Speaker 1: Welcome to River Cafe Table four, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Adam I Studios. Having read her moving
Speaker 1: historical political memoir British, I asked staff for hers if
Speaker 1: we might have a conversation for River Cafe Table four.
Speaker 1: Lucky for me and lucky for all of your listening today.
Speaker 1: She said yes. Now before going into the restaurant for
Speaker 1: lunch together, we're going to talk about life, her grandmother's
Speaker 1: food from Ghana, growing up in Wimbledon, surrounded by her
Speaker 1: family and much much more. Lucky us, Lucky me, my
Speaker 1: grandmother who turned ninety three last week and lived around
Speaker 1: the corner for me and Wimbledon. She came to the
Speaker 1: UK with her children, including my mom. In My grandmother
Speaker 1: is of a generation I suppose of the first mass
Speaker 1: immigration of Ghanaians to London, and it really was a
Speaker 1: community and many of them were very highly educated. My
Speaker 1: grandfather had been to Cambridge in the nineteen forties on
Speaker 1: a colonial scholarship. They were diplomats, they were doctors, nurses, entrepreneurs,
Speaker 1: and my grandmother's house was a place that people who
Speaker 1: had recently arrived would come stay, be fed. And then
Speaker 1: I talk about my grandmother's house I can smell it.
Speaker 1: What do you smell? I can smell fish, dried fish,
Speaker 1: salt fish, grilled fish. I can smell kenk, which is
Speaker 1: a very goodame dish which my grandmother actually used to
Speaker 1: make and sell at the market. And Kenk has made
Speaker 1: out fermented corn dough and then you knead it into
Speaker 1: these dumplings and then you wrap it in banana leaves
Speaker 1: and then you steam it to eat it. And then
Speaker 1: you eat it with usually fried or grilled fish, with
Speaker 1: this incredible pepper sauce called sheet or, which is made
Speaker 1: out of dried shrimps and pepper. It's very spicy, salty,
Speaker 1: oily shrimp eads, absolutely delicious. You were growing up and
Speaker 1: as English and community, I know, Wimbledon. Did you go
Speaker 1: to school and eat the kind of school food or
Speaker 1: did you go after school and need the kind of
Speaker 1: fast food? Did you experience Sarah, did you always come
Speaker 1: home to wanted to eat the food of Yeah, we've
Speaker 1: definitely ate dinner together every day in my house and
Speaker 1: that was the meal you would look forward to. But
Speaker 1: I loved school food, ashamed to say. I just remember
Speaker 1: really oily lasagnas and lots of puddings because my mom,
Speaker 1: I think, coming from Ganaan heritage, wasn't a big dessert person,
Speaker 1: and I was all there for the steamed puddings that
Speaker 1: Roodie Poly's, the sticky toffee pudding, the crumbles, the pies.
Speaker 1: Absolutely loved them. From like about seven. I remember getting
Speaker 1: well too until about fifteen, and then I started to
Speaker 1: lose interest in you know, traditional nutritiony balanced meals, and
Speaker 1: then I started I was a real party girl in
Speaker 1: my team, so I got into clubbing and we would
Speaker 1: always have McDonald's at like three in the morning on
Speaker 1: the way home. Rich in hindsight is terrible, but you
Speaker 1: get away with a lot, I suppose when you're really
Speaker 1: when you're that young. But it also is very liberating
Speaker 1: that you ate so much as a girl. You know
Speaker 1: that you didn't worry about you know, how you love
Speaker 1: to fashion or way. I wouldn't say I didn't worry
Speaker 1: about it, but I definitely loved food, and I loved
Speaker 1: food more than I wanted to try and change my body.
