Emma Barnett

0:03Hello and welcome to Table Manners and we're wishing you a very very happy new year. How was How was everyone's New Year's? How was everyone's Christmases? First podcast of the new year, darling. And yeah, I hope 2026 is a really good one. How are you? I'm okay, darling. I only saw you 12 hours ago. Yeah, and I've been up cooking since. No rest for the podcasting weekend. Well, I can tell you who's probably more tired than us. Yeah. Our guest that's coming on today. That's sensible. Emma Barnett, who is one of the hosts of the Today programme on Radio 4. You might have heard it also when she had her own show on 5 Live, Radio 5 Live, where she'd have really long, brilliant conversations with the listeners.

0:46Then she moved on to Woman's Hour and I think she was such an amazing presenter. She was so good about all women's issues. She was powerful. She got the best interviews. I just adored her. Then she moved on. Well, I heard her this morning talking about the issue with... Water. What a bloody cheek. I know. She said she would be worried to shower in it. I know. Five days without water. But also she's been a real spokesperson for women's health issues because she has suffered with endometriosis, rounds of IVF, failed IVF and miscarriages. She released a book called Period. It's about Bloody Time, which was about her struggles with endometriosis.

1:33She also did a really interesting book about maternity leave, or as she calls it, maternity service, and what she thinks women should be entitled to when they have a baby. She's a good old Mancunian. Nice Jewish girl. Nice Jewish girl. Went to my school. She also interviewed me years ago in Brixton Market for Time Out magazine. I don't think she was on the radio then. She's worked for the Daily Telegraph. She's had a column in the Sunday Times called Tough Love. She's kind of done everything. She's also now an entrepreneur. She has a colouring in book business with her husband. Where you colour in your own area.

2:12So you can find an area where you can find Brixton, Clapham, probably where you live, Jess. I don't think she's done a new cross one yet. Well, you better tell her. And then also what she's coming on today to talk about is her new BBC Sounds podcast. Brilliant. It's called Ready to Talk. And it's Emma talking to people about subjects that I think have affected her. You know, the first episode was with Kate Thornton and it's about perimenopause. Emma is just an incredible interviewer and conversationalist. And I'm terrified that I'm not going to be able to give enough facts. Well, let's just hope she's ready to talk.

2:52Oh, very good, Lynnie. And what have you made for Emma? I've made an aubergine parmigiana, basically because I love it. And I've just done a green salad. Remember, it's almost dinner time for her now. She's been up since four. So eight hours in, it's a long day. It's the end of the day for her. May I commend you, Mum? You've made a vegetarian dish without making a big deal out of it. No prompting. and then I have made a white chocolate cheesecake and I made a fresh fruit salad a la Cousin Liz. Cousin Liz, so it's got tin light cheese in it? No, actually I have got tin light cheese in it. I've got stem ginger in it.

3:31Yeah, if you ever want to zhuzh up a fruit salad, just put a bit of stem ginger in there. It will look like you've made a real effort. You have made an effort. I have made an effort. Emma Barnett coming up on Table Manners.

3:57Emma Barnett thank you very much for being here after doing a you know a good shift you've done my show at Radio 4 I've done the Today programme this morning and straight here because I'm ready for lunch or dinner at this point yeah that's what we thought we didn't know what to do so what time were you up this morning and what kind of eggs did you have this morning i woke up i did the thing when it's the first one of the week i do that thing a bit like when you're going on an early airplane where you wake up a bit earlier yeah and you need to yeah so i woke up at 1 30 and was like oh no there's still two hours nearly two hours left because i get up at 3 21 3 21 it's it's a strange thing i have to since a child i don't have anything else like this i don't need to shut cupboards a certain way or anything i just like getting up one minute extra.

4:42It's like my rebelling against the machine. It gives me no extra sleep, but there's just something about the jagged edge of it that I quite like. Why don't we push it to 325? I know, it'd be crazy, right? I like a one or a three. Okay, okay. There's something going on there. Wow. Interesting. Let's not analyse it. So I get up, I got up. I did go back to sleep at 1.30, got back up. And I go down, well, go to the loo, get dressed like a bit of a ninja. Everything's laid out. And my husband somehow stays asleep. That's amazing. Which is quite ninja skills in itself. You must be quite considerate.

5:12I am, I've got very good at it, kind of sleuth skills. And makeup goes on. It's a sort of 19 minute regime. It's drilled. Do you put your own makeup on? Yes. You don't just get in the taxi and then do it then? Even though it's filmed, there is no makeup for radio presenters. That is not horror. There's no makeup for podcasters either. Just to lay it on this morning. You both look great. Well, so do you. And then I get out, I get downstairs, our kitchen's in the basement, it's one of those tall sort of Victorian houses, and I sneak downstairs and I get my two hard-boiled eggs. Yeah. And I have a bit of a probiotic or a thing in the morning just to try and kickstart the system.

5:53Grab my fruits from the fridge, every other bit is packed already of food because there's no cafes open at this time of the morning. And so, yeah, the food is actually a huge operation. and I realised how tiredness would make you eat badly, like really badly in the morning, when I used to do maybe newspaper reviews back in the day on other people's breakfast programmes. So I've been quite disciplined. So I had this morning, what did I manage? Sometimes you don't really feel like eating a lot, but I start the day, it's pretty punchy. I have a hot water when I go in at 4, 4.15. And you know, you're reading news and what's happened overnight and briefs from the minute you get in.

