warm crusty bread

at home all better off for me at home i'm just standing up in the kitchen thicker butter than the bread sometimes i take i love breadsticks and uh and sometimes i will just stand with a packet of breadsticks and just stab it straight into the butter and scrape it off that's good shove it in and you're standing as well i like that there's no time to sit down and enjoy it Just like, just get in there.

Yeah, just get in there. Absolutely.
That could be your breadcourse.

We can add some breadsticks if you like. That would be nice, actually.
You just put a big thing of butter on your table. Yeah, I said.
You've got your warm, crusty bread and breadsticks.

And you can just go between the two of them, sitting, standing, sitting, standing. Which I would.
I would very much go between the two. Yeah.
Yeah. And my kids would be fighting me for it.

Are we talking like a baguette kind of bread?

Oh, God, you can't go wrong with a baguette, can you?

I actually remember when we were little, my family never really had any money.

So holidays were usually driving in cars and usually it would be a second-hand car that was borrowed from somebody because we were a family of six, but our car was never ever big enough.

So, and I do remember holidays where we'd

get on the ferry Dover to Calais and then drive through France and camp. And it was absolutely brilliant.

And it would always be the middle of the night ferry at sort of three in the morning because it was the cheapest. And I think at one point kids could go for like a pound.

And I remember going into tiny French markets and just being over the moon. My mum would be able to, you know, get us all a huge French stick and we'd split it between us.
And oh, heaven, the best.

That's great. It is.
When you, I mean, we always ask this question on the pub when baguettes come up. But if you're buying a baguette, you're taking it home.

Are you biting the end off before you get home? I've bitten the end off before I've even paid for it.

100%.

It's gone. I get strange looks from the women on the checkout.

Yeah, yeah.

Your dream starter. Okay, so my dream starter, and I have thought long and hard about this, it's going to have to be, I think, a sort of a pasta with truffle

and a big mound of shaved parmesan on the top, which I think is probably controversial, the amount of parmesan.

But the reason I have opted for that is that when I was in my early 20s living in North London and Titanic had come out and my,

this is the story that you're hoping I was going to tell probably,

and my life changed overnight in many, many, many great ways, but in also some ways that were quite alarming for Kate from Reading, who never expected to be a famous person anyway.

And I suddenly couldn't go out. I mean, I really couldn't leave the house, whether it was photographers there or, you know, just fans, or it was mad.

And this was just my little two-bedroom flat in N7.

my neighbors who um i got to know very quickly and were very very kind were giorgio and plaxi locatelli and giorgio locatelli wonderful very well-known highly regarded italian chef

and at that point he ran a restaurant in in south london but he didn't have his own restaurant so he wasn't the giorgio locatelli of who he then later became And they saw very quickly that I couldn't go out.

So their concern was, how's she going to be able to go to Waitrose? We have to feed her.

And so they would call me and they'd say, okay, so listen, George has just come back from work and he's managed to bring back some leftovers or some extras or whatever it was.

And there was one day when they called and they said, he's got a truffle and he's made some fresh pasta. And would you like some?

And I'm crying into the phone. I would say, yes, please.
Yes, please. And they'd say, okay, well, in about half an hour, we'll just put it on the wall and it'll be there for you.

And I would go out into the little alleyway that ran down the side of my house. And there was a very high seven or eight foot wall that would divide our two properties.

And there on the wall was a steaming bowl of the most beautiful, delicious linguine with truffle and a glass of red wine. And I felt fitter for things, let me tell you.

And I have never, ever forgotten it. And then later on, I've remained very good friends with them to this day.
And later on, he showed me how to actually make that.

And so that is why that would be my Dreamstarter. Oh, wow i mean you're right that was the story we were hoping

yeah that is incredible i don't know if i'd leave a bowl of pasta on a wall in london not these days this was back in yeah titanic days but it was all hidden from the streets yeah okay between their sort of side gate and my side gate we couldn't be seen

not hidden from foxes though kate foxes or cat or stray cats yeah and then maybe

sorry sorry but that was my philosophic story

and then you were just making ruining it. What if a fox eats it? It was a nice story.

If you think Kate's going to walk into the alleyway, there's a bitch potter-type fox eating it, standing on its hind legs with a waistcoat on, eating it with a fork. Well, that'd be nice.

I'd like that. Yeah, I'd like that.
Better than anything. That's a nice comforting image, actually, if you're a fox in a waistcoat.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, that fox probably hasn't seen Titanic.
Yeah.

Do you know what I mean? Just treat you like a normal person. Yeah, that's right.
It's good that it was hidden, I think, because with all the paparazzi.

It would have been awful if there'd been a shot of you taking some pasta off a wall. Well, especially when at the time they were all talking about, you know, what recent diet I was on.

I mean it was really not good. Yeah.
Not good. She's eating wall pasta.
Well, that's exactly. Or she's eating glue.

I mean they were sometimes, I mean, anyway, let's not go into it, but that was a pretty weird time. But that is a beautiful, that's a beautiful story.
Yeah.

What a lovely, what a lovely thing for them to do. Well, I think it just also, I mean, for me, you know, as...

As I go through life, food becomes increasingly more important, whether it's just simply because you're hungry and you have to remember to sit down and eat something.

But aside from anything else, it can be, it's comfort, complete comfort. And sometimes it can also be getting to know someone or connecting.

And, you know, when I'm really, really busy, I love nothing more than going, okay, right, on this Saturday or that Sunday, what are we going to eat?

And there'll be a conversation about the food that we're going to plan and who's going to cook which bit of it and who's going to come for lunch.

And, you know, it just, there's something, you know, endlessly grounding for me about sitting down with a good meal.

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Hi folks, it's Mark Bittman from the podcast Food with Mark Bittman.

