Spinning Plates with Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Episode 9: Thomasina Miers

Episode Date: August 31, 2020

Welcome to the 9th episode of the series where Sophie chats to chef and founder of Wahaca Thomasina Miers. Tommi has built her life around her love of food and cooking and she is keen to make a healthy, sustainable diet achievable for all. Her three little girls are aged 4, 7 and 9 and they eat a broad range of homemade food where kids meals aren’t infantilised and everyone eats better as a result. Here Sophie and Tommi talk food as a political issue, bad moods in lockdown and the eternal joy of tequila. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, I'm Sophia Lispector and welcome to Spinning Plates, the podcast where I speak to busy working women who also happen to be mothers about how they make it work. I'm a singer and I've released seven albums in between having my five sons aged 16 months to 16 years, so I spin a few plates myself. Being a mother can be the most amazing thing but can also be hard to find time for yourself and your own ambitions. I want to be a bit nosy and see how other people balance everything. Welcome to Spinning Plates. Hey hey how are you? It is I your host of Spinning Plates podcast. I am getting increasingly loopy with my introductions to the podcast, you'll not find. Anyway, I hope everything's all right with you. I am

sat sheltering from a bit of a thunderstorm, actually. We've had a bit of a heat wave, and now the rain has come, and that's good. And talking of heat waves, when I interviewed this week's guest, lovely Thomasina Myers, who is the winner of MasterChef 2005, I believe it was, but also the founder of Wahaka. Among many other things that she gets up to, her cookbooks, her association with chefs in schools, helping children learn how to cook tasty, affordable food. When I spoke to Tommy, it was another very hot day. So you'll hear us talking

about having hot thighs, actually. And we're not talking about cooking thighs, we're talking about literally our own thighs being warm. It was really lovely to talk to Tommy. I went round to her house to chat to her and she was very, very open and warm and very candid actually about a period in her life she calls her wilderness years where she sort of feels like she wasn't really sure what she should be doing or what she should be up to. Which I think when you hear how driven she is and how many ideas she has and how much momentum there is in her life, I think will kind of surprise you. But hey, we can all feel a little bit restless. And sometimes if you have that kind of energy, you're actually very prone to feeling really quite lost when you don't

really know where to direct it. And I can definitely relate to that feeling of just thinking I've got all this energy and I don't really know what it is I'm supposed to be getting on with in my life. She's also an example of someone where some of the women I've spoken to, they have their careers, they have their children. And then after having a baby, they sort of rethink everything. Whereas with Tommy, I feel like she scooped up her bubbers. She three little girls um and i think they are aged let me get this right i think it is four and seven and nine um tommy will probably correct me with that when we start talking um but um you know she it feels like she sort of scooped them up along for the ride with her with her with her work i feel like what she does for a living and how she

approaches her work would have been pretty much the same if there were children strapped on her back or not but as it happens she has got them and a very happy home life she has too she's managed to overcome an unhealthy relationship with food as she talks about when she was younger she's now the other side of that so you know someone who's very strong and also very open about um any mental health wobbles which i know happened to many of us so i think you know it's so important to keep these conversations out in the open because actually it turns out that everybody's had those kind of things happen to them one time in their life or knows someone that has oh that's sweet can you hear birds tweeting in the background i can hear the sounds of birds tweeting and I can also hear the sound of Minecraft because one of my kids has got a play date and they are happily building something

in a virtual land. What a strange modern world we live in. Anyway, over to Tommy and her wisdom. You don't need any more of me nattering along. Actually, I am going to make a cup of tea. I know I always finish off this bit with a cup of tea, but it's actually genuinely what I always feel like doing. I don't know. I must associate you with tea. It can only be a good thing. I love tea and I love you. So enjoy.

See you on the other side. Thanks so much for coming to find me again. Tommy, thank you very much for talking to me today. I should probably explain to people listening in black and white where we are. We are in your bedroom, actually, but we're socially distanced, just to reassure everybody. Even if I stretch my arm out, I won't be able to reach you. I know. But we can speak, and it's a really hot day out there, and we've shut all the windows,

so if we start to sound a bit parched that'll be why slightly reminds me of a podcast I did with Violet, Claire Patak I call her Claire Cakes we did a live podcast we had an audience of 60 people in her cake shop in East London and it was a day like this

it was so sweaty and I just remember the sensation of my thighs slipping against each and it was a day like this it was so sweaty and i just remember the sensation of my thighs slipping against each other it was so hot i'm sure i'll be able to replicate that it's funny how many jobs i've done actually where i have been in stiflingly hot situation you just kind of get on with it don't you know you're thinking oh i think i'm doing a video once on what must have been one of the hottest days ever on record. And we just, all of us, the whole band, just needs to be kept mopping down over and over again. And the makeup was all sliding off.

And you look back and you think, that was actually really unpleasant. I mean, maybe in the cake shop it was quite nice, but definitely doing the video was not that nice. Just too hot. But at the moment, I'm not that hot right now. No, it's all right. It's all right.

It's actually okay. We've reached that point. It's okay. We're doing okay so far. And when we got here, you said you've been cooking in the kitchen. It's actually okay. We've reached that point. It's okay. We're doing okay so far. When we got here, you said you've been cooking in the kitchen. Can I ask you what you've been cooking today? I have got some gooseberries poaching because I couldn't resist them in the market.

But they've been in the fridge for quite a long time now, so I thought I'd better cook them. So I can't decide. I've got a couple of friends coming into the garden tonight um to have a drink and I thought I could make some fool or ice cream so I'm trying to decide which um because I love both I love a nice fool yeah um so I'd probably go for the fool just because I think that's there's something so like comforting and yeah and then and then I'm getting really into chili recently I've been doing lots of seasonal British. And then I suddenly had a change of mood this week. And I've got lots of aubergine.

I'm doing a photo shoot tomorrow here for my new website. So I've been going through all my old cookbooks by this lovely photographer, who's another working mum, Tara Fisher, who basically built her career up single-handedly, raised her kids, put them through private school really impressive um woman and um so I've been I was looking through last night all my old cookbooks by her thinking I could use some of that photography and um and then I found this amazing Sichuan aubergine recipe so I'm going to do that for supper tonight oh that sounds good yeah lots of chili and kind of you know lovely gunky Chinesey Sichuan pepper all the stuff that

gets stuck to the pan will be extra extra good we've been eating quite a lot of spicy food at home actually as well yeah um something tells me that that that will be really delicious um yeah because it's uh we should probably get the kind of uh coronavirus chat out the way really how have you been finding everything during lockdown because presumably you've still been working all the way through it yeah so i mean the really lovely aspect of it was that uh so three days a week i do oaca, and that's tearing around the restaurants around the country, around London, and a lot of work in sight, which is really fun and lovely.