6:29And I have a beef sausage. so it is an organic fermented nobody's in it it's from one of like the heel health it's probably oh yeah yeah yeah i don't know how to say it it's a bit weird yes i can't accept sponsorship i work at the bbc but that is what i found through a friend that's a real shame i know it's a peppery beef sausage it's a jerk like jerk yeah but it's um is it cold it's cold like a healthy like a healthy pepperoni yeah so i want some protein and i like savory i love marmite like yeah um and so i have that that's the first thing i eat then i have a strong cup of tea and i'm very particular about tea and i drink coffee and then i hit in no mortar a banana a hard-boiled egg maybe a bit of avoc everything's in constituent parts so it's a bit of a fat small bits i'm sort of eating protein for two hours until i go on is this a new thing doing the protein um and was it to do with kind of body changing and things yes I think so there was a mixture so when I presented women's hour so I've been a 10am live broadcaster for about 10 years and I was able because it was on a normal hour of the day to go to the BBC canteen and I would often have a couple of poached eggs some toast bit of marmite that sort of breakfast and just bring a bit of fruit in what's changed is I had to bring my own food and a lot of people do cereal and porridge like the other the other presenters and producers you do yeah you have a kitchen on each floor of the BBC there's a fridge there's all of that but I don't get I've never gotten well with cereal sort of sugary stuff in the morning I just I just don't really like it what's Amal Rajan having I don't think he eats oh he fasts doesn't he yeah I think so I start when I started the today program I tried that and I just in terms of maybe I'd be ready to eat later I was trying to figure out how I felt.

8:21I can't do that. I need food. But sort of an hour of waking up. But you don't have any carbohydrate. So I do have some toast or some sourdough or something maybe afterwards. Oh, after. But I have reduced that. So I'm trying to be honest around food at the moment. I'm on a bit of a horrible thing with it because of my endometriosis, adenomyosis, perimenopause. What's the other one? Don't worry, no one even knows. It's where the womb lining grows in on itself. I only found out about that a few years after the endometriosis and I had a miscarriage. So it's very painful. So I've got these two things.

8:55All you need to know is they're both inflammatory conditions. So the body needs to, you know, calm down for the little that we know about it. So I don't eat as much, for instance, fried or breads at the moment, fried food or breads, which are my favourite things. But I do still eat them. It's just I don't start the day like that. Things can change as we go through the day. but I try and start quite so breakfast is a long event it's quite long and then I'm working when you're working so then when you go back I mean you're going to eat something here I'm very excited but when you go back would you have if you were going home straight home what would you eat now like your dinner yes I did have a tiny plate of something before I came out and I had I didn't for instance I took an avocado this man can't always be bothered with the faff of getting everything ready or eating it so i had a bit of that with a bit of sourdough just when i got it yeah butter loads of butter that that might be it or there's a cafe i like going proper caf around the corner from the bbc called frank's they do the best cup of tea it's made with real tea leaves which i never do for myself it's lovely and then i might have their omelette so i might have even more eggs but with some veg is that frank's in titchfield street yes yeah i used to go there when i went to court in well street okay so and they have great coffee i think they're portuguese oh i don't know either italian or yes i think they might be as well but the coffee was brilliant absolutely the tea is delicious oh okay because i have a four minute brew for tea that's like religious and what's the bag it is now clipper english breakfast organic i don't even know i do like yorkshire i did it for a long time it's too strong well i like strong tea but i don't i make everybody else a cup of tea or i just because i want to make my own no people say I can't do it like that so please can I just have it half how much milk not just a dash a dash and a bit so it's it's it's not black it's not brown brown but it's organized Emma in the morning I mean particular yeah no no but you're asking particular you're asking about the mornings of work yeah on other I've got a two-year-old and a seven-year-old I get up and we see what happens on all the other mornings although you have to get them to school you know one of them to school certainly so that i i don't usually do drop off i'm team pickup so the mornings with kids i'm still not as good as we need to get something very important out of the way yes manchester bagels are they not the best bagels in the whole universe brackman's the best bagels i don't know this is probably not in your age range so we should declare when you and i first met and i and i interviewed jesse it was the telegraph oh it was the telegraph and when i I was working there and I was setting up the women's section and you were my one of my first guests one of my first interviewees and we had this you know really good chat that was starting and then I'd read your mum had a Manchester connection or something and then we realized that you had been at school with my mother and it got even weirder because well we sort of talked about lots of different things that we had in common and then you said you should live here because I was looking where to live in London and you took me around a bit and you're one of the reasons I moved to Brixton to southeast London to Brixton at first and now I'm a bit more sort of hernhill Brixton oh you're closer to me now yeah maybe and it just was like one of those things and my husband grew up in he was born in New York but he grew up in Dulwich and Crystal Palace way that way oh sex and he I rang him up as we'd had a few and I was like I've been out with this pop star yeah we went for cocktails yeah and she said seven of course she did darling yes it was seven and you knew the people and I said she said we should live in Brixton so we're going to move to Brixton I was so affirmative about this the Mancunian and and then I rang my mum I was like mum and so this whole thing had spider tails so yes uh that was the link and Manchester I was just going to say and it's linked to food but her grandfather my great-grandfather ran a bakery in Manchester called Seaf's oh I remember Seaf's do you remember Seaf's okay well no but you know and his black bread was meant to be amazing so i don't think we can join the bagel there is not a black bread in london that i've ever found the same with that sourness that you got from black carol it's the caraway it's caraway it isn't it must be rye that they put in it was slightly sour and it was really good color and then you'd cut it it was almost better than bagels on a on a sunday it was great with smoked salmon but blackpool tomatoes were the best to go on a cheese and tomato sandwich i just took my whole southern family to blackpool did you nations how are they faring nowadays jess's favorite place on earth did you used to go and your donkey what was your donkey called popeye all the donkeys were called so much it was it was a real day out let me tell you we went for a weekend and um it didn't stop raining it was raining so hard it was sideways but we did get a bit of a break the next day and i did not expect us to be talking about blackpool but i agree with you on bagels and there's great stories i didn't get to go to my great-grandfather's bakery he sadly died when my grandfather was very young but um the women took it over it was their business apart from it being amazing that these women sort of took it on and my great-auntie queenie you know when people were called queenie ran this business from the stories i hear and you know uh put my my grandfather and grandmother through you know education and did all these grandfather and his sister i should say my great-aunt mini you know minna excuse me these names are just so there's just these lovely names aren't there that paint a picture of that era but he'd come over as you know complete refugee with nothing from latvia and taught himself to bake and he was giving out the story i always love about him is he was giving out the end of the day this you know the stuff that was left over long before pret and people had these he was giving it out to the poor because he'd come with nothing and people have these lovely memories of him that they sometimes share with me or certainly of the of the baked goods but in terms of the synagogue we were members certainly i was member uh the family was members of heaton park synagogue which was just in the news because on october the 2nd which happened to be yom kippur the holiest day of the jewish calendar there was as the police called a terrorist attack uh and the attacker came to obviously try and do great harm and there was two people lost their lives other people were stabbed i've actually just interviewed on my new podcast which is called ready to talk and he is ready to talk even though it's so soon um an amazing man called yoni finlay he's got four children and he was in trying to actually help lead the service that day and what's incredible is it's thought and i just can't get my head around this that the bullet from the police trying to take out jihad al-shami the attacker went through jihad al-shami ultimately killing him through the synagogue doors, through Yanni's body and through Adrian behind him, another congregant trying to barricade the doors.