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Your dream main course. course?

Well, look, I know this is a Christmas episode and I know that we're talking about Christmas food anyway at some point today.

But I have to be honest, my dream main course really would be Christmas dinner.

I do love Christmas. My favorite meal of the year.
I love it. My mum

used to make the best roast potatoes. To this day, I sometimes reach for the phone to go and ring her and say, mum, remind me, how long do you do the fat for before you tip the potatoes into the pan?

and it's the great sadness to me is that I can't call my mum and say how did you how did you cook this how did you do that how long for what temperature blah blah so I do love a really amazing Christmas dinner what are the essentials in the Christmas dinner for you red cabbage

and every year I make it to my mum's recipe and every year I cry because of the smell. I'm like, she's not here anymore.
And actually my older two children know that it's going to happen.

So as soon as they start to smell the red cabbage-y smells, smells, they hover in the kitchen. She's going to go

and she's crying. And so I would never be able to go without that.

How's the red cabbage made? What else are you putting in the red cabbage?

Apple, red onion, cranberry sauce goes in as well towards the end.

A little bit of brown sugar, plenty of cloves, cinnamon sticks, things like that.

I love red cabbage on Christmas Day. It's such a...

It feels so Christmassy, but I'm not eating that the rest of the year. No, I would never touch it the rest of the year.
No, it's weird, isn't it?

And I do always think, why don't we eat turkey throughout the year?

It's so extraordinary. I have taken to brining mine.
Oh, yeah. Great.
Which I think I could never go back on now.

It's the way forward for me. Yeah.
100%. Yeah.
So

you're wet brining the turkey or drying. Yeah.
Yeah. So

you've got a huge tub that you're putting this in? I've got a huge tub that I'm putting it in. This is correct.
And the whole thing gets submerged into into there and it always looks very alarming.

Very, very alarming. This sort of huge thing floating in a bunch of, you know, sort of autumnal leaves and rubble from, you know, from the gutter.
But no, it's not rubble at all.

So yeah, God, there's so many things that go in. Oranges, cloves, cinnamon sticks, always, of course, bay leaves, mace, tons of things, tons of peppercorn, salt, lots and lots of salt.

And about five liters of water. But it's become a bit of a ritual in our house, the brining of the turkey.
And are you doing this all by yourself?

No, no, my kids usually help, particularly my son, Joe.

He loves to cook as well. So he tends to get involved now as well, which is fantastic.
You could make him do so much more this Christmas. He'd be like, I directed your bloody film.

Yeah, I directed you. You're getting the bloody film.
You're doing the turkey. You're doing.

But

I do always get roast potato fear because my mum was so brilliant at her roast potatoes. Luckily, my mother-in-law, Rosie, she is a fantastic roast potato queen.

So, if they're joining us, I always, that's always her job. And I'm very grateful for it because they're delicious.
Yeah, I was going to say, how many people are over for Christmas? How many people?

It's usually a minimum, it's usually a minimum of about 10, but it can be up to sort of 14, 16, depending on who's around. Any other celebs ever tagged along for the Winslet Christmas dinner? No.

Jack Black?

No. You've had Jack Black around one year.
Yeah, I haven't. I haven't at all.
You want that to be true, right? Yeah, I want to be. We have the holiday for real.
No, we're not really, we don't really,

we're not really like that as a family.

I mean, I've got some really great friends from the work that I've done over the years, but we don't really have celebrities come for Christmas. Christmas is not for celebrities coming over.

I don't think it is.

If you were told one year

your Christmas dinner was just you and the cast of the holiday, that's it.

Oh my god.

Who do you want to sit next to? Oh my God, I'm quickly thinking. I'm like, okay, don't make the answer controversial, Kate.

Who would I want to sit next to? I definitely want to sit next to Jack. Yeah.
Because he's just gorgeous and hilarious. And, you know, he's great fun.
Also loves food.

How much has that changed the Christmas season for you since that film came out? Like every time it's Christmas, are you going, okay, people are going to come up and bring that up a lot more now? Yes.

So Christmas.

I do have to slightly pick the time of day that I go to Waitrose from about now, mid-November onwards, which is mid-November that we're actually recording this podcast.

From about now onwards, I do have to choose my time of day because if I if I go sort of early evening or kind of middle of the day, people will stop me.

And it is actually lovely and it's something very unexpected. So it's mothers and daughters, mothers and teenage daughters or grown grown daughters.
They will come to me and they say, oh, is it you?

And I'll say, I think it might be me. And then they say, it's such a difficult question.
And And then they just say, we have to say, we just have to say our favorite film.

And I'm thinking, bless you, you think that you're the only people for whom this is a ritual. And actually, there's this ritual that has emerged between mothers and daughters.

And at some point over Christmas, they send everyone off to the pub and they sit down and they order a takeaway and they watch the holiday and then they have a big box of chocolates.

And it is a thing. Yeah.
And it is so lovely. I have to say, it's very gratifying and heartwarming that that happens.
Yeah. But you still can go to Waitrose.
It's not like the old days.

I go to Waitrose's all the time. Nobody's putting a brine turkey on the wall for you.

No, no, yeah, yeah. No, believe me, I go to Waitrose all the time.
I do everything like normal, take the tube, get the train, do all that.

Yeah, personally, for me, I just like having something to do at a dinner table. If it gets a bit quiet, I can do the napkin.
Mr. Napkin.
I can do Mr. Napkin.
Can you do the Mr. Napkin?

Yeah, of course.

I do Mr. Napkin head, especially when Bear, my youngest, who's about to turn 12, when he was little, we've got lots and lots of videos on phones of us doing my name is Mr.