But spending so much time at home has really released a kind of inner creative. And it's been really lovely cooking a lot all the time. And I've done more social media than I have ever really done, because I find the juggle of running the restaurants, having my column, the children, it's just a lot. And so I've always found social media

kind of falls down a bit. I've had a bit more time to do that. And it's been really fun. Although the trouble with social media is you go on it and then you always then think my god they're doing so much more and they're doing it so much better but I try not to deal with that because I think I'm you know I'm in my 40s I should be grown up enough to like deal with that and it's probably not the case and anyway it's fun it's just it is fun if you just focus on what you're doing I find that

is a really good maximum life and I've always found it my recipe writing I try not to when I'm coming up with recipes I try not to gaze at what other people are doing I just focus on what I what crops up in my head and what I feel creative about and then that's normally the best way forward anyway so lots of cooking I've become I've one of the cliche sourdough makers uh yeah I have a mother in our fridge at the moment so yeah we're also making sourdough at home yeah which is like mother in our fridge at the moment so yeah we're also making sourdough yeah which is like so satisfying it really is and that's been my favorite that's my favorite lockdown thing to like travel around my neighbors and give them a loaf of sourdough and and kind of say hi on their doorsteps that was good and also our local school i was giving

the teachers sourdough so i think at the beginning i made it really obsessively like i was making two loaves every day or every other day i've just calmed down a bit now I think real life is starting to kind of creep back in yeah but it's interesting because what you're saying about that desire to cook at home I mean obviously cooking is your day job but it's actually also just how to nourish a family how to spend time together how to feel like at the end of a day no matter what else you haven't done you've managed to achieve making a meal and a really tasty meal to sit down because I know in our house we've been cooking loads as well Rich has been doing loads of amazing recipes I think it's just a way to channel that energy yeah yeah and it's fun it is there I know some you know some of my

girlfriends don't enjoy cooking as much and some of them really love it and I think if you love it you know basically if you're greedy and you love eating then at the end of it you get delicious food which is what you want and then the process of it I find really calming and you know there's something really lovely about listening to the radio or having the television on in the background or chatting to someone you know having a drink if you want to and just pottering around in the kitchen yeah creating essentially yeah so yeah I think it's great and the generosity of it as well I mean when you say you're taking around your neighbours and going to the school and seeing the teachers there's a there's a lot of ways to say to show appreciation and affection for people and when you cook them something to eat well hospitality I'm reading a

book called Zootopia which is about how we feed ourselves in the future it's quite heavyweight so I've been going through it fairly slowly but it is a brilliant book by Karen Steele. And a lot of it is how society has changed over thousands of years. But essentially, you know, food is what we survive on. You know, without food, we die. And I think that complete, we've lost a lot of that connection that not only is it survival, but, over thousands of years it's been a way that we communicate you know we used to make fire when we found fire before that was it was harder but once we found fire it became a center place of a cave or wherever you were to sit around together and be able to like chat and yeah break bread together and it for me it is the most fundamental way to enjoy yourself dancing

you know obviously there's sex which is great um but food you know if eating with your friends sharing food there's just no greater pleasure it's it's idyllic yeah i just find it yeah the pleasure and if you're in a couple with young children in lockdown making food is probably easier than achieving some of the other things that are on that list yeah when you suddenly got like kids everywhere and no time to sell sometimes yeah kids kids at home while you're trying to get work done is um is a struggle yeah so you've got three little girls haven't you and so the two birthdays you've had in the last two weeks is that two of your daughters yeah okay yeah so we had a nine a nine-year-old party and a four-year-old party when I say party I've

tried to make as much party atmosphere as possible yeah um but we did we did fun stuff we kind of made our own pizzas and we um we did we yeah we did kind of throwing the eggs um and then you know frantic hand washing after that um with their you know six people we allowed in the garden oh that's sweet so that was that was quite good actually yeah, six people we allowed in the garden. Oh, that's sweet. So that was quite good actually. Yeah, we've got, my husband's lockdown mission was clearing, he filled three skips of detritus from the garden.

Wow. Over lockdown, single-handedly. That's actually a large amount. Yeah, so that kept him quite busy. So our gardens actually was perfect for egg throwing competitions and stuff like that. I think the focus on home and doing the big sort out this morning actually before I came to you I was organizing the big pile of stuff we've got for charity shop and putting it all in different places and I I'm really looking forward to being

able to move it on now because I did so much clearing and sorting and polishing I ended up dusting things that have been dusted for about a decade I think yeah yeah which, yeah, yeah. Yeah, which, by the way, I might point out, it's really good for a couple of days, and then after about a month, it kind of looks the same as it did before that anyway. Yeah. I feel like 10 years dust and two weeks dust doesn't look massively different on the shelf,

but maybe that's just me. And a comment on my own, I don't know, my state of my house. So we should probably talk a bit about life before lockdown really um because so obviously food is and cooking is something that's been your day job what since around the time of master chef or was that a time when it really was it something when i was reading up about it it seemed like master chef was a sort of simultaneous moment where you thought actually this is the thing i really want to do yeah that was definitely a catalyst although actually even going back before that I spent three months in Ireland um at Ballymaloo um which is a lovely kind of gentle cooking school um in in in

in southern Ireland and I essentially I'd always cooked like from the age of six I used to find playing at home, I just couldn't do it. I was really bad at it. I used to get really jealous of my brother and sister who'd spent hours really happily playing with the dolls and stuff. And I'd just end up causing trouble and getting, you know, being in trouble. So I used to just sit by my mother and stir pots with her and learn how. I was really fascinated by how she could make quite humble ingredients taste really delicious. She had this clever clever knack so I was always really into it and then all through

childhood like you know trying to earn money at school I used to earn pocket money by cooking for that for their friends and um really you know that young well yeah it was just any way to get some cash in like my parents had very little cash so I was kind of... And I really loved it. I mean... So how old were you when you were doing that? Well, like 13, 14. Really? I mean, I really did... That's very entrepreneurial.

Well, I just really loved it as well. It was kind of... It was also, I think, you know, we had quite... My childhood felt quite tense and difficult and not that happy happy looking back and I think cooking for people was that way of getting praise I think that was a really kind of quite crucial part of having a bit of attention and and having praise and being made to feel special because I think I probably didn't feel that special in other parts so there's definitely and I think probably when you talk to

chefs and cooks there's quite a big aspect of that I think you know that that that lovely warm feeling you get when you put some lovely food in someone else's tummy you know and that kind of love you get back from it is is kind of is quite a lovely you know if you're if you're a people pleaser yes I guess um so but but but equally I was at I was at St Paul's and in a day school in London which is super academic and my father who had totally failed to make money um uh had had always said come on you've got this brilliant brain you need to earn loads of money then you can do whatever you want and so I had this kind of pressure both for me and the school and I guess for my parents to use your brain. And so I spent almost, well, I definitely buckled, you know, after leaving school.

I buckled under all sorts of pressure and failed to get into Oxford, really screwed up my degree. And, you know, generally things started kind of falling apart. started kind of falling apart and so my 20s when I felt like I should have been becoming you know a rich banker or acing it in or wanting I think I really wanted to do fashion or there were all these things I was trying to do and cooking always in those days cooking wasn't cool like it is now and so you either are like a kind of butch chef in a kitchen I mean I didn't even know any chefs to be honest and and restaurants there weren't as many we never ate in them anyway um or there was that kind of you know boarding school girl doing a kind of you know doing a doing a bit of season in a skiing lodge and doing her own catering and I just didn't really identify with either stereotype and I didn't

really see so cooking as a career never really I never really even thought it was possible really uh so then I spent like I call it my like decade in the wasteland where I was really struggling with quite bad mental health and and just feeling a total failure just just kind of the wilderness years of thinking okay I'll try this next and I'll try that next. And then nothing really ever sticking. And then I was in a fashion show. I was in a catwalk show for a kind of countryside charity. And I was there with Cluistix and Wright,

who was one of the two fat ladies who, and I used to love that programme. And she was so reverent, but also really bright. She'd been the youngest woman to the bar at age 21 and uh and and yet had kind of given up law for for cooking and so I remember you know backstage being made up and her just saying my god if you love food what what are you doing why are you wasting your time you should be cooking. And no one had really said that to me before. How old were you when that was? 26, I think.

