S8, Ep5: Rob Rinder, barrister and television host

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:07A quick warning, there is some strong language in this episode. I'm Grace Dent and this is Comfort Eating from The Guardian. A podcast where we pay homage to the lesser celebrated foods in life. Because even as a restaurant critic, I believe the food that matters most is often that snack you cobble together when you're curled up on the sofa. Each week, I ask my guest to lift the lid on what comfort foods have seen them through their lives. Because you can tell a lot about a person from what they eat behind closed doors.

0:50Hello friends, I am in the garden, keeping my pre-interview nerves in check by emptying this morning's leftovers. into my compost tank. OK, I don't know if I've mentioned it, but I make my own compost now. No, come back. Come back. Do not press. Unsubscribe. I'll only mention it once. I'm just going to put in these banana skins, some old potato peelings. I think it's a few months, four months, five months. Then ta-da! It's going to turn into the sweet, sweet, earthy nutrients to feed my upcoming crop of next springs. Fruit and veg. People do talk about composting. I know this as a pathway to spiritual growth.

1:38Now they do. And this might be accurate. This is what happens when you shun booze. You turn directly into being a gardener. Now listeners, if this garden is my church, this black plastic compost bin is my altar. and furthermore if I am the high priestess of this small patch of garden in East London then my guest today is the high priest of his courtroom that is right I am waiting for the arrival of the TV presenter formerly known as Judge Rinder now Rob Rinder to his friends has been sparkling on our televisions for years as Judge Rinder and in spin-off courtroom shows he's been presenting TV documentaries.

2:25He's graced our screens in Strictly Come Dancing. He's been in Celebrity Gogglebox. And Who Do You Think You Are? His 2020 BBC documentary, My Family, The Holocaust and Me, earned him an MBE for services to Holocaust education and awareness. I see Rob Rinder as somewhat of a kindred spirit. He has got a mischievous twinkle in his eye whenever he's let loose on telly. He feels like the kind of waspish man who would fit very well into my coterie. I wonder what kind of one-handed snack he bites into with a gavel in one hand and a metaphorical wig perched up top. Well, we're going to see, aren't we?

3:21Rob Rinder. Yeah. Welcome to Comfort Eating. I'm delighted. The word is, you are not a fan of cooking, so much so that in lockdown, your Deliveroo driver invited you to their wedding. That's exactly true. My oven is just for show. Problem is, it's a Sex and City loan, which they rob from me. I think it was Carrie, wasn't it? She said, you know, I used my oven for storage. She put her shoes in there. Well, mine's just there for show. So I don't, you know, I don't eat crap. But that's the thing about Deliveroo. You know, you can get quite literally everything from the whole buffet of restaurants in Zone 1 or 2 in Islington.

4:01Yeah, we don't have Deliveroo here. I love that there's just this bubbling sense of kind of confusion and disorientation that you're actually outside of Zone 1 or 2. I know, but the problem is it makes me sound like an incorrigible snob or, as you would say, the North East, a dreadful cunt. which I suppose fair enough that's what we want to chat with you brought me good scotch by the way there you go thank you you have brought with you today your ultimate yeah comfort food snack now this is the food that you want when you have taken your well metaphorical wig off you have slid your feet out of your judges brogues it's the it's the end of a long day do you want to unveil your snack I'm gonna unveil are you ready yes sure I'm absolutely ready unveil get it out oh my god this is what i hang on is this genuine genuinely but this is my food this is my food obsession i am like a dog in that you know i could just carry on eating i could eat 10 of these explain what it is this everybody brace yourselves is a mcdonald's fillet of fish thank you so much this is what i order are you serious this is my order the fillet of fish is the king of the mcdonald's menu it goes so well with scotch it's sweet it's sweet it's like a pudding basically you have to wait a little bit longer which i always think is a sign of class and so true it takes it just that little bit of extra two minutes for them to nuclear the fish and they used to claim it's cod now on the menu of course it's pollock or, you know, hitherto unknown.

