460: Giada De Laurentiis & Julius Roberts

26:04You stopped me on that one. I get it off the, I'm hurt. But I like Neapolitan pizza. Me too. So. And that's the one that's fucked up the most, I feel. Like that's the one that's kind of bad usually. But when it's good, it's good. And I think, I still think. What do you like? Una Pizza Napolitano for Neapolitan. I think it's quite good. I think Roberta still makes a really good Neapolitan. Roberta's is good. We have one in L.A. now, too. Yeah, I don't know about that one. I feel like maybe I wouldn't put that one over. But for me, it's F &F up in Carroll Gardens, the Frank's Pizzeria. They have a great, it's really good.

26:34That's my guy. Brooklyn has great food. It sure does. Missy Robbins is doing an unbelievable job. Unbelievable. I mean. Not said enough. She is just fabulous. And you know what? More power to her. I love the women. Agree. Yes. Thank you for... We're having a moment. And we deserve a moment. Let me ask you about having the moment now, back when you started getting on television and one of the more prominent female voices, was it challenging for you? Did you feel like you had to fight a lot of... Yeah. A lot of stereotype, a lot of... Well, I think, too, for me, I had a certain stereotype because I didn't fit the model or the...

27:07Yeah, whatever the cultural norm of what I should look like. Yeah, I know... I'm sure you can understand what I'm talking about. Yeah, I'm saying... I think like physicality with the chef is something that is judged and critiqued and it's sexist. If I look the way I look, I could possibly not a cook because I can't possibly eat either. Yeah. So I think that's the stereotype that I fought my entire career. And I still get it. Sometimes people still say to me, they'll just stop me on the street and be like, you know that saying, you can't trust a skinny cook. I don't know. But I think over the 25 years, I've proved them wrong.

27:45But still, it's definitely something that I've battled with my entire life. Yeah. And thank you for sharing that. I think it's really important to note that it still remains today. And we've seen great female voices. You mentioned Missy. But there still is a lot of fucking sexism in the food world. And it sucks. Yes. It's gotten better. Yeah, man. It's gotten better. But it's baby steps. Like, so slow. It's a boys club still. And you either fit into the boys club or you don't. And if you don't, then you get chummed. That's how it works. But I got lucky because, you know, I think sometimes in life, if you just stay consistent and just keep on it, you can change people's minds.

28:28I mean, if that wasn't the case, I wouldn't still be here today. What was your first food TV moment? When were you first on camera? Food Network was my first real... Well, actually, I was in a movie first. Okay. Because my family's in the movie business. So I worked on a movie. When we were growing up, one of the rules was you have to work each department on a movie because you got to find your place as to where you're going to work. So before I went to college, I did that. And I did an acting role, which was terrible. Yeah. Terrible. Is it available on Netflix? Oh, I'm sure. It's terrible. It's called Time Bomb.

29:00It's awful. Anyhow. Wait, is that a U.S. production or Italian production? No, it's a U.S. production. That's what I thought. It's terrible. Anyways. I got Clayton. Clayton is a movie. Please. Clayton, have you seen Time Bomb? No, it's so old. No. I'm not. Yeah. I will now though. Clayton has a great cinema podcast, so I just had to ask. Oh, why would you? It's terrible. Why is it so bad? Just because it's so hokey. And I did a scene in it because my family was like, oh, maybe you want to be an actor because my grandmother was an actress. And I realized I never want to be in front of the camera.

29:31So which is why, you know, then fast forward X amount of years later when Food Network came calling and said, put yourself on camera. I was like, absolutely. So it took me six months to listen to them. So the fact that I'm here now is kind of shocking. But I feel like it's because there are two Jotas. There's one for the camera. And then there's one that is just a homebody and very much an introvert. I met you in Aspen, Colorado one time. And you were awesome when I met you off camera. You're quite real. Yes, because I was. Yeah, but I'm just saying I am not an extrovert. This takes a lot of energy for me.

30:08I really like to be at home with my daughter, with my dogs, like in my small, you know, with my family. That is where I feel I can recharge. This world that I live in for work is very draining for me. And I think we forget that the people in this world that do what I do, a lot of us, we were kind of misfits. We sort of couldn't find a place in this life. So we decided that we were artistic and this was the best way to sort of relate to people. Using food as the vehicle. Yes, not to be in front of the camera, but to use our food, our creation to show you, you know, who we are. And I think we were also pushed in front of the camera as well.

30:48And that wasn't part of who we are. So a lot of us are very, I mean, if you ask a lot of my friends, Bobby Flay, we talk about all the time. He's also an introvert. Like, this is a lot for us to do this. I respect being candid. Now, let me ask you that first audition. What was that like when you're at Food Network and you'd had this history of the camera? You were a little, but you're obviously you're so good at it. You're so good at it. I was not good at it. I lost 50 pounds, if you can believe it. I'm tiny. I was unwell for a lot of it. Very nauseous in the very beginning. I sort of chopped with my shoulders and my back to the camera.

31:23And the producer kept saying, you got to open up to the camera. And I just, I didn't. The movements were not fluid. I didn't understand. And they kept saying, you have to explain what you're doing. I'm like, they can see it. I'm chopping an onion. What am I going to explain? It was really difficult for me to absorb what they were saying. And I think it was incredibly stressful. The beginning was incredibly stressful. Yeah. But there was a moment of alchemy, right? That made sense. Like, did they just, because you had guest starred on a bigger show, right? You had done a segment. Is that not right?