And she phoned up Dreena Allen, who ran Valley Maloo, and got me bumped up the waiting list. And literally two weeks before the beginning of a term at this school, they phoned up and said, you've got a place if you want it. And I went off with my Citroen 2CV, green and white, stripy roofpy reef I mean the Irish used to

love me they just laughed everywhere I drove they just I was a laughingstock of Ireland basically in my little 2cv but um I went and I had this really magical three months just creating and cooking and learning and afterwards I went out further out into West Cork and made cheese for three months and and was making sourdough breads and selling at market stalls um with another chef called and just living this dream and just thinking my god I finally what took me so long this is this is what I want to be doing yeah um so that was really magical and it was a couple years after that I did MasterChef because I still, I don't think I identified. I think I'd failed for so long

that the idea I could suddenly be a chef, I found a struggle to believe in. And I guess also I just couldn't reconcile the idea of working all night, never seeing my friends. It was quite contrary to everything I'd been brought up and then and then and then when I did MasterChef it was just it was just amazing I mean to do this I'd lived in Mexico so I went out and lived in Mexico for a year and I came back and I was really down on on you know having earned no money for quite a long time.

Really quite desperate. 29 years old, still not really knowing what I was doing. I knew I was going to do food. And I just saw this advertisement. And so I just, sorry, there's the builders outside. That's all the noise we're hearing. Don't worry. It's all good.

And yeah, I just saw this advertisement. And I just, something called, it was just like like i just think fate is so strong in life something in me just made me fill out that advertisement i didn't tell anyone about it it was too embarrassing but i remember making mishing it down to the audition and there were so many things that could have stopped me but in every turn fate was on my side and just pushed me forward to kind of come into this and I remember just bursting in this audition it was the last one of that series which was the first ever series and just talking at them a million miles an hour just being full of ideas and madness and you know I had this dish I prepared them that had ended up all over the Royston station platform and I realized that I wouldn't

be able to drive in because it was Friday and I was trying in from a cooking job in Norfolk and it was all like it was so crazy but it was it kind of it was great and and I ended up doing MasterChef it was just so terrifying and I'd never been filmed or done anything like that on telly before but I just was so passionate about food and I think that really shone through um and it was amazing because when I won I just couldn't believe it because I'd been screwing up for 10 years essentially like everything I did seemed to just fall apart and then suddenly you know I remember John and Greg just going you know they're basically like this is you're really good at this and no one had said that for so long you know even now I'm getting tears in my eyes so um so that was amazing but then I definitely felt like I was on catch-up because I was 29 and then all these kids

were cooking very young especially in the world where you can cook you know well now it seems so but then I definitely felt like I was on catch-up because I was 29 and then all these kids were cooking. Which actually is still very young especially in the world where you can cook you know. Well now it seems so young yeah exactly. But that time I know that feeling I too went to a an academic girl school not far from where you went actually and that pressure to make something of the academia being offered and then also to know what it is you're supposed to be doing there's so many people i know that went through real wobbles in their 20s early 20s mid 20s thinking i've sort of come out the other side of that system i still don't really know what my thing is and listening to you talk there's obviously all these trails that led to the bit

where you know as you say fate almost like took you by the shoulder like look it really is cooking you know have we not shown you enough clues now but but during those moments especially if the idea of making it into a what you do for a living is so far away from what you were being encouraged to do or the what you're being shown or examples you had around you so it's um I think it's actually really reassuring that you don't have to know for a really long time actually when it isn't a long time but you know what I mean it is yeah I think you're nearly 30 and still be finding your thing yeah and I think you know the wise oracles I used to love hanging out with old people because they always seem to have these pearls of wisdom but I never quite understood them and you know things

like just enjoy the journey and you know that's that's the part of it and you still have to remind yourself you're near my age you still have to remind yourself that life is about the journey it's not necessarily about where you're getting to because where are you getting to anyway what is that end point what does it mean what does it stand for so yeah definitely the journey and I you know whenever I talk to young people and I do sometimes go into schools I always say that the hardest thing is to know what it is and you're still finding that out you know sometimes people start writing when they're 70 years old yeah and that's fantastic and i think that's the most reassuring thing the flip side of it is that we're constantly evolving and i actually think women are

better evolving than men because you don't need to have a plan to evolve you can just kind of follow your nose and your gut instinct and i think we're quite good at that um and I think and listening to your gut instinct without necessarily having it all like laid out um so I think you know life is about constant involvement it is definitely and I think it's funny because I too have found myself saying that to people so you know just enjoy the getting there because sometimes I'll meet someone who might I don't know want to want to be a musician that I had to get a record deal and they're like, you mustn't see the record deal. It's like the Holy Grail, because actually you always look back on this bit

where you're allowed to create what you want, do what you want, make mistakes, and you'll look back and think, actually, that was a real halcyon period. But even now, in my 40s, I don't think I've totally practiced what I preach all the time, because I feel like sometimes I'm in a bit of a hurry

with the next thing, the next thing, the next thing. And like we were saying with the social media, if you look at stuff and you think, oh, other people are doing so much more, and there's so many other things. And certainly with lockdown, the next thing, the next thing. And like we were saying with the social media, if you look at stuff and you think, oh, other people are doing so much more and there's so many other things. And certainly with lockdown, when it started, I felt such pressure to be productive and creative and like, well, surely this is when I should write

some amazing piece of music or I should write something or something should come out of this and be able to just relax and think, no, it's actually okay if we're just getting by this bit, actually. Yeah, because you are just getting by. I mean, the lockdown just was insane just the exhaustion of like tidying the house cleaning the floor yeah you know mopping after three messy kids or you know more um and

just just keeping the ball going it was yeah even that uh yeah I did definitely you know I've got a few girlfriends who've got no kids I did definitely sometimes find myself looking at them just thinking god they're the clever ones well I think you've been getting on with quite a lot actually so when you had your first baby did you always think you were going to be a mum while you were in your life was that something you always hoped for well I just don't remember this but my friends at school say that I was always bound to be the one when he had four kids and I just don't remember that but then I guess because finding the career took so long and then also you know that the kind of the mental health was quite a big thing um for me so I was really up and down in my 20s so it actually took me quite a long time to settle down with someone because I was just a bit nuts um so

so then I think that put you know babies on the back burner but and then you know and then I met my business partner we started doing Oaxaca and then I was really busy doing that so uh so then you know Mark and I didn't meet till I guess I was definitely in my 30s and I was also living I remember a lot of my friends were settling down when I was living in Mexico and I didn't really know why I was in Mexico either but it's just one of those gut things you do where you and that's such a big part of big part of my life yeah you know I loved the food I went traveling when I was 18 and something made me go and run a cocktail bar in Mexico City and live there for a year so that sounds like a lot of fun that was quite a lot of fun yeah Mexico City is a lot of fun. Yeah, Mexico City is a lot of fun.

So, yeah, I think I've lost my train of thought completely. Well, I was just asking you about, I suppose, if you always thought you'd be a mum, and then how, when that's, I mean, so you're already running Oaxaca, so when you met Mark, your husband, because I have to make differentiation between your business partner mark and your husband mark uh so what hacker was already established at that point

was that you'd already been we had um i think i think we had just started it i think we just started or we were starting it um and but we but we took you know i think we took quite a long time to kind of make up our minds and then but but it, but it is funny once, I mean, I, I just love babies. I just love children. And I think, um, then my friends remind me that I always loved children. And I think, I think my first two, though, I was on such a mission because I think I felt I'd wasted so many years. I hold in this years, I was called, um, not achieving that. Then once I'd wasted so many years I called them this year I was called not achieving that then once I'd started working in food I was on a proper mission

and I was working I was working so hard and it was almost a form of therapy to avoid thinking about anything else anyway and a lovely excuse not to have to do anything else but work I think it is quite a handy excuse to be able to just blame work on everything

now that's actually a really interesting thing to say I think it is quite a handy excuse to be able to just blame work on everything um no that's actually a really interesting thing to say I think that that really resonates yeah you can always just say work and it does become this place where you can put so much stuff yeah yeah exactly an excuse not to do so many things that maybe you should be doing like you know nurturing relationships or family or whatever um so I worked through I do remember though you know when you have your first child I do remember so I went to my mother's for a month um uh which was really magical and then I remember getting home by myself for the first time with this baby and you know they can't really talk back to you and that loneliness that sense of loneliness and and that terror of like am I

