WEBVTT - Ruthie's Table 4: Bella Mackie 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:03.880 Welcome to Ruthie's Table four, a production of iHeartRadio and 0:00:03.920 --> 0:00:09.960 Adamized Studios. 0:00:11.160 --> 0:00:14.480 Welcome that the lemons tarp it isn't it it is? 0:00:14.720 --> 0:00:15.520 And what's that one? 0:00:15.720 --> 0:00:20.120 So that's that alms Tara praes and then it has 0:00:20.200 --> 0:00:22.680 loads of strawberries on downstairs and dusted with isa chupka. 0:00:22.720 --> 0:00:27.040 It is really good. It's actually I really like Bella. 0:00:27.240 --> 0:00:30.160 Mackie and her family have been close friends for thirty 0:00:30.240 --> 0:00:32.559 or so years, and when you're close to a family, 0:00:32.680 --> 0:00:36.120 you're close to their food. We all spent summer's footsteps 0:00:36.120 --> 0:00:39.800 away from each other's homes in the Baldorcha, swimming, walking 0:00:40.159 --> 0:00:44.239 and attempting to read novels between long lunches, late dinners 0:00:44.520 --> 0:00:48.159 Negroni's in the Piazza and Pienza and montepl Channel. Bella 0:00:48.400 --> 0:00:51.600 was always present, frying zucchini flowers with me, puring the 0:00:51.600 --> 0:00:55.000 white peaches for sunset Bellini's. There was one night when 0:00:55.040 --> 0:00:58.320 our children noticed that we had no urmissue from the 0:00:58.400 --> 0:01:01.760 night before. When they heard it was in her family fridge, 0:01:01.800 --> 0:01:04.240 they climbed through the bushes and at midnight broke into 0:01:04.240 --> 0:01:07.319 their house and took it back. Bella is no longer 0:01:07.560 --> 0:01:10.440 just the daughter of our friends. She's my friend. When 0:01:10.440 --> 0:01:12.560 she and her husband Greg come to the River Cafe, 0:01:12.600 --> 0:01:14.600 they know the food they want to eat, the wine 0:01:14.640 --> 0:01:17.480 they wish to drink, and they always request a quiet 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:21.240 table where they can just be together. Ask any young 0:01:21.280 --> 0:01:24.039 person working in the restaurant about Bella's books and they'll 0:01:24.040 --> 0:01:27.200 tell you that Jogon shaped their life in a crisis, 0:01:27.520 --> 0:01:29.560 or How to Kill Your Family was one of those 0:01:29.560 --> 0:01:32.680 books they could just not put down. Today in the 0:01:32.760 --> 0:01:35.680 River Cafe, Bella and I will talk about running families, 0:01:35.760 --> 0:01:40.679 Tuscan holidays and facing everything else. Welcome Bella, Hi, It's so. 0:01:40.760 --> 0:01:41.600 Nice to be here. 0:01:42.000 --> 0:01:44.000 What have you been doing. You've been in the kitchen 0:01:44.000 --> 0:01:52.680 making Richie Terrelli, the Richarelli. We started doing biscuits. We 0:01:52.720 --> 0:01:54.560 didn't used to do biscuits. We kind of did them 0:01:54.600 --> 0:01:57.760 in lockdown when we started the shop because people wanted 0:01:57.800 --> 0:02:01.840 to buy cookies basically. And then the rich Arelli are 0:02:01.880 --> 0:02:04.800 so interesting because they you and I both lived so 0:02:04.920 --> 0:02:07.400 close to Siena, and there's always that trip to Sienna 0:02:08.000 --> 0:02:09.919 that we would take in the summer. And I think 0:02:10.160 --> 0:02:12.880 that you know, rich Areli are like their hometown biscuit. 0:02:13.000 --> 0:02:16.120 You go to every bar in Siena, and it's so 0:02:16.240 --> 0:02:18.200 local Italy that if you probably went to a bar 0:02:18.400 --> 0:02:21.160 twenty miles away, they wouldn't have them. But every single 0:02:21.400 --> 0:02:23.559 bar in Sienna has Richirelli. 0:02:23.960 --> 0:02:26.880 Hi, I'm Polly. I am a chef here at the 0:02:27.000 --> 0:02:29.840 River Cafe Pastry kitchen, and I'm here with the lovely 0:02:29.919 --> 0:02:32.840 Bella Mackie teaching her how to make rich relly. 