5:40You have to guess the fish. But your audience should know I arrived like Mariah Carey here. Yeah, you did. Yeah, I mean, I've got, look, I'm going to be completely honest with you. Nobody has made more fuss coming into this house. Thank you. But I did insist. I said, you have to make sure that the fillet of fish arrives hot. The tartar sauce has that exactly like you described, sweet quality. And nowadays you can order it and you can get the special delivery and pay two quid extra so they come to you first. So my house in Islington, I said that with real purpose, didn't I? Yeah, you did, yeah.

6:12It can be delivered in 10 minutes. It's like magic. And it arrives. I always order two. And then I sometimes dip it in barbecue sauce. Honestly, if you're ordering McDonald's off Deliveroo and you're also paying the extra two quid to get it to come faster. I mean, come on. What do you mean, come on? Come on, what are you doing? it was quite difficult thing to talk about my ultimate yeah so food in the comfort food because my initial impulse was to talk about chicken soup but it would have caused such a kind of family uh nuclear conflict as to who made the best right you know i'm jewish and it's really it's not just soul food it is the entire tapestry of my childhood is chicken soup and it is undoubtedly a comfort food especially when you're not well but i would have come here with the chicken soup and I would have chosen someone in my family who made it.

7:04And they would have listened to this. They would have gone, hang on a second, you picked her chicken soup and not mine. My family were quite religious. And so because we were Jewish and quite religious, I would only eat kosher food. When McDonald's opened in Southgate, like working class Southgate next to the police station, this was a moment because all we had was a wimpy before that. It was big. And because we couldn't eat the meat because it wasn't kosher meat, fillet of fish was the only thing on the menu right so this was everything this is the coolest place that you could go and get food and not just that but people used to have birthday parties there right roped up roped off at the back like a little little velvet rope at the back you could go backstage and i remember even though i never paid him promising rumit raja at his birthday hi rumit what he's doing now i promised him a pound if he'd take me because you take one friend And I think it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen.

7:59My parents divorced very young. And then my dad, because Sunday would be when we'd see him and he would pick us up from Hebrew school. And my relationship with him, conversation would be about, would be going to McDonald's.

8:17We're going to start by talking about your entry into TV because you started your career as a barrister. you've now spent over a decade being on telly picturing you late at night hunched over your desk after a long day in court but instead of clocking off you're apparently furiously writing scripts you had a laser focus on something no no laser focus actually most of the things that i've had you know once i start something i have a laser focus on completing it or doing the best i can at it let's say but i don't have a or i didn't have a laser focus to get in television or laser focus in writing or anything of that kind it was a series of like genuinely random events that led me to being on telly i was doing serious cases you know i'd given up the idea of being an actor at 14 had another go at university realized i had no talent when i heard benedict cumberbatch i thought fuck this you know yeah yeah first day i went to read thinking maybe this was my thing after all after having given it up.

9:21I'd been at National Youth Theatre and well no. And then you saw him do it. Yeah what's the point? And you're like god. I'll end up like with a bit part on Heartbeat. But also I was quite by then quite sort of academic and interested in that sort of thing and I considered that and for a variety of reasons ended up at the bar and had a lot of luck quite early on. That's quite theatrical. To a degree it's theatrical and I sort of bristle at that because okay yeah why because because people think that there is like a like a venn diagram and that where there is a vendor the venn diagram and the bit in the middle that crosses over is the fact that there's an element of performance of course you have to be able to speak and hold yourself in a courtroom and yeah own the space that's uh important and to that extent you know actors do similar things but if you're doing a speech to uh a jury and they think that you're inventing things or there's artifice in other words there's acting they'll clock that fairly quickly and it won't be helpful to you in 2014 so you move over you become judge rinder it runs six years on itv this is where you really make your name do you remember the first time hell yeah your first time you go on set yeah because it was all bullshit why did you think it was all bullshit well because people in television invented it i went to two television meetings i thought who are these people?

10:46I mean, I was doing international law at this point. And you have to remember, you know, I'm leading in these conversations and there's, yes, this is happening. No, it's not right, wrong. You know, the community I work with are all in power. They only say things if they matter. Television, there's meetings, there's just people just, you know, just sit around. And I love that Charlie Booker screen wipe, you know, when he talks about what happens with a TV pitch. And, you know, you come in with a very noble idea, like you want to make, I don't know, a series like Claude Lansman Schauer or The Ascent of Man.