gonna do this right am I gonna get it all wrong wrong I remember phone my sister the day I arrived back home from being with my mother from up going can you come and stay please and I think it's really hardcore you know whether you work or not just that that first time with your child at home um and so I did I definitely worked through my first two um maternity leaves quite hard I wrote I wrote a book both my first two maternity leaves and then my third maternity leave I managed to write a book before I gave birth so I was only editing but then the third maternity leave there was a bit of a gap between the the tatty arrived tatty got quite a long time to arrive and then it just happened really quickly after that so they were quite close together the first two and I think that that was hardcore anyway because I was just

exhausted from working so hard as well and then I had a proper break and I think we were really because I I care so much about environment and I was really finding my catholic guilt kind of going should you have another baby shouldn't you you, you know, all this kind of thing. And then she just happened. And then, but that was quite a big chunk of time. And I think the lovely thing is by that time, you realise how special it is and how quickly that baby bit goes. And I just remember this blissful time, just, you know, holding her and hugging her.

And she was the most delightful kind of huggy baby and properly in bliss. But halfway through that um that actually not even to say that we can edit that but I was about to say halfway through that maternity leave we got no virus in the restaurants so I was uncomfortably forced back into work but maybe it's not a good thing to bring that up well I suppose the only thing that is impressive about I know it's not an easy thing to talk about because it's a horrible association but I think the way you handled it all was brilliant and had real integrity and I think also you've had to overcome something which for a lot of businesses would have been

something they could never really come back from but Oaxaca's got such a solid reputation and it is a really as someone who goes there with my kids and my family a lot it's a very consistently happy and good environment to be in and all the people that work there are lovely and all those little details that really make the difference between feeling like a valued customer and just being a customer so I think what you experienced with that must have been so stressful and just you look back and think i can't believe we got through it but you did do it sounds so naff that that corporate idea of having company values but we created these values when we started work together and we were quite young we set up wacker but we were really evangelical about the idea of having a company that would be fun to come work in

where people just really enjoyed themselves and where you know we were basically non-hierarchical and everyone could get by and we give people training so you can go and get other jobs and you know I think hospitality is such an amazing industry because you can take anyone off the street who's got you know issues um self-confidence issues you know anyone can thrive and and blossom and and then go on to do something else it is the most you know all embracing encompassing taking anyone in and i love that people from all walks of life all nationalities um both sexes we've got such a great amount of women you know running our restaurants and our managers and I'm so proud of that aspect of hospitality

which is often seen as this kind of underdog of a of a of a career and yet which is creative and independent and you know you get to really think on your your your feet about stuff and then you get to create delicious food um and the values that we created really held fast at Norovirus you know we really relied on them to govern every you you know, like the lawyers were like, don't admit any culpability. Don't say you're sorry. And we were just like, no, of course we're going to say we're sorry. You know, not food poisoning. It came, it happened. But we made people ill and we've got to say sorry for that. we've got to say sorry for that if you can't and and funny enough it in lockdown that has played out again um because i have been so proud of our company through lockdown because we have been

cooking um with angela hartner and food 19 cook 19 for icu units um and we have been so i said i helped set up a charity called chefs in schools with Nicole Pisani and Henry Dimbleby um a couple of years ago I'm a trustee um and so we've also been feeding um you know underprivileged kids in quite a few schools in South London and when I come into my sites and I hang out with my managers and my chefs who are coming in on their own time who are so delighted to be there to be helping someone else and to be just doing something that's productive and useful but also having so much fun with it and being cheeky and fun and naughty and all that kind of stuff it that makes me feel

so proud and and this just the camaraderie of our company as we as we've coped through this really difficult time for restaurants actually definitely a really difficult time for restaurants but it's interesting because you've spoken a lot about the wilderness years and how it's kind of given you this impetus to make good use of the time now and you felt that you actually arrived at things later than you should have done but actually if you hadn't had that 10 years there's so much about how you've handled the work and how you've set up the company uh that those values probably would have been really different because even hearing you talk about if people have got you know confidence issues or they haven't you

know got amazing academic results or whatever if they can come in from any background and make you something delicious to eat you're going to say that tastes amazing you're really clever for doing that and it can build people up yeah that's obviously been a big part of your experience too and giving people that self-esteem and wanting that to be infused in what represents people when they come to work for the day it probably wouldn't have happened in that way if it hadn't been something that was so significant to you well I definitely think that you know looking back when life gives you knocks and you know I think very few people go through all of their lives without any knocks yeah but maybe some people get the knocks later on but

maybe actually it's quite useful to get knocks quite early on because you're right it does shape you and it definitely makes you think more probably in a different way and I think that's probably quite a good thing I think so I mean it's horrible when you're going through it. It's the pits. But I think there's also something quite good about not being afraid of it all going wrong anymore because you've had it happen. Yeah. And that's one of the things that experience can give you, isn't it?

You think, okay, I've literally had every... Missed the beta by cannabis. You feel like you've had every worst-case scenario and you got through it and it was okay actually it's not very nice but it's okay you do get through it and I think yeah I kind of definitely think that it's it's weird thing to even hope that with your kids that they have bits these sort of peaks and troughs will be the things that they kind of need to go through and you're not going to be able to protect them from but actually it'll end up being hopefully something where they'll learn quite a lot the things that make them i

mean yeah all the teachers that's the first thing they say it's teach them that mistakes are fine because that's how you learn you learn for your mistakes don't you you just hope the mistakes and you know not going to completely take you down i know exactly and i also i don't know if this is normal but i spend a lot of time well i don't know if i get cross with the kids about something or if in a bad mood or a bit distracted with something and then I'll kind of go back later and say I'm really sorry about that. But I feel like now they just think that I'm always going to come back and say the sorry. So sometimes, especially with my older ones, they'll be like,

yeah, I was waiting for you to come back in half an hour and say, actually, it's fine, you can do that, I'm sorry I snapped at you. They've kind of built it in now as a sort of like, what's going to happen? So when you were um working did you always think that you would go back to Oaxaca and run it sounds like from your first baby you were like well I well I actually so in those maternity leaves I had breaks from the restaurant I stayed in touch with them and I still talked to my business partner all the time but what I was still always doing was writing um and doing recipes

and and then just generally you know I I find um I find myself getting involved in projects and at the moment I'm going you know in my house through lockdown just coming out of it I've gone through a period of wondering if I'll ever work again you know am I am I the type of person actually produces stuff or do I just you know will I ever really ever be able to produce anything again you get those kind of moments of doubt and then I look back over the kind of crazy things I come up with like we did a thing called the pig idea which was essentially we raised um we reared eight pigs in Stepney City Farm on allowable food food waste and then we had a big banquet we slaughtered six of the pigs and fed 5 000 people on intrafarble square i did it with tristan

stewart and it was basically to shine a light on the fact that after foot and mouth the government and then the whole of europe's band swill as an industry right so instead of recycling our food waste which is the most ecological thing to do we just chuck it out although now we are composting some of it but the best way to do it is to give it to livestock um and then obviously the flip side of not giving um food waste to livestock is that we're cutting down the amazon to feed livestock so um so it you know the great thing for me about lockdown is that so many people are starting to think about these issues about where our food comes from and because we you know we we do not have enough we will not have enough food to feed everyone the

