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Podcast Summary: This Is TASTE - Episode 584: Jamie Oliver Stops By!
Overview In this episode of *This Is TASTE*, hosts Aliza Abarbanel and Matt Rodbard welcome back celebrity chef Jamie Oliver. They discuss his recent projects, including his appearance on Netflix's *Chef's Table: Legends*, and his new educational initiative aimed at teaching cooking skills to children in the U.S. The episode also features a conversation with cookbook author Jake Cohen, who shares insights on his new cookbook club.
Key Themes and Discussions
Jamie Oliver's Return
- Netflix Appearance: Jamie is featured in *Chef's Table: Legends*, highlighting his influence on food culture and activism.
- 10 Cooking Skills for Life: Launching in the U.S., this free program aims to teach children essential cooking skills, empowering them with the ability to prepare meals and understand nutrition.
- Food Television Pioneer: Jamie reflects on his early career with *The Naked Chef*, noting how he revolutionized cooking shows to promote simple home cooking.
Reflections on Celebrity and Activism
- Navigating Fame: Jamie discusses the challenges of celebrity, particularly how public perception can shift, leading to periods of intense scrutiny and personal reflection.
- Activism Through Cooking: He emphasizes the responsibility he felt to use his platform for change, particularly in discussing dietary issues and advocating for food education in schools.
Insights from Jamie’s Career
- 15 Restaurant Project: Jamie reflects on his charity restaurant that trained at-risk youth, the challenges he faced with financial sustainability, and the lessons learned from that venture.
- Childhood Influence: Jamie shares his personal journey, from struggling in school due to dyslexia to finding his voice and purpose in the culinary world.
Jake Cohen’s Cookbook Club
- Introduction to the Cookbook Club: Jake discusses his new cookbook club with Allstora, aimed at promoting community engagement with food literature.
- Monthly Selections: The first book chosen is *Ottolenghi Comfort* by Yotam Ottolenghi, which reflects the dual themes of comfort and innovative cooking.
- Community Engagement: Each month will include a signed copy of the book and interactive discussions around recipes, emphasizing personal connections within the food community.
Key Takeaways
- Education and Empowerment: Jamie Oliver advocates for teaching cooking as an essential life skill, aiming to improve dietary choices and health outcomes among children.
- The Impact of Media on Perception: Celebrity chefs navigate complex relationships with the media, which can influence public opinion and personal identity.
- Community and Food: Both Jamie and Jake emphasize the importance of community in cooking and food literature, promoting shared experiences and mutual growth through culinary endeavors.
Conclusion This episode highlights Jamie Oliver's journey from a young chef to a global food activist, while also introducing Jake Cohen's innovative approach to bringing cookbook lovers together. Their conversations stress the importance of food education, community engagement, and the transformative power of cooking in personal and societal contexts.
Additional Resources
- [Jamie Oliver's 10 Cooking Skills for Life](#)
- [Jake Cohen's Cookbook Club](#)
- [Ottolenghi Comfort by Yotam Ottolenghi](#)
Credits
- Hosts: Aliza Abarbanel & Matt Rodbard
- Guest: Jamie Oliver & Jake Cohen
- Produced by Penguin Random House
For more episodes, visit [tastecooking.com](https://tastecooking.com).
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:28This episode is brought to you by Resi and American Express. I ran 15 as a profitable, busy restaurant, and all the profits powered these kids that we inspired. I want you to do it. So each kid, like in the early days, cost me$25 ,000 a year. By the time I finished 17 years later, like$40 ,000 a year. But, you know, you've got to remember, it cost them about$90 ,000 a year to be in jail. Of course. So this is half the price of jail.
0:53This is Taste. I'm your host, Matt Rodbard. our friend Jamie Oliver returns to the show and we could not be happier to talk to him about so many things he's currently appearing on Netflix as part of the Chef Table Legends series in addition to the Netflix show he will be launching his 10 cooking skills for lifetime platform in the United States it's a free curriculum available for schools and organizations that is designed to teach young children all the skills needed to cook also on the show we have a great conversation with Jake Cohen Jake's a talented cookbook author and most certainly in the modern social media mix.
1:32We talk about Jake's really cool new cookbook club with Astora and his May selection, Adelenghi Comfort by Yodam Adelenghi. I hope you enjoy this episode.
1:45Jamie Oliver, welcome back to This is Stace. How are you? It's great to be here. Thanks for having me. I love having you here. It's just like fun to hang with you. Well, I think we cheated because we did hook up last night. We did, indeed. A beautiful Mexican. Yeah, man. Thanks for that. Yeah, and by own. Shouts. Yeah, really, really nice. And the minute all those salsas came out, like a rack of salsas, and those little chips, it's like, I could have just done that all night. And they rank them in spiciness, and you didn't, like, you were like - I started at the wrong end. You started at the wrong - I went, woo-hoo-hoo!
2:15You started at the hottest end, but I think Alex Tupac's doing great work there. So, Jamie, we've known each other for a bit. I've been able to visit with you in London, and I feel like I knew a lot about you, But then I watched this episode of Chef's Table. And now I feel emboldened to ask you a bunch of stuff that I probably wasn't going to ask you. But I learned a lot. And really, my first question is, I sense that you have a deep control of your TV. You've been doing it for so long. You're very creative. What's it like having Chef's Table produce a documentary about you and you not having Final Cut?
2:45Yeah, I mean, it's weird in one sense. But also, I'm respectful of their creative brief has a certain look and feel. you know the slow-mo the dramatic music and um and i never really thought that they would be interested in me but i think like under this kind of frame which is like 10 year anniversary and they were trying to find chefs that have actually like i guess changed the world and i guess that means lots of things not just sort of like symbolically or kind of like you know people say oh yeah i did a jamie oliver recipe but also like law government yeah uh you And I've been pretty busy at that.
3:22It was amazing. It's a beautiful opportunity. And, yeah, I had to hand over creative control, which was kind of scary to answer your question. But I knew they were good. And the director, Brian, is fantastic. And, yeah, and you have to be a bit vulnerable, I suppose, and just be like, all right, okay, it's a bit like going to the doctor for an MOT, you know. Yeah. Brian's asking. You know you're going to have to strip off and kind of like get some serious checking. You did like three hours of interviews for it? Three hours? Like four times, three hours. Wait, you did 12 hours of interviews? Yeah.
3:55Those guys are good. Yeah, and I think like a lot, I mean, Brian just said, dude, like you were hard because like we could have done three shows. And like there was a lot on the cutting room floor. And like obviously the diligent, they have a bit of flexibility, unlike TV, but like they have to get it around 55 minutes. So, yeah, I mean, I've watched it. I've seen it. It's quite emotional. Like even I'm like nearly bawling my eyes a couple of times. Yeah. Because it brings back such a lot of memories, good and challenging. Well, there's some major themes and I want to cover a few because I've always wanted to get your take on celebrity because you're so young.