Speaker 1: I do think it was a much less healthy time
Speaker 1: for girl's body images than it is now. I mean now,
Speaker 1: of course there's so much pressure on social media, but
Speaker 1: I also feel really positive about the diversity of images
Speaker 1: of women who have celebrated as beautiful. Now it's just
Speaker 1: night and day from when I was growing up, and
Speaker 1: I think I find it so much easier to see
Speaker 1: women who make me feel positive about my body now,
Speaker 1: and I hope that for younger and women growing up
Speaker 1: now that that helped shape their perceptions. So that didn't
Speaker 1: really exist, and I did definitely struggle just because I
Speaker 1: was the only black girl in my environment. A lot
Speaker 1: of the time, you know, I looked different at a
Speaker 1: different hair texture, I had a different type of figure.
Speaker 1: There were so many things about me that didn't conform
Speaker 1: to what was being celebrated. I was this little mixed
Speaker 1: race girl growing up in a world that at the time,
Speaker 1: you know, I was born in one, it wasn't as
Speaker 1: prevalent as it is now. And I very rarely or
Speaker 1: never saw other people who looked like me, and I
Speaker 1: was trying to work out where I belonged, you know,
Speaker 1: in between these communities. I had this first generation gana
Speaker 1: in community on my mother's side, and then I had
Speaker 1: on my father's side, also complicated family because my grandfather
Speaker 1: was a Jewish German refugee. He had worked really hard
Speaker 1: to assimilate into Britishness. Understandably, arriving in Britain in nine
Speaker 1: he wanted to assimilate. He changed his name from Hands
Speaker 1: to John, as so many people did. He learned English
Speaker 1: as quickly as he could. He married my grandmother, who
Speaker 1: was from Yorkshire. And so even though he also had
Speaker 1: an immigrant story, a refugee story, a totally different cultural backdrop,
Speaker 1: he he really didn't communicate it. And he I wouldn't
Speaker 1: say he hid it. He had just kind of made
Speaker 1: it disappear over time, and initially I suppose by necessity,
Speaker 1: and then once you've kind of assimilated, it's quite hard
Speaker 1: to celebrate. And I think there was so much trauma
Speaker 1: in his relationship with his heritage because of what he'd
Speaker 1: been through growing up in the nineteen thirties in Berlin
Speaker 1: as a child and seeing the Nazis really kind of
Speaker 1: destroyed the world around him. No, my father is not
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say he's much of a cook, but my dad,
Speaker 1: I think, um, he's really into these am I was
Speaker 1: reflecting as I was about to come and talk to you, Ruthie.
Speaker 1: I think my grandfather, who came from Berlin, I think
Speaker 1: the thing that I can trace from him that I've
Speaker 1: inherited that. My dad certainly, how as is lots of pickles,
Speaker 1: and there would always be pickles, all kinds of pickles.
Speaker 1: And my dad is a big pickler. He will pickle that,
Speaker 1: he will pickle pears, he will pickle onions. Is it Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it is. It was unusual that you have
Speaker 1: a passion for Yeah, I never thought about that until
Speaker 1: today German perhaps that influencer Brellin. When you have the
Speaker 1: pickle the cabbage, oh, they will make sour crows. And
Speaker 1: my dad always pickles red cabbage in the winter. So yeah, still, yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember so clearly. I didn't go to Garner until
Speaker 1: I was fourteen, and my first memory was stepping off
Speaker 1: the plane and two things hit me. The first was
Speaker 1: the heat, which I thought was the heat from the engines.
Speaker 1: I thought they haven't turned off the plane engines yet,
Speaker 1: still blasting me with hot air, and it was. It
Speaker 1: took me a minute to realize that's just the air
Speaker 1: temperature I've never been anywhere, and it's very humid as well.