way we're going unless we stop eating so much meat i I eat meat, I love beef, you know, actually chicken and pork are more harmful at the moment to the planet than beef and lamb, which are really good ways of locking in carbon, you know, you put out cattle to graze on grassland, not in kind of big shed feedlots, but actually on grassland, and they're really good at sinking carbon and keeping that carbon in the soil, so they're actually quite ecologically friendly to have a bit of beef every now and then not like a whole load of it obviously um but also just in terms of how we manage our soil how we look after it because great civilizations died out overnight pretty much by by you know complete soil erosion you know wearing down that soil intensely farming and you know they did that in palenque i remember this amazing trip i did to palenque and the the head of the um archaeological um uh department in mexico city

flew out to show me around the ruins with my parents it was so cool and tatty was like nine months old and um and he he said you know we've done carbon analysis and they basically chopped down all the trees they were building the pyramids they overused the population explosion and they ruined the soil and they died out of you know having ruled for a thousand years they died out after about 20 and you know we just these patterns we see and and i don't feel i don't feel like doom and gloom about it i feel like this hope that every single one of us have such power just on how we, because food and how it's transported, how it's grown, uses more energy and more water than any other industry. So then if we all just have a bit of kind of excitement about,

yes, I can do this, I can eat more vegetables, I can buy locally, I can go to my local market, and that is helping save the planet. It's helping save species. It's helping to protect the rainforest and we can all do it i think there's a real empowerment about that that i feel you know everyone can get behind because i think so much of life is disempowering these days with technology and huge corporations and the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer so much of it feels

aren't disempowering but I think food is such a political thing and that's why I'm so endlessly fascinated by it. And I guess, you know, now that I'm talking to you, the idea that I'm not going to come up with some other project is so laughable because the moment I start talking about this stuff, I feel so passionate about it. Yeah, I'm not worried about your projects at all. There's not even a glimmer of worry about that.

I was actually really thinking about that because i think as a consumer i would like it to be there to be more disclosure about what's in season and when you look at a menu for there to be more information about where the where the eggs have come from where the meats come from where your vegetables because i think most people will don't really give a lot of thought about where their foods come from or your vegetables because i think most people will don't really give a lot of thought about where their foods come from or whether it's local or not um and sometimes you know when you go to buy your your local you know go to the supermarket or get your delivery whatever is convenient for most people because nobody has time to go and go around you know farmers markets

and things just having it where it goes like if you just want to see the seasonal options that are local just click this and then that just shows what's available yeah i'd love that or in a restaurant if they go sorry we we've marked here because that's actually not free range i mean you don't even know half the time where things have come from you don't know you don't know and and then the difficult i think the difficult crux of it also is that we we we pay very little for our food uh yeah and and and yet we pay a lot for our food at the same time so at the checkout we pay very little but then the nhs which we pay for in our taxes has a huge billions and billions it's a third of the nhs budget is now diet related disease. A diet kills more people now than smoking related disease or alcohol related disease. It's the biggest killer worldwide. And that's in developed nations

as well as developing. So people and this country, you know, the link between coronavirus and diet is quite bleak. We eat more ultra processed food in this country than any other nation in europe and and yet we think it's allowable this this country blocked um banning glyphosate um which is a chemical we spray on our fields and also um big um companies spray it on wheat after they've um picked it to dry it quicker so they can process it quicker and make more money and this idea that that the people in charge of making our food are governed by profit and nothing else you know glyphosates are being linked to alzheimer's um to dementia to diabetes to cancer to so many diseases and they tried to ban it across europe and you know

i i just think at some stage we've got to realize how crucial is the food that we put in our body how we treat the soil and how linked it is to the to life to the rainforest to species to insects even the earthworm you know we're losing all our insects without the earthworm our soil is nothing so it's all linked and that again it's not meaning to be depressive if we can all take more interest in how we eat and what we eat and more pleasure in it and allow ourselves time for it and maybe this whole you know technological revolution where we get more robots you know some people say we'll only work four days a week because there won't be enough work to do well maybe that's a good thing maybe we'll spend more time going to fields and picking food ourselves or going to the

markets or just preparing a meal because also being able to cook and that's one of the work that chefs in schools does which this amazing charity is it teaches kids about food and how to cook because it's so enabling if you don't know how to cook and you also live in a flat that's been designed badly, that's got no proper kitchen in it, then that's really disenabling to be able to feed yourself. But you can feed yourself really cheaply if you do know how to cook and how to make an onion taste delicious and how to make some black beans taste delicious

and feed yourself with nutritious grains and not rely on really expensive. No, when you say it, it sounds like such an obvious thing you wonder why it's not just a really stable part of the curriculum anyway that to make make it so people can feed themselves well and you start to wonder sort of sort of like more cynical and i've thought of like what's what's the benefit in keeping people so they can't always make their own decisions and they can't you know is there some sort of economic bonus where people actually just go and buy processed food or feel they have other ways to feed themselves when they don't have the basic tools of just making themselves something nice to eat? But also I think the economics is that the small guy doesn't win. So the small guy, we're talking about the farmers who are looking after the soil, not spraying them with loads of chemicals, looking after the wildlife.

They get the worst deal. They're not getting the most of their money um whereas often it's industrialized huge companies that do make the money from processing the food growing mono crops um and and then processing them to kind of cheap ready meals but then which we pay for by the the river pollution by the lack of the need to keep on putting more and more fertilizers on soil that's knackered and dying and so yeah there are lots of hidden costs and i think we need to start being honest about those costs and also the government needs to start being honest about how to help poorer people be able to eat better food because it's often the most disadvantaged kids who are not given access to

fruit and vegetables because they cost more relatively than you know sugar and oil and stuff like that is often um anyway subsidized um and you know it should be fresh fruit and vegetables that are subsidized and and you know bought locally and local kind of networks because that supports farmers and we know that most economies are run by small and medium businesses. So if you can look after those businesses, basically everyone's okay. For huge, large companies... So anyway, I guess it's quite socialist. I guess it is, but there's a sense to it all.

Look after the farmers, feed them a fair wage, look after the poor people, make sure they've got access to these food and vegetables, and not just next door to a corner shop that only sells processed food. That then costs the government a fair wage, look after the poor people, make sure they've got access to these food and vegetables, and not just next door to a corner shop that only sells processed food. That then costs the government a fortune anyway in poor attention at school, in diabetes, obesity, all that stuff. None of that is for free. No, I know.

I mean, when you're saying there must be so many countries in Europe that just look at us and think, why are they getting these basics so wrong? But do you know what the scary thing is that globally it's all moving that way you know even countries like france and you know because the multinational companies make a lot of money by persuading us to eat their ultra processed food that's what they spend all their marketing budget on you compare to how much the government spends on marketing fresh vegetables to the nation. It might be, you know, 10 million or something.

And you compare that to the hundreds of millions that companies spend trying to convince us that, you know, dairy milks are delicious, buy some more chips, buy a bigger pack of crisps, buy a mile-long snicker bar, because that's much more fun than having a single snicker. You know, and then you get these kind of, you know, far right. I mean, I heard this young woman on a radio show going people aren't idiots they know that food's not bad for them all they have to do is say no and i think that's rubbish yeah that is you know it's being marketed marketed marketed marketed to all of us and we're you know we're all human and also we're designed to to seek out fat and sugar and salt and the

combination of all of them is completely delicious and unavoidably kind of addictive yeah and there's also an emotional tie like i think so much of your relationship with food is probably sealed before you're even double digits so if you were given those things as a kid then there's like a emotional residence isn't there and a comfort in that and you develop a taste yeah up a taste you lose your taste it took me ages for the golden arches not to have a sort of pavlovian i'm hungry response just from looking at the golden m crazy like it took it's way like over a decade probably yeah when i actually stopped eating mcdonald's yeah no totally i just had that hold over me from when i was tiny yeah and still when i'm tired

