Emma Barnett

It’s our first episode of 2026 and we have the wonderful broadcaster and radio presenter Emma Barnett joining us for lunch after an early morning start for her at Radio 4. Emma has actually interviewed me before (and we got quite drunk together back in 2011), and it turns out that mum & Emma’s mum went to school in Manchester many moons ago! We covered everything from her breakfast routine, nostalgic Jewish food, being a colouring-in-book entrepreneur, her endometriosis diagnosis, the amazing guests she has interviewed over the years, and we reminisce about the time she got a Conservative MP to apologise live on air for lying! What a delight to share an afternoon with Emma, one day we’ll have to take a trip to Manchester to check out the bagels together. Emma’s fab new podcast ‘Ready To Talk’ is available on BBC Sounds and all other podcast platforms now. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:35Jessie Ware?

  Hello and welcome to Table Manners and we're wishing you a very, very happy New Year. How was everyone's New Years? How was everyone's Christmases?

• 0:43Speaker 02

  First podcast of the New Year, darling. And yeah, I hope 2026 is a really good one.

• 0:49Jessie Ware?

  How are you?

• 0:50Speaker 02

  I'm okay, darling.

• 0:51Jessie Ware?

  I only saw you 12 hours ago.

• 0:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I've been up cooking since.

• 0:54Jessie Ware?

  No rest for the podcasting wicked, ma'am. Well, I can tell you who's probably more tired than us.

• 1:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:01Jessie Ware?

  Our guest that's coming on today.

• 1:02Speaker 02

  I've been up since four.

• 1:04Jessie Ware?

  Of Emma Barnett, who is one of the hosts of the Today Programme on Radio 4. You might have heard her also when she had her own show on Five Live, Radio 5 Live, where she'd have really long, brilliant conversations with the listeners. Or...

• 1:19Speaker 02

  Then she moved on to Woman's Hour and I think she was such an amazing presenter. She was so good about all women's issues. She was powerful, she got the best interviews. I just adored her. Then she moved on.

• 1:34Jessie Ware?

  Well, we can hear, I heard her this morning talking about the issue with Kent's water.

• 1:40Speaker 02

  Water. What a bloody cheek.

• 1:42Jessie Ware?

  I know.

• 1:42Speaker 02

  She said she would be worried to shower in it.

• 1:45Jessie Ware?

  I know.

• 1:46Speaker 02

  It's all polluted. Five days without water.

• 1:47Jessie Ware?

  But also she's been a real spokesperson for women's health issues because she has suffered with endometriosis, rounds of IVF, failed IVF and miscarriages. She released a book called Period, it's about bloody time, which was about her struggles with endometriosis. She also did a really interesting book about maternity leave, or as she calls it, maternity service and what she thinks women should be entitled to. When they have a baby.

• 2:17Speaker 02

  She's a good old Mancunian.

• 2:19Jessie Ware?

  Nice Jewish girl.

• 2:20Speaker 02

  Nice Jewish girl, went to my school.

• 2:22Jessie Ware?

  She also interviewed me years ago in Brixton Market for Time Out magazine. I don't think she was on the radio then. She's worked for the Daily Telegraph, she's had a column in the Sunday Times called Tough Love. She's kind of done everything. She's also now an entrepreneur. She has a colouring in book business with her husband.

• 2:42Speaker 02

  Where you colour in your own area.

• 2:44Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 2:44Speaker 02

  So you can find an area where you can find Brixton, Clapham, probably where you live, Jess.

• 2:50Jessie Ware?

  I don't think she's done a New Cross one.

• 2:52Speaker 02

  Well, you better tell her.

• 2:53Jessie Ware?

  And then also what she's coming on today to talk about is her new BBC Sounds podcast.

• 3:00Speaker 02

  Brilliant.

• 3:01Jessie Ware?

  It's called Ready to Talk and it's Emma talking to people about subjects that I think have affected her. You know, the first episode was with Kate Thornton and it's about perimenopause. Emma is just an incredible interviewer and conversationalist and I'm terrified that I'm not going to be able to give enough facts.

• 3:22Speaker 02

  Let's just hope she's ready to talk.

• 3:24Jessie Ware?

  Cool, very good, Lenny. And what have you made for Emma?

• 3:28Speaker 02

  I've made an aubergine parmigiana.

• 3:31Jessie Ware?

  Hmm.

• 3:31Speaker 02

  Basically because I love it and I've just done a green salad. Remember, it's almost dinner time for her now. She's been up since four. So eight hours in, it's a long day. It's the end of the day for her.

• 3:43Jessie Ware?

  May I commend you on, we've made a vegetarian dish without making a big deal out of it.

• 3:48Speaker 02

  No prompting. And then I have made a white chocolate cheesecake and I made a fresh fruit salad à la Cousin Liz.

• 3:57Jessie Ware?

  Cousin Liz, so it's got tin light cheese in it?

• 3:59Speaker 02

  No, actually, I have got tin light cheese. I've got stem ginger in it.

• 4:03Jessie Ware?

  Yeah. If you ever want to zhuzh up a fruit salad, just put a bit of stem ginger in there.

• 4:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:08Jessie Ware?

  It will look like you've made a real effort. You have made an effort.

• 4:10Speaker 02

  I have made an effort.

• 4:12Jessie Ware?

  Emma Barnett coming up on Table manners.

• 4:29Jessie Ware?

  Emma Barnett, thank you very much for being here after doing a, you know, a good shift.

• 4:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, I've done my shift. I've done the Today Programme this morning and straight here because I'm ready for lunch or dinner at this point.

• 4:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's what we thought. We didn't know what to do.

• 4:43Jessie Ware?

  So what time were you up this morning and what kind of eggs did you have this morning?

• 4:47Speaker 03

  I woke up, I did the thing, when it's the first one of the week, I do that thing a bit like when you're going on an early aeroplane where you wake up a bit earlier than you need to. So I woke up at 1.30 and was like, oh no, there's still two hours, nearly two hours left because I get up at 3.21.

• 5:03Jessie Ware?

  3.21?

• 5:04Speaker 03

  It's a strange thing. I have to, since a child, I don't have anything else like this. I don't need to shut cupboards a certain way or anything. I just like getting up. One minute extra. It's like my rebelling against the machine. It gives me no extra sleep, but there's just something about the jagged edge of it that I quite like.

• 5:21Jessie Ware?

  Why don't we push it to 3.25?

• 5:23Speaker 03

  I know, it'd be crazy, right? I just like, I like a one or a three.

• 5:25Jessie Ware?

  Okay, okay.

• 5:26Speaker 03

  There's something going on there.

• 5:27Jessie Ware?

  Wow, interesting.

• 5:28Speaker 03

  Let's not analyse it. So I get up, I got up, I did go back to sleep at 1.30, got back up and I go down, well, go to the loo, get dressed like a bit of a ninja, everything's laid out and my husband somehow stays asleep.

• 5:40Jessie Ware?

  That's amazing.

• 5:41Speaker 03

  Which is quite ninja skills in itself.

• 5:43Jessie Ware?

  You must be quite considerate.

• 5:45Speaker 03

  I am. I've got very good at it, kind of sleuth skills and makeup goes on. It's a sort of 19 minute regime. It's drilled.

• 5:53Speaker 02

  You put your own makeup on? You don't just get in the taxi and then do it then?

• 5:56Speaker 03

  Even though it's filmed, there is no makeup for radio presenters, which.

• 6:01Speaker 02

  That is not our, there's no makeup for podcasters either. Just to lay it on this morning.

• 6:08Speaker 03

  You both look great.

• 6:09Jessie Ware?

  Well, so do you.

• 6:10Speaker 03

  And then I, I get out, I get downstairs, our kitchen's in the basement, it's one of those tall sort of Victorian houses and I sneak downstairs and I get my two hard boiled eggs.

• 6:19Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 6:20Speaker 03

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

• 7:04Speaker 03

  So it is an organic fermented, no baddies in it. It's from one of like the health, health, it's probably.

• 7:12Jessie Ware?

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 7:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. I don't know how to say it.

• 7:13Jessie Ware?

  It's H G A L F.

• 7:16Speaker 03

  Yes. I can't accept sponsorship. I work at the BBC, but that, that is what I found through a friend.

• 7:21Jessie Ware?

  That's a real shame, Em.