31:55Never. So what was your first? Never. Everyday Italian. I had my own show from the very beginning. Everyday Italian. Was your first? Very first. Everyday Italian. I never guested anywhere. That's amazing. That's why I'm saying my whole path was completely different. I had a television show before I had a restaurant. Most people on TV had restaurants, then had television shows from the restaurant. I completely came in the back door, which is also why I think I had to fight a lot of stereotypes because people were like, what the? Who are you? Who the hell are you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You should have a restaurant if you know how to cook.

32:27You can't just start on a show. Even though, you know, Rachel Ray did the same as me. Ina Garten did the same as I did. Different personalities, though. Like, you know, different genres. Italian food is a specific genre that people are like. They're very protect. They want it to come from like a. Authentic place. A Nona or like a restaurant chef. Yes. Yeah, I get it. Yes, yes. And I came in from a different angle and it was like jolting to them. But maybe one of the reasons I'm still here. I don't know. It worked. I mean, clearly the ratings worked. Yes, but I also had time. Something they're not given today is like, I had time to gain a following, you know?

33:06Do you do a lot of competition, shows, judging? No, I only did Food Network Star. Yeah, you don't do that, right? That's not your thing. I did Food Network Star and I really liked it, but I liked more the mentoring than the judging. Yeah, you're right on. I did a few episodes of Beat Bobby Flay. I did a few episodes of Guy's show. I've done a couple, but no, that was never my thing. Yeah, it's cooking. I did one episode where I competed. Iron Chef? Iron Chef. And I lost to Rachel and Mario. I did it with Bob. Bobby was my - Oh, two and two. That's a cool competition show. I didn't speak to Bobby for six months after that.

33:43I was so upset. What happened? Why'd it go south? I don't know. I mean, I did my part and he did - I see how it's going. No, I'm kidding. We both did. I don't know. I mean, the chefs liked their food better. Mario's an unbelievable cook. I know things have happened but he still was incredibly talented chef but they just kicked our asses and I was so sad you're competitive man I was so competitive I was so upset I was upset for six months I was so mad you knew it had happened and then it didn't air were they wrong? I don't know I never got to taste their food I don't know if they were wrong or not, but I was still upset.

34:30I was still upset. A couple more questions. How often do you go to Italy? Do you go, like, are you there like four times a year, eight times a year, two times a year? Six. Great. I said every number but that. All right. Six times a year is great. And in fact, I'm going next Friday again. I love it. So, like, when you go there, you know, you're traveling for work. You're going to factories. You're going to farms. I know that. But when you're there for, like, fun, are there regions that we don't go to that maybe we should know about? Yeah. Campania. Right on. The Sorrento region. I think the south is really, that is, people are still, although Puglia has really come around and they've spent a lot of money in marketing and advertising that area.

35:06Yeah, I was just there and we do travel. We do trips for taste and then we went there last summer. Yeah. It was great. Yeah. But I don't mean people like you. I mean like normal people that travel just for fun. We took 25 travelers. Did you? Oh, we were on tour. Most Americans go north. I know. They don't really go south very much. And so I'm really trying to bring a lot of interest into the South because I think the South has probably some of the best food in the world, really. And it's still untapped. So I would say Campania. I would say different parts of Sicily. I think there's certain areas that show did a lot of.

35:42Yeah, that show did a lot of good. But Sicily spread out, you know, and the cities aren't that close together. So people end up in one spot and then they don't travel anywhere else. but it's so different. Yeah, rent that car, drive around, right? And the islands. Yeah. All of the Sicilian islands, all of the islands, you know what I mean? Procida, Iskia, like all these areas that still Americans haven't quite. So that's what I'm working on. And we have a big travel section and we have a, you know, we're working with some travel partners to give away trips and really get people excited and create an emotional experience with that.

36:19I feel that's so cool that you mentioned the South because we really do focus on the north. I mean, we're obsessed. There's more money in the north. They have more money in the market. Milan, Mila, Romania, we obsess over these cities. And Rome is still like, is that considered halfway? Rome is still considered halfway. A lot of people go to Rome, but they don't stay in Rome. Right, right. Rome is the number one destination in the world. That's where planes end up going. But people don't actually stay in Rome. So I've done a lot of curated day trips in Rome to see things that are unexpected in a way a local would rather than just what the tourist guides say.

36:52And that's what I'm doing with my membership also that I launched in about a week or so is really creating a community of experience that people can kind of go on that sort of connects people to me, to my family and creating this larger Italian experiential community. Because like my uncle owns the Naples soccer team. Have you ever been to a Naples soccer game? I mean, I've walked through the streets of Naples during a game and after a game, they lost and it was scary. Yeah, it's scary. It was scary. But it's this adrenaline, like there's an emotional connection that you can get a little taste of it here with football, but on a level that you've never seen before.

37:34Do you support Napoli? Is that your team? Yeah, nice. Are they good? Yeah. Yeah. They're good. They've gotten unbelievably good. Yeah. How fun. Do you go to the games when you get there? It's craziness. But I just want people to experience that side, my experiences in Italy, like my Italy, rather than just the traditional. I think there's a real unique opportunity for that that hasn't quite been tapped in yet. So we give you some money. What do you pay for the membership? $70 a year. Into that. So that's a great number. $9 a month. It's a great number. It's like in that sub stack range. Exactly.