the first thing i do is reach for junk food it's there's something comforting about you know it tastes delicious of course it tastes delicious the reason why they're making billions of pounds of profit is this something you talk about with your daughters a lot are they really aware of all these things I don't actually talk to them about it basically we we I you know I try and you know we love we love food we eat loads of butter and olive oil and I don't I'm not really precious about sugar and we don't do low-fat anything we don't do alternative sugar anything because I find that's just another fad and you know all my all the females in my family were models and my mother was quite anorexic and I basically grew up with so many food issues and I you know I had food

issues all through my 20s and it was like a chain around my neck it dominated everything all I thought about was how fat I was how awful you know it's those punishing messages and I'm completely free of it now and you know I eat crap sometimes and I don't but generally I feel better when I'm eating food that is delicious but I eat whatever I want whenever I want no rules and i don't want my daughters to have any rules or any you know and i'm sure i'll give them some issues and i'm sure you know stuff you hand down without meaning to definitely yeah but um but basically i don't know i mean we just we actually just don't eat processed food here so they don't even see it

um but you know once they go to university they'll probably have a field day they'll be like wow this is great we never had this at home yeah it's bright packaging and everything very exciting do you because what hack is a very sort of family place was that something that was there before you had a family or do you think that that's sort of grown with the company as you've also raised your yeah i don't know i don't i don't think we ever meant it to be family but it just it just kind of is fun i think that kind of food is fun for kids you know where they can be the the masters of their own invention they can build their own tacos they can put whatever they want in it and it you know those small plates i think are great because if you've got a small appetite it's nicer to see small things and it's colorful and i think funny enough you know you go

to mexico and the whole the whole culture is is is welcoming for kids yeah you know it's that hot typical latin um atmosphere where kids are up really late at parties with grown-ups and stuff and i think there's something quite irrepressible about mexican culture and maybe that's what kids love about going to oaxaca because you know you can't help feeling you just always feel that slight bit of excitement it's true it's got energy hasn't it like a little buzz yeah and and that is you know that's down to our staff are like are angelic you know I feel so lucky we have such cool staff parties you know we we've got all these amazing people who work you know and it's just, it's great. It's so great.

Plus you get to have loads of tequila, which definitely helps. Awesome. Always helps. Tequila always helps. I thought that really helps a staff party on its way, I think. Or a lockdown, as it happens. Yeah. Yeah, I drank a lot of tequila this lockdown.

Oh my God, so did we. Richard makes a good margarita. So yeah, every Friday night we would do these little discos in our kitchen. Your amazing discos. Yes. It became like a real anchor for us. And then we used used to it was basically the closest we got to like a night out because after that we put the little two to bed and then let the older ones stay up for a bit late and then we'd have a couple of cocktails and eat something nice it was like a Friday night

it just meant like we actually got shaped to the weekend we definitely have done Friday night cocktails definitely yeah yeah you need something just to kind of otherwise all the days blur into one yeah yeah totally with you it's funny because my mum I'm not using this advocate drinking during lockdown or any point by the way but my mum she hasn't really been drinking at all and she was like it's no different I could have been having a drink every evening it's no different so I think Richard and I at one point he said I think I might have a bit of time off and I was like I'm not It's like so nice to get to the end of a day and then like a glass of something. It's just punctuation of like, well done.

Another day happened. The sun will rise again tomorrow. It all rolls, it all rolls. And what was I going to ask you? I suppose listening to you talk, I kind of get the impression that a lot of your drive and passion and all the things you've got going on

and the books and the projects, they would all be going on whether you'd had children or not and it feels like your kids are kind of along for the ride but would you say that's a fair thing or do you think that they have actually kind of influenced your creativity or influenced the choices you've made I think I think they are definitely I think's fair that it would be all happening anyway. Because it's my passion, you know, my work, it's my passion. But they are also my passion. And I think the world's quite scary, actually, when you've got children. You think about their future and what's going to happen in the future.

So I think, but also they put a check on my work and I think um I think definitely you know number three you know once you've got three children there's no real hope of of of some level of work you know you there's no way you can work through all your weekends anymore and and you know you can't necessarily work till midnight every night because you're just too shattered so I think um that really nice side I remember always fearing about becoming such a hardcore businesswoman that I'd lose all kind of softness and kind of you know I just become like one of those really hardcore but who are one of those hardcore you know that feels almost bad you know calling out to my sisterhood anyway but I didn't want to be so focused that all I had was work um I think people are really important

to me and I I really love having their little bodies and their little natures and they can be maddening sometimes but they're just they're also really good fun they're really fun and and it's fun having them around and I think that is fun uh and I'm I'm not necessarily I think lots of ways I'm a really bad mother like I'm really crazy in the kitchen I'm really bad any of the lockdown school you know projects I mean shoot me so rubbish at being a teacher so rubbish but I did know that about myself already so at least it wasn't a big revelation no exactly I'm fully aware I was fully aware as well but you know I think it's fun having them along the ride and if I can make their lives fun in any way and you know I just you know you just want them to be great people don't you who kind of

give a shit about the world as well but also keep having fun because in the end of the day we're just we're put in the world for a short time to have a few children or not and to have some fun as my mother says what what else are we here for really in the large scheme of being a small planet in a big you know solar system yeah well also it sounds like when you're saying about your childhood and that was quite quite serious and you weren't always having lots of fun it sounds like that's something that you really keen to rectify yeah yeah i think that's a i think whilst i knew with the lockdown thing with the schooling thing that that when the wheels fell really keen to rectify. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a, I think, whilst I knew with the lockdown thing,

with the schooling thing, that went, the wheels fell off that so quick. But I really hope that my family can look back and think that we had a lot of fun too. And it has been, it's a weird one, isn't it? Because sometimes I felt guilty when we were having a nice time as well.

Because dealing with the anxiety and the stress was predictable, horrible and predictable but have the bit where you were sat there thinking actually this is really nice or um or we've all been eating together yeah the guilt of that is quite bizarre because still the reason why we're all on lockdown has still been quite abstract in lots of ways yeah and it's quite a weird thing to get your head around it'd be really interesting to see what our kids generation make it when they're older and talk about it well i think that's why they they've got to get them

back to a normality as soon as possible because i you know i as you felt you know when we're having fun and you know my kids are so privileged and we have been you know out bicycling and we've been in outside space so much and i just think about the kids who haven't had that and who aren't eating properly and you know it makes you feel desperate just thinking about them and their psychological fallout from this. Absolutely. So, yeah, I reckon they've just got to work out a way to look after the children because they're the future. And all the kids where the school meal is their, like, main nourishment of the day. And there's so many gaps in the woodwork that don't actually add up as it is.

It's pretty shameful, really. Yeah, yeah. There'll definitely be a fallout from all of it but hopefully if everything kind of starts to right itself by september then it won't have been yeah too long a time but yeah you're right there's definitely my kids too very privileged and you think even they aren't lucky enough to be having yeah a nice time at home with their families yeah yeah that's that's really um i'm sure that'll be something that'll come out again and again as conversations start to merge and everybody starts seeing each other again and whatever this new normal is that we're all kind of experiencing but but but in the meantime that does feel like a sense of community

comradeship you know nurturing looking after each other. I do think there has been so much positives. Yeah, that's true. Seeing, you know, localism and people reaching out to each other, I think that that's been a really lovely thing to see. Yeah, I agree. And, like, the fact that, you know, your instinct at the beginning was taking bread round to people,

that's that in a nutshell, isn't it? Like, how can I reach out and say, I'm here if you need me, and here's some nourishment, and something I baked in my own kitchen.'s lovely it's a lovely thing to do I could swap you some if you like I'll give you some riches to try some of yours oh yeah and then just dance I can't be in your like disco that's all I want to do now it's just like really go nuts oh my goodness I would love to dance I would love to um I feel like we're getting quite how are your thighs holding up I'm