• 7:22Speaker 03

  I know. It's a peppery beef sausage.

• 7:25Jessie Ware?

  It's a jerk, like jerk?

• 7:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, but it's, um.

• 7:27Jessie Ware?

  Is it cold?

• 7:28Speaker 03

  It's cold.

• 7:29Jessie Ware?

  Like a healthy pepperoni?

• 7:30Speaker 03

  Like a healthy pepperoni, yeah.

• 7:31Jessie Ware?

  Oh.

• 7:31Speaker 03

  So I want some protein and I like savoury. I love marmite, like you. Um, and so I have that. That's the first thing I eat. Then I have a strong cup of tea. And I'm very particular about tea. I don't drink coffee. And then I hit in no mould a banana, a hard boiled egg, maybe a bit of avo. Everything's in constituent parts, so it's a bit of a bath.

• 7:52Jessie Ware?

  Small bits.

• 7:54Speaker 03

  I'm sort of eating protein for two hours until I go on air.

• 7:57Jessie Ware?

  Is this a new thing, doing the protein? Um. And was it to do with kind of body changing and things like?

• 8:04Speaker 03

  Yes. I think so. There was a mixture. So when I presented women's hour, so I've been a ten a m live broadcaster for about ten years. And I was able, because it was on a normal hour of the day, to go to the BBC canteen. And I would often have a couple of poached eggs, some toast, a bit of marmite, that sort of breakfast, and just bring a bit of fruit in. What's changed is I had to bring my own food and a lot of people do cereal and porridge, like the other, the other presenters and producers. You, you do. Yeah, you have a kitchen on each floor of the BBC. There's a fridge, there's all of that. But I don't get, I've never gotten well with cereal, sort of sugary stuff in the morning. I just, I just don't really like it.

• 8:40Jessie Ware?

  What's Amal Rajan having?

• 8:42Speaker 03

  I don't think he eats.

• 8:44Jessie Ware?

  Oh, he fast, doesn't he? Yeah.

• 8:45Speaker 03

  So I start, when I started the Today Programme, I tried that and I, just in terms of maybe I'd be ready to eat later, I was trying to figure out how I felt. I can't do that. I need food. But sort of an hour of waking up.

• 8:56Jessie Ware?

  But you don't have any carbohydrate.

• 8:58Speaker 03

  So I do I do have some some toast or some sourdough or something, maybe afterwards.

• 9:03Speaker 02

  Oh, after.

• 9:04Speaker 03

  But I have reduced that. So I'm trying to be honest around food at the moment. I'm on a bit of a horrible thing with it because of my endometriosis. Adenomosis, uh, perimenopause.

• 9:16Speaker 02

  What's the other one?

• 9:16Speaker 03

  Don't worry, no one even, it's where the womb lining grows in on itself. I only found out about that a few years after the endometriosis and I had a miscarriage. So it's very painful. So I've got these two things. All you need to know is they're both inflammatory conditions. So the body needs to, you know, calm down for the little that we know about it. So I don't eat as much. For instance, fried or breads at the moment, fried food or breads, which are my favourite things. But I do still eat them. It's just I don't start the day like that.

• 9:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:48Speaker 03

  Things can change as we go through the day, but I try and start quite.

• 9:51Speaker 02

  So breakfast is a long event.

• 9:54Speaker 03

  It's quite long, when I'm working, at home.

• 9:56Speaker 02

  When you're working. So then when you go back, I mean, you're going to eat something here at home.

• 10:00Speaker 03

  Very excited.

• 10:01Speaker 02

  But when you go back, would you have, if you were going home, straight home, what would you eat now, like your dinner?

• 10:08Speaker 03

  Yes, I did have a tiny plate of something before I came out. And I had, I didn't, for instance, I took an avocado. This, I can't always be bothered with the faff of getting everything ready or eating it. So I had a bit of that with a bit of sourdough just when I got it.

• 10:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:21Speaker 03

  Butter, loads of butter. That that might be it. Or there's a cafe I like going, proper cafe around the corner from the BBC called Frank's. They do the best cup of tea. It's made with real tea leaves, which I never do for myself.

• 10:33Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 10:33Speaker 03

  It's lovely. And then I might have their omelette. So I might have even more eggs, but with some veg.

• 10:38Speaker 02

  Is that Frank's in Titchfield Street?

• 10:39Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 10:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, I used to go there when I went to court in Wells Street.

• 10:43Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 10:43Speaker 02

  So we, and they have great coffee. I think they're Portuguese.

• 10:47Speaker 03

  Oh, I don't know.

• 10:48Speaker 02

  They're either Italian or Portuguese.

• 10:49Speaker 03

  I think they might be as well.

• 10:50Speaker 02

  But the coffee was was brilliant, absolutely brilliant.

• 10:54Speaker 03

  Delicious.

• 10:55Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 10:56Speaker 03

  Because I have a four minute brew for tea. That's like religion.

• 10:58Speaker 02

  And what's the bag?

• 11:00Speaker 03

  It is now Clipper English Breakfast Organic.

• 11:03Speaker 02

  Why do you even know?

• 11:05Speaker 03

  I do like Yorkshire, did it for a long time.

• 11:07Speaker 02

  It's too strong.

• 11:08Speaker 03

  Well, I like strong tea. But I don't, I make everybody else a cup of tea or I just, because I want to make my own. No, people say I can't do it like that, so please can I just have it half?

• 11:18Speaker 02

  How much milk?

• 11:19Speaker 03

  Not just a dash, a dash and a bit. So it's it's it's not black, it's not brown brown.

• 11:26Speaker 02

  Terribly organised, Emma.

• 11:27Speaker 03

  In the morning. No, no, but you're asking.

• 11:29Speaker 02

  Particular.

• 11:30Speaker 03

  You're asking about the mornings of of work.

• 11:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:33Speaker 03

  On other, I've got a two year old and a seven year old. I get up and we see what happens on all the other mornings. Although you have to get them to school, you know, one of them to school certainly. So that I I don't usually do drop off. I'm team pick up. So the mornings with kids, I'm still not as good at.

• 11:46Speaker 02

  Emma, we need to get something very important out of the way.

• 11:49Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 11:49Speaker 02

  Manchester bagels. Are they not the best bagels in the whole universe?

• 11:53Speaker 03

  Brackmann's, were you a fan?

• 11:55Speaker 02

  The best bagels.

• 11:57Speaker 03

  I don't know, this is probably not in your age range. So we should declare when you and I first met. And I interviewed. And I interviewed Jessie.

• 12:04Speaker 02

  Time out.

• 12:04Speaker 03

  It was the Telegraph, actually.

• 12:05Speaker 02

  The Telegraph.

• 12:06Speaker 03

  And when I was working there and I was setting up the women's section and you were my, one of my first guests, one of my first interviewees. And we had this, you know, really good chat that was starting and then I'd read your mum, had a Manchester connection or something. And then we realised that you had been at school with my mother. And it got even weirder because, well, we sort of talked about lots of different things that we had in common. And then you said you should live here because I was looking where to live in London. And you took me around a bit and you're one of the reasons I moved Jessie out to South East London, to Brixton at first. And now I'm a bit more sort of Hurn Hill, Brixton.

• 12:42Speaker 02

  Oh, you're closer to me now, maybe.

• 12:44Speaker 03

  And it just was like one of those things. And my husband grew up in, he was born in New York, but he grew up in Dulwich and Crystal Palace way that way.

• 12:50Speaker 02

  Oh, so it's perfect.

• 12:52Speaker 03

  I rang him up as we'd had a few and I was like, I've been out with this pop star.

• 12:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, we went for cocktails.

• 12:58Speaker 03

  Yeah. And she said.

• 12:59Speaker 02

  At seven. Of course you did, darling.

• 13:01Speaker 03

  Yes, it was seven and you knew the people. And I said, she said we should live in Brixton, so we're going to move to Brixton. I was so affirmative about this, the Mancunian. And and then I rang my mum, I was like, mum. And so this whole thing had spider tails. So yes, that was the link. And Manchester, I was just going to say, and it's linked to food, but. Her grandfather, my great grandfather, ran a bakery in Manchester called Seef's.

• 13:26Speaker 02

  Oh, I remember Seef's.

• 13:27Speaker 03

  Do you remember Seef's? Okay, well, no, but, you know.