Napkin yeah all over the world in various different places whenever i was filming and uh no it's it's it's it's a good one that was that was a dude law improvised was it was it a rip oh yeah oh yeah that's full of that's that's that's he's got to be pleased with that yeah yeah yeah

great life skill

yeah yeah um so we'd normally now ask you your dream christmas dinner yeah but that is your main course anyway it is really i mean i think if i was forced to kind of go off piste and really think of a of a main course that I'd go for, I mean, I do love a pie.

Yeah.

I do love a bit of pastry. I'm more pastry than filling, actually.
So when people eat a pie and they leave the crust,

I just think... Well, it's crazy.
You're just eating like a castle. Are you mad? I mean, I would take a crust off a stranger's plate if I thought it was a picture.

I've been more serious about it anything. Yeah, I've married seriously.
I've never been more serious about anything. Why are you? Yeah, they're cheating a castle.
Yeah.

You're not eating a pie, then? No, it's not. Well, what are you doing? Yeah.
What's the point? Might as well have soup. Yeah.
You might as well have soup or quiche. Absolutely.

They probably wouldn't eat the crust of a quiche either. These people, they're just eating the scrambled egg.
See, and

I would take the crust off a stranger's vaquiche as well. Do love it.

So, yeah, I love

a good old pie. I'd always reach for that.
And it's in any restaurant. Preferred fill-in for the pie? Well, it's probably sort of a chicken and veg-type vibe,

something like that. I don't eat a huge amount of meat, actually.
I'm talking about all the meat things, but I don't really eat a huge amount of meat. My husband Ned is completely vegan

and so I have had to become really good at doing lots of interesting vegetable dishes and I don't think I'm actually very good at it and I could certainly be better.

So at Christmas I do do a pie day actually and so for Ned I always make a lentil and mushroom and walnut Wellington

which he's very covetous of and yet everybody's like oh what are you having and he's like mine mine

I might need it for tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day.

If he can get a whole week out of that, Wellington, um, but yeah, huge fan of pastry, and it also reminds me a bit of my grandmother, my mum's mum.

She was a brilliant cook, and she was back, she was that generation of like, you know, dripping bread and dripping.

And if she got a cold, she would just eat half a raw onion and then she'd be absolutely fine, stinking, of course, but she'd be absolutely fine.

And she used to, she used to go to the fish mango every Friday, You know, back in the day when you'd have, you would have meat once a week and you'd have fish on a Friday and the milk was delivered and the cream on the top was thick and the foil.

And oh my God, I loved it. But she would get fish on a Friday and she would make, sometimes just for herself, because it was a moment of zen for her, a beautiful piece of fish.

And she would make five fat chips, just five, always five. Don't know why.
Maybe it was because she could get five out of one potato. And I do have a memory of that.

And then she'd always make a pie usually some kind of pie over the weekend and there would always be shortening in that in that pastry and it god it was the absolute best and i certainly can't make pastry the way that she did definitely not well we can have the pie that she's made the pastry if you want for the dream yes please and would you like your mum to have made the red cabbage as well for the dream yes and and the potatoes and the potatoes yeah definitely but i would do my turkey which is controversial because to say out loud I think my turkey is better than my mum's turkey.

But she would almost cry. She'd slice into that turkey.
She'd go, oh, it's dry.

That's part of the ritual. It's dry again.
This time it's again. Raj, it's dry again.

It's dry again. I'm going to have to give you leg.

I love that.

What are you doing with your leftovers? I think

this is a big Christmas question. So I am not a fan of a turkey curry.

I do love curry, but I'm not a fan of a turkey curry. Somehow that seems seems very

ad hoc and doesn't make any sense to me. So

I slice it all off. I don't leave it sitting on the bone for days in the fridge.
I slice it all off and I usually freeze some of it.

And typically I will make some sort of a bit huge vegetable soup, vegetable and turkey soup. I'm a big fan of stock.
Yeah. Or if the more popular name now is bone broth,

but I'm a huge fan of a stock. So in fact, not very long ago, I did just make a very big soup at home using my frozen turkey stock from Christmas.

So I freeze big batches of it and will use that a lot, especially if someone's feeling not very well.

I will often just cook up a big soup and that will go in there. Yeah.

Yeah. Got any,

are you having Christmas pudding? Are you having a dessert for your Christmas dinner?

So my, we're very, very lucky in that since my mum, since we lost my mum, my dad met someone else and he has a wonderful wonderful relationship with a great lady named Chris Gale.

She's a gorgeous, gorgeous jazz singer and she used to bake and she had a little cake stool when she was younger and she makes an extraordinary Christmas cake.

So her contribution now is that she brings a Christmas cake. And actually I've started doing Christmas puddings less because I want for Chris's.

beautiful cake to always take a special place on the table. So so we lean to more towards Christmas cake now.
I'm so into Christmas cake now. I used to hate it when I was a kid.
Sure.

Christmas cake, Christmas pudding. I could not understand it.
No, no, I couldn't either. Now.

What's with the hiding of the money that you just know has been dropped a million times in the street and weed on?

Why? Why? No need. No need for that.

But I tell you something in our house, though, that we really can't go without is mince pies because my husband, Ned, he starts eating mince pies, I think at around Halloween, actually, if he can find them.

He's just, yeah, addicted. He sees it as his, yeah.
Yeah, when you first see them on the shelves in shops, it's very exciting it's mince pie season no he well I just I

start to find them in the shopping basket I don't know if I said not that we go shopping together actually because that makes it sound quite sad but we don't but

but if he does do the shop which is often actually he we're very good at sharing those jobs he'll always come back with mince pies and I'll be like what are these doing here it's the second of November and he's like I yes I know I I know but it's cold outside and it's time for a mince pie and he's definitely definitely had one on the way home as well.