15:49And it kills Adrian. It kills the attacker. And Yanni survives. And it's your face, I mean, it's like, it's one of those things. It was beshecht. It was, yeah, which means meant to be. Meant to be, definitely. Yeah, but it's still... It must have just been the position where it went through. He must have such... I mean, sure, him and his family are so thankful he's alive but there's guilt with that too and like it's just which he talks about you know in the podcast which i just recorded it so it's very fresh in my mind and he also feels this huge pressure to do something now with his life you know to make good with his life and he's a lot of complicated emotions because they're a community grieving you know and it was it was just very strange because you know you know those streets very well and you could when it happened you take yourself right back there and you know there's no getting away from the fact that a man woke up that morning and wanted to go and kill a load of jews it's a very very difficult reality to get to grips with about your new podcast ready to talk what made you decide to do a podcast i mean it makes a lot of sense yes i mean what was strange what has been strange obviously as a live broadcaster is especially for instance on something like woman's hour the podcast is huge so you have a podcast that you work and i used to present that program four days a week whereas having a room of one's own an audio room of one's own and the space to have longer with people to talk to them and you know my my skill my craft is interviewing and I take it really seriously and people tell me the most amazing stories and I wanted to create a very special place to do that and it just felt the right time the right moment and I also feel although I'm obviously for people who've known my work you know they kind of know me around the big interviews of the moment and the big headlines.

17:35I also increasingly feel that the most important stories are the sort of the biggest headlines of our lives, you know, the biggest things in our lives that change us, make us feel differently, look a different way. And I feel in quite a fractured world, finding and my skill, I hope, is to draw people out and, you know, finding the stories that you might not be able to relate to, but actually change you by hearing them. So some of the people that have already been on, You know, you started the season with Kate Thornton, your HRT theory, who, and that was very open. And yeah, I decided to expose myself for the first episode, which was not necessarily the plan, but it sort of just happened.

18:15And I met Kate. I mean, the first time I saw Kate, she was on X Factor, like everybody else or those sorts of programmes. And then we happened to meet on the local train and I really, on the tube in Brixton, and I really liked her glasses. So we just had one of those chats that women have like, where are they from? And we'd sort of seen each other around. and then I don't know what sort of happened but we ended up texting about that and then I she asked me out for a drink I said I'm just going through something at the moment I didn't really know what was going on and I had all this IVF to have our children and I'd come out of that and I was 38 at the time and I just didn't feel quite right and I thought it was my endometriosis because obviously when you stop breastfeeding your cycles come back I was in loads of pain but it was kind of different because I felt quite different and I didn't know what I just didn't feel quite like me and I won't go through the whole thing but we've had a massive response to that conversation because in it I talk about how I didn't realize what I was going through perimenopause the beginning stages of it so all my hormones were just in decline but also well that's what I thought but it starts for a lot of women in their 30s without them realizing it going through your 40s and then but you just had your baby yes it was and I've just gone back to work and you must have thought maybe i'm really overwhelmed tired yes just you know a new mum again like to lots of other things and i went on this hormonal safari because one of the things they say for endometriosis because they don't have a cure they don't know what's what's causing it they don't know if it's genetic any of those questions they literally know nothing still which is unbelievable for the amount of women it affects and how it changes and affects our lives is they want to put you on hormones so they put you on synthetic hormones they put you on the coil the same stuff the same shit to be honest if i'm allowed to swear that they put you on when you're 16 you know that your body actually struggles with then but you sort of deal with and get through it my other daughter always says if men had it they would find a cure very quickly that women's health is so neglected it is and and so i i could i went on the coil i did all these different things and i wasn't getting on with them and a thing that i'd always like to share is that a lot of women especially after 35 just can't tolerate synthetic hormones anymore you know they go back on that pill that was amazing when they were 25 or at least tolerable and we remember it as amazing in my case I was probably drunk half the time um and you know I can't tolerate booze in the same way you know our bodies change and I just couldn't do it and then it took a long road of figuring out I think I actually need bioidentical hormones which is estrogen progesterone and a little bit of testosterone how are you feeling now I am still fine-tuning what I take and learning about my body I want to say I'm doing a lot better like I'm definitely on the road it's just the other thing you know and women who've spoken out before me who I'm really grateful for to read about their experiences or listen to them is that it takes a while to find your thing I feel like I'm DJing my body slightly but having done ivf unlike some of my friends i'm actually okay with it some of the same i mean it's not great but i'm also grateful to have it and to have the chance to to you know because the other thing that happens is obviously women get offered antidepressants left right and center and you know nine million people in england are on antidepressants nine million you know we we are in a the grip of and i'm for some people this is very much the right thing but for busy doctors who don't know necessarily what's going on with people, especially women, this is what is often offered.