Speaker 1: It's a very humid tropical rainforest heat. And the second
Speaker 1: thing was the smell, And the smell has never left
Speaker 1: me and I still every time I go to Ghana,
Speaker 1: um In instantly hit with this intoxicating smell, and I've
Speaker 1: tried to work out what it is. I think it's
Speaker 1: a combination of just heat and sea air because it's
Speaker 1: very the capital is on the coast and it's it's
Speaker 1: a quite rough Atlantic coast. There's a lot of sea
Speaker 1: breeze and mist and salt in the air. And then
Speaker 1: one of my favorite Ganean dishes, which because the BA
Speaker 1: flight from Ghana lands basically at dusk, and at dusk
Speaker 1: is when food vendors in the city start selling this
Speaker 1: afterworks snack which they fry outside. It's called Kelly and
Speaker 1: it's ripe plantain diced that seasoned with ginger, black pepper, tie,
Speaker 1: a bit of nutmeg, chili and salt, and then it's
Speaker 1: deep fried, absolutely delicious. I made some last night. Actually
Speaker 1: season it first and then you do you season it,
Speaker 1: and then you do take that and you eat it hot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you eat it hot. And it's street food. It's street food,
Speaker 1: and that makes the entire city have a fragrance of
Speaker 1: kind of slightly sweet spicy nut meggie air. And I
Speaker 1: honestly think it's it's a little hint on the air
Speaker 1: in a cr When you think about Ghana, because you've
Speaker 1: been there quite often, do you also think about the
Speaker 1: markets and the smells from the market. I love the
Speaker 1: markets and remember asking David J about going to the
Speaker 1: markets with his grandmother. Tell me your images of the market.
Speaker 1: When I moved to Garner in two thousand eleven, my
Speaker 1: daughter was six months old and my partner and I
Speaker 1: decided we were going to move to Gardner and raise
Speaker 1: her there for her first few years. And my grandmother
Speaker 1: came with us, and so did my mother. So four
Speaker 1: generations of women in my family rearing around a craw together.
Speaker 1: And my grandmother took me to the market to go shopping.
Speaker 1: And it's a really big food market called Bachana, and
Speaker 1: there are these it's a problem, actually, there's so much
Speaker 1: rural to urban migration and Garner. Lots of girls and
Speaker 1: young women from quite poor parts of northern Ghanna have
Speaker 1: migrated to the city and they they're called Kaya girls.
Speaker 1: They carry these big buckets on their head and you
Speaker 1: can basically pay them to follow you around the market.
Speaker 1: It's not really safe work and they often sleep outside,
Speaker 1: obviously very poorly paid. So I've never really been to
Speaker 1: market and seen them before, so that was one thing
Speaker 1: I really remember that. There was just so much going on.
Speaker 1: There'll be fish, there'll be meat, vegetables, everybody's haggling, everybody's talking,
Speaker 1: They'll be kind of little bits of the market where
Speaker 1: they sell magical things, talisman's and weird bits of animals.
Speaker 1: There's just a lot going on. But the thing I
Speaker 1: remember is my grandmother haggling with the market vendors. And
Speaker 1: I think if you didn't know Garner and you saw it,
Speaker 1: you'd be worried that maybe a fight was about to
Speaker 1: break out, because it it's very it looks very emotional,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of hand gestures and very vexed
Speaker 1: facial expressions and insults flying around. But actually I think
Speaker 1: that's just how you do business. And I remember making
Speaker 1: a vow to myself that day that I was going
Speaker 1: to learn that language, because I felt like if you
Speaker 1: can't speak that language, you just can't really get involved.
Speaker 1: You know, English is just far too polite, just it's
Speaker 1: not expressive enough. I just remember seeing my grandmother kind
Speaker 1: of screwing up her face and waving her arms around
Speaker 1: and thinking I need to be able to speak to
Speaker 1: someone like that and embarrassed. I was determined that I
Speaker 1: was going to be able to do it. And I
Speaker 1: have my little daughter on my back in a cloth,
Speaker 1: you know, which is the wagon and women carry their
Speaker 1: children around, and I thought, I'm going to live here
Speaker 1: and I'm going to learn this language. I'm still trying.
Speaker 1: What are you write to now? What is your next project?