4:35Yeah. And in the doc, you know, the first two years are good and then the press turns on you. And we know the UK press is tenacious. Brutal. Brutal and extremely unfair in many ways. And, you know, after that second year, I mean, how are you feeling, Jamie? I mean, did you feel like at some point you just want to give it up, go back to being the cook? In the early days, I was so young. You were. And I was, you know, I was technically quite astute young because I'd started so young. Like I was literally doing like, you know, 15 hours a week from like the age of 11. Yeah. You know, and so I was kind of like, I was just so young.
5:16I was so excited for life. I was so excited to move out of my little village, which I adored, go to London. London was so full of excitement and opportunity and culture and just like excitement and always something on. And it was complete luck that I got dragged out of obscurity. You know, I was literally just like a skin and bone and a set of lips. Yeah, the crew shows up and they want the other guy, the other guy calls in sick and you're the guy. And like, but I don't know, it just felt like an amazing energy. And Britain was different then. Like, as all our countries go through ebb and flow, you know, and you can decide what you're going through right now.
5:58But like Britain and London was bloody cool at that time. You know, like the 90s. When Blur's on the radio? Yeah. Like, tell me. Like, that's where I want to be. Yeah, it's like Blur, Oasis, like Kate Moss is kicking off of all the supermodels doing this stuff. You've got like, you know, Banksy kicking off and like just art, music, the scene, raving, partying. And like chef hadn't really had its moment. So the naked chef kind of like, I guess, jumped. I was sort of jumped in sort of like halfway through the ride, you know, sort of like. And I was just, look, I was a 23-year-old boy when it kicked off, 24 when I became famous.
6:33And everything that goes with it. So I think I was just naive. And then it took me years to work it out. and then sort of about sort of four years in i'm like oh like that was you have the high and then you get an ass kicking and it's like brutal from every direction and then it's sort of like okay uh i've got a little cord i can like metaphorically speaking i can pull this cord now and sort of get us and out of this you wanted that you sought that in some ways of course you like the celebrity and the money was not bad but you wanted to maybe uh not have the press be on the front page of the of the male you know me and jules had to make a decision like if we do it we have to go all in like you can't half do it um and then really the the family represents like what we knew food could represent which is about you know just like cooking is a family affair right so we just be normal about it we don't have to push it like jules is quite in the background to be fair but she's not switched off like she'll turn up if she has to as will the kids in context right and as the kids go into teenage years they'll switch off for five years like no way because they can't my kids have are still all embarrassed of me um but um but no i think like we could have jettisoned out of it and we decided not to and um i look i think that's the balance of life right you gotta make choices and i i feel another major theme is how you at such an early age in your mid-20s, you intuited that you could create change through your celebrity.
8:05And you decided early that, you know, meeting with lawmakers, meeting with parliament, and you've since over your career created a really ambitious unit in your whole corporation that does that still to create change. Take me back to the earliest memory of realizing you could get somebody on the phone and actually get a meeting and that that was your responsibility now. And that was that was a little further down the line. Yeah. I mean, I think the concept of, and I think like for anyone listening, like if I can be remotely philosophical about my slightly strange life, I think like if you saw the Jamie at 10 and the Jamie at 16 coming out of school with no GCSEs, no qualifications, and you looked at my capacity for a deeper meaningful conversation, which didn't exist.
8:58I mean, I was a nice kid, but I was just like obsessed by boobs and bits and just talking crap all day. Like just like in the kitchen, banter, banter. Like, I think like I've always pushed myself into positions where I've had to learn, had to be exposed and then had to react to the world that I put myself in. and there lies the joy of the decisions you make every day about work or who you're going to hang with or who you're not going to hang with or that trip that you kind of feel a bit nervous about going on or the really easy trip that you know you're going to like but is the same old, same old.
9:32It's just the beauty of life being a roller coaster and that you're just able to re-sculpt. Honestly, I was never a campaigner. I was never political, ever. Yeah, you didn't run for class, did you? No, literally what happened was very quickly, and you have to kind of put it through the lens of my eyes right I was a dyslexic kid that failed at school so then fast forward I ran out of school never wanted to come back but cooking was my thing and then through complete luck and someone not turning up to go to work I ended up getting the naked chef and then as a dyslexic wrote a book that became like a global bestseller and I went from being literally skint to having a million quid in the bank quite quickly and and it's a really weird way to earn a living because um i didn't really earn it but really you think that way well it's not like i put in a shift and i get 20 bucks you were thinking old jamie like the chef who was making like my dad only made a hard pound and then the public decided to make me that okay and it's like a vote and it's not like it's not like in social media where it's like a like or a comment like they kind of mean nothing because they're free like when you spend good hard earned money on a book it's like it's almost more than a vote so when it gets when it becomes a vote then immediately even as that young jamie who's sort of like still green naive and a little bit kind of young and cocky and uh trying to prove himself all the time because i was young um i knew my boss was the public and that changed everything and then i found i found myself within a year really uncomfortable with it and i know no one ever believes me oh bullshit you got a million quid in the bank just kill me it's like i was really uncomfortable with it partly because my dad i'd grown up in a family business where this is how you make a living and um that's when i set up 15 and 15 was a restaurant that was a registered charity i didn't take a wage or anything out of it i spent all of money i was actually bankrupt for about three weeks until i got another royalty check yeah so i put about 1.6 or maybe a bit more million pounds so i don't know it's like at that time it was like double for dollars right three million dollars into a restaurant that was taking kids largely from prison homeless lost and trained them to be epic chefs that's new information that wasn't in the doc you actually invested your life savings yeah well they don't remember a lot of it went on the cutting room yeah there you go more well these crucial details that you actually had this money in the bank that you could have retired from easily had a life and you decided to.
12:01Oh yeah, no. And people say, oh, why did you do it? Why did you do it? Okay, it's because I wanted to. I could. Yeah. And I did. There you go. And I was young and naive and like I didn't have like the experience of being a bit more conservative or a bit more like gauged. It was just like, no, fuck it. I want to. Yeah. Like, so I will. And how did you feel when you made that deposit of 1.6 million? Couldn't give a shit. Okay. Because I hadn't earned it in my mind. it was so you didn't feel you felt nothing because it was i felt nothing because i didn't because because i it's like i i remember putting my card in the wall and you could get like it tells you how much is in there and went biggie biggie biggie i'm gonna fucking hell and then i remember it was like it went back to zero again and my account went um because the the designers were arguing with the with the builders and the builders were arguing with the and i'm like guys you know this is not like a restaurant this is like a charity restaurant so can we like sort all this out please but no i think from those young kids um the only thing i had in common with them was not doing well at school um and having no qualifications but like obviously they came from all kinds of ethnic backgrounds a lot of single parents um like the kind of honestly i'm not exaggerating the world of crime and drugs and i watched the series and gangsters i watched you on my turn my samsung on there's jamie and there's sometimes your show that you're on the pier but The 15 season is on and I'm watching it.