A thousand percent, if not two. Yeah, yeah.
Like Krishna Guru Murthy with the custard tarts. Yes, he eats them in the car.
Yeah. So his wife doesn't find out.

Your dream side dish is the next question, but obviously Christmas dinner is a hard one to add a side dish.

I feel like we're pushing more food on you.

Well,

I do love bread sauce, so that's a side, but that's not really a side dish, is it? It's sort of something that you just kind of have to have. But a side dish, I mean, I don't know.

Are we allowed side dishes that could also be considered starters? Yeah. Type of thing.
Yeah. I think so, because we've got pasta to start.
Yeah.

So I do love an oyster.

I do love, but only the little ones.

And I have two stories around my consumption of oysters, which is that forever I would think, oh my God, way too gynecological looking. Can't be doing that.

And then I was lucky enough when I was about 30, 31, to be invited at a dinner. It was a small dinner in New York, because I lived in New York for 10 years.

And it was a small dinner with a group of people who, who my husband at the time, Sam Mendez, he had just worked with Paul Newman and Tom Hanks. Wow.

And somehow I found myself having a meal with them. There were maybe seven or eight of us.
And Paul Newman ordered 24 oysters.

And I was sat beside him and they were passed around the table. He's very, very generous man.
It's the only time I met him.

Passed around the table, would you like an oyster? Would you like one? Would you like one? I'm thinking, oh, God, he's going to offer me a buck and oyster. And I'm going to have to say no.

The plate came to me. And how about you? Would you like an oyster? And I said, no, thank you.
And I looked at his eyes and I went, actually, yes.

Because I thought if I eat this oyster, I will always be able to say, Paul Newman gave me my first oyster. And I had the oyster and I loved it.

And so on occasion, I will order oysters and they're just delicious. Do you think about Paul Newman every time you have an oyster? I do, actually.
I do. And then I tell the story that I just told.

But I don't think I've ever told it on a podcast.

Yes. Road to Pedition was exclusive.
Road to Pedition, exactly right. That film, yes.

There's a point in the video where people will see that you mentioned that they work together, and I go like this.

I don't want people to think

that I wasn't interested in what you were saying. It was that I went

to remember what the film was, it's wrote to Petition again. Great, great film.
Really, really great film. Real good film.

And then, years and years and years later, in 2011, at the beginning of the next chapter of my life, which I'm currently very, very happily immersed in, I met my husband Ned. And

again,

we found ourselves in New York and it was at the very beginning of our relationship. And Chelsea Market is a great market in the city.
And there's an amazing fish shop in there, really spectacular.

And Ned and I were just having one of those kind of early romantic days out wandering around New York City. And I said, oh, should we get some oysters?

And he said, well, I don't know if I've ever had oysters before. And I'm sure I then told him about the Paul Newman story.

And we bought these oysters and and we took them back to the flat where I lived at the time and I I know how to shuck oysters and so I shucked all these oysters and we had the oysters and had some champagne and then and then

we're still together and moving on

you've got to say that I still

got to ball a move on a date yeah if I was on an early date with someone and they were like I'm going to shuck you an oyster. I'd be like, right, well, we're getting married.
Yeah, yeah.

That's absolutely brilliant. There was no question as to whether or not we were going to be together forever.
I knew that as soon as I met him. I was like, oh, it's you.

Oh, it's you. I know it sounds super soppy, but I really did.
Yeah, I really did think that. That's nice.
Good to love that.

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Well, you've mentioned champagne a few times, but your dream drink?

To me, there is something very special about a glass of champagne.

I don't drink champagne all the time. I actually am not, I love a drink, but I'm not a really big drinker.
I don't like getting drunk.

I just, I don't know, the feeling of being out of control and probably the fear that someone's going to take a photograph of me falling over and showing the world my knickers.

Although I feel like I've shown the world my knickers a million times with all the different parts that I've played, so I don't know what I'm worrying about. Well, that's the urine good girl,

right? Yeah, it was that. That's Wardrobe's knickers.
It's not your knickers, that's wardrobe are giving you those knickers. So it's not as personal when they take that one.
You probably were minor.

Oh, okay. That's the scoop.

Spontaneous. They were always cake knickers.
Yeah. In all of the films.
Knicker flushing.

But I do like a glass of champagne. And

I'm not a fan of...

What do you call it? Prosecco. I'm not a fan of Prosecco, I have to be honest.
It's just not the same. But I do love a glass of champagne.
Not fussy. Love a bit of Verve.
Love it. Love Mermaid.

I mean, but I, yeah, there always has to be, there always has to be a reason to have it. Yeah.

Are there people drinking it on the daily or is their regular drink?

Because it would just lose, it would lose all sense of occasion. It's really funny, actually, because as I'm hearing myself say this,

I can hear the voices of a couple of my friends saying, Kate, you don't drink champagne on occasion. You drink it whenever you're offered it.

And actually, to be perfectly honest with you, that's also true. Yeah, I would imagine.
Yeah, so that is your dream drink. It is my dream drink, yeah.
Yeah, what sort of glass do you want it in?

There you go, he loves it. Fussy, I'm not fussy.
He's upset.

It could be a clean jam jar, it could be a plastic tub. I don't care.
I know, I'm not. Not in the brining tub, you can't have it at the brining tub.

No, but you could have it in a sort of a plastic picnic cup.

Don't mind about that. My favourite glass is done now.
What? My other favourite glass is done. Broken? Not broken.
The boiler man used it to put all the sludge in it. Didn't even ask me.

That's very upsetting. Didn't even ask me.

The boiler was acting up. Yeah.
I was like, let me know if you need me. I'm in the other room.
It's like, yeah, it's all done. It's like, yeah, basically loads of sludge.