• 13:29Speaker 02

  Obviously.

• 13:30Speaker 03

  And his black bread was meant to be amazing. So I don't think we can join the bagel.

• 13:34Speaker 02

  There is not a black bread in London that I've ever found the same with that sourness that you got from black bread.

• 13:41Speaker 03

  Carol, it's the Carolways. It's Carolways Seef's, isn't it?

• 13:43Speaker 02

  It must be rye that they put in. It was slightly sour and it was really good colour. And then you'd cut it. It was almost better than bagels on a, on a Sunday. It was great with smoked salmon. But Blackpool tomatoes were the best to go on a cheese and tomato sandwich.

• 13:59Speaker 03

  I just took my whole southern family to Blackpool to see the illuminations.

• 14:03Jessie Ware?

  How are they faring nowadays?

• 14:05Speaker 02

  Jessie's favourite place on earth.

• 14:06Speaker 03

  I used to love it.

• 14:07Speaker 02

  And your donkey, what was your donkey called? Popeye. All the donkeys were called Popeye.

• 14:14Speaker 03

  It was, it was a real day out, let me tell you. We did went for a weekend and it didn't stop raining. It was raining so hard. It was sideways. But we did get a bit of a break the next day and I did not expect this to be talking about Blackpool, but I agree with you on bagels. And there's great stories. I didn't get to go to my great grandfather's bakery. He sadly died when my grandfather was very young. But the women took it over. It was their business. Apart from it being amazing that these women sort of took it on and my great auntie Queenie, you know, people were called Queenies. And they sort of ran this business from the stories I hear and, you know, put my, my grandfather and grandmother through, you know, education and did all these. Grandfather and his sister, I should say, my great aunt Minnie, you know, Minna, excuse me. These names are just brilliant.

• 14:56Jessie Ware?

  My grandmother's.

• 14:57Speaker 03

  So there's just these lovely names, aren't there, that paint a picture of that era? But he'd come over as, you know, a complete refugee with nothing from Latvia and taught himself to bake. And he was giving out, the story I always love about him is he was giving out the end of the day, this, you know, the stuff that was left over long before Pret and people had these. He was giving it out to the poor because he'd come with nothing. And people have these lovely memories of him that they sometimes share with me or certainly of the, of the baked goods. But in terms of the synagogue, we were members, certainly I was a member, the family was members of, of Heaton Park synagogue, which was just in the news. Because on October the second, which happened to be Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar. There was, as the police have called it, a terrorist attack and the attacker came to obviously try and do great harm.

• 15:42Speaker 03

  And there was, two people lost their lives, other people were stabbed. I've actually just interviewed on my new podcast, which is called Ready to Talk. And he is ready to talk, even though it's so soon. Um, an amazing man called Yanni Finlay.

• 15:55Jessie Ware?

  I heard him.

• 15:56Speaker 03

  He's got four children and he was in trying to actually help lead the service that day. And what's incredible is it's thought, and I just can't get my head around this, that the bullet from the police trying to take out Jihad Al Shami, the attacker, went through Jihad Al Shami, ultimately killing him, through the synagogue doors, through Yanni's body and through Adrian behind him, another congregant trying to barricade the doors. And it kills Adrian, it kills the attacker and Yanni survives. And it's your face, I mean, it's like, it's one of those things.

• 16:31Jessie Ware?

  It was bashak.

• 16:32Speaker 03

  It was, yeah, which means meant to be.

• 16:34Jessie Ware?

  Meant to be, definitely.

• 16:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, but it's.

• 16:37Jessie Ware?

  So he must have just been the position where it went through. He must have such, I mean, sure, him and his family are so thankful he's alive, but there's guilt with that too. And like, it's just.

• 16:47Speaker 03

  Which he talks about, you know, in the podcast, which I just recorded it. So it's very fresh in my mind. And he also feels this huge pressure to do something now with his life, you know, to make good with his life. And he has a lot of complicated emotions because they're a community grieving, you know, and it was, it was just very strange because, you know, you know, those streets very well and you could, when it happened, you take yourself right back there. And, you know, there's no getting away from the fact that a man woke up that morning and wanted to go and kill a load of Jews. It's a very, very difficult reality to get to grips with.

• 17:17Jessie Ware?

  About your new podcast, Ready to Talk, what made you decide to do a podcast? I mean, it makes a lot of sense.

• 17:23Speaker 03

  I mean, what was strange, what has been strange, obviously, as a, as a live broadcaster is especially for instance, on something like Women's Hour. The podcast is huge. So, so you have a podcast that you work, and I used to present that programme four days a week. Whereas having a room of one's own, an audio room of one's own, and the space to have longer with people, to talk to them. And, you know, my, my skill, my craft is interviewing. And I take it really seriously and people tell me the most amazing stories. And I wanted to create a very special place to do that. And it just felt the right time, the right moment. And I also feel. Although I'm obviously, for people who've known my work, you know, they kind of know me around the big interviews of the moment and the, and the big headlines.

• 18:08Speaker 03

  I also increasingly feel that the most important stories are the sort of the biggest headlines of our lives. You know, the biggest things in our lives that change us, make us feel differently, look a different way. And I feel in quite a fractured world, finding and, and, and my skill, I hope is to, to draw people out and, you know, finding the stories that you might not be able to relate to, but actually change you by hearing them.

• 18:32Jessie Ware?

  So some of the people that have already been on, you know, you started the season with Kate Thornton, your HRT fairy, who, and that was very open and.

• 18:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, I decided to expose myself for the first episode, which was not necessarily the plan, but it sort of just happened. And I met Kate, I mean, the first time I saw Kate, she was on X Factor, like everybody else, or those sorts of programmes. And then we happened to meet on the local train and I really, on the Tube in Brixton, and I really liked her glasses. So we just had one of those chats that women have, like, where are they from? And we'd sort of seen each other around. And then I don't know what sort of happened, but we ended up texting about that. And then I, she asked me out for a drink. I said, I'm just going through something at the moment. And I didn't really know what was going on and I'd had all this IVF to have our children. And I'd come out of that and I was thirty eight at the time and I just didn't feel quite right. And I thought it was my endometriosis, because obviously when you stop breastfeeding, your cycles come back.

• 19:25Speaker 03

  I was in loads of pain, but it was kind of different because I felt quite different and I didn't know what, I just didn't feel quite like me. And I won't go through the whole thing, but we've had a massive response to that conversation because in it, I talk about how I didn't realise what I was going through perimenopause, the beginning stages of it. So all my hormones were just in decline.

• 19:43Jessie Ware?

  But also.

• 19:44Speaker 03

  Well, that's what I thought, but it starts for a lot of women in their thirties without them realising it, going through your forties and then.

• 19:51Jessie Ware?

  But you'd just had your baby.

• 19:53Speaker 03

  Yes, it was, and I'd just gone back to work and.

• 19:56Jessie Ware?

  You must have thought.

• 19:57Speaker 02

  Maybe I'm really overwhelmed, tired.

• 20:02Speaker 03

  Like to lots of other things and I went on this hormonal safari because one of the things they say for endometriosis because they don't have a cure, they don't know what's. What's causing it, they don't know if it's genetic, any of those questions, they literally know nothing still, which is unbelievable for the amount of women it affects and how it changes. And affects our lives is they want to put you on hormones. So they put you on synthetic hormones, they put you on the coil, the same stuff. Same shit, to be honest, if I'm allowed to swear, that they put you on when you're sixteen. You know, that your body actually struggles with then, but you sort of deal with and get through it.

• 20:33Speaker 02

  My, my other daughter always says if men had it, they would find a cure very quickly. That women's health is so neglected.

• 20:41Speaker 03

  It is and, and so I, I could, I went on the coil, I did all these different things and I wasn't getting on with them and a thing that I'd. Always like to share is that a lot of women, especially after thirty five, just can't tolerate synthetic hormones anymore. You know, they go back on that pill that was amazing when they were twenty five or. At least tolerable and we remember it as amazing. In my case, I was probably drunk half the time. Um, and you know, I can't tolerate booze in the same way, you know, our bodies change and I just couldn't do it. And then it took a long road of figuring out. I think I actually need bio-identical hormones, which is estrogen, progesterone and a little bit of testosterone.

• 21:16Speaker 02

  How are you feeling now?