Speaker 1: So I started my own TV production company, Good and
Speaker 1: I'm working on a combination of documentaries and dramas. So
Speaker 1: I'm I'm always challenging myself to try and reach a
Speaker 1: different audience. And I love journalism. I will always, i think,
Speaker 1: write newspapers and magazines. But I'm also noticing I think
Speaker 1: the things that have often impacted me are fiction, novels, dramas, films.
Speaker 1: And I'm really interested in reaching people so they think
Speaker 1: about themselves culturally, not just intellectually. I think that a
Speaker 1: lot of the change that really takes place on a
Speaker 1: deep level is when something touches you very emotionally. And
Speaker 1: I really want to take the message that I always
Speaker 1: work towards. I really I care about justice and fairness,
Speaker 1: you know. I think it's that the DNA of who
Speaker 1: I am when you look at my family story, I've
Speaker 1: inherited it on both sides, that yearning towards freedom. I
Speaker 1: am really curious to see if I can reach people
Speaker 1: through different mediums. So that's something that I'm really challenging
Speaker 1: myself on at the moment. And what about the fact
Speaker 1: that we're looking at a political situation here with Ukraine
Speaker 1: and the fact that the effect of more will be
Speaker 1: feeling the people of Africa because without the grain that
Speaker 1: is meant to come through Ukraine too good world, but
Speaker 1: particularly to northern Africa, there could be a huge TV
Speaker 1: It's already impacting the whole continent of Africa because of
Speaker 1: energy and oil prices. Again, Africa is a huge oil
Speaker 1: producer but still relies on imported oil and gas. It's
Speaker 1: a huge food producer that still relies so heavily on
Speaker 1: imported grain. In One of the consequences of colonialism is
Speaker 1: that African countries don't supply each other, they don't trade
Speaker 1: with each other. Everything is designed for export to the
Speaker 1: rest of the world because Africa was integrated into the
Speaker 1: global economy as a place that you take from, and
Speaker 1: that legacy exists in a very literal way. So one
Speaker 1: of the challenges is that Africa's producing huge amounts of food,
Speaker 1: but it's all getting shipped straight out of the continent,
Speaker 1: and you have nations that are in food crisis coexisting
Speaker 1: with nations that produce food and abundance. So this has
Speaker 1: got to be an opportunity for people to look again
Speaker 1: at the structure of African economies. But it's you're you're
Speaker 1: talking about four hundred years of colonial legacy. It's not
Speaker 1: something you can easily overturned. But I think it's a
Speaker 1: real wake up call to just how something that happens
Speaker 1: in Europe or something that happens in Russia can have
Speaker 1: a huge and immediate impact on people's lives on the
Speaker 1: afric continent. I was in Ghana the other day and
Speaker 1: everyone's talking about Ukraine that the roads were had half
Speaker 1: the traffic they usually do because people can't afford to
Speaker 1: drive their cars. So that's the reality of globalization, and
Speaker 1: I think we've got to start upping our game in
Speaker 1: terms of making sure that countries are self sufficient as
Speaker 1: much as possible. I was really sensitive, I think as
Speaker 1: a child to where there was a sense of openness
Speaker 1: for me, and you know, people now often ask me
Speaker 1: why I self identify as black when I'm mixed racing.