definitely feeling a little bit of your cake shop yeah oh yeah quite sweaty so you said you've had two birthdays during lockdown so was that your oldest and your yeah so tatty turned nine um she's my eldest she's a proper gourmand she's hysterical so last night she came down um not not supposed to be coming down we were having dinner and I got some soul from the market and my nanny had cooked to Asian style my nanny who couldn't cook a single thing when she started a year ago has become the most incredible cook she like follows Instagram and I did I mean so impressive anyway she cooked this incredible like asian soul and greens and rice for them and then we got the leftovers so i made a kind of

i break up the soul and put it on and then i got my salsa matcha out from the cupboard which is this chili and peanut oil from baja california and it is insane on anything and there we were ladling on our peanut chili oil onto our fish and greens and rice and tatty came down actually otty came down too and that was quite hot this peanut chili you probably won't like it slightly go you're probably it's probably too hot for you and they're both were like no no i want to give it a go and they're like that's really delicious i get such pride when they start getting all like foodie yeah so yeah tatty's nine otty is seven um and uh and just and and then izzy is isadora is four now newly four although she's still the baby yeah well four's still pretty little yeah yeah i mean and i sort of tried to stop myself from asking if they're into food

because that's such an obvious question but at the same time if you're cooking and eating as a family and stuff it's it's still a big part of's life, even if it's not what they go and do for a living as well. Well, the amazing thing about kids is you do realise that they all eat differently anyway and they all have different tastes. And, you know, so then they're definitely not perfect. And I think it's a really easy thing for mothers to beat themselves up about, about how they feed their children and whether they're eating healthy enough. And I think, you know, you just do your best. But I definitely was very conscious about introducing as many different flavors to them as early on um and I'm not very good at giving

them options I'm afraid they get one option and then if they don't want to eat it yeah I'm quite hardcore about that because I feel um I feel they need to try things and they do have to eat green vegetables but they love green vegetables actually you know they because because they are delicious yeah but green vegetables that are boring aren't delicious you know so if you give a child some overcooked broccoli with no seasoning and no butter or oil or lemon juice on yeah of course they're not going to like it but you know if you wilt some greens in a pan with garlic and oil and a bit of salt and you know squeeze of lemon juice you know hey presto delicious um and you know i think the same with french dressing my kids will probably eat pretty much anything as long as it's

doused in french dressing so um i think kids are like infantilized a bit with food you know 100% agree with that you know and if you're if you're fed chicken nuggets um and chips all the time that's all you're going to want to eat whereas I think they should be experiencing as many flavors as you eat you know why should they just get a kind of really limited range I think also you should never cook your kids something that you wouldn't want to eat yourself yeah I don't like if people do that they'll make some cobbled together mess of a meal and they're like there you go and you think well would you be happy if someone gave that to you like what no wonder they're not very excited is there, exactly. Is there something that you find is a real surefire family here? Have they got a favourite thing that all three of them all love?

Well, I mean, the homemade pizza's really fun, especially when you've got the sourdough starter to go. But, I mean, we have treats. We definitely have treats. I'm trying to think. God, I mean, fish and chips are great. Fish tacos, they love. So we've had to make quite a lot of fish and chips are great um fish tacos they love so we've had to make quite a lot of fish tacos since Oaxaca's been shut because they really miss the fish tacos from

Oaxaca which they love but um but I still completely get it wrong like the other day I made some kind of I was definitely using up some leftovers which normally are always delicious I love using up leftovers but um this one you know everything was in a pan and then I found some tomatillo salsa I'd been testing a new recipe for so I stirred that in too and then I'd forgotten that the onduya that I put on this base to give it some extra flavor and protein was quite spicy and the whole thing was so spicy and Tati my eldest just was over time she had a total meltdown she screamed for half an hour about how disgusting it was by which case of course the other two were no way gonna touch it at all it was like a Friday of course the other two were no way going to touch it at all it was like a Friday night we were supposed to be all sitting down together and

having a meal together it was a total disaster anyway so you know we all get it wrong even chefs yeah and it's actually there's something so hard for your you know spirit to uh to deal with when you've cooked something for ages for your kids and you think this is great and then they're just like i don't like it and you think but that there's so much love in that dish as well as all the time oh it's just infuriating but you know mothers we're all spilling plates we're just you know you you're trying to do your your copy for your article and then you're trying to make sure that the the floor is swept and it's not looking too disgusting and you've got to do the shopping and then you realize the wash doesn't come out of the washing machine

and then someone's emailing you or asking you to go on news night and you're desperate to become you know just as you know serious as any other person and you're just you know you're thinking help how do I keep all these balls in the air I know so then sometimes supper yeah it's just whatever ends up yeah and when do they normally have quite a good idea of what you do for a living do you think uh they they get told by their friends I think I think my three are quite gormless in some ways like we don't really have the news on much in the background so I was listening to it on the radio so um their friends sometimes say oh your mummy you know she you've got a famous mum haven't you

your mom's famous and they're like got a famous mum, haven't you? Your mum's famous. And they're like, are you famous, my mum? I'm like, no, obviously not. So, yeah, I think, but I think, no, I mean, they don't really care. I think they probably enjoy the fact they get nice food. Although I think sometimes, especially my middle child, who doesn't care that much about food,

would prefer it if I wasn't a cook and then she could just have the normal food that all her friends get yeah sometimes we've got one of those in my family definitely just gets a bit like we're trying too hard here it's a little bit indulgent yeah um and what was I going to say to you uh I have one more question going on from the oh yeah because with when you're saying before about work as a thing sometimes you can sort of blame things on work and say you know I'm working you need to give me space I'm working that's why I was rubbish with you know dealing with a friend or something like that but with with the lockdown I feel like normally I can do my work when the kids are at school but now they're all at home all the time and I'll say I need to do some work or I need but do you find you have a space here that is just your own or are they is everywhere

accessible for them we are we are really lucky because we moved into a new house a year before lockdown and we've been working on it in lockdown and filling skits with earth and building things. And my dad's been building my desk from over-claimed wood that we took from the kitchen floor. So it's been a bit of a family kind of effort. And I like things that being a bit gritty.

I don't want it all on my plate you know prepared and perfect but equally the desperation sometimes when you've got your three kids on top of you they know you're in the house and that that desperation because my husband is angelic and does loads but he still has the willpower or the ability maybe to shut the door and and just turn and go on to his work whereas I feel like as the woman of the house there's always that element where we're just pulled in and pulled in and I think having that space to work is really hardcore and I think um and I think women definitely have suffered more from lockdown you know there's you know the washing and the sweeping and all that you know Mark does loads but but i still feel you know the women share

is quite massive and then trying to keep a work life going is quite hardcore yeah i think i read something someone put up probably on instagram something saying like men go tend to have a an office or somewhere they go to do their work whereas the women are trying to do it all from the kitchen table and for me that was that was like, yeah, that's completely it. And our house, Richard's got a little studio. So the dynamic has always been when he goes into the studio, that's his space. But I don't have the equivalent at home. And I've never really needed it specifically

because I always come out and do my work elsewhere. So not having that has been really, I really struggle with it. The lack of headspace was something I, it took me weeks to sort of try and find a way to give that somewhere give that a space i just couldn't do it i found i cycled a lot around regents park oh really just for something to get out and get out and you the girls would stay here when you do that so you could actually have some time to yourself yeah but i'm really lucky lovely lovely nanny who lives with us so yeah but yeah that was total sanity being restored yeah you need a bit of that don't you yeah and actually that's something I think I need to

sort of carry forward really just trying to find a way to get that balance a bit better but I mean the moment as well like this morning my 11 year old wanted he's written a little screenplay and he wants to do a film the eight-year-old was dressed as Sonic and wanted me to do his face paint so that it matched the rest of his costume. And they're just getting really cross with me. I said, I've got work to do. They just couldn't really get their heads around it. Like, you keep saying that every day you've got some work.