38:05So we give you$70. What are we getting? We are getting live stream cooking classes with Jada once a month. We're getting curated travel content to different destinations and trips, whether it's a cruise or with a hotel partner. You're getting free shipping on anything you order from us. You're getting curated recipe kits. You're getting menus, curated menus. You are getting content that you wouldn't otherwise. Do you get coupons? Do you get discounts? Like promo codes? Not yet. No. I think that for me, the experience is an emotional connection and discounts to me make it feel a little less like that.

38:48I'm with you. But that's just my opinion. And by the way, I could be so wrong and people could just hammer me for it. And I might know that a month from now. So check in with me a month from now. I'll check in with you. I'll tell you if I was so wrong. And I could be. I'm into it. I just go there. Let's see what the feedback, what people say. But for me, I'm trying to create this like unique, special experience. And I feel like discounts just kind of don't make it feel as special. Absolutely. And free shipping. You know, you went prime. Jada prime. I love it. All right. On This is Taste. You guys are about the discerning taste.

39:20So to close this interview, here's a little rapid fire, fast and furious taste check. Are you ready? The best fruit. I don't really eat a lot of fruit, but if I'm going to eat one, papaya. Yeah. In Hawaii. When it's good, it's good. The worst vegetable. Ugh, green peppers. Yeah. I don't like green peppers. Sorry. Yeah, only on pizza, but that's only a - I don't even like them on pizza. No, fair. I don't want to see a green pepper. Love it. The best dessert. Gendia chocolates. Nice. Your favorite American fast food chain? Well, I don't eat fast food. Okay. But I will tell you my daughter, Panda Express.

39:51Yeah. She loves Panda Express. High quality. Yeah. Good stuff. Incredibly high quality. It's good stuff. Your favorite cookbook of all time? Silver Palette. Yeah. Figure that. So favorite New York City restaurant? Esadi. Yeah. Favorite Los Angeles restaurant right now. My kitchen? That's it? Just kidding. It's got to be one. Yeah. I love Felix. I love Evan Funke's pasta. Yeah. I think he's phenomenal. So I'd say Felix or Funke. I've been to Mother Wolf. I haven't been to Funke, but. I like Mother Wolf too. I like the space of Mother Wolf. I think it's very Roman, very attentive. Are you West Side?

40:23Very female. Yes. Yeah. So I like Felix because it's closer and it's way more intimate. Mother Wolf is giant space. It's just giant. Fun though. Fun vibe. Mm-hmm. A few more. a cuisine you would like to learn more about? Japanese. I love Japanese culture. I love Japanese food. I love Japanese people. Japan. Anything Japanese. Love it. Last one, your favorite sandwich. Oh, my spin on Alvecchio Veneno's artichoke burrata panino. Burrata artichoke? Artichoke spread from Italy. I have this artichoke spread that I just love. It's creamy with burrata. Sounds amazing. Giada Della Rentes, thank you so much for joining This Is Taste.

40:59Thank you for having me.

41:09Julius Roberts, this is Tase. Thanks for coming on the show. It's a real pleasure to be here. Thank you. It's really fun to have you here. How is it being back in New York so far? Great. I mean, it's only my second time here. So I'm still in that mode where it very much feels like you're in a film. I love the skylines and it was pretty special to be here in the snow. Yeah, I mean, that feeling never goes away, I would say. Coming back to New York after your first trip did you eat anything you needed to try again or you just are still dipping your toes into the water i went to cats's yesterday oh okay good um which is pretty cool i've obviously seen those sandwiches online for years um i can't believe how big they are they're gigantic and they're very expensive also because they're just so huge can you get a half i don't know that's a good question i would be scared to ask i feel like they're kind of the old school deli guys that of a certain way of doing things but you have the accent so maybe they would let you get away with it yeah i got on with the guy serving it was quite a quiet day um but yeah it was seriously good what did you get pastrami i got just classic pastrami sandwich with the two types of cucumbers and a lot of mustard two types of cucumbers yeah they do um do you call them pickles yeah sure they do sorry yeah i mean they are cucumber yeah they do they do a light one which is very green which is hardly pickled um and then a sour one so it's wow you get this contrast you know to be honest i feel like cats is the kind of place that when you're visiting the city you go to and then if you live nearby or you have a really strong craving for pastrami then you'll go back but i haven't been in a couple years so the fact that they have multiple pickles like i'm not even up on my cats's game i guess well yeah worth a trip back and i want to try the matzo ball soup i think i might get that later today oh that is the ultimate like snowy cold weather in new york experience a couple weekends ago, I had my ultimate like solo New York day, which was that it was gray and rainy.

43:00And I went to a deli in Manhattan, sat at the counter and had a mozzarella ball soup and a tuna melt and read my book by myself. And it was my, my fantasy, you know, it's pretty damn nice. Yeah. I mean, you have a beautiful country life. So that's another kind of fantasy, I guess. And it's really fun to have you back on the show after our little live event that we did in December. I'm curious if you could maybe just start out the conversation just for our listeners who aren't is familiar with you by saying a little bit about what inspired you to make the shift from cooking in restaurants to farming and how long has it been since you made that transition?

43:32So yeah, it's about eight years ago now that I left working as a chef in London and moved to the countryside to start a small farm. Does that feel like a long time to you? Yeah, but you know, time really does fly and so much has happened. It's quite a distorted eight years. So part of it feels like yesterday and then it feels like a long time ago too i'm i'm always especially recently like really craving going back to those simpler days my first few years on the farm when i you know had no idea what i was doing and it was also new uh were a very special time but the story was that i was chefing in london at a great restaurant called noble rot which is a french inspired wine bar that does seriously good wine they win the wine list of london every year um they also have a natural wine magazine right yeah exactly so they started as a mag and then i think through you know sponsorship and fundraising through the magazine started the restaurant and it does very low-key seasonal simple you know three good things on a plate delicious food um you know english french a little bit of spanish small bit of italian but you know very much english french food um and they were the guys that taught me to cook i never went to culinary school or anything like that.