Speaker 1: You have one white parent one black parent, and I
Speaker 1: self identify as black, and I suppose I have leaned
Speaker 1: much more towards my Gaean heritage. And I think from childhood, well,
Speaker 1: it's two things. It's one because the world racialized me
Speaker 1: as black, you know, and the colonial conditioning we've all inherited,
Speaker 1: it's created this really nonsensical binary and categorize people, and
Speaker 1: that was the category that was assigned to me from
Speaker 1: an early age. But also, I think because Ghanian culture
Speaker 1: is just so expansive, and you know, it welcomes everybody
Speaker 1: and will over impress a sense of you have a
Speaker 1: place and you have a role. And it was attractive
Speaker 1: to me because it was a place that I could
Speaker 1: feel part of something. Even though I should say one
Speaker 1: of my earliest memories of being my grandmother's houses of
Speaker 1: all of my aunties, when I say Auntie, you know,
Speaker 1: all the women who came to the house laughing hysterically
Speaker 1: at me when I tried to speak the language. So
Speaker 1: they just thought it was very funny and they would
Speaker 1: say they call me or Berny, which means white girl,
Speaker 1: and they say that the white girls trying to speak
Speaker 1: to you and it wasn't mean, it's just how And
Speaker 1: still often are amused by the idea, who's something that
Speaker 1: someone who has access to kind of you know, the
Speaker 1: English establishment would choose to try and speak their language.
Speaker 1: And I think that's the colonial hangover as well, that
Speaker 1: you know, many Gnaians come here and encourage their children
Speaker 1: not to speak their language, which just speak English. But
Speaker 1: it's really sad because you can be bilingual and and
Speaker 1: you don't need to downplay your heritage to succeed. So
Speaker 1: I think that's a journey that many immigrant communities are
Speaker 1: on well. Also in terms of food, you know, I
Speaker 1: think that you know, you say that your grandmother identified
Speaker 1: with cane and food, so she was cooking the food
Speaker 1: of the culture. Maybe your mother adapted more And do
Speaker 1: you think that she adapted more to be in the
Speaker 1: situation she was in rather than bringing the food of
Speaker 1: her culture. Did she only cook and food as well? No,
Speaker 1: she definitely adapted more. And I think coming here as
Speaker 1: a twelve year old, she had so much of her
Speaker 1: formative life in Britain. But it's interesting and I've reflected
Speaker 1: on it so much more lately that whenever my mom
Speaker 1: was sick, she would say, I need food of my country,
Speaker 1: and then she would make and she would always make
Speaker 1: very specific things. She would make groundnut soup, which is
Speaker 1: a soup made out of peanuts, ground peanuts, and it's
Speaker 1: spicy with some kind of tomato broth with peanuts like
Speaker 1: peanut butter in it with meat, but it's quite light.
Speaker 1: And she would have that with ffoo, which is another
Speaker 1: Guinean dumpling um that you used to kind of soak
Speaker 1: up soup. And she would rarely make game food except
Speaker 1: when she was either sick or suffering in some way,
Speaker 1: and then it would be her definitely her comfort food,
Speaker 1: and she would always say, I need food of my country.
Speaker 1: And so it's it's always been. I think when you
Speaker 1: strip away the layers at the at the root of
Speaker 1: who she is. And I think having children and having
Speaker 1: grandchildren has made her reflect on her and she she
Speaker 1: does eat the language, and she does go back to Gharner.
Speaker 1: But I think more frequently since I've become somebody who's
Speaker 1: who's been so connected with Garner. So yeah, I think
Speaker 1: her daughter and granddaughter have have have moved her back
Speaker 1: more in that direction. Maybe then she would have anticipated
Speaker 1: we've discussed the culture of food and the taste of
Speaker 1: food and the family of food. That kind of brings
Speaker 1: me to the political nature of food. And as we know,
Speaker 1: during the pandemic, many children this school lunch and so
Speaker 1: they didn't eat. And I think you said as well
Speaker 1: that government and society shows itself in the way we
Speaker 1: feed our children. And what are your thoughts about Parlty.
Speaker 1: I feel so angry at the way that healthy and
Speaker 1: nutritious foods have been turned into a luxury for the privilege.
Speaker 1: I just think it's one of the scandals of our lives.
Speaker 1: And when I was in my early twenties, I became vegan,
Speaker 1: and you know, I'm I've had a privileged life, but
Speaker 1: at the time I was training to be a barrister,
Speaker 1: I had to borrow money to pay for my education.