11:19And by the time it's gone around the room, it comes out as topless darts. I just don't go in for it. And I thought half the people there had, you know, various degrees of sociopathy. I was, I'd come back, I'm prosecuting. And then I came back to defend. And the quick story, which is less than a sentence, but you know, it's important. I really lost the will to defend. Much as I love being a barrister, I still am and I still teach. having built a case as opposed to knocking one down made it quite spiritually difficult and I use that word advisedly and on purpose to carry on defending so I was pretty low very low actually in my life at that point and then I'd written these scripts they weren't really scripts the tv idea was trying to bring back crown court which was a telly show and said I went to a meeting with these friends who knew this person at ITV I had no idea who she was and she was brilliant she's the opposite of what I was talking about.

12:12I emailed her because she was delightful. She said, have you ever made a, whatever, are you qualified to sit as an arbitrator? Yeah, I guess I am. Will you meet this bloke called Tom, also lovely and definitely not, Telly. And I met him and we did like a two second thing on camera. And she decided she was going to commission 20 shows, which I had no idea. But that is massive. It's massive and bonkers. That's massive. It never happens never have no idea but rob not just 20 episodes 20 episodes of itv daytime that is when your life bonkers changes but i should say when i arrived i've been prosecuting a case in jersey terribly difficult case um and then i flew to manchester this is all agreed i didn't have an agent or anything i arrived there was judge rinder and i'm like texting me what the hell and your case number one and bear in mind at this point i'd be dealing with cases where i'd been freezing billions of dollars of assets and so on and so forth yeah case number one you know woman was suing her wedding photographer.

13:08I'm looking at the photos going, it's slightly problematic because they look like her. She walked in. Case number two. One woman was suing her dentist. And I wanted to know where in the country this was happening. Can you help me, madam? Where did you have your teeth done in my mouth? Oh my God. But I literally get to Manchester. I've got these incredibly talented young humans running around. Would you like coffee? I was like, fuck this. this is insane i'll be kim jong-un yeah in an hour that's what interferes with people come on what you banned people on set from bringing you a cup of coffee and a cup of tea unless i'm in a meeting oh i love a little cup of tea brought to me no unless i'm in a meeting or there's some reason for or you're getting one for yourself forget about it the other thing was it's a real it's like it matters because that's what the whole industry rob rinder you have literally walked into this podcast requested a whiskey in your house in your house this is true that could be in the house what do they say about you you invited me around your house i don't go to dinner parties the rob rinder personality we see today is poised and eloquent now this whole thing brings to mind a childhood spent in an old rectory in the shires reading first edition dickens are you posh apart from the ugly house you've described um the rest is um my imaginary childhood yeah you grew up in southgate yeah the southgate um was a sort of um a mix but it was very much kind of london in the 80s and 90s a working class house i grew up in but you could afford a house which now would be out of reaching distance for most people certainly given my dad was a taxi driver yeah you grew up with your mom angela and your brother what was home life like good i mean good it was very much my grandma was around the corner my mom became a single mom and then started a a business and became very successful which is extraordinary in the 80s she started doing desktop publishing so she's working all day she do you sit together and eat on a night is she cooking no i mean and i love mum but that's probably a happy relief it wasn't her top skill she can make amazing chicken soup though it's amazing it's the best chicken soup in the family i feel like a hostage but i have to say that well on a night you tell me a typical thing that's being served on the table oh now we're talking are you about you're about 12 okay so it's all fat you've got to remember i'd be a bit younger actually to have really the food my grandma's were essential and my zayda my grandfather okay so monday monday night where we'd go to my dad's mom she passed very recently my grandma's all lived into their 90s and um we'd go to her house in wetstone she might have made what's called chopped meat okay i actually need a moment it actually makes me so it was um the recipe died with her actually it's interesting because i have the taste buds of a like a russian and in in russian which i speak it's called kotleti kotleti kotleti kotleti so it's like a cutlet basically it's like a flattened meatball it's like a flattened meatball meatloafy type meatloaf that's what i was gonna say yeah exactly so this is your grand your grand meatloaf right and it's been braised in like the juices for ages but the juices aren't like anything natural there's definitely a bit of Visto in there and stuff.