You've got to empty the condenser. I've done it.
And then I looked and there's my favourite glass just full of grey

disgusting

stuff he'd got out the boiler. Oh no.
And I was like, that's it. Brother, just ask me.
Just shout in the next room. Hey, I need to empty the sludge.

You got something that you're not going to drink out of every day oh my god just use my glass use my favourite glass upsetting yeah really upsetting that's done i think you know i one thing i will say i'm not precious about glasses because they get broken they do all the time and if if people ever come to stay or they're staying in our house if we're away i'll just say don't worry about breaking anything nothing's precious there's nothing out that you know is too important not to be broken because I just don't think you can live like that.

I don't want people to ever ever come into my house and feel like they can't touch anything or but you'd say if you oh if you're coming over to maybe put sludge in stuff yeah maybe I'll leave out a sludge glass I'll leave out a sludge glass for you just in case you need to put some sludge in it.

Yeah I'd be clear about that. A friend of ours, Stuart Laws, who's a comedian, had a routine that I was quite jealous of about the glass that you used to catch a spider with.

And then you always remember that that's the spider glass. That's the spider glass.
Yeah. And then you give it to guests that you don't like.

We used to have, when we were growing up, we used to have a sil what we would call a silver fish dish.

And they were these kind of terrible little sort of 20p from a jumble sail sort of small metal boat type dishes that you know my mum would put you know a blob of ice cream if we were lucky into and uh and I and I remember that there was there was actually you know this little silver fish that crawl around the skirting boards would always be silver fish that would sit in these dishes in the cupboard so just hang out yeah so that would they would become the silver fish dishes and that was also your ice cream dish it was also the ice cream dish yeah

but there was no no backup, so we had to just plow on and continue to use the dish. Wouldn't stop me from eating ice cream.
You know that, probably. Yeah, yeah.

If it was crawling with silverfish, I'd still be eating it. If it was all over the scoops.
Did you have a sick bowl at home? Yeah. We had a sick bowl.
Actually, it was a sick bucket.

It was orange and it lived under the sink. That's better for sick, I'd say, because like the bowl situation, you're like...
Are you going to use this bowl for anything else?

I just don't know if we had any bowls that were big enough, quite honestly. The only bowl that we would have had would have been the bowl of the salad spinner.

That might have been big enough. And that was brown.

you don't want to be sick in a salad spinner though no that's going all over the place i definitely don't jesus don't want to be sick into a salad spinner no but look we had an orange sick bucket yeah with a white handle remember stuart laws who i mentioned a minute ago yeah yeah guess where he went recently and sent me videos of his whole trip there oh god uh i know i'm gonna pronounce it wrong even though mon montauque montawk the place in the saddle sunshine that you go to he went there and he was really excited about it because he knew i'd like it so he sent me videos of his whole trip he was at the station that you guys are at oh yeah went to all the different locations it was absolutely it was brilliant out there I loved it and it was it was very very cold and it wasn't meant to snow and you know there's that scene in it I don't need to tell you

I don't need to tell you do I where they wake up though

they wake up in a bed on the beach in the snow okay wasn't meant to snow

and we got there late one night the whole crew and Carsby had all travelled out there woke up in the morning literally three foot of of snow everywhere.

So I called Michelle and I said, Oh, God, what are we going to do? He's like, What do you mean? This is fantastic. We are going to shoot in that.

And then there we are, you know, on the beach, in the bed, in the snow. Completely.
I mean, I don't think you'll ever see that again anywhere in America because what are the chances?

And it was freezing, but yeah, completely amazing. I loved Montauk.
There was a cafe

that I would go to on the way to work, and I would always get a coffee and a really delicious, thick doorstop-sized.

It was in a sort of like an oatmeal raisin cookie with loads of lovely ground spices in it and nutmeg and things. And yeah, see, I love food.

My kids always say to me, you always remember the places we went by the food that we ate. Quite right, sir.
That's absolutely true. I really do.
Yeah.

I went on David Cross's podcast and I really annoyed him by asking him, How many times a week does he think to himself, I was in eternal sunshine, the spotless mind. And he was like, never.

I don't think that. Carrie, I'm making a birdhouse.
I quoted that to him on his podcast. He did not like it.
He remembered it. He wasn't impressed by me for shouting that.

I did exactly what you've just done.

And he was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was like, come on, man.
What a line. It's a funny line.
I've seen there's such brilliant scenes as well in Waiting for Guffman. You've seen that.

Please tell me you've seen Waiting for Guffman.

Oh my God, that's one of our favourites. There's that scene.
I've been coming out to this landing site.

The temperature is always the same.

So, yeah, he's genius. He's so, so talented.
Well, he doesn't like his genius being brought up to him. I'll tell you that much.
Oh, okay. It's fun, fun to wind him up.
He's a curmudgeon.

So it was really fun. You know, winding him up on his own podcast about how much I love Eternal Sunshine.
He was not happy. Not happy, not having it.

I would ask you how often you think I was in Eternal Sunshine, but I imagine probably not much. Well, it's been coming up a lot recently.

And what I think is amazing is how that is turning into a bit of a cult classic and that there's a whole other, a little bit like Titanic.

You know, there's another generation of young people who are discovering it, largely because of the music, because the soundtrack is so incredible.

But that's, I just, I never would have expected that, you know. And people will quote to me that line, I'm just a fucked-up girl who's looking for my own peace of mind.

It is a great line written by the great Charlie Kaufman. She was such an extraordinary character, incredible.
And those wigs, I mean, my God, they were all wigs. There's

a lot of colours. Yeah,

and

I did get to keep a couple of them, which is pretty cool.

Yeah, it was just an amazing character to play.

And I really did feel like I could be quite free and experimental and learned a lot about myself as an actor through that process and sort of being brave and just trying stuff.