13:25Compelling TV. Folks from all over the background. Honestly, and this wasn't on Chef's table, I've had to pay drug dealers off in cash to take death threats off of my students. So it was like gnarly. So then the question is, so my dad's old saying was, you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Have you ever heard of that? I have heard of that. And I always disagreed. and i totally believe in rehabilitation i don't don't i think there's a line okay so don't it's not it's not infinite rehabilitation of course but i think for the large majority of people in jail not including like dark stuff yeah but like for kids that have taken too many wrong turnings that have ended up in jail like there are patterns there's patterns of neurodiversity patterns of Poverty, patterns of single parent homes.
14:17And like they kind of start to cluster. And like these kids I took. And if you give them second, third and fifth chances, and if you inspire them through artisans. So in the world of food, which I know you know more than any, but a great cheesemaker, a great fishmonger, an amazing butcher, an incredible farmer. Someone that makes amazing cured meats, amazing wine, amazing oil. Like they are always 100 % of the time amazing people. They're always inspiring. And the reason that thing is genius is because they're consistent. What I learned through 15, about nine months in, when you take like a little roughneck criminal that could break into a car in 30 seconds, right?
14:57If you can keep them for nine months and fill them up with like bubbles of craft and ability and a sense of self-worth and the ability that they're growing quite quickly into something that could be something. Every year I take them to Tuscany to pick olive oil. and every year in the same place, I promise I'm not being romantic, with Giovanni Minetti at Fontodi in Tuscany. You meet him, you see how he's dressed, you see how kind and warm he is with so much love for my students, regardless. Just because he's associated with 15, he gives this infinite love. You see his wine and you see his cellars and you see that it's all about consistency.
15:44Yeah. And then the kids at that point, it like realizing, oh, ah, yeah, it's like, yeah, you know, you keep doing these consistent. I mean, it engenders. And then you keep kind of creating this much more interesting version of yourself that can have the ability to make people feel great. It gives you confidence. Right. And you come from a chaotic world. You come from chaos. And you can make a silk purse out of a sales ear. I promise you. There you go. This episode is brought to you by Aura Frames. If you're one of those last minute shoppers, you might know the feeling. Ideas are running low and the clock is ticking.
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17:40Terms and conditions apply. Hi there, it's Matt, co-host of the show. We are currently running a This Is Taste listener survey, and we'd love to hear from you. Do you have a guest request? A restaurant you wish we'd visit to talk about on Three Things? What about a lesser-known cookbook author who deserves a spot in our studio chair? You can let us know by clicking the link in our show notes to complete the survey. It will only take a couple minutes, I swear, and will help us continue to make the best show possible. That's the This Is Taste listener survey. Link in our show notes. So from that, that gave me the power or madness to think that I had the capacity or stage to.
18:26Everyone was so shocked by 15. I still haven't seen many organizations like it. And there's the Delancey Street Project in San Francisco, which is set up by heroin addicts and prostitutes. The Lee Initiative in Louisville, Kentucky, I have to shout out, Edward Lee has something very similar. Yeah, Homeboy Inc. in East Bay. Oh, yeah, I know that one. Yeah, that's good. And Father G, who helps gangsters get out of gangs and removes tattoos that risk their lives, you know, threaten their lives. Can you bring this to American television? I mean, you're on Netflix now. Do you know what? I just did, this is another bit of gossip that you're going to love.
19:02Yeah, some gossip. I did a sizzle for Disney. Yeah. And because I do believe in filming these things because you're telling stories and empowering people. And it makes them maybe look at things that are in their own hood slightly differently through different eyes. And we did a sizzle about taking 15 to Las Vegas. We've talked about it off, Mike. Yeah. So the most sustainable restaurant in the world in the most unsustainable city in the world. And the other side of Las Vegas, for better and for worse, is fascinating. Yeah. Like there's a really inspiring side of Las Vegas that no one knows about.
19:39But there's also like, as with any city or postcode, there's always a dark side and incredible suffering. And I found an incredible partner that would allow me to get into the ghetto and find the right kids and embellish them with love, care and attention. This is a new chapter, though. I think being on Netflix. They passed on it, but it's still my sizzle. I can take it. And honestly, now that Netflix, you're on this show and Americans, young Americans may listen to our show, watchers on YouTube. I mean, they might not know your story. And I think your episode is really going to open some eyes here in the States.
20:18Let's get that made. I ran 15 as a profitable, busy restaurant. And all the profits powered these kids that we inspired. I want you to do it. So each kid, like in the early days, cost me 25 grand a year. By the time I finished 17 years later, it's like 40 grand a year. But, you know, you've got to remember it cost them about 90 grand a year to be in jail. Of course. So this is half the price of jail. And I used to go to court and say, like, don't put him in jail because he's turning up every day. Like, the crime's not such that you really need to worry about. Instead of you wasting taxpayers' money, how about just let me have him?
20:52Because so far, so good. He's like, he's smashing the bricks. He's showing up. And I used to get him off. And then the papers used to kick my ass saying I've got criminals off. Oh, is that right? Yeah, well, the thing is, like, when you do this stuff, you have to have a long view and be very clear about that. And the papers, as long as you don't lie to them, they do learn in the end. But, of course, for the first two, three years of 15, they were very cynical about it. But after seven years, they can't say the same cynical stuff. You're still open. Well, they just meet a kid. And look, I'm a white kind of middle class boy from a village.
21:27Like, there's certain things I can't say with authority. But when you get a kid from the ghetto that used to be astute at selling drugs and getting their money back through violence, when you can see them break down a whole lamb or cure a salmon or create an incredibly delicate dish with the most robust, strong hands, then that speaks volumes. So after a while, I didn't have to defend myself because the students did it for me. I toured your office. You showed me a whiteboard that was filled with ideas that you were petitioning parliament. And you have a vision board literally in your office about how you want to change the UK foodways and food system.
22:13What's on the board for 2025? I haven't been there in a couple of years. What are you really thinking about right now in terms of change? yeah so to get your listeners to sort of understand so i have like a dream board of things so look here's i love it here's here's through my weird little head right so there's like a hierarchy of things that are important right so if you're looking at child health there is a hierarchy of what's important to get done first but that doesn't matter because you have the government and there's a hierarchy of what they will accept from the original hierarchy Yeah.