21:43And, you know, they were called Mummy's Little Helpers in the 60s for a good reason because women were stuck at home often without anything to do and sort of losing themselves. And now a few men I know are doing the house husband thing, as it were, in inverted commas, and they're like, how did women ever put up with this? I'm like, you think? So I don't think we've moved on that much. You know, you talk about women's health. So, yeah, I put a load of stuff out there in the first episode. And then, you know, since we've had Catherine Ryan on about being unlikable, we had these two amazing women last week.

22:10Yes, the most recent one. Yeah. Talk about them. And how, didn't you meet one of, did you meet one of them on a? So, no, no, I did. So they, I read about their story. It was on social media. And then I got them to come on the Today programme, which was quite an overwhelming thing. Basically, one of them, when she was 15, Georgia, she was diagnosed with something called MKRH. which you'll forgive me if I don't know the full name. It's quite a complicated one. And it's one in 5 ,000 women have it, I believe, where you're born without a womb. And she had always wanted children. And she wanted to be a midwife.

22:43And to her credit, she continued with her dream of being a midwife. Had a lot of therapy. But her friend, her best friend, Daisy Hope, very well named, said to her, I'll have your baby. And she was like... But this was a promise when they were teenagers, right? And then Daisy had never been interested in having her own children. She then did meet someone. but on her first date said oh by the way i'm going to carry for my friend because she has ovaries so she she was able to have her own biological children should someone else uh surrogate and this man she met was like okay anyway they go on to have their own she said it on her first date with her partner she was like by the way i think because george's mum accidentally was in the date place or something like this wasn't it and so she was like oh yeah by the way just to get this out the way i am going to carry my best friend's baby yes when the time's right i sat in this room for this very intense interview and you know you sometimes forget these different bits and he was very cool with it amazing yeah they went on to have their baby they have their baby and then she turned around to her friend and said right let's do it and the best thing in this the whole story for me and i hear a lot of stories obviously every day and talk to people and it's a huge privilege but was she said i would rather we had one baby each than i went on to have a second and my best friend didn't have any which is just and her best kind of more committed than relative it's yeah divine it's just a total love story and seeing them together and then I met the daughter otterly yeah and she was only six weeks old and there was a very proud grandmother who was looking after while they did the broadcast uh and yeah it's just that you know I love finding these major stories which might not be the number one news story although you know it went on the bbc website and within minutes it was the second most read thing.

24:26It's on Vogue. Yeah, you know, it's one of those stories that people actually want to read. And I'm very interested in finding those. Do you have someone helping you find them or I feel like, are you kind of... I'm very involved, but there's a team of us. It's a really great team. They're lovely, they're really experienced and it's so nice to do something as well for me that isn't live and there's some time and people can really settle in the room and we've got some pretty hardcore things as well coming up. Do you like live radio? I do. Yeah. Is this exciting? Yes. And there's a dynamism. I also like being in touch with listeners.

25:00So I like seeing text messages come in. I like seeing what people are thinking. What would you say was one of your most memorable best interviews? Oh, gosh. I mean, I don't know. I was going to like, you've got the famous moment with Nigel Farage. Like, we're not mates. That was amazing. Yeah, that was this year. I mean, you've had Farage. You've also had, why are you lying? Why are you lying? there was like, which one was that? I don't know. You had one and it was like... Well, I thought... No, it was somebody, they'd said a statement and you were like, how can you know that when the report hasn't even come out?

25:38Like, you're so sharp. Okay, so there's different types of interviews. So, I mean, there's the very human ones. For instance, I did the first interview with Nazanin Sagari-Rakliff when she'd been released. That was that on Woman's Hour? It was on television and on Woman's Hour. That was my most memorable one. It will live with me forever. And I had interviewed Richard, her husband, for years, you know, trying to get her out. And, you know, I'd met Gabriella, her daughter, who she wasn't able to be with. And then to meet her, you know, it was just incredible. And for me, that's a story that is really important to get across, obviously, the human side of it, but the political side of Iran, of what it means, how the world works together, what's going on when people are being used as political pawns.

26:21And then, you know, there was a major moment in that story as well where she admitted that, or not admitted, she shared that the British side had overseen her signing a forced confession as she left Iran. And her mum and dad are still in Iran. And that's an extraordinary insight for us as people, as citizens, as, you know, taxpayers to know what goes on when you get people out. And, you know, six foreign secretaries, I think it went through at the time. So that story through to the beginning of the year, I interviewed Caroline Darien, who is the daughter of Giselle and Dominique Penko. Oh, yeah, I heard that as well.

26:59Who, you know, that was on television and also for the Today programme. So I think it's quite interesting when you do longer things for radio because it's very intimate, as you know, in podcasts and audio. But, you know, she believes her father is the biggest rape trial in French history. She believes her father abused her. So, you know, and then also her mother's become this feminist icon, you know, this grandmother who's just said shame should change sides. So those sorts of interviews you don't forget because you're sitting in a room with someone who's been through things that, you know, we need to bear witness to through to Kate Bush, you know, just having Kate Bush come on.