0:02:33.680 --> 0:02:36.480 See, they look amazing. I've made them a few times before, 0:02:36.800 --> 0:02:38.600 so mimonium didn't look like. 0:02:38.639 --> 0:02:43.400 That, Okay, So I would say it's probably when an 0:02:43.440 --> 0:02:45.000 issue of packing it with icing sugar. 0:02:45.160 --> 0:02:47.520 Yeah, so it'd be like eight times more icing sugar 0:02:47.560 --> 0:02:48.000 than you thing. 0:02:48.000 --> 0:02:50.480 Yeah, way more. And then you're almost kind of like 0:02:50.600 --> 0:02:52.280 put a little hat on it. Why don't know, show 0:02:52.280 --> 0:02:57.760 you had to do that. When I say you give 0:02:57.760 --> 0:03:01.679 it a little hat, you kind of tuck it under 0:03:01.680 --> 0:03:02.519 the icing sugar. 0:03:03.320 --> 0:03:06.240 Oh I see, give it a little dough. It's like 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:08.040 it's like a tree covered in snow. 0:03:08.560 --> 0:03:11.080 That is it exactly, And I think classically it is 0:03:11.080 --> 0:03:14.079 a Christmas biscuit as well, so very good. 0:03:14.400 --> 0:03:16.760 That will happened to the icing sugar on the top, 0:03:16.919 --> 0:03:18.639 like the hat when it goes into the oven, will 0:03:18.680 --> 0:03:19.280 it fall down? 0:03:19.760 --> 0:03:23.760 So as the biscuit kind of spreads out and cracks, 0:03:23.760 --> 0:03:25.519 as you can see with the ones, So we've we've 0:03:25.560 --> 0:03:28.280 got dord that icing sugar kind of seeps into it 0:03:28.320 --> 0:03:30.760 and dries that crust out right, and that's where you're 0:03:30.760 --> 0:03:32.680 getting the cracking. It's where you're getting the nice like 0:03:32.760 --> 0:03:35.480 little bit of tan color like under the actual icing sugar. 0:03:35.920 --> 0:03:36.960 This is amazing. 0:03:36.640 --> 0:03:39.640 Cubits you can go wrong with ritually is not making 0:03:39.680 --> 0:03:41.760 sure that the meringue has been taken far enough, so 0:03:41.800 --> 0:03:44.800 it needs to really be like a stiff peak because 0:03:44.840 --> 0:03:47.680 it can be quite like slack and that makes it 0:03:47.800 --> 0:03:49.640 extra soggy, or you get. 0:03:49.480 --> 0:03:51.120 That thing where you think the top of your meringue 0:03:51.200 --> 0:03:53.640 is perfect and you look underneath and there's like water 0:03:53.800 --> 0:03:55.480 still almost so sad. 0:03:56.400 --> 0:03:58.640 Yeah, so make sure I'd always take it a couple 0:03:58.640 --> 0:04:00.960 of extra minutes and you think tomorrow. And then the 0:04:01.000 --> 0:04:04.119 second bit is making sure it's compacted and covered enough 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:05.280 with the iced sugar. 0:04:05.520 --> 0:04:08.600 And one of the things that I've learned is that 0:04:08.880 --> 0:04:11.480 baking is your passion because I think it's very interesting. 0:04:11.520 --> 0:04:14.600 Why does you know Polly become a pastry chef instead 0:04:14.640 --> 0:04:16.760 of a cook where she could make feel shins and everything. 0:04:16.839 --> 0:04:19.719 There's a love of baking and pastry. What is yours? 0:04:20.160 --> 0:04:23.880 I think it's pastry and baking because I find it 0:04:23.960 --> 0:04:26.560 so intricate, and I feel like the intricacy of it, 0:04:26.600 --> 0:04:29.600 the kind of layers and the steps and the fiddliness 0:04:29.600 --> 0:04:31.880 of it really takes me out of my brain for 0:04:31.920 --> 0:04:34.479 a while. So I always if I feel anxious or overwhelmed, 0:04:34.560 --> 0:04:36.640 I'll always go into the kitchen. I find myself looking 0:04:36.640 --> 0:04:38.560 through resting books and finding something complicated. 