44:45I just went straight into the restaurant world, got very lucky getting a job there and had this, you know, wild baptism of fire. It was brutal. Going into a restaurant that's just opening as your first restaurant job is hardcore. Do you remember like a prep job or something you had to do where you realized, okay, maybe I'm in over my head a little bit? It wasn't necessarily individual stuff. It was just the volume of work I had to keep up with and you're just you're you I spent my whole year there chasing my tail I was never caught up with what I needed to do so you I'd be eating my lunch while sitting there chopping trying to just catch up with the list of things and the the pressure of that and the stress of that is insane you know chefs are sadists towards themselves so you went to the famously chill world of farming instead.

45:35So yeah, obviously you get very inspired by food and ingredients. And each day the producers would turn up in the morning with their boxes of stunning produce and essentially pitch to my chef about how they grew them because they're trying to sell to him and he's constantly looking for the best ingredients possible because ultimately there's nothing more important to your food than what you start with. And it was hearing those stories and seeing just the health of these guys you know they're country folk uh brown skin blue-eyed like smiling and i'm there yellow dying on my fifth coffee of the morning with haven't seen the sunlight yeah exactly you know you get into work in the dark leave in the dark and it just felt like that was a life that um really appealed to me so i left which was a heartbreaking thing there's a real camaraderie in the kitchen your brothers in arms and i remember you know it took me weeks you know we'd sit outside at the end of our shifts having cigarettes chatting together and i you know was trying to find that moment to sort of say look guys i've got to leave like i can't do this anymore because you the the amount of work that they would have to do to pick up the fact that they'd left a key member is just brutal and that was a very hard thing to do but leaving the countryside is the best thing i've ever done and there's regrets and i i missed the restaurant world but i would also never go back and i'm a true kind of country guy now the city as much as i love little like forays into the city.

46:58It's not where I'm supposed to be anymore. A different pace. And I guess now that you've been doing it for eight years, looking back at the early years when you didn't quite know it was happening, is maybe nostalgic. But I would imagine in the moment, it must have been very overwhelming to have to learn how to do so many things. Did you have a mentor or how did you get the farm going? It was just a big old leap of faith. I'd watched some TV shows about farming and had some self-sufficiency manuals but really i i bought some pigs and dove in straight at the deep end and yeah you get these days where you're like i am way in over my head i've got no idea what i'm doing i don't know how to fix this you know an animal's ill or someone's escaped and you don't have the like uh past knowledge to kind of fix that um but that like being right there on the edge is a very good feeling um i love learning by doing and i love i've really learned to love failure as a kind of way of learning um so yeah those past days were definitely stressful and there was a ton to learn but it was a very innocent very inspiring time where it was you know a journey of discovery is a pretty epic thing yeah absolutely and i want to talk about the pigs i think they're called mongolitsa pigs yeah so why are those the preferred pig they're not they're not necessarily a pig i'd get again but they were an amazing so they're not the preferred pig they are so when i was in the restaurant world um mangalitsa was this type of pig coming onto the scene because they they have this unbelievable amount of fat on them they're an old school curing pig from hungary in the old days you didn't just have your pig for eating you had it for the fat too which was your cooking um you know your oil for cooking it was your oil for candle making for making soaps you know the lard that came off a pig was as much a part of it is the meat um having that amazing casing of fat also makes them incredible for curing and when you cure them they come out much like much like iberico ham and so it was more i suppose uh inspired by a certain chef he pretentiousness i went for mangelitsa and also they're just a great old breed i love the old breeds they're cute also they're beautiful you know they're half wild boar they've got these amazing long noses they have curly hair like a sheep um and they are they're these old breeds are just tough as nails so as a novice farmer it's quite good going for the breeds that look after themselves really um but they did absolutely trash where they lived um because they are like bulldozers they have these long noses that just dig so deep and um by the time the pigs had sadly moved on uh and we were eating them the the pen we built them was like a meter and a half deeper than it had been when they started yeah wow so yeah I want to talk about the eating of animals because I think that um you know for some people when you say farming like maybe they don't even think about animals they would think about just like growing vegetables or something so did you always know that you wanted to have animals as a core part of your farm yeah I think um so when I moved I moved in the depths of winter and it was too hard to do any digging or any planting too cold chickens felt too easy pigs felt like a really big step that was you know me really putting my foot into this new way of life um so it was it was definitely like i do eat meat um and my belief is very much that like if you can't eat your own meat i shouldn't be eating meat at all it's very hard taking an animal that you've reared and loved um and treated like a pet a pet and a friend to the abattoir you know that is a real i call it the betrayal day and it weighs on me for weeks before and weeks afterwards and you know on that journey there with them in the back in the trailer i'm like wrestling with the morality of that decision you know it is it's a brutal thing to have to do and i i put it off and off and off every single time i have to go it makes me miserable but i love the truth of me being so close and so sad about what i'm doing and i think we've lost a lot of the morality of eating meat in the world at the moment um so i feel quite proud to be so close to that and i love having the opportunity to talk about it because i think it's not something that many people think of um but it was definitely always part of the plan and if anything has become even more important to me i don't i eat a lot less meat than i used to because i feel so aware of the cost and the price of eating meat um not just financially but morally on the planet all sorts of things.