16:39Yeah. With mashed potato, with fried onions. And it was, it's irrepeatable. I mean, she was just an epic person. She was the ultimate Jewish grandma. I could do no wrong. I mean, talk about a recipe story. Like I thought I'd give her this lovely Jewish word, the cover, the respect of asking her how to make a chicken soup. Because I knew it would have meant the world to her. And she could lord it over the other women in the family that I'd ask her and no one else, right? So she gives me the recipe and I do it, but I'm useless at this shit. It involves, you know, being, you know, present in one room rather than reading two books at the same time.

17:19But I did it. Bought the chicken. She phoned me the next day. Unthinkable. Your grandma phoning you. Well, how did, well, I went, grandma, because it was a disaster. The chicken's all hard. You know, she goes, you take that shisel. That in Yiddish means the saucepan. you take that shizzle back to the butcher they've sold you an old hen ah the idea so she's a forceful woman that's gonna she just doesn't believe her grandchildren could do any wrong i mean i could have shat on the floor and it would be in the turner prize my other grandma the rest of the week she used to call it the poke it down i mean such a poke it down she used to call the food the poke it down from from the east then you know and survived the blitz and she would my brother and i would consciously sit in different rooms because it would be like keeping two dogs away from each other so we wouldn't fight she would make um shepherd's pies with such such all of that amazing comfort food that is totally imbued with like memory and love and effortlessness that you just know how to do it there's never been a recipe in existence because it's the relationship between memory history and the heart your dad was a cubby but he left when you were around seven but you didn't want to be a taxi driver no it would have been unthinkable and i by then my parents divorced and you know that would have been both for my brother and me a kind of worst case outcome not because there's anything wrong with being a taxi driver quite the opposite it's just it wasn't aspirational can i ask if you ever went to one of those green taxi driver huts that sell probably we used to go to the gramby grill i think earlier and that sort of thing i did represent my dad in the carriage office chance when he'd be naughty.

18:58Got him off. Did you? Yeah. Bloody hell. That must have been absolutely amazing. Well, it was good for him. Was he proud? What had he done? He was, oh, I don't know. I mean, he'd driven horribly. He didn't really enjoy the job. He'd have been much happier as a history. Was that your defence? Pretty much. He really just didn't enjoy the job. He would have been happier as a history professor. At school, you were quite the star-studded alumni were you at school with rachel stevens and amy winehouse well amy wine is a lot younger than me i knew her family very well you know her mum janice worked in the chemist down the road and her dad was a taxi driver and a great mate my dad they used to hang out with each other but um rachel yeah absolutely she was in the other class because there were two in a year but we know we really knew each other we used to go to the same youth club and had the first you know first snogs and all of that stuff what were you like at school is this where this comes from this articles.

19:57Maybe. Probably. I mean, I was probably insufferable. In fact, I definitely was. And what would you describe it in Northeastern language? A dickhead. I just didn't suit the condition of childhood terribly well.

20:19From North London, you went proper north to Manchester, where you studied politics and modern history. This was the early 90s. Manchester's having a bit of a renaissance. That's where I went, yeah. I had gone to university, you know, I'd thought about taking a year off and then going to do English at Oxford. And my hero, Mrs Grice, who changed my life by when I was 15, and this teacher went, you're clever, aren't you, or something. As anodyne as that, and it changed my life and it's like a switch went on and I became completely invested in learning in a really serious way and she'd gone to Manchester so I was like right I'm going there whatever you did so I became much more invested in academic things but I thought I'd have another go at acting I actually and actually the end of university I don't think I've ever shared this I did Guys and Dolls where I played Sky Master and I must have been the campus Sky Masterson ever like in the history of the world you were still in you weren't yeah I wasn't out of university No, no, I was dating women then.

21:19I was desperate to be straight. It's a whole other, it's the 90s, right? It wasn't as straightforward or as safe as it is now. That must have been knacker-ing. A little bit, but I was busy. And it's not like I didn't have kind of the odd sort of vague one dalliance. I was much more concerned about achieving things than I was about fucking. So there was the acting friends of Benedict and those people. But I was more interested in all of the things involving the sort of, let's say the journey of the mind. I'm going to vomit on myself, but there you are. And my cool thing was debating. And so I ended up going to the bar for that reason.