0:04:39.120 --> 0:04:43.120 So let's go back to growing up with food. And 0:04:43.200 --> 0:04:45.520 so I know you know both your parents work, Both 0:04:45.560 --> 0:04:48.880 your parents were, they love to eat. There was you 0:04:49.040 --> 0:04:50.880 and your sister. So tell me what was sort of 0:04:51.160 --> 0:04:53.960 growing up in your household food wise? Would you say, 0:04:54.000 --> 0:04:54.880 what are your memories? 0:04:55.080 --> 0:04:58.160 So what I can remember from early childhood is my 0:04:58.160 --> 0:05:00.360 grandpa was a farmer on my mom's side, so we 0:05:00.360 --> 0:05:02.560 were up in Scotland quite a lot on the farm 0:05:03.200 --> 0:05:06.520 and it was very meaty and it was very traditional, 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:11.640 you know, everything kind of meat, like mainly pork and beef. 0:05:12.279 --> 0:05:14.120 But he didn't think that a meal was a meal 0:05:14.160 --> 0:05:17.039 without meat, so meat for breakfast, meat for lunch, meat 0:05:17.040 --> 0:05:21.600 for dinner, breakfast. Yeah, he had a breakfast sausages and sausages, bacon, 0:05:22.320 --> 0:05:24.360 you know. I mean that he used to have a 0:05:24.400 --> 0:05:28.400 buffet tray where there was you know, every type of meat, 0:05:28.440 --> 0:05:30.320 there were eggs. I mean it was he was a 0:05:30.320 --> 0:05:31.960 big eater, so it was you know, it was a 0:05:32.000 --> 0:05:33.640 big tray and. 0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:36.000 Had somebody cook that or did he cook it? 0:05:36.480 --> 0:05:39.080 And grandmother, my grandma, my mom, like everyone would muck 0:05:39.120 --> 0:05:41.280 in and cook and then it would be presented to 0:05:41.279 --> 0:05:42.680 all the cousins. It was a big family, so we 0:05:42.720 --> 0:05:44.240 would eat. There would be a lot of food, and 0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:47.800 very big on potatoes Scotland because he was a potato farmer. 0:05:48.040 --> 0:05:49.120 So we're still at breakfast. 0:05:49.240 --> 0:05:52.920 Yeah, we're still at breakfast. Yeah. Yeah, fried potatoes, yeah yeah, 0:05:53.400 --> 0:05:56.680 so neaps and tatties and then you know, again, lunch 0:05:56.839 --> 0:05:59.800 was meat, dinner was meat. So that was kind of 0:05:59.839 --> 0:06:02.159 the the traditional food that I ate kind of with 0:06:02.320 --> 0:06:03.360 my enlarged family. 0:06:03.520 --> 0:06:05.880 And then did you lived to an old age? 0:06:05.960 --> 0:06:11.840 Yeah, ninety seven. Drank a lot of whiskey, ate a 0:06:11.880 --> 0:06:14.799 lot of meat, and was kind of an enormous horse 0:06:14.800 --> 0:06:18.599 of a man, and yeah, why not, you know, I 0:06:18.600 --> 0:06:22.040 mean it's not a coincidence that I would say ninety 0:06:22.040 --> 0:06:25.880 percent of his descendants are vegetarians. Oh really yeah, oh 0:06:25.920 --> 0:06:29.640 your cousins, yeah, or my cousins to my aunt's, my mom. 0:06:29.720 --> 0:06:30.320 Yeah. 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:33.000 And actually I became a vegetarian because we were staying 0:06:33.000 --> 0:06:35.359 on a farm for his ninetieth birthday and I looked 0:06:35.360 --> 0:06:37.360 into the eyes of a cow and I thought, oh, 0:06:37.400 --> 0:06:40.200 I can't do that anymore. So yeah, and I never 0:06:40.240 --> 0:06:44.920 told you twenty five, never told him because I thought 0:06:44.920 --> 0:06:48.280 he would hate that more than yeah real, yeah, exactly. 0:06:48.839 --> 0:06:51.400 And then at home, Yeah, they both worked, and I 0:06:51.440 --> 0:06:53.520 think we ate quite a lot of kind of you know, 0:06:53.839 --> 0:06:57.520 macaroni and cheese, spaghetti, you know. But again, the only 0:06:57.520 --> 0:06:59.600 thing I can really remember from when I was really 0:06:59.600 --> 0:07:03.120 young is just desperately trying to buy sweets all the time. 0:07:03.920 --> 0:07:06.280 And I was a really fussy kid, and I mainly 0:07:06.279 --> 0:07:12.240 only liked white food, so I really liked chips, bread, pasta, 0:07:12.320 --> 0:07:14.960 and I was kind of really fussy right up into 0:07:14.960 --> 0:07:17.679 my twenties. I was a kind of really limited eater. 