51:34And I just think we overindulge meat eating. We don't need to eat as much meat as we do. Less is more and quality over quantity has become my real ethos. Yeah, I completely agree. And I think that as a meat eater who doesn't have to slaughter my own meat, I like that. I like the idea of people like you that care about the meat that's raising it and that intentionality is a part of it because meat has literally, at least here in America, been subsidized by the government. It shouldn't be as affordable to eat as it actually is. And I think that because it is so affordable, it makes it this really easy option for people, which obviously like food costs in general are quite high.

52:09And like, I don't fault anybody for that. But I think that like the real cost isn't something that most people are even aware of. So it's interesting to hear your side of it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, subsidy essentially means that something's unsustainable. You know, if you're needing extra help to produce something, it means that your inputs are bigger than your outputs. And that's a mistake in a world where there's resources are finite. Definitely. So I wonder if like thinking back on these early years at the farm, if you could like go have lunch with yourself in the first year and give a piece of advice, what's something you would say?

52:38like i said earlier i love all the mistakes i made because they've become such a part of my journey um something lauren uh who i'm working with here in new york and i were talking about yesterday was uh i one day i was walking down to the pigs in the morning um taking them back of apples some acorns like i'd harvested from oak trees and their normal feed and it was the most beautiful winter morning you know those days like today where the air is so crisp and the sun is shining but it's cold but that warmth on your skin despite the cold is just the best feeling i thought you know what i'm gonna do i'm gonna let the pigs out today i reckon they're so hungry you know they'll just follow me with the bucket around and they can have a bit of a walk we'll have a lovely day so i went down to the pen opened the gate and they sort of looked at this hole that suddenly appeared in their pen do you know the story of plato's cave you know the idea that uh people have been trapped in a cave and they suddenly open the door and your reality just changes so much um that you don't even know like what's left or right and the pigs kind of walked through this hole and were so daunted by this new wild they were experiencing and then suddenly this wild look came over their eyes and four pigs went in four different directions at like breakneck speed and i've never i've never been so stressed we lived next to a golf course at that time and they were kind of barreling towards it running through brambles and the bush like you know built bulldozers they were kind of finding dead squirrels and pheasants and just eating them and they couldn't have been less interested in the food that i was you know the food bucket that i was trying to shake your precious acorns and apples not not a chance and i'm there and you know big winter boots a huge coat running after them sweating you know throwing off layers as i ran trying to get them back it took four hours or two hours and by the time i got them in i i collapsed Like I fainted on the floor and sort of came to Dizzy a few minutes later and got so sick, you know, and you get warm and then cold in the winter.

54:32Such a bad feeling. But it's sort of little things like that. I don't think there was ever any. Yeah. And then there is, you know, animals do die and things like that. But all the mistakes have never been major enough to like want to undo them. But the learning from them has always been key. Right. I feel like maybe that's even the lesson, although maybe you felt this way back in that moment, even. that like every mistake was going to be how you know how to do something properly the next time and farming is such a long-term game i think about this with cooking also like i can't wait to be the grandma that's so good at cooking everything because i've been cooking those dishes now and i'm going to keep cooking them that kind of repetition that is a learning yeah you know another one that's obviously like a sort of lovely funny story that ultimately ended with no consequences but you know other times are that time you didn't wake up early enough and you come out and her mother's there with her little lamb that is stillborn, pouring at it, desperate for it to get up, you know, her kind of instincts, motherly instincts firing, wanting to feed this thing, wanting to nurture this thing, and it's just not moving.

55:29And there's a big part of you that's like, if I'd been there 10 minutes earlier, I could have saved that. And those are pretty, you know, that's a hard lesson to learn, but ultimately an important one too. Yeah. And I feel like to me, even on the concept of meat eating, like when you are reminded that death can happen for an animal in so many or for us in so many different kinds of ways like at least having that death serve some cause which is feeding people and feeding them like delicious quality food like feels like it has more value necessarily than like some of the other things that can happen yeah and and that's why it's important that you know we don't waste our food that we appreciate it that we care where it's come from we think about where it's come from and we you know respect it on the plate as much as we do in the field you know and that's that's what's so special about cooking is your, you know, nurturing and giving love to friends and family all sitting at the table together, the lovely warm conversation it brings.

56:20Yeah, I think to eat meat thoughtlessly is a real mistake in a world where, you know, we, the place that we call home is, you know, having quite a tough time at the back of that. Yeah, that's one way to put it. So I guess thinking about respecting the food on the plate, I'm curious about how you approach recipe development. Obviously, we're here to talk about your wonderful new cookbook, the farm table. Do you cook things just for yourself and then adapt the recipe into something that you think you're going to share, like maybe online or in your book? Or what's kind of your process for taking like the day-to-day sustenance into recipes that are meant to be shared?