21:54And I was living in Fallowfield and I loved it though. But I mean, I was going to say, like how did you cope with communal kitchens and shared living? I mean, it was absolutely squalid. My mum came to visit my student house in year two. And even in my head, I make her sound like a Mitford and she definitely isn't. that you said the only thing the kitchen is missing is a rat. It was, I mean, it would have been condemned now. Yeah. Did anybody clean up? I didn't really go into the kitchen that. I certainly didn't cook. I lived near Rochon where it was like in reaching distance of non-chained homemade curries and stuff.

22:34I was so fat at uni. That's why I wasn't shagging anyone. I was really, really... But women must have loved you. Come on. In what regard? You're good looking and you're funny and there would have been an air of absolute unattainability about you. There would have been a bit of you that just wasn't available. So ergo, that is catnip to a woman. Do you think so? Oh, there's something. I can't. He doesn't seem to be settling down with anybody. No, I was in long term relationships and I loved them very, very much. And I was desperate for it to work out and for one day for it to wake up and not be so or be so.

23:12because I really wanted to be married to a woman. Life would have been, certainly back then, much easier. And I could have envisaged a future that would have been joyful, let's say. But, you know, I could get to the, you know, the curtain call, but couldn't do the opening number. Do you know what I mean? Good Lord, even like my overtures in heterosexual sex sound so gay. But you get the point. Yeah. It did come out. How did life change then? I was met with nothing really apart from the first immediate 24 hours of concern and fear from my mum which is understandable and inevitable bearing in mind what the world had told and informed and taught parents what being gay was and still does it was a terrifying thing you throw in Jewish and what you really want for your kids is for them to be safe or for their path to at least be less challenging and certainly less full of risk.

24:10You go to the bar, it's 2001, you become a barrister and you become a member of one of London's four inns of court. This is a bit like being in a private members club. Is there a cafe? The best cafe in London. It's not quite a cafe. Is it a restaurant? Yeah. To qualify to be a barrister, I think it's still the case. First of all, you have to be a member of an inn which you can join. And then anybody who's, you know going intends to qualify as a barrister can join one um and in addition to having to do your bar exams you also have to dine at your in 12 times oh and 12 formal evenings with gowns on right and you'd sit next to other practitioners some of whom were had extraordinary lives i mean colleagues of mine sat next to people who because i'm a member of inner temple had been um colleagues of gandhi who was also a member of inner temple so hang on a hundred years But this feels very prestigious.

25:00Is the food prestigious or is it just… It's fucking awesome. The reason I chose in a temple, there's four. There's middle, Lincoln's Inn, very beautiful. And it's referred to and described in Dickens' Bleak House perfectly right at the beginning. It still looks exactly the same. And Grey's Inn. And they're like, you know, off the backdrop of the bustle of central London, literally behind Fleet Street in the middle of the city. They're like these Oxford colleges, what it looks like. And it's called the Velvet Drain Pipe. I go from your Oxford College into one of the inns of court. Middle temple where my chambers are.

25:32The velvet drainpipe. So this isn't kind of tepid award ceremony chicken. Oh, none of that shit. In a dry sauce. No, lunch is absolutely great. And in fact, I chose the inn that I would qualify in based on where did the best lunch. And in a temple, even today as we're sitting here, unbelievable. So every single day you can go, actually, if you can get a member to, if you can persuade a member to take you, they have a buffet. You know, it's quite controversial because members of other inns, of all the things I say, they'll be quite upset that I've said they have the best food. It's quite competitive.

26:10Tell me the buffet. I want three items from the buffet. Okay, so let's go on a Friday. We're going to deal with going on a Friday. So they will have the best fried fish. my grandfather used to make fried fish but comparatively i'd say they make the best fish and chips in london okay i'm not joking yeah perfect batter and i had it that is like amazingly done what are you having for dessert they have six or seven properly made dessert but it's it's like upmarket i mean this would be this is food orgasm freshly made uh eaten mess it might be as the special with custard, but also, you know, a proper pétisier, the lot.