22:48Right. And then there's a press one of where the press, what they're willing to talk about. And it might have nothing to do with what's number one on the actual child health hierarchy. And then there's the public. So there's four pillars here. And you can't make change unless you take the public with you. And so it's really tricky. So I have to sort of dream of the initiatives that we could or should do. And then once we've implemented some campaign, some documentary, some storytelling, then we'll take that and that will go into what we call consultation with government. So they'll basically like check that they're not going to get in trouble for doing the right thing and how much grief they're going to get for doing it.
23:24And then you have implementation. So that's stuff that's actually getting done. So it's slow though, bro. I mean, the US is no quicker, my friend. The US is more conflicted than the UK. Like your powers of business are much, much deeper ingrained and much more vocal. And yeah, I mean, there's a whole libertarian movement that doesn't want any government interference. And there's that, you know, government should be small and ineffective. Right. Yeah. It's a really interesting one because my passion really is truth. so so in a in a contemporary forward-thinking democracy like my belief is that regardless of what we say about our our public you know and i know the public often represent all kinds of things but like i i think if you give people good clear information they often make good choices yeah often not all the time you know there's plenty of room to be like wild and have fun like if you give you a little stupid yeah but if you tell the truth and give them good, clear information, they often make good choices.
24:27And if you lie to them consistently or bullshit them or kind of like just play with, you know, so that's why even things like labeling and packaging in the food chain. Yeah, you've done work around that. Yeah, well, there's loads to be done. We still haven't got the basics done. Right. So, and, you know, so the fact that you could say something's healthy when it's not, you know, the fact that the cereal aisle is really the cake aisle. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like cakes never lied to you. Right. A piece of cake's never, you always knew that cake was lardy and you loved every bit of it. And when you go for the second slice and you shouldn't, you're like, but you know, but you know, should, but couldn't, but you know it's wrong, right?
25:03So there is a conscious there. But when you've got some like posh granola that's like looking really healthy, like it's going to make you live forever. Oh my God, but it's just cake. So I think that there's a long way to go. Tell me about, you did the sugar tax, right? And that's something that you should be credited for. I'd say it was genius, to be fair. It was brought up in your city a decade ago, and it was quickly pushed back by a lot of powers, and it was clearly thrown off the ballot or the measure. But is there a new sugar tax for you? Is there something that you feel that you can really act on right now?
25:41I mean, actually, in the UK, they're extending the sugar tax from sugary sweetened drinks. So just to give your listeners. Yeah, please. So basically it was the fastest reformulation of sugar in the world. So we did one documentary and told the truth. And then we turned into a campaign that we ran. And the public decided to sign this petition. So it forced debate in parliament. And that parliament then brought it up with the people running the show. And then what happened was the actually one guy in government that was in charge of the purse strings went rogue and basically did the tax at the last minute.
26:16Oh, wow. But it forced the fastest reformulation of sugary sweetened drinks in the world. Bearing in mind that's the single largest source of sugar in our kids' diet. So it was amazing. And it created all kinds of nuances that were quite interesting. You'd have CEOs of sugary drinks companies that would do it really quickly. And because they did it really quickly, then all the other CEOs would gang up on them. Oh, wow. And then they knew how I felt. So that was interesting, having essentially the enemy become part of your alliance. But now we've just extended it to milk drinks as well. Amazing.
26:50That's a big part of the diet. Yeah, but actually from a business point of view, because people are listening to this and go, oh, it's just worthy, healthy, shite. And actually it's like… Reformulation is great. But let me tell you, the way we did it was there was gears of tax so that you could always improve. But what it did was make all the drinks companies have more choice. So more fruit juice drinks, more water drinks, more milk drinks, and therefore make their portfolio bigger, which therefore made their businesses more sustainable. And actually, they sold more products and made more money that year selling less unhealthy shit.
27:26So do you know what I mean? So every time they talk about doing good is bad business is absolutely wrong. Every time I've done something, it's been good business. So, you know, obviously what I'm trying to say is the voices and power of the big businesses, their instinct is that progress is the enemy. But that is proof. Progress is capitalism and capitalism creates a better margin and more sales, the top line. And for the investors and the shareholders, it's a more sustainable, futuristic business. But to answer your question, I think the next one is to make it compulsory or whatever the right word is, that every child leaves school at 16 knowing 10 recipes to save their life, know the basics of nutrition and how to budget, whether they're going to be rich or poor in the future so that they can look after themselves.
28:12And I see it as a life skill that's essential. I don't think it's a luxury. I don't think it's cute. I don't think it's romantic. I think it's essential. And if you look right now in Britain, and I know it's the same in the States, if you look at the carnage and chaos that's out there, it's through diet-related disease and obesity and the cost of ill health and debt and the inability to manage cash or invest or like compound invest. So I'm trying to work with an expert or I'd like to work with an expert in the UK to make both an actual subject. Is like a financial planning part of the 10 skills?
28:48No one taught me how to set up a bank account. No one taught me the power of investing 20 pound a year for 40, 50 years. And then having a safety net. No one taught me about insurance and taxes and how to be efficient. I still haven't got a clue. So I think I just have someone that does it for me. But I really think if you look like the poorest people pay the most amount of money for their phones. They pay the most amount for power when they're putting coins or whatever in their kind of pay-as-you-go electricity. And even if you study basket data on the poorest people, how they buy food, like they don't buy potatoes.
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29:30They buy mashed potatoes. Like it's the most expensive way to consume mashed potato. They're buying it. And they're very brand loyal. Because it's convenience. And this goes back to the root of your argument and your program is that if you have these 10 basic skills in the kitchen. You have power. You can actually cook with Whole Foods, healthier, cheaper. You can still buy crap, but you have choice. You have choice and you have agency. And how are you engaging with the American education system? Because you have these ambitious plans and you have, you know, I'm linking to the show notes, the website you've created.
30:01I find it very ambitious. I find it very, very cool that you want to come over here and, you know, make some noise. Yeah. I mean, I'm not coming over here as a Brit. I'm coming over as a human, really. But also, as I've kind of got older and a little bit more romantic and a little bit more wise about how campaigning works and how government works, it's a sort of weird two-toned approach. Like, the reason that I believe... Two-toned is a good way to put it. Yeah. Well, so first of all, like... We have two tones in the States. You're right. Humans' capacity for change is very low. People hate change.
30:39Governments hate change. So there's that against us. But also humans only tend to really, really react quickly and fast, which we have proved over history, when things get really bad. So we're really close to really bad. Like average child health in Britain and America is really bad. Like, you know, the kind of diseases that we're amplifying through bad lifestyle and mainly bad diets is really bad. the carnage and chaos that is happening and will continue to get worse and the divide between rich and poor homelessness and like it's all connected it's all part of the environment that we live in so so the it's almost like that old saying of the pain of change you know no one likes change until the pain of not changes change is worse than change itself right i don't know if i said that correctly i think we can pick it up in that so just kidding no yeah basically no one likes change until the pain of not changing is worse than change itself.