56:55I mean, I cook for myself, you know, every day and it's generally pretty lovely food that I think people would be interested to try. I'm not dumbing down the food that I make for the internet or for my books. It's just like lovely, simple, seasonal cooking that looks elegant and lovely on the plate, but anyone could make themselves at home um if it's a freezing cold day and i've had a big morning outside i will want something warming and sustaining and make a lovely stew and you know it's as simple as that i just think the days that happen inspire me what's in the garden what's growing in the in the woods or what's in the farm shop that day and you just make something around it um the book ethos is that it's set through the season so everything is you know i like to live and cook super seasonally it's my one like big rule i'm you know once my tomatoes are finished in september october i'm not going to touch another one until june when they're growing again same with courgettes um you know all sorts of things i really kind of live by that for me there's nothing worse than a kind of crap bland colorless winter tomato that you know has been flown across the world and has no life to it whatsoever it's a shadow of what a tomato should be and the joy of waiting for those good tomatoes to come back that anticipation you know massively builds the flavor i get so excited for tomatoes to come back courgettes chilies peppers whatever it is because you are you're desperate for it you know asparagus um you know i can't wait for in a few weeks it'll be asparagus season again yeah asparagus is the first the first thing kind of we get ramps here early in the year yeah but um i mean when you're doing the book seasonally so were you developing every season like for that book and then coming back to it when you were getting new ingredients or how did that kind of work in terms of waiting for to have everything we did book in quite an unusual way so most people would bring a kind of mostly finished skeleton of a book to the publisher photograph it finesse it print it whereas this was because i wanted it to do it season i said right i'm going to start writing now we can publish the book then and you know i i wrote spring tested all the way through then we shot it right at the end of the spring still with ingredients from the garden in the farm shops then wrote summer tested it shot it wrote autumn so it kind of went like that um so the book has this you can kind of feel the way the light changes in it you can feel the you know the colors in the spring chapter compared to the autumn chapter is so different and uh i love that you know it meant we weren't kind of buying anything in from abroad it was super local you know lovely ethos and you know those ingredients when that of the time just do look and taste beautiful and I think you can really feel that in the book and then it has this lovely seasonal photography of farm life because it was about uh using food and the seasons as a way of telling the story of the year through the farm yeah I think it really comes across that you must have done something in that way it feels very honest in terms of the images really reflecting like what you're writing about and what the recipes are about did you have a favorite season um in the book I mean I think I think my winter cooking is probably the best um I think interesting I feel like that's kind of like I mean it's a very cozy season to cook but in terms of the produce I feel like it's not really a fan favorite no it's it's a harder season to cook in because you're much more limited but I think it's a season where you really need your food you know when it's blooming cold you're working hard outside the feeling of something like warm and sustaining when you get back in is just so good whereas summer you you know it's so hot you almost don't want to eat I love the cooking of the summer because it's very like off the cuff and fast and you know just kind of thrown together onto the plate but i think they're like slower more methodical uh more technical not necessarily meaning hard but like there's a lot more stages in winter cooking i love the building of flavor that you get in winter um so it's a chapter i'm particularly proud of yeah what would you what would you want to eat today it's very snowy and cold in new york from the winter chapter um a recipe that i'm particularly proud of is this uh slow cooked pork belly with prunes and onions and sage um when you've had pork like everyone makes a big fuss over the crispy skin which is lovely don't get me wrong but this is quite a cool way of cooking it inspired by like the more chinese style where you braise it with the skin on and the skin becomes this amazing jellyish texture but instead of soy and mirin and you know all these interesting things it's a more english version of that with like cider and milk and you get this amazing pork that slowly cooks in the cider and milk which reduces down and kind of curdles a bit to this incredible sauce with the like sweetness from the prunes sharpness from the cider you have it with some mash some nutmeg on top and it is i love that recipe so much it sounds really delicious and cozy no wonder it's a favorite from the book i'm curious on the flip side if there's a recipe that you had to test for a long time to get right that maybe it was a little bit more of a challenge yeah loads some of them you kind of first time you were like this is an absolute hole in one i'll make it one more time just to make sure we're safe but this is a winner um but then others you know like the puddings for instance i'm not a pastry chef by trade so the puddings took a lot more work in the book um just because it's a bit you know out of my comfort zone there's some of the recipes i'm most proud of because i put a lot of work into them um but they took a lot more testing one for instance was you know panna cotta yeah so panna cotta is a dish where like i would never really order that in the restaurant i think it can be a bit of a like punch at the end of the meal and often leave you you know quite wasted by you know when they're like too thick and too rich it kind of kills you so i wanted to make a really light panna cotta not too tall quite thin and and it's quite sharp so i was trying different things like using yogurt using sheep's milk and trying to you know sour it up and make it not such a kind of fatty hit um and end up doing a buttermilk panna cotta recipe with roasted strawberries with black pepper which is so good with the panna cotta flavored with a bit of elderflower where you just steep the flowers in the in the warm milk before you set it that took a week of like making you know the different percentages and types of cream and milk that i was using you know i'd be taking up a tray of different panna cottas to mum who'd like have a spoon of each and we're trying to work out which was best and by the end of the week like even the chickens were using panna cotta it was so fun i'd go and you know turn out a kind of ramekin with the panna cotta in there they only had a spoon taken out of it and set it on the ground for the chickens who'd peck at it um it must be very satisfying to watch those little tiny beaks it was so good it was so good yeah and they they hate having a messy beaks chickens they're kind of funnily tidy about their beaks and they do this really lovely like wiping thing on the floor on the grass after they're done um the best is watching the meat things like spaghetti but um the panna cotta was very funny do they slurp the spaghetti they yeah they do it in one So it's much like in, what's that film, Lady and the Tramp?