0:07:17.880 --> 0:07:20.400 And if you'd kind of offered me, I don't know, 0:07:20.680 --> 0:07:23.800 you know, hummus, I would have said no. Yeah, I 0:07:23.840 --> 0:07:29.480 had such a bland boring diet of kind of junk food, bread, 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:34.920 carby starchy things, and I was incredibly unadventurous and yeah, 0:07:34.960 --> 0:07:36.840 and that took me really into my twenties, which is 0:07:36.880 --> 0:07:37.600 kind of pathetic. 0:07:37.720 --> 0:07:39.480 I have a great story about your mother which I 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:42.760 just remembered, which was that she told me that she 0:07:43.000 --> 0:07:46.840 once came home and your nanny, you had a young nanny, 0:07:47.280 --> 0:07:50.600 and you or your sister wanted a biscuit and your 0:07:50.680 --> 0:07:53.840 nanny said, if you eat this biscuit, it'll make you fat, 0:07:54.280 --> 0:07:57.160 and she fired her. I really am, And I thought 0:07:57.160 --> 0:08:00.240 that was so cool because I thought, you know, she's 0:08:00.320 --> 0:08:02.560 just like, do not ever say that to my. 0:08:02.640 --> 0:08:05.520 Children, because I was quite a fat kid though. I 0:08:05.520 --> 0:08:07.559 was a fat kid. And I remember actually a woman 0:08:07.680 --> 0:08:09.640 in a hardware shop that we were in, the owner 0:08:09.760 --> 0:08:11.160 came up to meet and poked me in the stomach 0:08:11.200 --> 0:08:12.400 and said, you you eat too much. 0:08:12.440 --> 0:08:13.760 People are crazy, you think. 0:08:13.760 --> 0:08:16.360 I was nine ten, so I was kind of a 0:08:16.400 --> 0:08:19.080 fat kid, and I did eat, you know, an enormous 0:08:19.120 --> 0:08:21.880 amount of crap basically, you know, if it was kind 0:08:21.880 --> 0:08:23.400 of if it had enum was in it or came 0:08:23.440 --> 0:08:25.560 in a package. My mum would always try and make 0:08:26.200 --> 0:08:28.920 you know, food from scratch every night, and yeah, I 0:08:29.000 --> 0:08:31.840 really just wanted kind of chicken drumsticks from a packet, 0:08:31.920 --> 0:08:36.040 you know, really, yeah I did. She let you have occasionally, 0:08:36.240 --> 0:08:38.520 but you know, I think I think she was sort 0:08:38.520 --> 0:08:41.240 of in despair, really, like how little I wanted to 0:08:41.280 --> 0:08:43.480 eat and how limited I was, And once I found 0:08:43.520 --> 0:08:45.080 something I liked, that would kind of be it for 0:08:45.120 --> 0:08:47.199 six months, you know, that kind of slightly obsessive way 0:08:47.240 --> 0:08:49.720 of eating. You know, I'd find something I liked and 0:08:49.800 --> 0:08:51.040 that would be what I would eat for the next 0:08:51.040 --> 0:08:51.520 six months. 0:08:51.559 --> 0:08:54.080 And what about your sister, No, she would eat anything, Yeah, 0:08:54.160 --> 0:08:56.520 so she What were dinners like? Would you all have 0:08:56.559 --> 0:08:58.360 dinner together? 0:08:58.400 --> 0:09:00.240 Yeah, we would all have dinner together, the four of us, 0:09:00.400 --> 0:09:01.920 you know, and he'd come back late. So I'm used 0:09:01.960 --> 0:09:04.120 to eating late, I think from my childhood. You know, 0:09:04.200 --> 0:09:06.120 I now kind of think I think nine o'clock is 0:09:06.120 --> 0:09:06.840 the perfect time. 0:09:07.240 --> 0:09:10.880 Yeah, very time. I love it when. 0:09:10.760 --> 0:09:12.920 Someone says to me at seven, my heart sinks and 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:14.600 I think, oh, please don't make me have the kind 0:09:14.600 --> 0:09:17.000 of early bird special. So I'm used to eating late 0:09:17.000 --> 0:09:18.880 at night. And yeah, we we would have dinner together, 0:09:19.120 --> 0:09:21.960 and and the only dinners I really remember from that 0:09:22.040 --> 0:09:24.640 kind of period were on Friday nights in the nineties 0:09:24.720 --> 0:09:28.040 we would go to Pizza Express and that felt so 0:09:28.200 --> 0:09:32.160 glamorous and you know Continental, and you know, it's the 0:09:32.160 --> 0:09:34.160 first time I had kind of pizza that wasn't from 0:09:34.160 --> 0:09:39.320 a package which to Islington. So yeah, so yeah, it wasn't. 0:09:39.360 --> 0:09:41.040 It wasn't for a long time. And you know, my 0:09:41.280 --> 0:09:44.720 in my teens and twenties, I just ate. I can't 0:09:44.720 --> 0:09:46.520 tell you. You'd be so disappointed if you saw my 0:09:46.559 --> 0:09:49.200 diet back then. It was kind of buckets of ice cream, 0:09:49.600 --> 0:09:52.160 grab bags of crisps. I used to make myself like 0:09:52.280 --> 0:09:55.720 bowls of pasta that kind of you know, laden down 0:09:55.760 --> 0:09:56.280 with pasta. 0:09:56.800 --> 0:09:57.839 I just that's what you like. 0:09:57.960 --> 0:09:59.960 Yeah, it was comfort food. All of it was comfortable 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:02.760 because I was quite unhappy, and so I would eat 0:10:02.880 --> 0:10:07.600 kind of bland, warm, soft food that could kind of 0:10:07.600 --> 0:10:08.120 fill me up. 0:10:08.160 --> 0:10:09.880 You're going to have a really hard time getting me 0:10:09.960 --> 0:10:12.840 to judge your any habits. But I think that it 0:10:12.920 --> 0:10:15.880 is interesting when you talk to people about babies. You know, 0:10:16.520 --> 0:10:18.760 sometimes they have their first baby and they go, oh, 0:10:18.840 --> 0:10:21.439 you know, they just try everything and they eat everything. 0:10:21.520 --> 0:10:23.760 And this is all to do with parenting and how 0:10:23.760 --> 0:10:26.120 you expose them to food and then cut to the 0:10:26.160 --> 0:10:28.400 second baby who doesn't like, you know, maybe like who 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:30.240 doesn't want to eat this or doesn't want to eat that, 0:10:30.600 --> 0:10:32.720 And then they realized maybe you're just born that way 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:35.160 that you even as a little baby, the things you 0:10:35.200 --> 0:10:37.280 don't want to eat or you know, a lot of 0:10:37.320 --> 0:10:40.679 children don't eat fish, and then they discover it when yeah, 0:10:40.760 --> 0:10:43.400 they're older. I think sad my steps and didn't eat 0:10:43.400 --> 0:10:45.000 a pizza fish till he was about. 0:10:44.760 --> 0:10:47.400 Forty and then loved it and then loved Yeah, so 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:49.439 you're right, like we didn't go out to eat a lot. 0:10:49.480 --> 0:10:52.240 It was pizza Express often for like birthdays or you know, 0:10:52.280 --> 0:10:54.240 like a special occasion, and then it was quite often 0:10:54.280 --> 0:10:59.120 the pub. You know, well that was pre Gastro pub. 0:10:59.120 --> 0:11:01.000 I guess it was kind of on a costs. I 0:11:01.040 --> 0:11:04.040 remember the first Gastro pub opening up and people being 0:11:04.040 --> 0:11:06.240 really excited about it. But but before that, it was 0:11:06.320 --> 0:11:09.360 kind of you know, bang as a mash fish and chips. Yeah, 0:11:10.440 --> 0:11:17.040 those eggs, Scotch eggs. You never had a Scotch I did? 0:11:17.520 --> 0:11:21.680 Sometimes you care the pickled eggs A bit of a problem, 0:11:21.800 --> 0:11:27.160 a bit of step American girl. Yeah, I wanted to 0:11:27.200 --> 0:11:29.880 take pictures of people eating my mate and and give 0:11:29.920 --> 0:11:32.360 it too. I wanted to do a photographic essay because 0:11:32.360 --> 0:11:35.320 I was an arts school of getting Americans and getting 0:11:35.360 --> 0:11:37.440 them to taste toasts with more mite and seeing the 0:11:37.480 --> 0:11:38.880 expression on their face. 0:11:39.000 --> 0:11:43.120 There not an American equivalent, but back then there was 0:11:43.200 --> 0:11:44.120 nothing like that. 0:11:44.280 --> 0:11:47.440 In my lifetime. And and do you like my mite? 0:11:47.520 --> 0:11:47.960 You love it? 