That thing of like, you know, just making mistakes.

That was positively encouraged by Michelle Gondry. Yeah.
Was there anything in particular that you did that? I'd be my last Eternal Sunshine question.

I don't believe you, but okay.

Now I can see why David Cross cut you off so quickly. He was furious.
I'm not going to cut you off, darling. Go.
Go on.

Was there anything particularly that you did that was taking a risk that made it in the film and you were like, oh, I'm really glad that I did that?

Yeah, I think there's that line when

in

that hilarious sequence where the memories are erasing and there's a bit where

the Joel character is being bathed in the kitchen sink by his mum and then where there's that perspective set where he's under the table, so genius.

And when i went my grad is still here just look just as you remember it and i flashed my knickers that was definitely spur of the moment yeah your knickers your knickers or wardrobe

i soon to remember they were pink i don't think i'd ever wear pink knickers not in real life actually i've got one more question but but okay go on it it links to another film and stuff does it link to food which is what this podcast is supposed to be about come on come on did did you and elijah wood uh talk about being directed by peter jackson at completely different times in his career because he didn't he had he was just about to go away.

He hadn't done it yet. No, he was just about to go and start shooting Lord of the Rings from memory.

From memory,

he hadn't gone yet. Because you were like...
Maybe I'm wrong.

Did you do his first job? No, no, no, I am wrong about that. No, he had done some of it.

Elijah had done some and he was going back, I think, to do additional shooting or reshoots or something like that.

And no, he didn't talk about it very much. He's quite a sort of...
Actors on the whole don't talk about other jobs to each other just because because it's just the work, it's private.

I mean, I'm sure you don't talk about you know that show you did last night. We do all the time, it's the only thing we talk about.

We texted each other last night about our gigs as they were happening, saying how great you both were, yeah, yeah, of course, how funny you were, and how much we love doing stand-up, and how we really respect our audience.

We're not scared at all when you walk out onto the stage, and we love the reaction we get. And the audiences are perfect and they're lovely.
Okay, yeah, yeah, we're so grateful. Great weirdos.

Your dream dessert.

So I had to think long and hard about this because it is a toss-up between two, but I am going to go with my own apple crumble. Love that.

And the reason for that is because I cook or bake my crumble topping first.

So, you know, you get excited about a crumble and then you realise that half of it stuck to the roof of your mouth because the sort of the

flour and buttery sugar mixture actually has just steamed on the top and might have gone a bit crunchy in certain areas around the edges so i part bake mine and it just goes all biscuity and lovely so the crumble topping is baked separately on a flat baking sheet and then i'll cook my apples a little bit first with some cinnamon and sugar i feel like i've talked about cinnamon a lot i guess i probably use it a lot it's the season for it though it's the season for cinnamon um and so so i said then the apples will go in a baking dish and then and then i'll put my delicious crumbly topping all over the top and that will go in for another 15 minutes.

And I would have that. So Ned would have custard.
He absolutely loves custard and he says flood it, flood it. But I actually love a big dollop of clotted cream.
Nice. Proper Cornish clotted cream.

Shout out to Cornwall again. Shout out to Cornwall again.
Cornwall's really coming out. I've spent my life shouting out to Cornwall.

The problem is there's a lot of lot of tin in the clotted cream in Cornwall. Stop talking about it.
Stop talking about it. Because the cows are drinking the water, aren't they?

So they're drinking the tin and

you would be the one to be told stop talking about it.

The second time the tin's come up, stop talking about it. Yeah.
Stop talking about it. Eternal sunshine? 50 times? A turtle questions.
A turtle questions about tin and clotted cream.

Turtle questions of the obsessed mind. Because you said that.
You said there's tin in the water. Well, I don't know if there is.
I just said rumour has it. Yeah.
Rumour has it, Ed. Sorry, sorry.

Rumour has it.

So that would be, that would actually be my dessert. And that was a tough one one for me because I'm such a fan of cheese.
So I could easily go with a great cheese board. Well, that's good.

That that is.

She makes guests. I'd be really angry if guests pick a cheese board instead of dessert.
Whereas I love it.

I'm the cheese boy. Are you? And when you were sort of...
What's your favourite cheese? I am curious, actually. The thing is, if we...
No, I would probably go with a British cheese.

And my go-to would just be a very, very mature cheddar. I think that you can't beat a very mature cheddar.
Yep. But then also, if we're...
Have you tried Sussex Charmer? No. Oh.

it's chalky it's crumbly it's sharp it's dark i like the crumble i like

and it's sold in a it's like a sort of almost like a wax paper wrapping which i love and uh and it comes in a perfect cube yeah it's delicious it's delicious sussex charmer i'm going to check that out yeah every year for christmas my mother-in-law buys me the godminster cheddar nice and like all the varieties so they do a truffle one that is out of this world and then a chili one and then just the the normal one i love that stuff but then love a Stilton as well, Colston Bassett Stilton, obviously.

And then, sure, Manchego, Comte, an aged comte. Lovely.
We could do a whole separate episode on cheese. Yeah, we should do.
I mean, you can pick cheese.

You can pick cheese for your dessert if you wanted. No, I'm not going to do that.
He's making a face. Yeah.
Looking directly into this canva. But yes,

I'm not sure. I've worked in a delicatessen, but a proper delicatessen with like, you know, beautiful Epicurean foods.
And James Kate's telling a story. I'm telling a story.
Hello.

You're not sniffing. I'm looking into the corner

he's bored of me i was furious i won't talk to you about eternal sunshine anymore oh tell me about the delicatessen

um but i used to i used to work on the cheese counter at this delicatessen oh my god i did get to know all my cheeses and uh yeah love a good cheese

you can have a cheeseboard after the meal if you like yeah but

it's too full and i think i prefer the crumble first we can just leave it on the side and you can just nibble on it later on on the wall there's a delicious french cheese

called uh

you. The little cheeseboard on the wall? I do, yeah.
Okay.