27:33Can I say a fun one? Yeah, of course you can. We know who we'd like to have on the podcast that we hope to achieve one day. Who would you love to interview? Oh, I mean, I have wanted to interview Monica Lewinsky for a very long time. I'm sure you could. You know, I'm sure you say I'm sure you don't. You can get her on the podcast. You've got to find the right moment. You've got to find the right. But just because I think her TED talk on shame was incredible. And I think the way women are portrayed and the way we hold ourselves and the way we view other women and all of that. She speaks to so many of those themes and issues that I've been very interested in throughout my career.

28:12but the person you were thinking of before because I never like leaving something dangling if you have other types of interviews which are my political interviews and there've been some moments which people remember quite clearly um you know the Farage one this year what was different I suppose was it's the first time I've actually interviewed him I believe since he's become an MP he obviously tried many times but the one you were talking about was with Rory Stewart oh yeah big podcaster yeah and I'd just come back from maternity leave and obviously it's a weird job because you come back and you can't just like sneak in behind a desk in my job you go out on air to millions of people you know you've got it you've got your back there's no there's no in between and you know after having our first child it's a weird job because you can't actually I always think this you can't imagine doing it until you're in the studio I don't know if it's like that with singing I don't you just sort of then it happens and you're like oh yeah this is what I do but were you scared about going back I think I was just I didn't know I didn't know what it was to to go back after an amazing amount of time away you know baby brain is a real thing you know no sleep i mean it's similar to what i've inflicted upon myself you're still breastfeeding no i finished at six months and i went back at nine and it was that week was just crazy because i ended up interviewing or maybe it was a few days after the first week i ended up ended up interviewing theresa may at the end of the week if i remember correctly with a phone in about the brexit withdrawal deal and two days before do you remember all the brexit stuff a minister was put up to defend this deal she just put out this draft and it only come out minutes earlier no one had read it and rory stewart who was a minister at the time came on and said something like 82 percent of the british public support this deal and i said well how can they no one's read it and he went i'm producing a figure to support what i believe and i went see you lying and it was proper like that it was proper northern it was like yeah it just shut your gob yeah and um he went yes and i'm i am and i'm sorry and he said sorry and it's we've talked to he and i we've been reunited once on this subject actually a panel in london a live event in front of an audience and he said it was a big moment for him because he realized how far he'd gone in to sort of the tunnel of spin is that when he decided to quit.

30:27No, I think there were quite a long time. There was quite a long time after this. But for me, just I tell that story sometimes for women to hear, yes, you can be knackered. Yes, you feel not quite like yourself, all those things. But I was like, although it was awful for him and it went on the late night US TV shows, fake news spreads to Britain. I was like, I'm back. Yeah, I am. I'm in the room. I'm in my body and I can still hear.

30:59I remember going back to your mum's house with her mum and dad. Yeah. And they always said, I thought it was so sophisticated. When we went for tea, we had baked beans and omelette. Oh, nice. And I thought it was so exciting. I still love an omelette. Yeah, I love an omelette. But I don't think my mum made many omelettes. I think my dad used to. And I also used to think this was really delicious. The baked bean juice went on the omelette and it was very nice. Is that a tradition in your world? But your grandfather was a doctor. Yes. Ivor. Yes, he was. And it's very weird to see you today. I was feeling quite emotional about it because my grandmother on the day we're talking died 25 years ago on this day.

31:40Is she? It was your long life. Well, it's nice to see someone though who met her. You know, actually, because I was... She's very, very attractive. Very sophisticated. Very, very slim. her hair was always beautifully coiffed she was that yeah they were very good-looking couple your grandparents i have a very good-looking picture of them yeah in the house a black and white one but she died when i was uh nearly six so i didn't have very long with her young yeah she was very young she was 60 or 61 i believe yeah uh so of cancer so but it's it's strange you know 25 years like to put that into so it's very nice to see someone who who hung out with her a bit so your Was your mum a good cook?

32:23Yes. So my mum did all the cooking and we had, you know, I was thinking about different food memories, as you often do on this lovely podcast. And the smell of chicken soup on a Friday is very much. And I went through a phase of doing it myself when I had one child. Jessie, you obviously have three. I'm not getting that. You've not had another one, have you? No, no, no. So, and I have, I don't, I don't go on air on Fridays. I may sometimes do a quick call or something, but I typically don't work on Fridays. because I've been able to organise it since I had children. And I had these dreams of always having chicken soup on the stove.

32:57And I did do it for a while. And then since I'm being a second child, I've just slightly fallen apart in terms of cooking and, you know, being on top of things as much. So I'd actually go and get chicken bones from the butcher. I'd do all of that. And I'll get back to it because it was a lovely thing because I loved growing up. I mean, we do, we're not very religious, but we do light candles every Friday night. We get a challah from the local bakery, the Plattipa. Where are you getting a colour? Where in the diaspora do you find a colour? There's two places I go. No, where? Blackbird does a fantastic.

33:27I wonder if they do one. I've got one down the road in Queen's Road. Order one, Jess. That is a good... How do you want to tell? Is it sweet? Is it good, sweet colour? I think there's another... I'm not going to name it. There's another one that's not great. But if I'm desperate and I just want something to, like... I get from Ocado, but it's not like going up to Ronnie's in Golders Green. No. Although the bagel bake on Brixton. Sorry, Brit Lane. Yeah, yeah. I actually even know him. We know each other by name. He delivers, as in we text. I get loads of salt beef from him and he will bring bagels and bread as part of it.