Speaker 1: I was living below the minimum wage, you know, and
Speaker 1: as a barrister, people think you kind of enter into
Speaker 1: this like super huch lifestyle. I earned ten thousand pounds
Speaker 1: my first year at the bar, and I had tens
Speaker 1: of thousands of pounds of debt to repay. It was
Speaker 1: a real struggle at that stage of my life financially,
Speaker 1: and I went vegan because I was starting to really
Speaker 1: think about health and climate and I just couldn't believe
Speaker 1: how expensive it was to feed myself on fresh and
Speaker 1: whole foods. I really struggled. And that's an Oxford graduate
Speaker 1: who's training to be a barrister, and it for me,
Speaker 1: it was a real wake up call as to how
Speaker 1: if you do try and do the right thing, and
Speaker 1: you do try to be mindful of what you eat,
Speaker 1: and you do make an effort to source things that
Speaker 1: are grown locally or produced ethically, you price out the
Speaker 1: vast majority of people. And that that was a period
Speaker 1: that really radicalized me about how I'm fair. This was
Speaker 1: and also being part of the vegan community, which at
Speaker 1: that time was very white and very privileged, and I
Speaker 1: really didn't feel included in that community. And it really
Speaker 1: made me think about why, you know, all of the
Speaker 1: black people I knew, and people in underprivileged environs. I
Speaker 1: was living in North London. You look look at the
Speaker 1: area around me. Every child went to the chicken shop
Speaker 1: after school and bought k chicken, which terrified me in
Speaker 1: terms of its quality and um production. And then there
Speaker 1: were all these kind of vegan and raw shops which
Speaker 1: were for people who just had huge amounts of disposable income,
Speaker 1: and I I think it's got worse, if anything, and
Speaker 1: I feel really strongly about it. And I think there's
Speaker 1: a you know, there's a there's a race aspect because
Speaker 1: Black people in America and in Britain are massively overrepresented
Speaker 1: in heart disease, strokes, diabetes, and struggle to get access
Speaker 1: to high quality foods, and you know, it's just something
Speaker 1: that I think it's just rarely talked about. It's interesting
Speaker 1: during the pandemic who was There was a piece in
Speaker 1: the New York Times and who sucked was a woman
Speaker 1: and she said that if you want to know why
Speaker 1: I have more African Americans are getting COVID and why
Speaker 1: they're afraid to go to the hospital, it's one word,
Speaker 1: and it's slavery. You know, that really looked back into
Speaker 1: the history of what the experience of being a slave
Speaker 1: in the United States was only you know, a hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty years ago, and you were you weren't allowed
Speaker 1: into hospitals, you didn't get to see doctors, you were fearful.
Speaker 1: And with nutrition, it's in every poor community, black or white,
Speaker 1: they don't get fresh vegetable there's a tendency also to
Speaker 1: see that as an American phenomenon. But you know, Barbados
Speaker 1: is the hypertensive capital of the world because Britain ran
Speaker 1: its colonies in the Caribbean. It's slave plantation colonies the
Speaker 1: same way and force people were force fed a diet
Speaker 1: of sugar, and now you can actually trace the health
Speaker 1: consequences of that in today's population of Caribbean heritage in Britain.
Speaker 1: It's such a recent history people, it is still manifested
Speaker 1: in people's bodies. And then then there's the other side,
Speaker 1: which when I go to Ghana, which makes me raging
Speaker 1: that Honor imports rice, tomatoes, so many foods that grow
Speaker 1: naturally in Ghana that are not made profitable because the
Speaker 1: market is flooded with cheap imports from America, from Europe,
Speaker 1: and instead of becoming a country that's allowed to be
Speaker 1: self sufficient, all of these market forces, even aid has
Speaker 1: been made conditional on African countries having to import cheap
Speaker 1: products from Europe and America, and you can trace that
Speaker 1: directly to the nutritional and financial problems that people there have.