31:41So what I'm trying to say to you is the best thing on my side at the moment is the fact that things are so bad. So I think we're at a pivot point in the next sort of seven years. At the same time, I think AI is going to be really interesting and it's going to make us reimagine school and hopefully re-love teachers and re-support teachers. But I think we're going to have to do things differently. And I think that the school of the future needs to have – not just nurturing and nourishing the mind, but nourishing the body and the planet central to learning. So, you know, if you've got kids 180 days of the year, as you do in America, and they're going to have a breakfast and a lunch, it might as well be good.
32:25And if you teach them 10 lessons to save their life, you know, 10 cookery recipes, you know, 10 recipes to save your life, which is essentially making American kids streetwise about food, where it comes from, and how it affects their body. Like, you can teach history way better through food, geography through food. Yeah, because you'll have that compulsory education, and you'll be able to link it back. Environment, sustainability, all through food. Just teaching farming. And look, we used to work with Mark Carney, the Prime Minister of Canada, in proving that teaching and empowering kids about food, where it comes from, and how it affects their body, proving that it actually would make more money for your country.
33:05It's better for GDP. It makes you more productive, less people off sick. So, like, the science is there. Yeah. Like, the ethics is there. The potential for amplifying American culture, because it's all around food, right? Of course. And that's a major piece there. Like, all the bits are there. I mean, how many people want to be a chef when they're in eighth grade? Like, what was it in the 80s, 90s? Yeah, or just under 1%. Now it's like 10 to 15%. How many of the best moments in American culture happen with food around it? Like nearly all of it. So I think like everything's kind of roughly in place, but we just need it to get worse to get better.
33:44And I only say that with a little bit of wisdom on my side. But I think what we can do is get organized. And so 10 lessons, for instance, I just made it really easy for schools or after school clubs. Like it's just free. Yeah, it's just free. We write it for the teachers or the guardians, make it really easy for them. We give them videos. We give them pictures. We kind of, you know, we'll do incredible competitions. So school administrators and teachers. Just sign up. Sign up. Yeah, we'll put a link on your links. And it's like, it's free. And it's like, and then as, you know, what I realize is that teachers feel quite unlistened to in the matrix.
34:19So like when they message us, we respond really quickly and we do listen and we tweak our courses. So like we've got, we're in 500 schools in the UK, but I'm growing fast. but we did a test last year in um uh la yeah hence launching it this year to anyone yeah i love that i want to switch gears you have another major theme uh and it's something that you're very open about in the documentary uh in 2019 your your restaurant group went into administration bankruptcy here in the states and um you know it's a tough time and you you clearly uh it was painful to lose 15 lose this restaurant that you just talked about all the money you invested went away And, I mean, Jamie, in 2019, and I ask this question because we have a lot of folks in the industry listening to the show, like chefs and operators.
35:07And we talk about cost of goods. We talk about tax disparities and payroll tax. In 2019, what was the biggest hurdle for you that caused you to have to make this really difficult decision? Oh, so we were basically running the most incredible business for, like, I'd say eight or nine years. Yeah. and in retrospect it was always going to die i just didn't know it so we kind of powered through it was like basically it was a mid-market italian restaurant like incredible ingredients yeah um lots of direct buying from farmers so there was efficiencies on both sides but loyalty on both sides and like quality on both sides uh we trained really hard with staff so we hardly lost any staff it was incredible we literally took pot washers and made them head chefs over sort of like five years so loads of training but we had purchased or rented sites and we just kind of after the initial success of like three or four restaurants like we're killing it i think like i didn't realize there was an arrogance that i didn't know about frankly where we were just paying 30 percent over the odds for rents and like it was a real estate yeah yeah so and then in in the uk we had rates that were based on the rent and that went up 40 over two years and then at the same time there was like the kind of uberization of food um so the high street across the country had about 16 decline so then we had all these peach sites with less people walking past them yeah um and everything was kind of being sort of digitized but we we couldn't retrospect we had real kitchens so we couldn't just have bike riders coming in and picking up our food and like taking it everywhere So we died over about three years and it was very painful.
36:50But the truth is, I mean, what I've learned is that, and this is a tough one for chefs because they're often very emotional, very creative, as I was.
37:02Like now I know that you can only be, you only have permission truly to be creative once you've got like the belt and braces and like the ship built right. You know, your, your labor model needs to be correct. Like your rent needs to be malleable for shit times. And you've got to have a little bit of like stretch. And we had none. So like, so because we were all about ethics, like, like other businesses, because I knew when I went down others would. So about literally six months after me, like another five, like people similar to us went down, but I couldn't, I got to a point where I can't go from selling sustainable fish to not to save a bit of money or like like you know beautiful free-range meats to like yeah filthy shite like you know what I mean like you couldn't go from caring to not caring to like save the business it's like yeah we were dead so we were like basically like a bit of a weather a weather vane yeah for everyone else and of course it went into a recession after that so that was that was tough but look I I feel more rounded now as a restaurateur I feel more rounded now as a businessman i mean there's nothing more brutal than having everything lost did you think about packing it up i mean at 2019 that would have been a time when you could have just not gone back into the restaurant industry you could have i mean you almost your whole production company almost went under yeah and all your employees yeah i mean on the media side that was always separate so okay so you weren't that was never right no but that's good but it was but it was um look like my my home is the restaurant i grew up in a restaurant i grew up above a restaurant my language to thrive was the restaurant and honestly like the business we created like all the hard stuff we got right and you know and and i i'm happy to talk about it as well because i never took a wage or a dividend so i never made anything over the hard stuff is like the culture you created but the easiest of was just signing that lease right yeah i i just i would i knew i had to come back but I also knew that the press would be brutal.
39:06So I think we did a pretty good job of coming back with Catherine Street. I mean, this is the food of my childhood. Like it's that kind of comforting food that makes you feel really good and it's been really beautiful bringing it back. But I think also it's important in life to dust off and crack on and not complain. But I mean, obviously for many nights I re-evaluated how, when, why, what, what could I have done differently? Like, what did I do? You still regret those decisions before 2019. Yeah, but some of them are like, some of the decisions around leadership are really hard. It's a bit like parenting.
39:44Do you know what I mean? It's like, you know, like you can get being kind wrong. Do you know what I mean? If you incentivize people well and you think, oh, well, I'm a great boss, that is really good. But then if you do it the wrong way, you can create monsters that are just trying to work for that incentive rather than you, which you should be the brand and the customers. So you can do really, you can make massive mistakes by being kind. So you've got to be, leadership's tough. Because it's really, you don't want to create opportunities for oxygen to turn into monsters. Do you know what I mean?