• 21:18Speaker 03

  I am still fine tuning. What I take um and learning about my body. I, I want to say I'm doing a lot better, like I, I'm definitely on the road. It's just. The other thing, you know, and women who've spoken out before me, who I'm really grateful for to read about their experiences or, or listen to them. Is that it takes a while to find your thing. I feel like I'm DJing my body slightly, but having done IVF. Unlike some of my friends, I'm actually okay with it. Some of the same, I mean, it's not great, but it, I'm also grateful. To have it and to have the chance to, to, you know, because the other thing that happens is obviously women get offered antidepressants. Left, right and centre and you know, nine million people in England are on antidepressants.

• 22:01Speaker 03

  Nine million, you know, we, we are in a, the grip of, and I'm, and for, for some people, this is very much the right thing. But for busy doctors who don't know necessarily what's going on with people, especially women. This is what is often offered. And you know, they were called mummies little helpers in the sixties. For a good reason, because women were stuck at home often without anything to do and sort of losing themselves. And now a few men I know are doing the house husband thing, as it were in inverted commas. And they're like, how did women ever put up with this? I'm like, you think? So I don't think we've moved on that much. You know, you talk about women's health. So yeah, I put a load of stuff out there in the first episode. And then, you know, since we've had Catherine Ryan on about being unlikable, we had these two amazing women last week.

• 22:42Jessie Ware?

  The most recent one.

• 22:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:43Jessie Ware?

  They were. Talk about them and how, didn't you meet one, did you meet one of them on a?

• 22:48Speaker 03

  So, no, no, I did. So they, I read about their story.

• 22:51Jessie Ware?

  Right.

• 22:51Speaker 03

  It was on social media and then I got them to come on the Today Programme, which was quite an overwhelming thing. That, that basically one of them, when she was fifteen, Georgia, she was diagnosed with something called MKRH. You'll forgive me if I don't know the full name. It's quite a complicated one. And it's one in five thousand women have it, I believe, where you're born without a womb. And she had always wanted children and she wanted to be a midwife. And to her credit, she continued with her dream of being a midwife. Had a lot of therapy, but her friend, her best friend, Daisy Hope, very well named, said to her, I'll have your baby. And she was like.

• 23:27Jessie Ware?

  But this was a promise when they were teenagers, right?

• 23:29Speaker 03

  So. And then Daisy had never been interested in having her own children. She then did meet someone, but on her first date said, oh, by the way, I'm going to carry for my friend because she has ovaries. So she, she was able to have her own biological children, should someone else surrogate. And this man she met was like, okay. Anyway, they go on to have their own child.

• 23:47Jessie Ware?

  She said it on her first date with her partner. She was like, by the way, I think because Georgia's mum accidentally was in the date. Place or something like this, wasn't it? And so she was like, oh yeah, by the way, just to get this out of the way, I am going to carry my best friend's baby.

• 24:00Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 24:01Jessie Ware?

  When the time's right.

• 24:01Speaker 03

  Well remembered. I sat in this room for this very intense interview and you know, sometimes forget these different bits.

• 24:06Jessie Ware?

  And he was very cool with it. Amazing. They went on to have their baby.

• 24:09Speaker 03

  They have their baby. And then she turned around to her friend and said, right, let's do it. And the best thing in this, the whole story for me, and I hear a lot of stories, obviously every day and talk to people. And it's a huge privilege, but was she said. I would rather we had one baby each than I went on to have a second and my best friend didn't have any. Which is just.

• 24:31Jessie Ware?

  That's kind of more committed than relative.

• 24:34Speaker 03

  It's divine. It's just a total love story and seeing them together and then I met the daughter Otterley.

• 24:40Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 24:40Speaker 03

  And she was only six weeks old and there was a very proud grandmother who was looking after while they did the broadcast. Uh, and yeah, it's just that, you know, I, I love finding these major stories. Which might not be the number one news story, although it, you know, went on the BBC website and within minutes, it was the second most read thing.

• 24:59Jessie Ware?

  It was on Vogue.

• 24:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, it, you know, it's, it's one of those stories that people actually want to read. And, and I'm very interested in finding those.

• 25:05Jessie Ware?

  Do you have someone helping you find them or I feel like, are you kind of?

• 25:09Speaker 03

  I'm very involved, but there's a team of us, it's a really great team, they're lovely, they're really experienced. And it's so nice to do something as well for me that isn't live.

• 25:17Jessie Ware?

  Hmm.

• 25:17Speaker 03

  And there's some time and people can really settle in the room and we've got, you know, we've got some pretty hardcore things as well coming up.

• 25:24Jessie Ware?

  Do you like live radio?

• 25:26Speaker 03

  I do.

• 25:26Jessie Ware?

  Yeah. Is it exciting?

• 25:29Speaker 03

  Yes, and there's a, there's a dynamism. I, I also like being in touch with listeners. So I, I like seeing text messages come in. I like seeing what people are thinking.

• 25:37Jessie Ware?

  What would you say was one of your most memorable best interviews?

• 25:42Speaker 03

  Oh gosh, uh.

• 25:43Jessie Ware?

  I mean, I, I don't know. I was gonna, like, you've got the famous moment with Nigel Farage. Like, we're not mates. That was amazing.

• 25:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 25:51Jessie Ware?

  That was this year. I mean, you've had Farage, you've also had, why are you lying? Why are you lying? There was like, which one was that?

• 25:58Speaker 03

  I don't know.

• 25:59Jessie Ware?

  You had one and it was like. Well, I thought, yeah. You don't, it was somebody, they'd said a statement and you were like, how can you know, how can you know that? When the, the report hasn't even come out. Like, you're so sharp.

• 26:11Speaker 03

  Okay, so there's different types of interviews. So, I mean, there's, there's the very human ones, for instance, I did the first interview with Nazanin Zagari-Ratcliffe.

• 26:19Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 26:19Speaker 03

  When she'd been released from this terrible.

• 26:21Jessie Ware?

  Was that on Woman's Hour?

• 26:22Speaker 03

  It was on BB, it was on television and on Woman's Hour.

• 26:25Jessie Ware?

  That, that was my most memorable one. Yeah.

• 26:28Speaker 03

  It will, it will live with me forever. And I had interviewed Richard, her husband, for years, you know, trying to get her out and. You know, I'd met Gabriella, her daughter, who she wasn't able to be with. And then to meet her, you know, it was just incredible. And for me, that's a story that. Is really important to get across obviously the human side of it, but the political side of Iran, of what it means, how the world works together, what's going on when people are being used as political pawns. And then, you know, there was a major moment in that story as well, where she admitted that, well, she not admitted, she shared that the the British side had overseen her signing a forced confession as she left Iran, and her mum and dad are still in Iran. And that's an extraordinary insight for us as as people, as citizens, as, you know,

• 27:13Speaker 03

  taxpayers, to to know what goes on when you get people out. And, you know, six foreign secretaries, I think it went through at the time. So so that story through to the beginning of the year, I interviewed Caroline Darian, who is the daughter of Giselle and Dominique

• 27:29Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, I heard that as well.

• 27:31Speaker 03

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

• 28:04Speaker 02

  Who, who, who haven't

• 28:06Speaker 03

  Can I say a fun one?

• 28:07Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, of course you can.

• 28:09Speaker 02

  We know who we'd like to have on the podcast that we we will hope to achieve one day. Who would you love to interview?

• 28:17Speaker 03

  Oh, I mean, I have wanted to interview Monica Lewinsky for a very long time, because I'm sure you could. You know, I'm sure, you say I'm sure, you know, you've got to find the right

• 28:26Speaker 02

  You can get her on the podcast.

• 28:27Speaker 03

  You've got to find the right moment, you've got to find the right. But just because I think her TED Talk on shame was incredible. And I think the way women are portrayed and the way we hold ourselves and the way we view other women and all of that, she speaks to so many of those themes and issues that I've been very interested in throughout my career. But the person you were thinking of before, because I never like leaving something dangling, you have other types of interviews, which are my political interviews. And there've been some moments which people remember quite clearly. And, you know, the Farage one this year, what was different, I suppose, was it's the first time I've actually interviewed him, I believe, since he's become an MP. He obviously tried many times. But the one you were talking about was with Rory Stewart.

• 29:04Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 29:05Speaker 03

  Obviously, a big podcaster.