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:50.599 I didn't try it until I was thirty five and 0:11:50.640 --> 0:11:52.400 Greg made me try it, and now I love it. 0:11:52.960 --> 0:11:55.160 But the idea of it back then made me want 0:11:55.200 --> 0:11:57.599 to hull, you know, but actually, yeah, do you I 0:11:57.600 --> 0:11:59.120 can see by your face that you still. 0:11:58.880 --> 0:12:02.839 Need still abomination the farm ban and toast and like 0:12:03.080 --> 0:12:05.599 in bed at night, that would be like oh, in 0:12:05.720 --> 0:12:09.360 bed at night, but you would always have a toasted 0:12:10.240 --> 0:12:12.600 you know, Richard, he did. He broke all the rules. 0:12:12.679 --> 0:12:12.800 You know. 0:12:13.480 --> 0:12:16.839 That's really very sweet. But you described living at home 0:12:16.960 --> 0:12:19.199 and being a firsty eater. But it was the baking 0:12:19.679 --> 0:12:22.120 interesting too. Then did you want to cook as well 0:12:22.160 --> 0:12:22.560 as eat? 0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:26.160 I always baked from like as a very small child. 0:12:26.360 --> 0:12:29.240 We had cookbooks that were deliberately for children to learn 0:12:29.320 --> 0:12:31.000 how to bake. You know, it was always desserts. They 0:12:31.040 --> 0:12:33.840 never said, you know, you can make past of spaghetti bongle. 0:12:33.920 --> 0:12:35.719 It was always like, you know, And I remember we 0:12:35.800 --> 0:12:38.800 had a Roll Dahls Disgusting Cookbook, which was all the 0:12:39.200 --> 0:12:41.839 recipes that they make in his books, so it was 0:12:41.880 --> 0:12:45.120 like boot Bruce bog Trotter's Disgusting Chocolate Cake or whatever 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:46.320 it was called. So I used to make a lot 0:12:46.320 --> 0:12:49.120 of those. So I've always baked throughout my life. I've 0:12:49.160 --> 0:12:51.319 always loved it, and I didn't have any interest really 0:12:51.400 --> 0:12:54.800 in cooking, So yeah, I think my twenties were a bit. 0:12:54.880 --> 0:12:57.400 I was sad. I was a very sad twenty something 0:12:57.520 --> 0:12:57.840 year old. 0:12:57.920 --> 0:13:00.320 So you'd left school? Did you leave her or did 0:13:00.360 --> 0:13:02.000 you live at her school? 0:13:02.120 --> 0:13:04.920 I was just too unhappy, couldn't keep home, having panic 0:13:04.960 --> 0:13:07.319 attacks all the time, couldn't really do very much. 0:13:07.400 --> 0:13:08.440 But she went to art school. 0:13:08.440 --> 0:13:11.160 I went to art school in London, which some Martins, 0:13:12.160 --> 0:13:14.360 but I wasn't very good and I was also very sad, 0:13:14.880 --> 0:13:18.000 so the two things combined did not do very well 0:13:18.080 --> 0:13:20.120 for me. So yeah, I lived at home until I 0:13:20.240 --> 0:13:24.480 was twenty six twenty seven. My mum always says that's 0:13:24.520 --> 0:13:26.720 like the perfect Jewish mother thing of like have your 0:13:26.800 --> 0:13:28.360 kids live at home, and I'm like, they're not Jewish. 0:13:28.720 --> 0:13:30.920 She's like, yes, but Scottish as well, and I'm like, 0:13:30.960 --> 0:13:32.320 I don't think that's true. 0:13:32.720 --> 0:13:35.480 So would you still sit down to meals with your 0:13:35.559 --> 0:13:36.440 parents most night? 0:13:36.559 --> 0:13:39.199 But I think I think there's that funny thing with 0:13:39.640 --> 0:13:44.280 mental illness, not mental health, but mental illness, where your 0:13:44.400 --> 0:13:47.280 appetite is completely affected by it one way or another. 