40:18You want everything to be about the customer. The incentives need to be aligned with your core values. It has to be the customer, customer, customer. Yeah. And if you skew someone getting a divvy up because they've got like, you know, 3 % of something that's worth 180 million quid. Like you're going to create a monster. Like because they've already spent the money, by the way. They've already spent the money. They bought the house. They've literally about to buy the jacket. So like you just, even how you bring your team along with you. So like it was a massive masterclass for me to like, I thought I was so smug in like being nice and creating cute little kind of B Corp environments.
40:53And it was lovely, but like you can get that wrong. so it's just like it i'll go i'll have another go before my time's up and i think and it's not about greed or scale it's what it is it's about like it's really really important that you show the industry that mid-market you mean a restaurant beyond catherine street yeah you want yeah i have to do something that's multiple site again if i could tell you the energy by having hundreds of chefs engaged yeah focused on the same north star like having a culture of not just how you employ but how you treat the team but also like you know when you've got amazing dry plucked chicken that's like a rare breed from one farm and everyone else is cooking the old regular shit and like you've got like your stuff's getting crispier and tasty like it's like it gets geeky like you start getting passionate about tomatoes from a specific place in a tin making a better sauce yeah you know even if it's going on a pizza like like it there's like there's a there's a there's a kind of another jamie that's sort of really boring like gets nerdy but like you can wrap that all into multiple sites um but i think my next passion and challenge when i do do it is to is a hybrid of what i learned during j.i uh jamie's italian and what i learned in 15 and as obvious as it sounds it's all about talent and it's all about staff.
42:19So if you admit that most chefs are skint and if you admit that it's impossible to save enough money to get a bank loan to start your own restaurant, then what I would like 15.2 to be and my multiple site 0.2 to be is some kind of, how would you use Jamie Oliver? Well, use it for a bit of clout to let me do supply chain and all the health checks and all the kind of geeky science stuff that makes sure that we're getting the best stuff from the best place and gets it to you in a really efficient way. Let me kind of get customers through the door as helpfully and effortlessly as possible and then make you a partner.
42:59So I think the next model will be almost like a hybrid partnership. And offering equity to some employees as it rises up. I think that's a model that we see in the States a lot. If you think about what I created and I never took a wage or a dividend, right? So basically I ran a charity for 15 years. That's 13 years. That's the way I look at it now. So like, okay, well, if we go again, how about actually we invest in people that living in their neighborhood, didn't come to that neighborhood, like get talent in that area so they stay in that area and just concentrate on amazing, incredible mid-market, good value food that's completely consistent and predictable and you can rely on.
43:39What's the timeline for this? I'd like to do it in the next two years when we slightly hopefully get out of this weird time at the moment So 15.2 and then a Jamie's Italian which is like a wide scale I like the idea that I work for my chefs not they work for me It's a really good energy And then I can kind of be like It sounds wanky but I don't mean it to sound like the Pied Piper of the brand The values keep us all consistent Keep us all honest But I think if I can look after them then I think they'll look after me And I think then, and again, it sounds really cheesy, but then we can look after the produce.
44:11It's not cheesy. It's real. No, I'm going to call you out. It's not cheesy. It's not. It's real. And I appreciate what you're saying. I kind of half got there. I half got there. Yeah. And all this, like the experiment, genuinely it was an experiment. The experiment was, could you get Michelin level ingredients into mid-market dining? Yeah. That was the experiment, honestly. Right? Yes is the answer. Yes. I mean, getting the price point right too. strategic buying direct buying yeah um and um clarity on on growth and how they could be part of that um and but all the hard stuff i got right and all the old-fashioned stuff i got wrong so when i do go again i promise i won't get that a few minutes left i'm like jamie you're good you're good on the drums man like what what's up with this like i didn't know this like there is a scene in the documentary and again it's on netflix check it out there's four new episodes i have a favorite uh i think it's clear that you practice ah well you have that set in your at your home yeah i don't practice enough really but what's what's your routine like as in what does that mean like your your drumming routine are you are you going out there in the morning before the day starts No, no, I need to.
45:30It's something weird. So I've drummed since I was 11. Yeah. And I love to drum. And it's like I feel like I can express myself. Yeah. But, yeah, ever since my nan died, she left me piano. And I've just been trying to get good at the piano. Well, you see, you have a music room. You have, like, all sorts of gear. Yeah, yeah. So I play the piano really badly. And I should be spending more time doing my drums. But I guess it's the kind of example of what I was saying earlier. like push yourself to sort of learn new things, you know, learn a language. Ten minutes a day. Ten minutes a day doing something you don't want to do is super powerful if you do it every day.
46:08If you just do it once, it means nothing. But the drumming I love, and it is a good workout. I could tell. You're sweating a little bit. I saw you a little bit of smitz there. Okay, so UK, like the home of some of our legends of drumming, is it John Bonham or is it Keith Moon? Do you have a preference? Ah, do you know what? I mean, like Keith Moon was always very good. I have a favorite now. Okay. Yusuf Days. Yusuf Days, all right. Look up this dude, Yusuf Days. I'm dyslexic, but I think it's like Y-U-S-I-F, something like that. He wrote an album with a guy called Tom Mish in lockdown called, I think it's My Kind of Music.
46:50Okay. It is the most badass. I'll check. The beats, oh my God. like and also because I know I could never do those beats because the ghost notes and stuff he's doing is so annoying oh ghost notes you're going there man but no he's just doing stuff that I'm like the body can't do that really is that possible oh my god but also like you know some humans are like the coolest like he can put a bin liner on and he'll look cool yeah and like so his outfits but it's really because normally normally the drummers are in the background like literally no one cares but so his band he's going it's like Yusuf first and check out that album it's very good I love the plug.
47:25Jamie Oliver, this has been fun. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you. Thanks for having me. From February 20th to March 7th, dive into Canada's biggest culinary festival, Montreal en Lumière, an exclusive partnership with the McCord Stewart Museum and its exhibition, On the Menu Montreal, a restaurant story. The 2026 festival invites food lovers on a flavorful journey through time. Montreal's top restaurateurs will reimagine 65 years of the city's iconic astronomy, crafting inventive, nostalgia-inspired dishes with a modern twist. Prepare your palate. World-renowned chefs, including several Michelin-starred talents, will team up with over 80 of Montreal's finest local chefs to create unforgettable, one-of-a-kind menus.