26:53I mean, that's their everyday. And they'll also have a carvery going at the same time, or a really good fish with a thoughtful source of some description, but only two or three ingredients done really perfectly. It is the best buffet in London. Problem is that you can't really eat like that because you end up in a food coma. And that's the last thing you need if you're cross-examining witness in a murder trial.

27:22I want to talk a little bit about love. You were married. I was married, yeah. You're not married? Divorced. When you're going through heartache like that, do you still eat? Who says I was going through heartache? Well, I don't know. I mean, when I got divorced, I went through a lot of heartache, even though he should have gone. But when I was going through a divorce, I lived mainly on Kit Kats and a cold can of cider now and again. That sounds utterly revolting. Oh, God. The heart wants what it wants. The stomach wants what it wants. My problem is not shit. So I'm not eating that Baroque squalor that you're having.

28:06What is it? Kit Kat and cider? Baroque squalor. What even is that? I don't... It's a cider, a lovely can of cold Strongbow cider. So you sit there with a special brew and a Kit Kat. That's how bad your divorce was. It was a very difficult time in my life. So you had ropey hair. Ropey, terrible. You've got a Kit Kat in one hand and a cider in another. I'm just trying to get cat hair all over me. Oh my God. Why? Why has he left? Why has he gone? This is like what happened? I'm sort of thinking of a Northeastern Janis Joplin vibes. Yeah, I know. do you do you i absolutely stress eat i would order i love jewish food right i would order like a tub of chopped liver let's say which would be enough for quite a large size family and i'd eat the whole thing the entire tub like last night was a bit stressed for reasons which are too boring to go into and i ordered a like posh chicken soup and like from the posh chinese shop up the road this sounds disgusting some people but like a massive portion of like chicken gizzards with chili and no rice because it's protein obviously i'm okay we're not gonna have too much right and and ate that but or or a huge like uh lasagna maybe or a cacio pepper it's got to be delivered in time much like the fish at filet of fish or it gets it becomes a jallacan but i'll eat a family portion of it that's the thing so we're looking oh yeah we're talking about fillet of fish if i've had like a moment that i will it's why i was really delighted to talk about it delighted it mattered let's say to talk about it i know that i'm going through a stressful period when it's like 11 o 'clock and i think right i'm gonna go on the app don't do the drugs i'm gonna get to fillet of fish with some barbecue sauce and if i'm really stressed day i might order the more fries with it i never hear anything about your love life if you place your love life as part of your brand let's say you'll talk about it or with the consent of your partner you make it part of your social presence your oeuvre let's say then it's fair game when people want to talk about it do you feel like you did with your relationship he's a private person and so he's consequently deeply entitled to privacy by the time we had parted company fully by the time it was the end of our relationship we'd you know realized that perhaps we'd be happier elsewhere but we did it with I think it's fair to say mindfulness and that's as much as I'm prepared to say because I wouldn't want to talk or speak for him but I did eat a lot my two things were eating and exercise thank goodness so exercise I was going really you know I was at the Barry's boot camp sometimes twice a day.

30:47I heard that you were at Barry's boot camp with George Osborne. Oh, I took him there. Yeah, yeah. Well, because my husband worked for him. It's no secret. What does George look like in little shorts? Well, better now than he did. Now you got him down Barry's.

31:14i don't want to put words in your mouth but i did see a flicker of something between you and a flicker of uh you you would have done absolutely a flicker of the most platonic love imaginable type of friendship that you yeah that is everything i think he's really he's a beautiful I think he's very good. Has he been here yet? Not yet. He wouldn't come this far. Oh, I don't know. I've got quite a draw. No. He actually would love it. When you're talking about the Grand Tour, that last day when he was in front of that Caravaggio, or when I saw him, because I hadn't seen it, him in front of the Venus de Milo, and I only saw it when we were in the voiceover.

31:57So I'd seen the programme cut, and him talking about the imperfection of Botticelli's painting and how beautiful that was. I actually had to get them to stop because I had goosebumps thinking about it now. But what happens is it's, I was so proud of him. There's such love, real love. And in the same way, like I love, obviously platonically, students or mentorees that I've had. I don't know why we don't talk about different forms of love more deeply. I love, you know, I love, and the thing about, I love eating, like going out to restaurants with friends and then talking about the food is everything.