1:03:40Really? Yeah. Wow, I felt like I was being like a silly city person by even asking that. Because I was like, there's no way chickens know how to slurp. They do. They kind of, you know, it goes down bit by bit. Yeah. Once, I think like our postman dropped a load of elastic bands and they thought that was worms or spaghetti. And I had to pull these elastic bands out of their mouths. That's so funny. Because it's obviously like worms. So for them, you know, which is one of their favorite foods. Yeah, they even jiggle like a worm. Do they have names? I don't name my chickens no it's quite it's quite bad luck to do that I think the minute you name one the fox is going to get it so there's a lovely chicken in the beginning of my book who we called Henny who was just so tame and so sweet but the minute I took a photo of her and kind of immortalized her in the book the fox grabbed her it's funny that you say that because I was about to say that everyone I know that's named their chickens it's been very sad it's a death sentence yeah the coyotes in LA people I know that have chickens out there game over yeah So, okay, you mentioned asparagus.

1:04:34Let's talk about spring on the farm a little bit. What are the first crops that come up? What are you most excited to cook with? Spring's a funny time. The early part of spring is called the hungry gap, which is where the winter produce is finishing and the spring stuff isn't quite starting. So it can be quite a Spartan time. But once spring gets going, you've got peas, you've got wild garlic, which you guys call remps. So is the hungry time like early March? yeah even the beginning of april can be quite a tough time yeah um but yeah peas broad beans you have the first little bit of mint you might have some new potatoes spring onions onions um so it's a lovely like green very light delicious time and but it's also the time when i'm like the most busy because obviously all the animals are giving birth so it tends to be quite quick meals in like stolen moments between watching with the binoculars while sheep are about to give birth and needing to run in and help yeah did you realize you were going to become so much of a sheep midwife no i i mean that's the stuff that really takes you by surprise i've done things that i never thought i'd do um i remember the first time i kind of had to really help out i had a sheep who had you see like fluids coming out the back end let's say just as you would in in mums and that you know we know of um and sheep are very stoic they don't show their pain they just crack on so you'll have a sheep who's like clearly halfway through giving birth but she's just there eating grass um but you know that something's up you know if you watch and it's been two hours while you've you know just had this you know a little bit of a nose poking out you need to help and get stuck in um often they can kind of tighten up rather than relax and the lamb gets stuck maybe with its head out and it's getting suffocated um i i called you know when i was in the early days i called my shepherdess friend angie and said angie i something's going on here um i don't i don't really know what to do and she said you've got to catch it and you've got to get in there and you've got to pull that out i thought what i do that doesn't the vet do that she's like no no no no you know if you call the vet every time you've got that you're going to be in the red so you spend ages trying to catch this sheep who's got no intention of being caught while they're giving birth um and yeah you just lube up with this special animal you know we have these huge buckets of animal loot glamorous yeah wash your hands and like in you go and you know the crazy thing is when you have twins you've got you you have to you can't just pull a sheep a lamb out like randomly they have to come out the right way and often what will happen the reason they get stuck is because they've got their arms back which you know if you put your arms back it makes your shoulders very wide whereas if you go into a diving position your shoulders are nice and tight so that's how they're supposed to come out in the diving way but if they get their arms pinned you have to kind of go in and unhook these arms and get them coming out first but if you've got twins you've got um what's that eight legs you have to work out which ways the hooves are pointing make sure that that's from this this lamb not the other and you're just blind um so that's that's you know that's like quite a classic story in spring i'll be there with someone on the phone on speaker um someone else holding the sheep and me kind of fumbling about how many sheeps do you think you've helped birth oh lots um you probably get five tricky births a year um wow but it's the best i cannot describe to you how good a feeling it is it is it is unbelievable when you when you save a life like that and you're so close to a birth yeah and and i think like initially the the ewes you call them as a female sheep have have no intention of being caught but they do there is a moment where they understand you're there helping and when you pull this lamb out that was stuck um you do this thing where you like grab a blade of grass and tickle their little nose and that tickling can really like snap them to life um uh and and you hear these first kind of choked spluttery weak breaths and the mum hops up and starts licking it and you get these beautiful like sensitive instinctual reactions happening that's the thing that has brought me so close to my animals and given me such a respect for them They are so sensitive and loving and caring and individual, you know, about how they do things.

1:08:45And so like us, it's kind of the most beautiful, but also sad realization to have because, you know, a lot of those animals just don't even get the chance to ever show that sensitivity or individuality in the modern world. So, yeah, it can be very powerful, very poignant. It's my favorite time of year. Yeah, it sounds really beautiful. I would imagine the hormones are all swirling around from the animals and us. And we are animals. So it kind of feels the same. I also am a twin. So now I'm just kind of having sympathy for the sheep twins. I'm glad that I didn't have to be birthed that kind of way necessarily.

1:09:20So I guess I'm curious about what the seafood is like living on the Dorset coast. What kinds of things are you catching and eating? It's incredible. Yeah, very lucky to live right by the sea. A lot of crab. We have amazing crab where we are. And one of my farm shops sells like beautiful handpicked crab for, you know, pretty good value. So I eat that a lot. Recent thing I've been seriously loving is maybe you've had like crab mayo on toast before, but there's a really fun thing where you do a curried mayo. Oh, is this coronation mayo? Yeah, kind of. I just learned about this when I was in London.

1:09:54And everyone was saying, oh, coronation mayo is if I should have known what it was. But it's really good for someone who's not had it. Can you maybe explain what that is? So like the classic English thing is called coronation chicken, which is a kind of curried mayo with chicken and mango chutney. And you have in a sandwich or with like roast potatoes. It's really good. And it was made for a royal coronation. Yeah. So every time there's a coronation, a special dish gets made. And it's one of them. And it's probably the best one of them. Some of them are pretty dodgy. Like this year was an odd curried quiche thing that didn't really land at all.