Come on, come and do our projects. But I think it's really good for children to know their mother works. I love the, you know, I say to them, who's going to pay for our next holiday? How do you think we eat lovely food? And why do you think you've got nice bedrooms it's because I work and you know I could not work but then all these lovely things might go away and I think it's a really good lesson for them yeah but also I think you're going to be a very calm mum when they get older as well because

if they do have the equivalent of your wilderness years and they just need to go off and do their own thing and have little adventures you're going to be like yeah thumbs up hope so hope so crossing fingers definitely did you have an idea of what kind of mum you might want to be do you think do you think you're sort of mum you thought you'd be I mean I love that my parents were actually really they were they were they were hardcore in some ways they always expected me to kind of achieve a lot but they were also brilliant giving me freedom and so I was allowed were they both working parents uh yeah they were my mum stopped working at some point but um but but basically I was not given curfews they trusted me to come back when I wanted to when I was going clubbing and stuff like that because I loved dancing so that was really good that meant I never really

went off the rails in those kind of teen years but um so I I would hope that I'd be like that but um but I we laugh we've got this kind of character in the family which is the lioness because when I don't get enough sleep I can get really grouchy and I find Saturday mornings are my really really worst part of the day because you've got through a really punishing week often and you get a Saturday and you've probably gone to bed too late on Friday definitely probably drunk a little bit too much and then it's Saturday morning and it's full-on there's no kind of framework of school or like homeschooling and then everyone's kind of going they're probably overtired everyone's overtired and that's when the kind of grouchy

lioness comes out at me and I start roaring around the house and I hate that about me but at least now it's become a bit of a joke and sometimes tatty will just say to me mummy do you think you ought to get a bit of sleep and so I know i know now what to look for because um yeah that's obviously not cool and it is amazing once you've had some sleep how much everything is better oh yeah i mean there's a reason why you can torture people by denying it it's like an immediate thing isn't it it's like low blood sugar and not enough sleep are the two things if you can sort those balances out then yeah the world is a much happier place and actually yesterday I was in a really bad mood just sort of finding everything a bit

snappy and a bit annoying and then Richard and I went out to do a couple of errands and I sort of started to perk up and had a coffee and felt much better and I was laughing about something in fact you probably won't find it funny but basically we were queuing up at the post office and you know everything now has got your two metre thing

so the queue's gone for ages and I was like saying oh this is a really good ride it's quite a long time to keep it once you go on it it's really good like pretending you're in a theme park ride this to me was very very amusing and then richard went oh it's really nice now you're in a good mood and i was like that just totally killed it now i'm not finding anything funny anymore so i don't know if you're the same but when i get in a good mood again don't comment that it's happened just appreciate it and let it be I don't want to know do you want to know how I know I'm an optimist because I'm attempting to record this in a really noisy house in a little I've basically been a bit

brazen and I've just gone to the sitting room which means anytime anyone could walk in anyway did you enjoy my chat with Tommy I think she was so brilliantly and really candid and open and sometimes I walk away from chats with people and then a load of other questions pop into my head afterwards and that's what happened with Tommy I had all these questions and I thought oh did I ask her enough about the things she was listening to the podcasts about sustainable um food and sustainable farming maybe you guys are interested in that I have to make sure you have that information but also she talked about her issues with food and how she'd overcome them and how she used to have really big problems with food and she's worked through it and I thought at the time

you know it's tricky isn't it when it involves um mental health you don't really want to push too hard with things because they're private however I thought afterwards if I just write her an email and ask she can say yes or no can't she about whether or not she wants to talk to me a bit more about it. And actually she was really thoughtful and open and sent me an amazing email detailing how she'd managed to work through those issues. So I'm going to share that with you. So yeah, I'm going to read what she sent me. Okay. So she said when it came to the podcast that she likes about where food comes from, the one she loves is called Farmerama. It's really interesting about all aspects of the food supply

and the people who are making amazing choices to how they grow their food and simultaneously nurture the environment. They also look at initiatives to give local people greater access to fresh fruit and vegetables and it is really interesting. She says in brackets, I never thought I'd be listening to farming podcasts. Anyway, pass that on to you. Maybe you're going to be finding yourself listening to farming podcast and she said with regard to healthy attitude to food it came all from a place of appreciating food more taking more time to prepare it rather than guiltily snatching it and never setting

rules around what i was allowed to eat um now you see that's quite a big thing isn't it never setting rules around what she's allowed to eat and Now you see, that's quite a big thing, isn't it? Never setting rules around what she's allowed to eat and actually appreciating it and taking more time. I like the wisdom of that. So she says that these days, there are many books out there telling you how to eat better and eat clean. And I understand food and work with it every day, but even I find the mixed messages confusing. Avoid carbs, avoid protein, only eat greens, eat fat, eat grains, don't eat grains. I find the conflicting advice unfathomable protein only eat greens eat fat eat grains don't eat grains i find the conflicting advice unfathomable and i know what i'm doing in the kitchen what about people who don't cook much but simply want to eat better what which are the many

conflicting food fads and eating plans does one follow and she says after many years of trying any diet that came her way the simple answer is to follow none be your own listen to your own rhythms and metabolic pace and begin to understand what be your own listen to your own rhythms and metabolic place and begin to understand what makes you feel good and your body feel happy um now that sort of stuff is really obvious isn't it but actually how often do we take time to really think about what we're eating and absorb it in that way i mean my own theory about food is that so many of our relationship with it is formed when we're so small um that it's understandable that it gets tied into emotional stuff and it gets very complex and hard to unwrap but yes by taking time to prepare your food and being engaged in the task of it and not feeling

guilty you probably actually look after yourself a lot better as a result um sorry that was my thoughts to continue back to Tommy. She said, I realised that when I was relaxed and spent half an hour in the kitchen chopping, sauteing, steaming and tasting food, part of the driving, raging hunger that still had such power over me in my early 20s was already satiated by the time I sat down to eat. It was not real hunger that had such control over me,

but a hunger to feed an unmet emotion. I began to stop stop thinking that certain foods were the enemy it dawned on me i was at my happiest when i was feeding a room full of people that playing with food or ingredients and making them taste good was one of the most satisfying things i did creating food eating it sharing it made me feel great the more i appreciated that the more it appreciated me i realized that denying myself certain things only made me crave them more gradually and unconsciously. I stopped the denial. When I did sometimes wolf down a vast bar of chocolate, I shrugged my shoulders and moved on. Well, I think there's a lot of wisdom in that

and explains her food philosophy. And I'm really glad she shared that with me so thank you to Tommy um and actually my body is telling me it wants chips and so that is a good thing uh I'm gonna go and eat some chips I love chips and that's what I'm feeling like having chips and chocolate and maybe a pickled gherkin. Yeah, it's probably a good time to leave me, isn't it? But look, I sat in a bold place in a busy house and no one came to disturb me. So, you know, I'm not just listening to what my body wants to eat. I'm listening to where my body wants to sit down to. Next week is the last episode of this series of spinning plates thank you for holding my hand through this exciting time my final guest of the series is the writer journalist hadley freeman

um who uh spoke to me very beautifully about her um her book which details the story of her grandma and um talks a lot about jewish culture um and a book called House of Glass, all about her grandma's tale. I also spoke to her about 80s movies, about raising twins and a baby and about trying to write from home. How does she do that? Well, tune in and you'll find out.

Anyway, lots of love. I'm off to go and find a gherkin or some chocolate or some chips or whatever finds me first. Lots of love. See off to go and find a gherkin or some chocolate or some chips or whatever find something first lots of love see you next week bye I'm not afraid of the dark