There's a delicious French cheese called Charosse that I absolutely love, which is, it's sort of, it's the, it's almost the colour of a of a goat cheese with a with a rind that is also pale like a goat cheese, but it's not.

It's made with cow's milk and it's uh it's not as kind of stinky and runny as a camembert.

It's really smooth, delicious with like a sort of a fruit bread or something like that.

It's really delicious. I'm so excited for Christmas now because I'm going to go absolutely cheese crackers.
Yeah. I can't wait.
You're going to go cheese crackers.

I'm going to go crackers and cheese, cheesecrackers. Truffle brie.
Oh, yeah. God, you've got to have a nice sort of triple cream truffle brie.

Oh my god, do that.

Yes, I can't wait to. But this crumble also sounds delicious.
And I like that it's your crumble. Because like you say, your mum's roast potatoes were the best.

Do you think the crumble is going to be the thing that you pass down to your children? They're going to be like, my mum's crumble was the best.

Well, there is something else that I, that my children would prefer I pass down to them, which is that it's a very decadent bread and butter pudding that they do request that I make at Christmas as well.

And this has become a new thing.

We were in Vancouver for Christmas several years ago. And in this particular area of Vancouver, there's a wonderful doughnut shop and it's quite a famous doughnut shop.

I don't particularly eat doughnuts, but these things are so good. What's it called? It's called Honey's Donuts.

This donut shop and it is in a, no, it's in a tiny little place called Deep Cove in Vancouver, in North Vancouver.

And the owners, very kindly, when we were there, gave us a huge box of probably, I don't know, 12 or 16 donuts. And I really thought, oh my God, what are we going to do with these things?

I made the two-day-old donuts into bread and butter. I just know James is losing his mind.

It was unbelievably delicious. And

now my kids do say, mum, come on, you've got to. And now in England, we don't have honey's donuts, of course.

But, you know, pannettone, leftover croissants or cruffins, a cruffin, you know, the big sort of swirly things with the kind of crusty top with the sugariness all over them.

So, yeah, so rather than going with actual bread, I will try and find some sort of cake and put that into this very, very decadent bread and butter pudding.

And they, that, that they, they would, in fact, last year my daughter was like, you got, you have, you're going to have to show me how to do it. Yeah.
Um, it's delicious.

Were all the doughnuts like plain donuts? No. So here, so some of them have a slight caramel topping.
Some of them have chocolate.

And I was like, okay, just break them up, shove it in.

So every spoonful, you're getting like, you might get a different flavour doughnut. You have a different flavour doughnut in every bite.
That's pretty special. Pretty delicious.

I think I'm adding that to my dream menu.

I haven't even eaten it. Really, really like ridiculously good.
I always think we should do like an episode where we only can make our menus off of things that other guests have picked. Yeah.

And I'd pick that. Yeah.
I'll make it for you. But I don't think it's on the bottom.
That's not going to happen. But the fact that the office there.

No, I will. Yeah, we've had people come on this podcast before.

And they've said they'll make it. They make our promises.
And they never make it.

They make promises. They say, let's go for a cocktail at that place.
I mean, I'm a woman of my word. Okay.
Cocktails. You see, I'd have to go for a Negroni if we were going out for a cocktail.

Although I did, someone did make me a very, very strong one this summer and I loved it. And I loved it so much that I had a second one.
And the next day, I swear to God, I thought I had brain damage.

I honestly, I was like, completely, I felt like a bag of smashed crabs.

What's happened to me?

I really love that.

I'll be using it like that. And then I think I'll be taking smashed crabs.
Bag of smashed crabs. Absolutely loved it.

Okay, I'm going to read you your menu back now. Go on.
See how you feel about it.

By the way, you've said French airlines today and French cheeses. And I was trying to come up with a paint-me-like your French girls thing and I couldn't do it.
And

just so you know, I did try, but sometimes we fall short. No, no, no.
No, no, no.

It was a good try, though, James. Just so you know, I tried and I couldn't do it.
No, okay. I'm not

on my best form today.

Okay.

Still a sparkling what you want still, tap water from Cornwall. Poppadoms of bread you would like, warm, crusty bread and breadsticks with thick butter.
Yeah.

Starter, pasta with truffle and shaved parmesan. Lovely story.

Main course, Christmas dinner with your own turkey, your mum's roast potatoes, mum's red cabbage, with bread sauce, with chicken and vegetable pie as well with grandmother's pastry and Christmas cake.

Side dish, oysters, the little ones. Drink, champagne, dessert, your own apple crumble with Cornish cotted cream.
Yep.

That sounds great. Yeah.
It does actually, doesn't it? That sounds really nice. Nothing overly fancy apart from, well no, actually I lied, the truffle and the oysters and the champagne.

What am I talking about? I'm somebody I didn't think I was, clearly.

Yeah, but you've still got the the Christmas dinner in there and the red cabbage pie yeah and the pie I think it's a good mix grounding thing and look it's mid-November like we say it's the first time I've felt Christmassy this year oh good and that's because of your menu there you go I feel quite Christmassy actually and there's a little Christmas cake Christmas tree next to you yeah that's not a Christmas tree

no plastic thing with tip X on the ends of it look like snow yeah Benito what the hell are you playing at? Benito, what is your problem? What the fuck are you putting that next to Cake Winslet for?

Is it a little gingerbread house up there? Little sweet gingerbread house. You see, that's designed for a tea light.
One of those. Why aren't they called tea lights? I don't know, actually.