• 29:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:06Speaker 03

  And I'd just come back from maternity leave. And obviously, it's a weird job. Because you come back and you can't just like sneak in behind a desk in my job. You go out on air to millions of people, you know, you've got it, you've got it, you're back. There's no, there's no in between and you know, after having our, our first child, it's a weird job because you can't actually, I always think this, you can't imagine doing it until you're in the studio. I don't know if it's like that with singing. I don't, you just sort of, then it happens and you're like, oh yeah, this is what I do. But were you scared about going back? I think I was just, I didn't know, I didn't know what it was to, to go back after an amazing amount of time away. And also baby brain is a real thing. Well, just like, you know, no sleep. I mean, it's similar to what I've inflicted upon myself in this job. You're still breastfeeding? No, I finished at six months and I went back at nine.

• 29:51Speaker 03

  And it was, that week was just crazy because I ended up interviewing, or maybe it was a few days after the first week. I ended up, ended up interviewing Theresa May at the end of the week, if I remember correctly, with her phone in about the Brexit withdrawal deal. And two days before, do you remember all the Brexit stuff? A minister was put up to defend this deal. She'd just put out this draft. And it'd only come out minutes earlier. No one had read it. And Rory Stewart, who was a minister at the time, came on air and said something like eighty-two percent of the British public support this deal. And I said, well, how can they? No one's read it. And he went, I'm producing a figure to support what I believe. And I went, so you're lying? We could all do that. It was proper northern. It was like, you're lying. Exactly. You just shut your gob, yeah.

• 30:34Speaker 03

  And he went, yes, I'm, I'm, I am and I'm sorry. And he said, sorry. And it's, we've talked to her, he and I, we've been reunited once on this subject, actually, at a panel in London, a live event in front of an audience. And he said it was a big moment for him because he realised how far he'd gone in to sort of the tunnel of spin. Is that when he decided to quit? No, I think, I think there were, there were quite a long time, there was quite a long time afterwards. But for me, just, I tell that story sometimes for women to hear. Yes, you can be knackered. Yes, you feel not quite like yourself, all those things. But I was like, although it was awful for him and it went on the late night US TV shows, fake news spreads to Britain. I was like, I'm back. Yeah.

• 31:18Speaker 03

  I am, I'm in the room, I'm in my body and I can still hear.

• 31:30Speaker 04

  I've got big news. I switched to Verizon and got the new iPhone 18 Pro. Shh. I can keep my old phone and I also get the latest iPhone every year. Shh. Anything else? Verizon let me choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on them. Everybody, listen up. Shh. Switch to Verizon and get the new iPhone 18 Pro now. No trade in needed. And the latest iPhone every year with Simplicity Plan. Plus, choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on us. Simplicity Plan with Simplicity Pro required. Plan and device payment purchase are separate agreements with separate terms. Service plan for watch or iPad required. Edition terms apply for all offers.

• 32:06Speaker 02

  I remember going back to your mum's house with her mum and dad.

• 32:10Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 32:11Speaker 02

  And they always said, I thought it was so sophisticated. When we went for tea, we had baked beans and omelette.

• 32:18Speaker 03

  Oh, nice.

• 32:18Speaker 02

  And I thought it was so exciting.

• 32:20Speaker 03

  I still love an omelette.

• 32:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, I love an omelette, but I don't think my mum made many omelettes. I think my dad used to, and I also used to think this was really delicious. The baked bean juice went on the omelette and it was very nice.

• 32:32Speaker 03

  Is that a tradition in your world?

• 32:33Speaker 02

  But your grandfather was a doctor.

• 32:35Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 32:35Speaker 02

  Either.

• 32:36Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 32:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:37Speaker 03

  He was. And he, it's very weird to see you today. I was feeling quite emotional about it because my grandmother, on the day we're talking, died 25 years ago on this day.

• 32:47Speaker 02

  Is she? Was she long live?

• 32:49Speaker 03

  Well, it's just, it's nice to see someone, though, who met her. You know, actually, because I was-

• 32:54Speaker 02

  She was very, very attractive, very sophisticated.

• 32:58Speaker 03

  Well, I think that-

• 32:58Speaker 02

  Very, very slim. Her hair was always beautifully coiffed. She was, yeah, they were a very good-looking couple, your grandparents.

• 33:06Speaker 03

  I have a very good-looking picture of them up in the house, a black and white one. But she died when I was nearly six, so I didn't have very long with her. Yeah, she was very young. She was 60 or 61, I believe.

• 33:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:17Speaker 03

  So, of cancer. So, but it's strange, you know, 25 years, like, to put that into... So it's very nice to see someone who hung out with her a bit.

• 33:27Speaker 02

  So, was your mum a good cook?

• 33:30Speaker 03

  Yes, so my mum did all the cooking and we had, you know, the hat, I was thinking about different food memories, uh, as you often do on this lovely podcast and uh, the smell of chicken soup on a Friday is very much. And I went through a phase of doing it myself when I had one child. Uh, Jessie, you obviously have three. I'm not getting that. You've not had another one, have you?

• 33:50Jessie Ware?

  No, me neither.

• 33:50Speaker 03

  Okay. So, and I, I have, I don't, I don't go on air on Fridays. I may sometimes do a quick call or something, but I typically don't work on Fridays because I've been able to organise it since I had children. And I had these dreams of always having chicken soup on the stove. And I did do it for a while and then since having a second child, I've just slightly fallen apart, uh, in terms of cooking and, you know, being on top of things as much. So I'd actually go and get chicken bones from the butcher and do all of that. And I'll get back to it because it was a lovely thing because I loved growing up. I mean, we do, we're not very religious, but we do like candles every Friday night. We get a challah from the local bakery, the Platter.

• 34:27Jessie Ware?

  Where are you getting a challah?

• 34:28Speaker 02

  Where in the diaspora do you find a challah?

• 34:30Speaker 03

  There's two. There's two places I go.

• 34:31Jessie Ware?

  No, where?

• 34:32Speaker 03

  Blackbird does a fantastic.

• 34:34Jessie Ware?

  I wonder if they do one. I've got one down the road in Queen's Road.

• 34:36Speaker 02

  Order one, Jess. That is a good.

• 34:40Jessie Ware?

  How have you not?

• 34:40Speaker 02

  Is it sweet? Is it good sweet challah?

• 34:43Speaker 03

  I think there's an, I'm not going to name it. There's another one that's not great, but if I'm desperate and I just want something to like.

• 34:48Speaker 02

  I, I get from Ocado, but it's not like going up to Ronnie's in Golders Green.

• 34:54Speaker 03

  No, although the bagel bake, bagel bake on, uh, Brixton.

• 35:00Jessie Ware?

  No.

• 35:01Speaker 03

  Brit Lane.

• 35:01Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, Brit, yeah.

• 35:02Speaker 03

  I actually even know him, you know, we know each other by name. He deliver, as in we text. I get loads of salt beef from him and he will bring bagels and, uh, bread as part of it.

• 35:11Jessie Ware?

  Well, listen, when he's in South, can he come to mine too on the way?

• 35:14Speaker 03

  I'm on the edge. I think I, I think I might be.

• 35:17Jessie Ware?

  I'm nearer to East London.

• 35:18Speaker 02

  Jessie, get them three.

• 35:20Speaker 03

  Okay. I'll send you the text. I'll send you the number.

• 35:22Jessie Ware?

  Bring me in to this convo.

• 35:24Speaker 03

  I'm very happy to.

• 35:25Jessie Ware?

  Great.

• 35:26Speaker 02

  So are you ready to eat some?

• 35:28Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 35:28Jessie Ware?

  Yes, I would love to.

• 35:29Speaker 03

  Thank you, mum.

• 35:30Speaker 02

  Look, I'm not a vegetarian cook, but I love aubergine parmigiana.

• 35:33Jessie Ware?

  Okay.

• 35:34Speaker 02

  But then I've got worried because you talked about inflammation and I know that aubergine is not great.

• 35:39Speaker 03

  I love, oh no, I really like aubergine, but maybe.

• 35:42Jessie Ware?

  Drink some more water.

• 35:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'll have a little water. Um, baked thing or a hot thing like this is, is perfect for me.

• 35:47Speaker 02

  Good.

• 35:47Jessie Ware?