0:13:47.360 --> 0:13:50.040 You know, So quite often people overat if they're feeling 0:13:50.240 --> 0:13:53.400 sad or anxious source stressed, and the same is true 0:13:53.480 --> 0:13:55.880 the under each and so food either becomes something that 0:13:56.000 --> 0:13:58.160 you cling to and rely on. So quite often I 0:13:58.200 --> 0:14:00.679 would really over et and kind of goreg things, you know. 0:14:00.720 --> 0:14:03.559 I remember driving to this new donut shop and having 0:14:03.640 --> 0:14:05.480 I think I ate twelve donuts in the space of 0:14:05.520 --> 0:14:08.839 two hours because I felt sad. Why not, you know, 0:14:08.880 --> 0:14:10.400 I felt sad and then but then there would be 0:14:10.480 --> 0:14:13.079 other times when I would just food just kind of 0:14:13.120 --> 0:14:16.840 lost or you just can't stomach it. And that's so common. 0:14:17.440 --> 0:14:20.000 So I think most of my Tony's food was slightly 0:14:20.080 --> 0:14:22.960 dictated to me by how I was feeling at the time. 0:14:23.840 --> 0:14:27.760 So it wasn't really until I hit my thirties and 0:14:28.400 --> 0:14:32.960 I sort of started looking outwards towards new cuisines, new experiences, 0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:35.200 you know, the idea that food didn't have to be 0:14:35.520 --> 0:14:40.840 stodgy or bland, And now my palette is. I would say, like, 0:14:41.240 --> 0:14:44.920 if you'd asked seventeen year old me whether thirty nine 0:14:44.960 --> 0:14:46.640 year old me would be eating the things that I ate, 0:14:46.760 --> 0:14:49.760 she'd have been horrified. But my food, my diet is 0:14:50.000 --> 0:14:50.880 completely different. 0:14:51.160 --> 0:14:54.280 I'm really interested in what happened to get you out 0:14:54.280 --> 0:14:57.400 of that cycle. You know, the girl was in her twenties, 0:14:57.480 --> 0:14:59.680 living home till she's twenty six, and then. 0:15:00.160 --> 0:15:03.640 So scared of everything. And I think that partly meant 0:15:03.680 --> 0:15:06.000 I was unadventurous around things like food, which is, you know, 0:15:06.080 --> 0:15:08.360 maybe the smallest part of that. But you know, I 0:15:08.440 --> 0:15:10.280 didn't fly for five years. I didn't get the train 0:15:10.680 --> 0:15:14.280 the tube for a decade, was uninterested trying new things. 0:15:15.040 --> 0:15:17.480 And then I realized that I was very anxious and 0:15:17.520 --> 0:15:19.720 I needed to do something about that. I did lots 0:15:19.720 --> 0:15:21.360 of things, you know, I started running, I went to 0:15:21.440 --> 0:15:24.000 a good therapist. I did all these brilliant things. But 0:15:24.440 --> 0:15:28.320 I also part of trying to break free from anxiety 0:15:28.440 --> 0:15:30.840 is always trying to push back against the anxiety and 0:15:30.960 --> 0:15:33.000 doing new things, doing things that scary you, all of 0:15:33.040 --> 0:15:35.760 those things. And so, yeah, it's not that food scared me. 0:15:35.840 --> 0:15:37.840 But I knew that I had to start in every 0:15:37.920 --> 0:15:40.880 element of my life, in every aspect, trying to break 0:15:40.960 --> 0:15:44.120 out of patterns that i'd sort of locked myself into. Yeah, 0:15:44.160 --> 0:15:45.640 so that just meant I had to try. If I 0:15:45.640 --> 0:15:47.040 didn't want to try food, I had to try it. 0:15:47.680 --> 0:15:49.120 So that was my rule too, that was your rule 0:15:49.200 --> 0:15:52.080 to yourself. Yeah, limited obviously by the fact that my vegetarian. 