Bonus: John Lithgow on his Great British Bake Off appearance

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0:48That's why over 200 ,000 happy customers have made the switch. Upgrade your space today. Visit washablesofas.com now and bring home a sofa made for life. That's washablesofas.com. Offers are subject to change, and certain restrictions may apply. You are listening to Ruthie's Table 4 in partnership with Montclair. You are actually, as a contestant, I've done my research, I thought that I saw it, on Celebrity Bake Off? Yes. I was a hapless baker, a hapless celebrity baker on the great British Bake Off. I was a catastrophe with the camera floating above my trembling fingers. And, you know, there are those three or four different categories.

1:35I did all right with anything I could rehearse beforehand. But when they sprung the technical category on me. That's not fair. Oh, my God. It would have been fair for anyone who really is a good baker, but I am not. and I discovered just what a catastrophe I am. So you didn't know you had to make that recipe? No, I was told we're going to have you make a Swiss roll, something I had never heard of in my life. And I, oh God, I could tell you the whole story, but bottom line, I forgot to put the flour in. And it was, oh my God, it looked like a pile of muck. I know, but you know, I bet that was really good because there's nothing like a flourless chocolate cake.

2:25So probably a flourless Swiss roll was really ahead of its time. Well, it was unprecedented for sure. But, oh, my God. You know, the judgment that they passed on my creation was not sellable in any cake shop. Oh. And I thought, oh, wow. What a criteria for a good cake. That is the worst review I've ever heard in my life. I think it's a very poor criteria. My wife had a T-shirt made up for me as a Christmas present that said, not sellable in any cake shop. That's a whole new, the idea that television has become this kind of, it used to be about success. How smart were you to win a game? How smart were you to guess a person's identity?

3:10How clever were you to do something? And now it's about how poor are you? How inadequate are you? Yeah, the catastrophes. You're fired or you have to leave the show. That's why I couldn't be a judge. I tried to do it and I just was too empathetic to the loser. Well, you would be a lousy judge. You're too kind, Ruth. I would, yeah. You are literally too kind. No, I don't know, but it's just horrible, that sense of, you know, yeah. I accepted defeat. I said, I understand every one of these shows needs a failure and I'm happy to embrace that role. In the case of the four of us, there's win, place, show, and not sellable in any cake shop.

3:50Yeah. And that was me. I think that you should be quite proud to be not sellable. Who wants to go into a cake shop anyway? Well, all my English friends, probably lying, said it's made me enormously popular in England. Fortunately, Winston Churchill was plenty sellable. You don't mean the Winston. You said, what was Winston Churchill? I played Winston Churchill. I know that. But did you make a cake? There was another challenge where you had to make something out of 24 different segments of biscuit, which could be assembled for the final creation. And I decided to make 10 Downing Street with Winston and Clemmie and various props.

4:34And I did practice it. I did a pretty decent Downing Street gingerbread house with a little Winston Churchill gingerbread man, all painted with icing. I was all prepared for that segment of the bake-off. I was all ready. I thought, this is going to be my strong suit. It turned out I came up short. There were only 23 rather than 24 little biscuit pieces, so I was disqualified. It came out beautifully, but I couldn't even compete. I'm never going to watch this television show again. It was like I had taken steroids in the Olympics. Yeah, I know.

5:17Thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table 4 in partnership with Montclair.

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