Speaker 1: It's really scandalous, and you know, I just I often
Speaker 1: kind of wonder why we're not all up in arms
Speaker 1: about it, but it never seems to be the priority.
Speaker 1: And so what would you do? How do we reach
Speaker 1: this government or the governments we've had every government? I mean,
Speaker 1: go to hospital and see the kind of food they
Speaker 1: to schools and see what they feed children, you know,
Speaker 1: go to food banks and see the food that is given.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, we started this conversation by talking
Speaker 1: about the political I think that we really need to
Speaker 1: reconnect this with the political foundations of society. And I
Speaker 1: think this is where we talk about class and we
Speaker 1: talk about race. And it's so important to understand the history. Why,
Speaker 1: um do people on lower incomes have access to such
Speaker 1: bad food. There's this history behind it. There was a
Speaker 1: decision that was made that um, people need to be
Speaker 1: fed in a certain way to keep them in a
Speaker 1: certain position. That African countries have deliberately been starved of
Speaker 1: their own production to keep them subservient. And I don't
Speaker 1: think you can understand one with understanding its history. And
Speaker 1: these are systems that were created. You know, They're not
Speaker 1: an accident, they're not something broken. They were designed. So
Speaker 1: I don't think you can change it without going to
Speaker 1: the root of why it was designed this way, and
Speaker 1: people need to understand and feel angry about that. So
Speaker 1: that's why I do the kind of storytelling I do,
Speaker 1: because I think that without connecting these dots will always
Speaker 1: just be superficially talking about improving school meals without actually
Speaker 1: looking at the root of the class system. Whole education
Speaker 1: system was designed to create factory workers for an industrial
Speaker 1: society that doesn't even exist anymore. And that's the conversation
Speaker 1: I don't see happening. It often feels like it's superficial,
Speaker 1: you know, and really well intentioned. And this isn't to
Speaker 1: undermine the work of the incredible activists who talk about
Speaker 1: food and nutrition. It's so important, but I think that
Speaker 1: joining it up with understanding how class and race works
Speaker 1: and keeps people structurally in positions where they're not thriving
Speaker 1: on purpose, I think that's really essential to understand. Um,
Speaker 1: we spoke earlier about food and culture and food and
Speaker 1: family and food and comfort. Your mother say she wanted
Speaker 1: the comfort of her when she was sick, and she
Speaker 1: wanted to eat food of her country. And so right
Speaker 1: now you're writing and you're producing, and you're activism, and
Speaker 1: there must be times when you are tired, you're feeling
Speaker 1: whatever it is, and you do do need the comfort
Speaker 1: of food. What food, um would you turn to? Dear?
Speaker 1: This was hard to pick because there are many foods
Speaker 1: that comfort me. But I think I would have to
Speaker 1: go when I when I think about in my house,
Speaker 1: in my home, if we're having a low day, or
Speaker 1: it's cold and raining outside, or everyone's a bit tired,
Speaker 1: the thing that I will make on demand is apple
Speaker 1: and BlackBerry pie, especially in autumn, and I will I
Speaker 1: grew up with a beautiful apple tree in my garden
Speaker 1: and I don't have an apple tree in my garden anymore,
Speaker 1: but I will try and buy apples locally, and we
Speaker 1: even pick blackberries and Wimbledon commons some years. And that
Speaker 1: is the because we have my my partner and my
Speaker 1: daughter have slightly different taste to me, but the one
Speaker 1: thing that unites us is the love of my apple pie.
Speaker 1: So I think that might be my my ultimate comfort food.
Speaker 1: And I'll even make custard, which is as English as
Speaker 1: I know where to go delicious. It's so thank you,
Speaker 1: so much, thank you, thank you. To visit the online
Speaker 1: shop of The River Cafe, go to shop The River
Speaker 1: Cafe dot co dot Ukka River Cafe. Table four is
Speaker 1: a production of I heart Radio and Adam I Studios.
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