  Mum, this is delicious.

• 35:48Speaker 02

  Good darling.

• 35:49Jessie Ware?

  We need to give a shout out to.

• 35:51Speaker 02

  Alison Roman.

• 35:52Jessie Ware?

  It's in her new cookbook.

• 35:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, a little aubergine palm, she calls it.

• 35:57Jessie Ware?

  Palm. Yeah, it's delish. You have both.

• 36:00Speaker 03

  I need to start cooking again, because I'm not the most natural, but I really love it and I can follow a recipe. And I listened to you say on one of the, I'm sure you've said it before, but on one of them recently that I listened to. You talked about Mob app, which I don't know.

• 36:12Speaker 02

  Oh, Jess.

• 36:12Speaker 03

  Brilliant. Do I need to do that?

• 36:14Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, it's just really good and easy and it's very accessible food.

• 36:16Speaker 03

  As in M O B?

• 36:17Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 36:18Speaker 03

  Okay, fine.

• 36:18Jessie Ware?

  So they kind of.

• 36:19Speaker 03

  I need some more ideas.

• 36:20Jessie Ware?

  They, they, watch their, have, go on their Instagram page, because they've got really good insp on there, but then the app is really good.

• 36:26Speaker 03

  But are you cooking a lot of the time?

• 36:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:29Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 36:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, okay, because that's the other thing, I just need to actually have it as part of like, an activity more. I'm often just throwing, like, good food, we eat really well now, we also now. Yes, I mean, eat really well now, but we really do, since I've learnt a lot more about food. And cut out a lot of ultra processed, have real bread, you know, just trying to educate myself in a way that I never really took food. I've always been a gourmand, like, I love going out for a boozy lunch, I love being served amazing food and going to amazing restaurants. But in terms of what goes in, I've got a lot more education, but what it means is you have to make things. It's not, it's like, it's like an ingredients house, as opposed to open the cupboard and there's something really easy.

• 37:08Jessie Ware?

  But I think, like, if you start using some of those apps, and Mob's great for that, it's like, they've got really good things where you can do batch cooking. So you could do three different things out of like a base, which is also quite good. So then you've got like three different ideas and it can all be prepped.

• 37:22Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 37:22Jessie Ware?

  You don't have to cook every day.

• 37:23Speaker 02

  This has got chili in, she said to put it in, I'm not keen, I hope you're not offended by the chili.

• 37:29Jessie Ware?

  It's good, yeah.

• 37:30Speaker 03

  Are you okay with it?

• 37:33Jessie Ware?

  You must have got a bit, I can't taste the chili really.

• 37:35Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 37:36Jessie Ware?

  So, last supper, you're going somewhere to a desert island for a very, very long time. Um, this is your last meal, what are you gonna have? Start at main, pudding, drink of choice.

• 37:48Speaker 03

  I'm gonna have snails to start.

• 37:49Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 37:50Jessie Ware?

  Oh.

• 37:50Speaker 03

  Garlic snails with the best French baguette and salted butter.

• 37:55Jessie Ware?

  Oh, should we do that on Monday?

• 37:56Speaker 02

  No, we won't. Well, you can do it, I'm not. We're going to Paris on Monday, it's my birthday present.

• 38:00Jessie Ware?

  Gorgeous. What are you, who got you into snails?

• 38:03Speaker 03

  Well, effectively, they're like garlic mushrooms, if you didn't know that they were snails.

• 38:06Jessie Ware?

  Okay.

• 38:07Speaker 03

  It, you know, I love the little dish, you have the six holes or the twelve if you're feeling greedy. I think the first time I went to Paris. I just thought, I love trying local food. I'm very adventurous and not squeamish about different, you know, I'll eat nose to tail. The Saint John Restaurant is a big thing for me. Offal, sweetbreads, the whole thing. If you're gonna eat an animal, I think you should eat all of it. I've plucked and disemboweled a duck.

• 38:32Speaker 02

  Oh my god.

• 38:33Speaker 03

  Why? Because my friend killed it. A very English friend who has, you know, guns and that sort of life. I did not grow up in the city, Manchester, basically, with any of those things. But actually, I found it a really, you know, clarifying experience. I feel in a previous life I was Scottish or Texan.

• 38:52Speaker 03

  I love, you know, haggis. I love all that sort of, I love peaty whisky. There's a lot I connect to with palate wise in that part of the world. What's your favourite whisky? I like Talisker. I like a sm- often quite a smoky, although we've got a nice Glenlivet at home at the moment. I'm convinced that's open. Because when I was pregnant the second time, it was the first time in my life I'd not been able to shake a cold. So I can always, I don't touch, you know, apart from all the other lovely female illnesses ravaging my body, I don't tend to have days off. Yeah. In terms of when you've got a cold or a cough, being on air is not good. And I swear it's because I have most nights a little dram of whisky. But when you're pregnant, obviously, I know some people do have whatever, but I didn't.

• 39:36Speaker 03

  And I ended up being, you know, hospitalized on an antibiotic for the first time. Because I have this cough cold. You know when you cough, I don't know if you remember when you're pregnant. It's the most painful thing in your ribs. So yeah, I like a little bit of whisky every night. And probably Talisker's the one that comes to mind. So we've got the snails. Where are we going for the main? Well, I've realised it's quite buttery and garlicky as a theme. I'm going lobster. I know a load of other seafood. I want to get like quite messy, prawns and everything with heads on. And then I'm going to Chippy Chips on the side. So what annoys me about. What Chippy Chips? So like from a Chippy. Okay, fine. Can I combine? Yeah. Okay. Definitely. I don't like the fish in fish and chip shops that much. It's fine.

• 40:21Speaker 02

  Oh, I do.

• 40:23Speaker 03

  But for me, it's all about the chips.

• 40:25Speaker 02

  Have you had Moxons?

• 40:26Speaker 03

  Yeah. Very nice. No, no, but it's just not my favourite. What I mean, like, it takes up space that.

• 40:32Jessie Ware?

  You're there for the chips.

• 40:32Speaker 03

  That like a good steak or a big bit of garlicky fish could do. So I would have, it's a bit, whenever you get something as beautiful as lobster, you always get very thin frites. And they are not chips to me, especially as a northern. Yeah, so I would combine those two with a really good, beautifully done veg, you know, just something like amazing. I do love Asian food a lot. So I did think is it about dim sum and sushi and all of that, but I think it would be this. And then pudding, I don't know. I've struggled with pudding because I'm quite a savoury person.

• 41:01Jessie Ware?

  Me too.

• 41:02Speaker 03

  So it could be, if I went savoury, it could be a Welsh rarebit, you know.

• 41:06Jessie Ware?

  Oh yum.

• 41:07Speaker 03

  Uh but I don't know if I'd have room. Yeah.

• 41:09Jessie Ware?

  Oh, I like that.

• 41:10Speaker 03

  Uh I don't know, uh there's no like pudding where I think, there is one, okay, go on, it's quite savoury. I like a Guinness cake.

• 41:19Jessie Ware?

  Oh, I love that.

• 41:19Speaker 03

  With a thick cream.

• 41:21Jessie Ware?

  It's quite easy, I think.

• 41:22Speaker 03

  Is it?

• 41:23Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, maybe that's what you're gonna have to do this weekend.

• 41:25Speaker 03

  Okay. You're gonna send me some cooking homework.

• 41:27Jessie Ware?

  There's not masses of Guinness in it, but it looks like Guinness because of the white top.

• 41:31Speaker 03

  Well, I only had my first Guinness a few weeks ago. I went to the Devonshire.

• 41:35Jessie Ware?

  Oh, I love it there. Did you eat there too?

• 41:38Speaker 03

  I'm going again.

• 41:38Jessie Ware?

  The lobster.

• 41:39Speaker 03

  The pawns and the scallops there, the langoustine were.

• 41:42Jessie Ware?

  The lobster we had there was amazing.

• 41:44Speaker 03

  And the dripping on the potatoes, like the whole, the whole thing. I am like basically sixty five year old man from Scotland.

• 41:51Jessie Ware?

  It is like, it is a proper chop house, isn't it?

• 41:54Speaker 03

  And drink of choice, is it whisky? So whisky if it was a for a short, but I do, I do like a martini at the start. I mean, it's quite a lethal, if you get a martini, a wine and then finish with a whisky at this stage of life, I'm.