34:05Well, listen, when he's in South, can he come to mine too on the way? I think I'm the edge. I think I might be. Yeah, but I'm nearer to East London. Chelsea, get three. Mate, you need to bring me in to this convo. I'm very happy to. Great. Are you ready to eat something? Yes. Yes, I would love to. Thank you, Mum. Look, I'm not a vegetarian cook, but I love aubergine parmigiana. Okay. But then I've got worried because you talked about inflammation, and I know that aubergine is not great. I love... Oh, no, I really like aubergine, but maybe... Do you want some water? Yeah, I'll have a bit more water.

34:36A baked thing or a hot thing like this is perfect for me. Good. Mum, this is delicious. Good, darling. We need to give a shout-out to Alison Roman. It's in her new cookbook. Yeah, a little aubergine palm, she calls it. Palm. Yeah, it's delish. You have both... I need to start cooking again, because I'm not the most natural, but I really love it, and I can follow a recipe. And I listened to you say on one of the... I'm sure you've said it before, but on one of them recently that I listened to, you talked about Mob app, which I don't know. Brilliant. Do I need to do that? Yeah, it's just really good and easy, and it's very accessible food.

35:09As in M-O-B? Yeah. Okay, fine. So they kind of... I need some more ideas. Go on their Instagram page, because they've got really good inspe on there but then the app is really good but are you cooking a lot of the time yeah yeah yeah okay because that's the other thing i just need to actually have it as part of like an activity more i'm often just throwing like good food we eat really well now we also now i say we eat really well now but we really do since i've learned a lot more about food and cut out a lot of ultra process have real bread you know just trying to educate myself in a way that I never really took food.

35:44I've always been a gourmand. Like I love going out for a boozy lunch. I love being served amazing food and going to amazing restaurants. But in terms of what goes in, I've got a lot more educated. What it means is you have to make things. It's not, it's like a, it's like an ingredients house as opposed to open the cupboard and there's something really easy. But I think like if you start using some of those apps and Mob's great for that, it's like, they've got really good things where you can do batch cooking. So you could do three different things out of like a base, which is also quite good. So then you've got like three different ideas and it can all be prepped.

36:15You don't have to cook every day. This has got chilli in. She said to put it in. I'm not keen. I hope you're not offended by the chilli. Oh, I like it. It's a good edge. Yeah. Are you okay with it? You must have got a bit. I can't taste the chilli really. Okay. So, last supper, you're going somewhere to a desert island for a very, very long time. This is your last meal. What are you going to have? Start at main, pud, drink of choice. I'm going to have snails to start. Oh. garlic snails with the best French baguette and salted butter should we do that on Monday? no we won't, well you can do it, I'm not we're going to Paris on Monday, it's my birthday present gorgeous who got you into snails?

36:56effectively they're like garlic mushrooms if you didn't know that they were snails I love the little dish the six holes or the twelve if you're feeling greedy I think the first time I went to Paris I just thought I love trying local food I'm very adventurous and not squeamish about different parts. You know, I'll eat nose to tail. The St. John restaurant is a big thing for me. Offal, sweetbreads, the whole thing. If you're going to eat an animal, I think you should eat all of it. I've plucked and disemboweled a duck. Oh my God. Why? Because my friend killed it. A very English friend who has, you know, guns and that sort of life.

37:31I did not grow up in the city, Manchester, basically, with any of those things. But actually, I found it a really, you know, clarifying experience. I feel like in a previous life I was Scottish or Texan I love you know haggis I love all that sort of I love peaty whiskey there's a lot I connect to with palate wise in that part of the world what's your favourite whiskey? I like Talisker I like often quite a smoky although we've got a nice Glenlivet at home at the moment I'm convinced that it's open because when I was pregnant the second time it was the first time in my life and not been able to shake a cold.

38:10So I can always, I don't touch, you know, apart from all the other lovely female illnesses ravaging my body, I don't tend to have days off. Yeah. In terms of when you've got a cold or a cough, being on air is not good. And I swear it's because I have most nights a little dram of whiskey. But when you're pregnant, obviously, I know some people do have whatever, but I didn't. And I ended up being, you know, hospitalised on an antibiotic for the first time. Because I have this cough cold. You know when you cough, I don't know if you remember when you're pregnant, it's the most painful thing and your ribs so yeah i like a little bit of whiskey every night and probably talisca is the one that comes to mind so we've got the snails where are we going for the main well i've realized it's quite buttery and garlicky it's a theme i'm going lobster and a load of other seafood i want to get like quite messy yeah prawns and everything with heads on and then i'm going to chippy chips on the side so what annoys me about what chippy chips So like from the chippy.

39:06Okay, fine. Can I combine? Yeah. Okay. Definitely. I don't like the fish in fish and chip shops that much. It's fine. Oh, I do. But for me, it's all about the chips. Have you had Motsons? Yeah. Very nice. No, no, but it's just not my favourite. Like it takes up space that you're there for the chips. Like a good steak or a big bit of garlic-y fish could do. So I would have, whenever you get something as beautiful as lobster, you always get very thin fruits. and they are not chips to me, especially as a northerner. No, you're like a pop of chip. Yeah, so I would combine those two with a really good, beautifully done veg, you know, just something like amazing.

39:44I do love Asian food a lot. So I did think it was about dim sum and sushi and all of that, but I think it would be this. And then pudding, I don't know. I've struggled with pudding because I'm quite a savoury person. Yeah, me too. So it could be, if I went savoury, it could be a Welsh rare bit, you know. Oh, yum. But I don't know if I'd have room. Yeah. Oh, I like that. I don't know. There's no pudding where I think... There is one. Okay, go on. It's quite savoury. I like a Guinness cake. Oh, I love that. With a thick cream. It's quite easy, I think. Is it? Yeah, maybe that's what you're going to have to do this weekend.