48:12The full program is available at montrealonlumiere.com. presented by Lotto Quebec in collaboration with National Bank. Today's episode is brought to you by ButcherBox. As a food writer, I can be a little skeptical about subscription cooking boxes you hear about on podcasts. There's big talk about cooking simplicity, but you're usually left with disappointment after smashing that promo code. Now, Clayton, have you ever tried one of those subscription boxes? Yeah, Matt, my friend gave me a code for that one that has all the chopped vegetables in little baggies. I felt like a drug dealer trying to cook dinner.
48:45Yeah, man, I have so been there. ButcherBox is a true exception. I was sent a box of premium beef and pork and was blown away by the quality and variety. There was 100 % grass-fed pasteurized ribeye, tri-tip, and ground sirloin for my favorite at-home smash burger recipe. George Motes, you better watch your back. For pork, they sent me a beautiful center-cut pork loin for slow roasting. I was super impressed, and I haven't even talked about the ribs, which I cooked in my Instant Pot. There was a rub of salt, white pepper, and togarashi, and I pressure cooked with water and apple cider vinegar.
49:23It was incredible. These ButcherBox ribs are amazing. For nearly a decade, ButcherBox has led the industry with meat and seafood that's antibiotic-free. As an exclusive offer, our listeners can get free protein in every box for a year, plus$20 off your first box when you go to butcherbox.com slash taste. Visit butcherbox.com slash taste to get this limited time offer and free shipping always. That's butcherbox.com slash taste. Don't forget to use our link so they know we sent you. Jay Cohen, welcome to This Is Taste. How are you, man? Hi, I'm great. It's great to see you. I know. I'm excited to hear about your new cookbook club.
50:07But first, I have to ask, where are you going out in New York? What are your spots right now? What's the rotation? So this is, maybe it's a controversial opinion, but like, I don't want to go out for dinner. Like, I'm just like not someone, I want to be home for dinner. Yeah. I'm a lady who lunches. I'm a lady who breakfasts. Yeah. I'm someone who, like, I'm all about the daytime spots right now. Always have, always will be. So right now I actually have this one routine where I bring all my friends, literally just led, I think it was like, we had like 15 people in our crew last weekend and we start at Buba Bureka's.
50:39Yes. New spot, my best friend Ben Gingy. absolutely exceptional from the team behind Brett's Bakery as well as Ben who's just such a brilliant chef. Will you intro me to him? Yeah, of course. Because I want to talk to him about those lines. I got you. I got you. He also has an incredible cookbook coming out. Oh, amazing. Because here's the thing. You want to hear the... This is... I am... Cookbook author is probably second. First, I'm matchmaker. Yeah. So what I do is literally all my friends get introduced to my best friend, Sarah, who's also my literary agent. So now she reps like, she reps me, she reps Ben Gingy she reps Benny Blanco she reps all these people because like if I meet someone I'm like oh you want to do a cookbook here's your girl okay you get in your cut at least you get in your like percentages from these of course not it's not about that it's about the community no it's great yeah but so then we start at Buba and then we walk over to Hani's to Miro and Shilpa's bakery Miro and Shilpa Uzkokovic Miro was obviously the pastry chef of Gramercy Tavern Shilpa is I think and I say this constantly to her and she always like rolls her eyes she is the most exciting thing in food media right now.
51:43She is my favorite recipe developer. I think the work she does at Bon App is exceptional. She's the person who keeps me on my toes and wants me to be like a better recipe developer. I love Shilpa and we had her on and both those guys on recently on our show. So I'll link to that episode in the show notes. Love this like one, two punch. You're going one, two and then you're going home. Yeah. I mean, by that time, I will say there were moments and this is like, it's so, we were talking about this a little bit before we started. So my friends will sometimes come straight from the club to the bakery.
52:14And that's like the way that we end the evening. And it's the best. What's the club rotation in New York right now? What's good? Well, depends on the vibe. I'm someone who can do just about anything. More often than not, I'm at Basement, which is a techno club underneath the Knockdown Center in Mass Beth, Queens. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which, I mean, funny enough, I'm going Friday, well, tomorrow. and we'll probably end the night. I promised Zoe Kanad that we're going to go to Elbow, so I'll probably go straight from the club to Elbow. So like an 8 a.m., 7 a.m. catch-up. Okay, so how do you prepare for a duration session at Basement food-wise?
52:55Like what's your cooking routine, like 4 or 5 p.m. right before you're going to hit the club? Interesting. It's simple. It's really like simple proteins. I'm big on what my best friend refers to as slop. Like I'm big on slop cooking. So my mornings are typically some type of like, I make this oatmeal chia porridge slop that I mix in cottage cheese with, and it's like 50 grams of protein. And then in the evening, I do a lot of other slop. So what I do is I make almost like a sloppy joes type thing. And then what I'll do is I'll roast Japanese sweet potatoes, and then I'll just smash them on a plate and spoon over the slop and there you go.
53:39So the slop is like the protein, right? The slop is the protein. And then you've got like legumes and like potatoes. Yeah, but I'm not doing legumes before I'm going to basement. I'm not. That's crazy. That's crazy. Especially if it's a gay party. Uh-uh. Absolutely not. Fair enough. So I love this like prep. I feel the idea of the slop cookbook, you could own that. You know, we've discussed it, discussed it with my editor. Like I think there'll be a slop chapter. Yeah. I don't think the world is ready. Trust me. Listen, it'll be those things. I'm always been ahead of my time. You have been. I think that the world's not ready for that conversation of a slop cookbook.
54:16So right now we'll start with a slop chapter in my next book. So what are the next books? So let's talk about the cookbook club. You know, your approach to do clubs, I'm sure. What made you decide this was the moment and working with Allstora? What was what was the impetus of that? So I've known about Eric Cervini for a long time. He's obviously an incredible queer, documentarian, writer, brilliant man. I bake cookies. So it's like when I see people that are truly doing really incredible work in terms of writing. writing um i've been a huge fan he also did this show that a bunch of my friends had like acted in they were like i don't even know how to describe it because they're like uh tiktokers yeah he had a couple of like cool gay tiktokers in this show he did um so i've known about him for a while then he obviously started this with his partner adam powell as well as rupaul um and really like the goal was to help with like places with the book bans of making sure that there was access to LGBTQ books.
55:26And then I started hearing about these clubs because my friends Rob Anderson and Dylan Mulvaney both have clubs. Oh, very cool. And I started seeing that. And then they reached out and they're like, would you like to do a cookbook club? Which I think is so fun because I get those questions all the time. The questions are, where are you eating? What are the pans or equipment you're using? And what are the cookbooks you love? Yeah. So you're curating a list every month. I'm curating a pick each month of like, what is the book that you need on yourself? Very cool. So you sign up. Tell us about the way it works.