• 42:06Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 42:07Speaker 03

  But yeah, if we were just ending and it was that drink, I would go for that.

• 42:11Jessie Ware?

  How do you take your martini?

• 42:13Speaker 03

  I have it dry with an olive. I don't like lemon in it. Dry, and vodka.

• 42:18Jessie Ware?

  And when it's wet, that's when it has vermouth in it, right? I quite like a vermouthy.

• 42:22Speaker 03

  I don't think I'm that bothered either. Yeah, I mean, where's the place that had the most incredible? The Dover. Have you sat at the bar at the Dover yet?

• 42:29Jessie Ware?

  I have been to the Dover and I haven't sat at the bar, but yeah.

• 42:33Speaker 03

  Uh yeah, that was lethal.

• 42:35Jessie Ware?

  Really? What, like all vod?

• 42:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 42:38Jessie Ware?

  Okay. So you like the Devonshire, you're gonna go back. Are there any other spots that you, St John you've talked about?

• 42:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, I do like St John. I mean, I think quite early on, my education in London, I moved here after university when I was twenty two. And my first job was at a trade title, a business magazine, and it was about, my beat was TV and radio and, but it was on the commercial side. So I was in what felt like the last hurrah of Adland going for lunches and sometimes the lunches would last until dinner.

• 43:09Speaker 02

  Oh, wow.

• 43:10Speaker 03

  And then go into dinner. So I had this incredible education, not at my own expense.

• 43:16Speaker 02

  Perfect. Eating out.

• 43:18Speaker 03

  Where I ate out and I, I think I actually learnt the centre of London through restaurants. So some are not here anymore and some are not still going, but. It was amazing just having that, you know, from, so I still, I would love going to the Woolsey, which is obviously a very grand dame one through to. There's a smaller place, Bruto in Farringdon, which is obviously so gorgeous, um. Through to, I remember when places like Rocker opened and, you know, the Rabata Grills started happening and there was kind of. That whole scene and I loved all the.

• 43:48Speaker 02

  Did you go to Honey and Co?

• 43:50Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, I love Honey and Co.

• 43:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, me too.

• 43:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, and the shop is very nice as well.

• 43:54Speaker 02

  Love the shop. And Otterlangi.

• 43:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, or Noppy when that opened was stunning. Still is. I mean, I don't get to do a sort of nine hour lunch anymore and I'm not sure. I'm going out with someone in a few weeks who's from that era of my life and. I now realise, I mean, this guy, to be fair, and he, you know, I don't know. How old his kids were, but I now realise he had kids when we were going out and having chats.

• 44:17Speaker 02

  Can you imagine, his, his wife must have been absolutely demented.

• 44:21Speaker 03

  I don't know, I just was like, he still has kids, they're just twenty now and I now have kids and I'm like, am I gonna be able to do like two hours? You know, you do like a few bottles and the coolest thing, which was all again through work. We did one of the last tables at the Old Savoy, you know, when businesses book out a space, they get like a room and. There was a, you know, I was, I was twenty four and there was a, or twenty five, there was a glass of wine with each course. I didn't take in that not everyone was finishing each glass.

• 44:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, but when we finished, well, you could do them in your lunch.

• 44:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, to, well, to your point about wine, it was the most delicious wine I've ever taken. You know, when someone's picked it for you, then I'll cover that glass. Cause I don't know anything. I don't remember names. Oh my gosh. So we went from six P M until three A M.

• 45:07Speaker 02

  Emma.

• 45:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:09Speaker 02

  That's a sash.

• 45:10Speaker 03

  Was a sash.

• 45:13Speaker 02

  Did you stay the night at the

• 45:14Jessie Ware?

  No.

• 45:15Speaker 03

  And I I considered whether even bothering to go home, you know, just go straight to the office. But I now do three AM offices in a different timeframe.

• 45:23Jessie Ware?

  We've got the dessert now, Mum. Tell Emma what we're eating.

• 45:26Speaker 02

  It's a white chocolate cheesecake.

• 45:28Speaker 03

  Fantastic.

• 45:28Speaker 02

  Not very much white chocolate, just a bit.

• 45:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, but it's quite savoury.

• 45:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm not a big cheesecake person. It does have salt in, Emma, so you'll be happy.

• 45:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:36Jessie Ware?

  And please, can you tell us about your brilliant colouring in books?

• 45:40Speaker 03

  Okay, I over this beautiful cake. It feels apt because it's so much colour now on this table with fruit salad and this cake. So we were, we were walking around our local park for the ninety eighth millionth time when I was on maternity leave with the pram and with our son.

• 45:54Jessie Ware?

  Trying to get the baby to sleep?

• 45:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, got it, right. I then have to find cobbles and different textures. Do you remember any of that to try and get them on? My, my children can't roll on smooth things.

• 46:04Jessie Ware?

  No, of course.

• 46:05Speaker 03

  So that's why galleries are here.

• 46:06Jessie Ware?

  You're doing that, yeah.

• 46:07Speaker 03

  So I think I was off piece slightly, but I came back and we were near the clock at the top, near Brockwell Hall in the middle of Brockwell Park. And he asked us about it and I honestly, obviously knew nothing about it. And I just thought, I'll, I'll just get him a book. Uh, you know, I don't want to do screens right now. I'll just look later and there'll be something he can engage with. And then my husband was like, well, why don't we just take a picture of it and then maybe like I can do a colouring in thing with him or something? Anyway, he just transposed this photo. I wouldn't know how to do this. And he made it with outlines and then we talked about it.

• 46:38Jessie Ware?

  He drew it or was it a bit of AI?

• 46:39Speaker 03

  On the computer.

• 46:40Jessie Ware?

  Oh, wow.

• 46:41Speaker 03

  No, he just did it on this, I don't know, app or something.

• 46:44Jessie Ware?

  Your husband does all the illustrations?

• 46:46Speaker 03

  No, we have a team now who do it, but he played around.

• 46:49Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 46:49Speaker 03

  Made a bit of a summer project with our son and did a sort of, we found that there were no colouring books of local neighbourhoods and cities and then towns. There were a few here and there of the bigger places, but even Manchester, which was our first out of London one, didn't really have one. It was really strange. So we, we created Colour Your Streets, which is our family business. And my husband left his job. He's had big corporate jobs for twenty years. He left his job and is doing it full time since the beginning of this year.

• 47:18Jessie Ware?

  Wow, mazel tov.

• 47:20Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 47:20Jessie Ware?

  That's amazing.

• 47:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's been a, it's amazing. And we've now made things like Buckingham Palace's first colouring book. Thank you.

• 47:27Speaker 02

  This has been really hard to cut.

• 47:29Speaker 03

  It looks delicious though.

• 47:30Jessie Ware?

  This is really nice, Mum. I didn't think I was going to like it, if I'm being honest.

• 47:34Speaker 02

  I'm not sure about the crumb.

• 47:36Jessie Ware?

  Mmm.

• 47:37Speaker 03

  What's the top?

• 47:38Jessie Ware?

  It's white chocolate and.

• 47:40Speaker 03

  That's rose petals.

• 47:41Speaker 02

  Chee- cheese.

• 47:42Speaker 03

  Cheese, sorry, yeah, of course.

• 47:43Jessie Ware?

  Cream cheese and cream?

• 47:45Speaker 02

  And crème fraîche.

• 47:46Jessie Ware?

  Oh, okay, so that's the sourness, okay.

• 47:48Speaker 03

  It's lovely.

• 47:49Speaker 02

  Do you like it?

• 47:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, I really do. I always like, like a, you know, a sharp, like, sort of cake or something with, with a bit of sour cream.

• 47:56Jessie Ware?

  Mmm.

• 47:57Speaker 03

  On the side, and it's got that, and you've done a lovely fruit salad.

• 48:01Speaker 02

  Thanks, Mum, it's great.

• 48:02Speaker 03

  I never do a fruit salad, because the kids like everything constituent parts.

• 48:05Speaker 02

  I haven't done it for ages, and I just thought, it's kind of nice to have in the fridge as well.

• 48:10Jessie Ware?

  Before we let you go, what would be your nostalgic taste that could transport you back somewhere?

• 48:16Speaker 03

  Well, it might be chicken soup.

• 48:18Jessie Ware?

  Mm-hmm.