0:15:52.160 --> 0:15:55.040 So if someone handed me you know, surlin. Yeah, but 0:15:55.200 --> 0:15:57.280 everything else, I just said, if I don't want to 0:15:57.280 --> 0:15:59.000 try it, that means I have to try it. That's 0:15:59.040 --> 0:16:00.840 kind of the mantrip. I don't want to do something, 0:16:01.000 --> 0:16:03.680 then you have to do it. So from that, I 0:16:03.840 --> 0:16:07.160 tried everything under the sun that wasn't full of me, 0:16:07.320 --> 0:16:09.680 and surprise, surprise. That's the thing you learn, right, is 0:16:09.760 --> 0:16:12.160 that you're going to like ninety per center. You know, 0:16:12.240 --> 0:16:15.160 there's very few things that I tried that I thought. 0:16:15.200 --> 0:16:17.000 In fact, I can't think of anything that I've tried 0:16:17.040 --> 0:16:19.600 in the last ten years that I haven't thought, oh, yeah, 0:16:19.640 --> 0:16:21.440 this is great. Why didn't I try earlier? I feel 0:16:21.480 --> 0:16:23.520 so angry with myself sometimes that I wasted so much 0:16:23.560 --> 0:16:26.840 of my life not eating the most brilliant array of 0:16:26.960 --> 0:16:28.760 things that now I get to eat, and I think, 0:16:28.800 --> 0:16:31.640 oh my god, you know my palette was so bored. 0:16:31.640 --> 0:16:33.200 It was it must have been so bored, you know. 0:16:33.920 --> 0:16:36.520 And so yeah, so now I eat everything, and like 0:16:36.640 --> 0:16:38.240 I say, sixteen year old me would just be like, 0:16:38.600 --> 0:16:39.840 I don't understand. 0:16:50.120 --> 0:16:51.800 How much do we love? You're in love? 0:16:51.960 --> 0:16:52.960 Or thank you very much? 0:16:53.120 --> 0:16:56.440 A great book? I say, how everybody in the River 0:16:56.520 --> 0:16:59.680 Cafe when I told them we were coming has so weird? Book? 0:17:00.400 --> 0:17:00.880 Is that weird? 0:17:01.200 --> 0:17:03.440 But it is weird to me because you know, I 0:17:03.600 --> 0:17:06.159 still think in my mind sometimes I still think it 0:17:06.200 --> 0:17:08.879 hasn't even you know, it's come out and I've read it, 0:17:08.960 --> 0:17:11.320 but it's still really weird to think about other people 0:17:11.359 --> 0:17:13.840 reading it. And you're putting something out into the world, 0:17:13.880 --> 0:17:15.960 and then it's not really yours anymore, because it's it's 0:17:16.200 --> 0:17:17.800 you know, people that love it or people that hate it, 0:17:17.960 --> 0:17:20.639 or people that think you're terrible, or so it's everyone 0:17:20.680 --> 0:17:23.240 else's reactions to it after a while. So yeah, it's 0:17:23.240 --> 0:17:24.280 a very strange phenomenon. 0:17:24.440 --> 0:17:26.520 Do you have a routine for eating when you're writing 0:17:26.560 --> 0:17:29.400 a novel. You have that blank sheet of paper which 0:17:29.480 --> 0:17:32.119 is now on your laptop screen. But how do you 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:34.159 how do you start the day when you're writing? 0:17:34.840 --> 0:17:36.760 So I get up. I have Dike coke, which is 0:17:36.840 --> 0:17:39.920 really bad, but that is my favorite YEP for breakfast. 0:17:39.960 --> 0:17:42.159 That's my It's not a diet thing. It's just that 0:17:42.240 --> 0:17:45.600 I love Dike. Is it President Trump? Did he say 0:17:46.000 --> 0:17:48.480 I've never seen a skinny person drink Diark coke? But 0:17:48.600 --> 0:17:50.359 then apparently he had a diet coke butler at the 0:17:50.400 --> 0:17:50.960 White House. 0:17:51.920 --> 0:17:53.720 So you start your day with the Dike. 0:17:53.800 --> 0:17:55.640 I start my day with dark Hoke because Nancy. 0:17:55.440 --> 0:17:58.320 Pelos who starts with the chocolate ice cream. So everyone 0:17:58.400 --> 0:18:01.840 that's living day shares chocolate ice cream for breakfast. Yeah 0:18:01.960 --> 0:18:02.520 that's your thing. 0:18:03.280 --> 0:18:07.120 Oh, I mean I aspire to that level of kind 0:18:07.119 --> 0:18:08.720 of being a grown up and just deciding that you 0:18:08.760 --> 0:18:14.240 don't have to live by Yeah, okay, likes so much 0:18:14.280 --> 0:18:16.040 a lot, so much. I've got to give up because 0:18:16.040 --> 0:18:16.399 it's going to. 0:18:16.400 --> 0:18:19.040