56:00You sign up for the club and you get a book every month? You get a book every month. You could also sign up and do a book every quarter. Cool, cool. And let's say like my pick of the month is something you already have. Like you can skip it. Skip it. Yeah. It's very forgiving. Or buy it and gift it. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Especially if it's one that you love. Like what better way? Yeah. And I think it's fun because a lot of these are authors I know. So there are going to be moments where I'm like, great, all the books, we're going to get signed book plates. So everyone's going to get a signed copy.
56:28Or I'll do a Q &A with them where I'll bring them in because there's a kind of digital community aspect to it as well. Oh, wonderful. I was wondering about that. So you sign up for the club, you get the book, but you also get a little bit of Jake stream. Exactly. Where it's like we're posing questions. Like, what are you cooking from this month? Oh, my God, this is the recipe that I love. This is the author. I kind of have an idea of what my next pick will be. And I'm already going to be like, no, no, no, no. You're going to come. We're going to cook together. We're going to do all this stuff.
56:54Well, let's talk about your first pick. It's a great one. Adelingi Comfort. I had Yodam on last fall. We talked about this great cookbook. It's one of my favorites, I think. What made you pick Yodam's book for your first selection? Well, I thought I wanted something that was relatively recent. kind of a tome like something that people people really could like get a ton out of also I'm like madly in love with Yotam both in like a professional and personal way so it was a really easy pick and his team like so many of the people in the OTK in the Odeling Utah's Kitchen I think are such brilliant additions to the world of food media and when I'm thinking about a book I say this all the time in press where it's like the goal when you're writing a cookbook is so many books and i get i mean you probably more than me get every book sent to you every time someone's book and i will say no shade a lot of them are just adding noise yeah like they're just there's not really like unique perspective there's not like nothing um and all i want to do is add to the conversation and have a really unique perspective where people get to like hear my voice see my my vibe when it comes to cooking and they're either going to get it or they won't.
58:10Absolutely agree. And I think that the noise is what we have to break through when we're publishing here at Penguin Random House. We try to pick the books that are adding to the dialogue and discourse. And this book is really tremendous. I call it a tome as well because OTK, it's like the Warhol factory of cookbook making. It's creative, but it's very technical. And I want to hear from you some recipes that drew you to comfort, which is really, I think, again, we did this great interview with Yoda. I'm going to link to it. Comfort can be many different things to many different people. And I think he did a nice job to show how comfort is not just like mac and cheese.
58:50And when he's listening to this, all I'm trying to do is get him to come out with me. So it's like you'll see him at basement next time he's in New York. I think you could get him. I could get anyone to do anything. Don't get the twist. I know he's coming with me. So what are the recipes that you're really linking up with? The one that I really loved, which is something that's so kind of big in my normal rotation, is I love a one-pan pasta. And they have this caramelized onion oricchiette with hazelnuts and sage. And it's an example of how you could take something so simple as a one-pot pasta, but then the little additions of frying crispy sage and reserving that, using that oil to cook it down, the hazelnuts.
59:30everything comes out better. It's still a quite simple process, but you still have that touch of otolenghi fanciness that to me is exactly what I want to see in terms of comfort food that's quick, in addition to the fact that's like one step above the basic. And then there's this other recipe where it's like hummus, by the way, of South France. So it's like a chickpea and fennel puree. Oh, I love that. It's good. And so it's, again, that same touch and something that I love when I'm developing recipes is it's reminiscent of something that's so popular in your Rolodex. And yet it's just right of center.
1:00:12Yeah. Yeah. Because that's the way he thinks about his recipes at OTK. There's always going to be some creative twist on it. Yeah. Or it will be really, really clearly a link to the heritage and it'll be explained in detail. Yeah. Which is why I love that book. it starts May 1, right? May 1st? Yeah. So all May, you can go to, where can we sign up for it? I think it starts now. Again, I'm the brains, not the brains. I'm the brawn. I'm the brawn, not the brains. It starts right now, so you can order it now. I think this is the first pick, and you continue to do it. Also, if you order now, I believe it's discounted, so the first book is like$5.
1:00:54No way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't have a deal. Like, let's circle that. So five bucks. Five bucks. That's an incredible opportunity to get this book for$5. Yes. And then, like, the best part is for every new book club subscriber, a book is donated in your name to LGBTQ plus youth in states that are facing book bans. Incredible. Which is such, like, a good mitzvah to, like, add on to the fact that you're getting the best books. And it's all available at alstora.com. Great. I love it because it's going to be both new flashy titles, but also there'll be times where I'm just going to pick one of my favorite classics that a lot of people may have never heard of, but I go to every day.
1:01:37I love that idea that you're going to do new releases, maybe some older books that are classics. That's terrific. Congrats on the book club. This is very cool. That's going to be a lot of fun. Great chatting with you, buddy. Yes.
1:01:53This is Taste is hosted and produced by Eliza Abarbanal and me, Matt Rodbar. The show is edited by lead producer Clayton Gumbert and supervised by Pat Stango, director of media production and development at Penguin Random House. Thanks to Shalia Harris and the production team at Penguin Random House. Theme music by Steve Rydell. Logo and guest illustrations by Ellie Skrzat. Visit Taste Online at tastecooking.com and make sure to subscribe to our newsletter to keep updated on all cool things in the world of taste.
From the publisher
Our friend Jamie Oliver returns to the show, and we could not be happier to talk with him about so many things. He’s currently appearing on Netflix as part of the Chef’s Table: Legends series. In addition to the Netflix show, he will be launching his 10 Cooking Skills for Life platform in the United States, a free curriculum available for schools and organizations that is designed to teach young children all the skills they need to cook.
For those who didn’t grow up watching food TV, here’s the deal. Jamie pioneered a form of food television that brought cameras into the home in a way not previously seen. When The Naked Chef debuted on BBC Two in the UK and the Food Network in the United States in 1999, home cooking on TV was a stand-and-stir affair. Here, a young and floppy Oliver was cooking real food from a cool East London flat, talking viewers through the relative simplicity of making dinner.
Oliver has gone on to write numerous cookbooks (selling 50 million in the UK alone) and create food television that expanded beyond cooking, producing documentaries about the sugar industry and school lunches that transitioned his work from dude food evangelist to heartier activism. We really enjoyed this talk with Jamie Oliver.
Also on the show, we have a great conversation with Jake Cohen. Jake’s a talented cookbook author and most certainly in the modern social media mix. We talk about Jake’s really cool new cookbook club with Allstora, and the May selection: Ottolenghi Comfort by Yotam Ottolenghi.
See more:
Jake Cohen's Cookbook Club [Allstora]
New York’s Buzziest Bakery with Shilpa & Miro Uskokovic [Apple]
Yotam Ottolenghi Stops By! [Apple]
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