40:18Okay. There's not masses of Guinness in it. But it looks like Guinness because of the white top. Well, I only had my first Guinness a few weeks ago. I went to the Devonshire. Oh, I love it there. Which is fabulous. Did you eat there too? I'm going again. The lobster. The prawns and the scallops there. The langoustine work. The lobster we have there was amazing. And the dripping on the potatoes, like the whole thing. I am like basically a 65-year-old man from Scotland. It is a proper chop house, isn't it? And drink of choice, is it whisking? So a whisky, if it was for a short, but I do like a martini at the start.

40:54I mean, it's quite a lethal, if you get a martini, a wine, and then finish with a whisky at this stage of life. fun yeah but yeah if we were just ending and it was that drink i would go for that how do you take your martini i have it dry with an olive i don't like lemon in it dry and vodka and when it's wet that's when it has vermouth in it right yes i quite like a vermouth i don't think i'm not yeah i mean where's the place that had the most incredible the dover have you sat at the bar at the dover yet i have been to the dover and i haven't sat at the bar but yeah yeah that was lethal really yeah What, like all VOD?

41:30Yeah. Okay. So you liked the Devonshire. You're going to go back. Are there any other spots that you, St. John you've talked about? Yeah, I do like St. John. I mean, I think quite early on, my education in London, I moved here after university when I was 22. And my first job was at a trade title, a business magazine. And it was about, my beat was TV and radio, but it was on the commercial side. So I was in what felt like the last hurrah of Adland going for lunches and sometimes the lunches would last until dinner oh wow and then go into dinner so I had this incredible education not at my own expense perfect eating out where I ate out and I think I actually learned the center of London through restaurants so some are not here anymore and some are not still going but it was amazing just having that you know from so I still I love I love going to the Wolsey, which is obviously a very grand dame one.

42:26Through to, there's a smaller place, Bruto in Farringdon, which is obviously so gorgeous. Through to, I remember when places like Rocker opened and, you know, the Robata grills started happening and there was kind of that whole scene and I loved all the... Did you go to Honey and Co? Oh, yeah, I love Honey and Co. Yeah, me too. Yeah, and the shop is very nice as well. Oh, I love the shop. And Ottolenghi. Yeah, Noppy, when that opened, was stunning. Still is. I mean, I don't get to do a sort of nine hour lunch anymore. And I'm not sure. I'm going out with someone in a few weeks who's from that era of my life.

43:01And I now realise, I mean, he's a guy, to be fair. And, you know, I don't know how old his kids were. But I now realise he had kids when we were going out and having chats. Can you imagine his wife must have been absolutely demented. I just was like, he still has kids. They're just 20 now. And I now have kids. And I'm like, am I going to be able to do like two hours? You know, you do like a few bottles. and the coolest thing which was all again through work we did one of the last tables at the Old Savoy you know when businesses book out a space they get like a room and there was a you know I was 24 or 25 there was a glass of wine with each course I didn't take in that not everyone was finishing each glass to your point well to your point about wine it was the most delicious wine I've ever taken you know when someone's picked it for you then I'll cover at that class because I don't know anything.

43:54I don't remember names. Oh my gosh. So we went from 6pm till 3am. Emma. Yeah. That's a sesh. It was a sesh. Did you stay the night at the Savoy? I considered whether even bothering to go home, you know, just go straight to the office. But I now do 3am offices in a different time frame. We've got the dessert now, Mum. Tell Emma what we're eating. It's a white chocolate cheesecake. Fantastic. Not very much white chocolate. just a bit. Yeah but it's quite savoury. Yeah I'm not a big cheesecake person it does have salt in Emma so you'll be happy. Yeah and please can you tell us about your brilliant colouring in books.

44:33Okay I over this beautiful cake it feels apt because it's so much colour now on this table with fruit salad and this cake so we were we were walking around our local park uh for the 98th millionth time when I was on maternity leave with the pram and with our son and trying to get the baby to sleep yeah good yes right i then have to find cobbles and different textures do you remember any of that to try and get them on my children can't roll on smooth things yeah no of course that's why galleries are you're doing that yeah so i think i was off piece slightly but i came back and we were near the clock at the top near brockwell hall in the middle of brockwell park and he asked us about it and i honestly obviously knew nothing about it and i just thought i'll i'll just get him a book uh you know i don't want to do screens right now i'll just look later and there'll be something he can engage with and then my husband was like well why don't we just take a picture of it and then maybe like i can do a coloring in thing with him or something anyway he just transposed this photo i wouldn't know how to do this and he made it with outlines and then we talked about it he drew it or was it a bit of a on the computer oh no he just did it on this i don't know app or something your husband does all the illustrations no we have a team now who do it but he played around yeah made a bit of a summer project with our son and did a sort of we found that there were no coloring books of local neighborhoods and cities and then towns there were a few here and there of the bigger places but even manchester which was our first out of london one didn't really have one it was really strange so we we created color your streets which is our family business and my husband left his job he's had big corporate jobs for 20 years he left his job and is doing it full time since the beginning of this year wow mazel tov thank you that's amazing yeah it's been a it's amazing we've now made things like buckingham palace's first coloring book thank you this has been really hard to cut it looks delicious though this is really nice mom i didn't think i was gonna like it if i'm being honest i'm not sure about the crumb what's the top it's white chocolate and that's rose petals cheese cheese sorry yeah of course cream cheese and cream and creme fraiche oh okay so that's the sourness okay it's lovely do you like it yeah i really do i always like like a you know a sharp like sort of cake or something with with a bit of sour cream on the side and it's got that and you've done a lovely fruit salad thanks mom it's great i never do a fruit salad because the kids like i haven't done it for ages and i just thought it's kind of nice to have in the fridge as well So before we let you go, what would be your nostalgic taste that could transport you back somewhere?