1:10:28But coronation chicken has become like that is a big time British like comfort dish. But you can do it with crab and make it a bit more like you kind of fry off some butter, add the spices in, render them off in the butter and add sultanas and coriander and all these things and stir that through crab and have it on toast with some chili. And it is so, so good. It sounds really good. Yeah, it's amazing. I have to try that. So I had, I guess, coronation mayo, which is just minus the chicken, just the condiment at 40 Moppy Street when I was in London. Which is an amazing restaurant. Just an amazing restaurant.

1:11:02They nailed it. I had it. I think it was with cauliflower fritters. You just dipped them in and we were sitting right at the counter. So we were watching them make everything and kind of eventually pluck up the courage to say, sorry, what is coronation mayo? And we got the whole download. But I like the idea of doing that with crab. That's really special. Quite a kind of, it's a good snazzy like nibble to have with drinks before you have dinner, if you're ever into that kind of thing. Yeah, it's so good. On like a thick cut toaster? I quite like, yeah, like not too thick, but like sourdough that's quite well toasted.

1:11:33Yeah, so, so, so good. I like that idea. I don't know if it's easy to get milk bread where you are, if that's something you would ever make, but I would imagine it would be really good on milk bread too. Yeah, I've made milk bread, but no, we don't, we aren't able to get that around us. Countryside is like, oddly, it's where all the best ingredients are, but the cooking is very simple around where we are because it's old school farming country. Right, but then also you get to make everything, all the delicious things. So I guess to close today, I want to play a little taste test with you. So I'll ask you some questions and you'll give me the first answer that comes into your head.

1:12:03Sure. Okay, favorite cookbook? My favorite cookbook is called A Messy Business by Rowley Lee. It's a fantastic, fantastic book. I love it to bits. What is The Messy Business? I suppose he's referring to cooking as a messy business. And it has this beautiful cover of a chopping board with a crab claw on and a hammer. And he's an old school, like very scene defining British chef, like one of the godfathers of British cooking. And it's just a very purest, very beautiful, staggeringly delicious book. Cool. Favorite vegetable to grow? To grow? Courgettes, probably zucchini. They are the most rewarding vegetable.

1:12:47Like you will not be able to keep up with your courgette plant. They're impossible to kill. They're tough as nails. And yeah, it'll make you look like an amazing gardener. But secretly, they're just awesome plants. They're just popping. I love them. Okay, your favorite vegetable to eat? I've recently fallen in love with Romanesco broccoli. You know, that beautiful broccoli that does the kind of spiralization. Broctile. Yeah. I mean, firstly, the coolest looking thing that ever grew, but they are just so delicious. I'm obsessed. A thing I've been doing lately is, so you just kind of briefly boil that in salted water and then mix it with a slow cooked onion with anchovy garlic and herbs and olive oil.

1:13:26Toss that together and you can have it through pasta, have it on top of some white beans, have it with a steak. It's so good. I love that. I'll have to try it. Okay. Your favorite food focused like TV show or movie? food focused tv show movie i mean i love chef uh ratatouille i love the food in like um studio ghibli films yeah that's such a popular thing i feel like it always the animation somehow looks so like real and delicious yeah cool okay your favorite season for cooking well like i said earlier i'm i think i'm definitely better that like autumn winter kind of food and autumn is an amazing time to cook because you have the end of summer produce and the beginning of winter produce.

1:14:07So it's where you have all of the ingredients to hand. So that's probably my favorite time. Something that you'll never make from scratch? Maybe like miso or puff pastry. I would love to make puff pastry because I love croissants more than anything in the world. But I've never made puff pastry yet. I make a thing called rough puff, which is like a cheats puff pastry accounts yeah uh your favorite london restaurant probably saint john or kiln saint john is like like with rowley lee like fergus henderson is the king of british food uh he was anthony bourdain's favorite chef and then kiln is this awesome like fast-paced thai restaurant uh which i just particularly love like that kind of food because you know i don't get to eat that kind of stuff in the countryside at all i went when i was in london in december and now I'm thinking that maybe you mentioned it at the other podcast.

1:14:55I might have. Yeah. I don't know if I think a lot of people recommended it to me, but I loved it. It's so good. I sat at the counter and just ate like all of the little grilled skewers. It was really fun. Yeah, I love that. Okay. Your favorite London wine bar. It's tricky. I mean, you know, I'm so not a part of the London scene anymore. I really am just a country boy. So I think out of loyalty, I'd have to say Noble Rock just because it is, there's nowhere better to go and have a glass of wine. Yeah, you got to say it. um okay and to close like something that would never grow on your farm in terms of like climate or geography that you wish could grow very well on your farm um i mean i was just in mexico uh eating like avocados every single day that tastes better than any avocado i've ever eaten um it would be pretty special to have a avocado tree in the garden that's probably like the best answer or mango i mean yeah we were eating mangoes too and they just they are just mind-blowing when that good.

1:15:46Yeah, well, I'll manifest like a hybrid avocado mango tree that grows in Dorset for you. Thank you. Thank you so much for coming by, Julius. This was so fun. It's a pleasure. I love being here.

1:15:59This is Taste is hosted by Eliza Abarbanel and me, Matt Rodbar. The show is produced by Shalia Harris and Pat Stango and edited by Clayton Gumbert. Theme music by Steve Rydell. Visit taste online at tastecooking.com and make sure to subscribe to our newsletter for updates on all cool things that are happening.