I've never seen them.

Why are they? I don't know. Yeah, they're rubbish, aren't they? They are rubbish and they always go out.
Yeah, yeah. It's the battery-operated ones you have to get.
But

I do like a little sort of house with a little candle in it. Yeah, that's a nice touch, actually.
Oh, no, because the screen says Christmas special on it. I didn't even know.
I didn't realise that.

He does so much for us and we don't want to. Why is there a chopped octopus leg? Yes.
Yeah, that's interesting, isn't it? That's not Christmassy, is it? That's not Christmassy at all.

I know it's a food podcast, but it's a Christmas special. Yeah, think about like Christmas tree.
You have a chopped octopus leg for Christmas.

Maybe they do in Spain or something, but is that a cabbage or a brain, Benito? It's bustle sprout, I reckon. It's a poo, actually.
It's a poo. It's a shit.
You put a shit on an octopus leg.

You've got Kate Winslet on the podcast. You put a shit on the screen.
It is a petrified poo. Yeah.
Yeah.

So sorry.

So sorry, Kate.

Sorry, Kate. It's okay.
We were good, though, right? You were great. You were great.
Yeah, we were good. You were nice.
You were relaxed. You were kind.
And you were funny. Yeah, pretty funny.

Didn't ask too many questions about eternal science.

I thought I was quite funny. You were, I thought you were.
Was I surprisingly funny? No, you've been funny in films.

Did you not know what you were going to get and you're relieved to discover that? No, I think I knew you'd be a funny and warm and open interviewee. Okay, good.
I've seen you in anything.

I was never worried about when you were coming in. Okay, sometimes people coming in, we're like, I don't know how this is going to go.
And sometimes we're right.

And when we finish recording, you're going to tell me who was the scariest person. Robert De Niro.
Robert De Niro. Oh, I don't think he's scary, is he? No, not scary, just intimidating as a process.

Intimidating, yes. Yeah, yeah.
Yes,

I can see that. That might be a surprise to the guests.
And he's very

comfortable with not giving answers. Oh.

Oh. Oh, that may be...
Okay. It was a funny episode, though, because our listeners know us and they like to hear us flail sometimes.
Oh, yeah, yeah.

But that's sorry to tell you, but that was an option. We've got a flailing today.

We've not needed to flail. Good.
It's been fantastic. Thank you.
Thank you so much for coming to the Dream Restaurant, Kate, and Merry Christmas. My pleasure.
And you, thank you very much.

James,

that was a dupe cut shot.

What?

What's the dream come true? She was brilliant. How good was that? I did talk about a ton of sunshine.
I broke my promise, but she brought it up.

She did bring it up, which, you know, and brought it up quickly as well. I was like, oh, we're in.
I could trouble it. I couldn't believe it.
We are in trouble.

I was really restrained until a certain point.

Yeah, until towards the end when it was maybe five. I thought I've got to get them all in now.

The problem is, James, and you know this about me, is, of course, I've seen Eternal Sunshine multiple times. Yeah.
But I don't remember anything that happens in any film ever I've ever watched.

Yeah, yeah. I go to films, I go, that's brilliant.
I'm going to remember this as one of my favourite films. And then you asked me about it three days later.
I could not tell you who's in it.

No, I could not tell you what the storyline was.

Also, I just go and see films and I go, That was good.

I thought that was good. I better Google to check to see if I was right.
Yeah. Yeah.
So when I do stuff like that, do you? Yeah. You've got to just sit there.

I've got to sit there, but it's really interesting watching you interview Kate Winslet about Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. And occasionally I would go,

Chase. Yeah, dream come true.
Oh, yeah, do you have a sick bowl at home?

Yeah, yeah, that was good.

You jumped on the sick bowl stuff.

Kate didn't say Clementine either. No.

Thank God. Even in reference to the character.
She didn't even say the word. Yeah, well, she knew you didn't need to know the name of the character.
She knew.

She knew this guy knows everything about this.

What a joy. Watch Goodbye June.
It's in cinemas now and on Netflix on Christmas Eve. December 24th.
December 24th, for those of you who don't know that that's Christmas Eve. Watch it on YouTube.

You can watch this on YouTube. You can watch this on YouTube.
You can't watch Goodbye June on YouTube, but you can watch this on YouTube. This podcast.
Yeah, yeah. Both talking to Kate Winslet.

Yeah, yeah. On YouTube.

Yeah, I wonder how many shots there will be of me looking back and forth as we should release a whole different version where it's just my shot while they're talking about eternal sunshine.

Right, and my shot when you're talking about cheese. Yeah, well, yeah, that'll be in it.
So rude.

Funny for the first bit. And then she starts telling an anecdote about working in a delicatessen.
I could not believe when I looked around and you were still doing that.

Yeah, yeah, really rude stuff. Weirdly mood.
But luckily, she was lovely and what a brilliant interview. Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I absolutely loved every second of it.

Thank you, Kate, if you're listening. Smash it out of the park.
Ajake I chair. Ajack I

thank you so much for listening all year, but the year is not done for off menu because we will, of course, be releasing our best of the year episodes, the compilations. Yeah.

And we'll be back for a new series of off menu in January. And what a way we're kicking that off.
What a way we're kicking it off. Merry Christmas.
Happy seasonal period. Have a good December.

Happy New Year. Goodbye.
Bye.

Hey guys, it's Kamal Nanjiani. My new stand-up special, Night Thoughts, is now streaming on Hulu.
I promise you're gonna laugh. I am an immigrant.

Are there any other immigrants here?

Okay, what you can't do is point at someone else.

Night Thoughts is now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundled subscribers. Terms apply.
That wasn't my call. If it wasn't my call, terms would not apply, but it's not my call.

Terms apply.

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