47:09Well, it might be chicken soup. So my mother's kitchen pot, the whole shebang. Or the nostalgia bit, I think, just does trigger sort of Jewish memories. You know, it's kind of either salt beef bagels or latkes, you know, from the local deli. I don't think we ever made them. I think my mum always bought them. Isn't that an oldie? It's quite hard making that, because... It takes over the kitchen. Do you remember we did it at once? I do love, much prefer actually making, like, having them made at home, but it is a whole, it's a whole shebang. We never did gefilter fish or chops and fried or any of that.

47:48You can't do that. That stinks. I mean, it's for a week, and you have to wear a shower cap. Well, in fact, you just have to go and have a complete shower. You know, like, we say, we also used to say things. So my mother-in-law is one of the rare Jews under 100 years old who can speak fluent Yiddish, which is an extraordinary thing. It's so cool. And, you know, it's not from what I can tell, it's not really got conjoining words half the time. It's just expressions with words linked. And she just regularly, Lenny, takes the mickey out of some of the ways we used to say things in Manchester because they're not accurate.

48:22So I'm about to say another thing that I realized I've forgotten that I liked from my youth. I don't know where I'd get it now. because I grew up in the really Jewish bit of Manchester and now don't live in a Jewish bit of London with lots of kosher places or whatever. But chrein. Mmm. Chrein. Am I saying it right? Is that right? Is my mother-in-law going to tell me? Of course it is. It is. You can get it in Sainsbury's and in the Polish section. Okay, so chrein is what? Because it was quite hot. Beetroot. It's beetroot and horse radish. I love horse radish. So like when everybody started having sushi with wasabi, I was like, I'm in.

48:57But also it's perfect with cold fried fish. I like cold fried fish. As in the... So I would have... So I like place. We always used to have that to break the fast. So we'd have place that was fried with matzo meal and egg. But I like it cold with crane. Interesting. Well, that's quite sushi-esque though. Yeah, but it's cooked fish. Yes. No, but I meant that combo. Chopped and fried. I mean, if I ever do make it, which I don't know. know. As in fish balls when people say chopped and fried. I love fish balls. Yeah but you get them from Freed's. And they're not the same because they're little hard things.

49:35My mother used to make them and every Thursday we had chopped and fried. And we have gefilte. My dad loved it. Do you like gefilte? I love it. With a carrot and an onion on top. Yeah the carrot and onion and the jelly around the edge. What was that? Was that ginger? Stem ginger. Whoa. Do you like it? Never had that. yeah it's nice in it it's a shock i'm shook it's like a lem sip in a fruit salad oh my gosh no it was in like a like a healing flavor yeah it's quite a nice little little jar of stem ginger is that like a pickled stem ginger in a jar and you just yeah and they're in like syrup and i just put chop it up usually i put light cheese in as well but i was just rushed at the end yeah yeah yeah i'm like she's is quite 80s yeah i don't know anyone when was the last time you had an or a kumquat i love kumquat have you had a kumquat lately no i haven't they all used to have them at posh bar mitzvahs in the fruit salad no because when my husband south london jew entered the manchester jewish world he had a field day with the language with the vibe the whole scene so people would have fruit platters and they'd be like did she have the silver package or the platinum and you could tell which they'd had by how large the fruit boat was that would come out and jeremy would be like oh she's had platinum very nice very nice and just using this whole new voice the first thing my mother would say to me what a table and it always every jewish function had exactly the same food was it everything was always the same how sweet that they would appreciate that it was such a table and it wasn't like nobody was trying to remember everybody would have a look as well i don't know where you go to but when we have kiddush after shul it's gone in about three seconds i mean everyone's putting extra things on their plates it's terrible kiddush is a is a game of sort of you know the food after the the service is a game of ducking because as people talk they spray and they come very close to you yes so that's a whole other and a fish ball getting sprayed on your face is not for the faint-hearted and you know i'm like low down with kids some of the time then standing back up you get really like unlucky oh mate that is so disgusting emma barnett thank you so much for coming over this has been gorgeous 11am again absolutely now I know you like to go to bed early as well but also I'll make you chicken soup I do it a lot so I'll bring you some not chopped and fried no you can come and help me I'll do it with the shower gun

52:34Emma Barnett, so brilliant. What a gorgeous woman. Love her. You're going to be teaching her chicken soup soon? Yeah, absolutely. Her new podcast, Ready to Talk, is on BBC Sounds and on all other podcasting platforms. And it's just brilliant. She's such a great interviewer. Doesn't she look glamorous for someone who's been up since 3.21? She's always, always glamorous, isn't she? Very glam. Very cool boots. Yeah. And now she's going back into town. She didn't seem to mind. No, she's very good. Food was really delicious. Was it? It was a very different kind of palm. It was kind of chunkier, wasn't it?

53:13What do you mean? I quite liked it. What else did it have in it? Had anchovies. Yeah. Capers. Yum. Panko breadcrumbs. Liked that. On layers. Oh, yeah. Yeah. To make it, yeah. It makes it less soggy. My good canned tomatoes. Your good canned tomatoes. And I baked the aubergine beforehand. beforehand. It was really tasty. Good. Was it faffy? Yeah. It was a good hour job. Okay, well I appreciate it. Yeah. Thanks mum. And the cheesecake, I'm the least cheesecake person. Me too. I actually thought that was really nice. The little bits of white chocolate in it. Yeah. Very nice. I think the crust was too thick for me.

53:52I liked that. I thought it was great. Ginger nuts. Thank you to everyone for listening and watching and we'll see you next week. Thank you.