32:34I can't bear, I don't even go to my friends if they're going to cook. Unless it's a Friday night meal, I'll go there, or a Sunday roast, which is different because that's ritual, but I do not want you to fucking cook for me. Absolutely not. And you're banned from inviting me to a dinner party. Unless, like, they're not friends, but I have been to people's houses, who are super posh, not in my immediate crowd, you know, and they'll have a chef in. I'll go to that. But I'm not coming to your house if you're going to make food. I'm never inviting you back to this house because you... Do you cook?

33:04I do cook. I'm a very good cook. But you would complain so much about having to come to this postcode again that you will not be getting. No, I'm fine now because I'm prepared. Knowing that you would bring... So I'd find, like, happy language. It's like, you know, when you're... You'd find happy language. Like, you know, your sister, like, the bride comes along to you at the wedding and you're looking for an adjective and you go... And you panic. Don't you look energetic? So I'd come prepared. When you did, who do you think you are? did you discover a lot about yourself and did it change things in your life?

33:35It's a really important moment in the life of my family let's say. My grandfather who I've talked about, you know this is a podcast about your love and consequently your thirst to share your love of food and how food pays. Such an integral, for me it's a spiritual part of people's lives and people's families and at the heart of our family was my grandfather who's a survivor and he never really sat down never did never does in other words survivors tend not to in one narrative tell you what happened to them during the war right and that's true by the way of other people have experienced trauma they didn't sit down and tell their children it exists in the molecules of a space you learn it just as you imbibe language so parents know what not to ask right yeah because you don't hurt your parents right and nearly everybody has a story like that in their family right around not asking certain things or certain questions of parents grandparent so what it did was i had an outline of his life i knew he was a survivor i knew he'd had sisters and so on and so forth but i didn't know the full color the completion of it so finding that out was deeply important both for my family to rebreathe life into his four sisters and his brother and his parents who'd been murdered in the war but also on a in a broader sense to share that story and then went on to make the holocaust my family and me to share other stories which is now a program that's taught in 400 schools i'm really proud of and i do that alongside my mom this grando you mentioned the holocaust survivor he was a baker and in fact you come from a long line of bakers yeah what is your go-to bake he baked cakes he baked biscuits it smelled like heaven tell me about the biscuits he would do rugelach sweet sort of jammy rolly type things but with a sort of more biscuity quality um kiechels again a similar sweet biscuit but i hadn't known just how this was part of his life because he turned out to be when i went did my who do you think you are we found out because somebody had kept a periodical it turns out i was in the um the guy who was showing me around was a grandson of his best mate who'd survived and i'd never met him and didn't know we're just in the same place and he had a little periodical his grandfather had wrote and it turned out my grandfather walked around the town of Piotrkov shouting out cookies for sale so he was baking from as young as sort of five or six it was absolutely in his blood so when he died you know around dotted around the place and this is how you best understand somebody who's really experienced what hunger is in the truest sense there were little napkins and parcels of food and drawers and at the backs of cupboards and stuff and despite dying in some comfort you never lose that right yeah it's worth reflecting oh my god yeah but i've inherited to an extent that so if i'm at a table and i love big lunches right you're like especially in ibith or whatever you know you want to just like loads of stuff i can't see anything wasted so i'm like hoovering it up yeah that's why yeah and i love eating like i listen i can't tell you of any confidence but one thing i feel sure about it's not my land but I definitely think it's a universal truism.

36:53If you don't love food, you cannot possibly be any good at sex. But then being around people that just eat to live rather than live to eat. That's not living. Why don't you go and take your shoes out of the oven and go and bake some biscuits? It's in your blood to do this. You'd think so, wouldn't you? And I wonder whether to some extent that's what stops me, actually. I don't know. It's quite interesting. But the thought that you can't be as good? No, no, no, no. I thought that you're doing something. No, it's the mess. My antithesis towards baking is all about mess. It's got nothing to do with a kind of interest in doing it.