• 48:18Speaker 03

  To my mother's kitchen, pot, the whole shebang. Or, the nostalgia bit, I think, just does trigger, sort of, Jewish memories, you know, it's kind of either salt beef bagels or. Or lakkes, you know, from the local deli. Actually, I don't think we ever made them, I think my mum always bought them, isn't that naughty?

• 48:39Jessie Ware?

  Sensible, I think.

• 48:40Speaker 03

  It's quite hard making lakkes.

• 48:42Speaker 02

  It takes over the kitchen. Do you remember we did it at once?

• 48:45Jessie Ware?

  A loyal carner.

• 48:46Speaker 03

  I do love, much prefer actually making, like, having them made at home, but it is a whole, it's a whole shebang. We never did gefilte fish or chops and fried or any of that stuff.

• 48:55Speaker 02

  You can't do that.

• 48:56Speaker 03

  That stinks.

• 48:57Speaker 02

  I mean.

• 48:57Speaker 03

  That's forever.

• 48:58Speaker 02

  A week, and you have to wear a shower cap. Well, in fact, you just have to go and have a complete shower.

• 49:04Speaker 03

  You know, like, we say, we also used to say things. So my mother-in-law is one of the rare Jews under a hundred years old who can speak fluent Yiddish. Which is an extraordinary thing. It's so cool. And, you know, it's not, from what I can tell, it's not really got conjoining words half the time, it's just expressions with words linked. And she just regularly, Lenny, takes the mick out of some of the ways we used to say things in Manchester, because they're not accurate. So I'm about to say another thing that I realised I've forgotten that I liked from my youth, that I don't, I don't know where I'd get it now. Because I grew up in the really Jewish bit of Manchester, and now don't live in a Jewish bit of London.

• 49:41Speaker 02

  With lots of kosher places or whatever, but chayen.

• 49:44Jessie Ware?

  Hmm.

• 49:45Speaker 02

  Chayen. Am I saying it right? Is it, is that right? Is my mother-in-law gonna tell me? Of course it is. It is? You can get it in Sainsbury's and in the Polish section. Okay, so chayen is what? Cause it was quite hot.

• 49:57Jessie Ware?

  Speak truth.

• 49:58Speaker 02

  It's beetroot and the horseradish. I love horseradish. So like when everybody started having sushi with wasabi, I was like, I'm in. But also it's perfect with cold fried fish. I like cold fried fish. As in the. So I would have, so I like place. We always used to have that to break the fast. So we'd have place. That was fried with matzah meal and egg, but I like it cold with chayen. Interesting. Well, that's quite sushi-esque though. Yeah, but it's cooked fish. Yes. No, but I meant that combo. Chopped and fried. I mean, if I ever do make it, which I don't know. I don't think that last time. As in fish balls, when you say chopped and fried. I love fish balls. Yeah, but you get them from Freed's, the ones on, and they're not the same, because they're little hard things.

• 50:42Speaker 02

  My mother used to make them and every Thursday we had chopped and fried. And we have gefilte on, my dad loved it. Do you like gefilte? I love it. With a carrot and an onion on top. Yeah, the carrot and onion and the jelly round the edge, yeah. What was that? Was that ginger?

• 50:57Jessie Ware?

  Stem ginger.

• 50:58Speaker 02

  Whoa. Do you like it? Blown, never had that.

• 51:03Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 51:03Speaker 02

  It's nice in it, isn't it? It's a shock. I'm shook. It's like a Lem's sip in a fruit salad. Gross.

• 51:10Jessie Ware?

  No, it was in like a, like a healing flavour.

• 51:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:13Jessie Ware?

  It's quite a nice little jar of stem ginger. Was that like a pickled?

• 51:17Speaker 02

  No, they're stem ginger in a jar.

• 51:19Jessie Ware?

  And you just, yeah, and they're in like syrup.

• 51:21Speaker 02

  And I just put.

• 51:22Jessie Ware?

  Chop it up really small.

• 51:23Speaker 02

  Usually I put light cheese in as well, but I was just rushed at the end. Yeah. Yeah, eyeballs. Yeah, yeah. Light cheese is quite eighties. Yeah.

• 51:32Jessie Ware?

  I don't know anyone. When was the last time you had an, an light cheese?

• 51:35Speaker 02

  Or a kumquat. I love kumquats. Have you had a kumquat lately?

• 51:39Jessie Ware?

  No, I haven't actually.

• 51:40Speaker 02

  They always used to have them at Posh Bemitsbers. In the fruit salads. No, because when my husband, South London Jew, entered the Manchester Jewish world.

• 51:49Speaker 03

  He had a field day with the language, with the vibe, the whole scene. So people would have fruit platters and they'd be like, did she have the silver package or the platinum? And you could tell which they'd had by how large the fruit boat was that would come out. And Jeremy would be like, oh, she's had platinum. Very nice, very nice. And just using this whole new voice.

• 52:11Speaker 02

  The first thing my mother would say to me, what a table.

• 52:17Speaker 02

  And it always, every Jewish function had exactly the same food.

• 52:21Speaker 03

  Was it?

• 52:21Speaker 02

  Everything was always the same.

• 52:23Jessie Ware?

  How sweet that they would appreciate that it was such a table. And it wasn't like, nobody was trying to ruin it.

• 52:28Speaker 03

  Everybody would have a look as well.

• 52:30Speaker 02

  I don't know what shul you go to, but when we have kiddush after shul, it's gone in about three seconds. I mean, everyone's putting extra things on their plates.

• 52:40Speaker 03

  Well, also kiddush is a, is a game of sort of, you know, the food after the, the service is a game of ducking. Cause as people talk, they spray and they come very close to you.

• 52:50Jessie Ware?

  Yes.

• 52:51Speaker 03

  So that's a whole other.

• 52:52Jessie Ware?

  And the fishbowl getting sprayed on your face.

• 52:54Speaker 03

  Fishbowl in your face is not for the faint hearted. And, you know, I'm like low down with kids some of the time, then standing back up, you get really like unlucky.

• 53:04Jessie Ware?

  Oh mate, that is so disgusting. Emma Barnett, thank you so much for coming over.

• 53:09Speaker 03

  This has been gorgeous.

• 53:10Speaker 02

  Great.

• 53:11Speaker 03

  Lunch at 11am again, please.

• 53:14Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 53:15Speaker 03

  Now I know you like to go to bed early as well.

• 53:17Speaker 02

  But also I'll make you chicken soup.

• 53:19Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 53:20Speaker 02

  I do it a lot, so I'll bring you some.

• 53:22Speaker 03

  Not chopped and fried?

• 53:23Speaker 02

  No, you can come and help me.

• 53:25Speaker 03

  I'll do it with the shower, yeah.

• 53:42Jessie Ware?

  Emma Barnett, so brilliant.

• 53:44Speaker 02

  What a gorgeous woman.

• 53:45Jessie Ware?

  Love her. You're going to be teaching her chicken soup soon?

• 53:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 53:49Jessie Ware?

  Um, her new podcast, Ready to Talk, is on BBC Sounds and on all other podcasting platforms. And it's just brilliant. She's such a great.

• 53:58Speaker 02

  Didn't she look glamorous for someone who'd been up since 3.21?

• 54:04Jessie Ware?

  She's always, always glamorous, isn't she?

• 54:06Speaker 02

  Very glam.

• 54:07Jessie Ware?

  Very cool boots.

• 54:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:10Jessie Ware?

  And now she's going back into town.

• 54:12Speaker 02

  She didn't seem to mind.

• 54:13Jessie Ware?

  No, she's very good. Food was really delicious.

• 54:16Speaker 02

  Was it?

• 54:16Jessie Ware?

  It was a very different kind of palm. It was kind of chunkier, wasn't it?

• 54:20Speaker 02

  What do you mean?

• 54:20Jessie Ware?

  I quite liked it. What else did it have in it?

• 54:22Speaker 02

  Had anchovies.

• 54:23Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 54:24Speaker 02

  Capers.

• 54:24Jessie Ware?

  Yum.

• 54:25Speaker 02

  Panko breadcrumbs.

• 54:26Jessie Ware?

  Liked that.

• 54:27Speaker 02

  On layers.

• 54:28Jessie Ware?

  Oh.

• 54:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:28Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 54:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, it makes it less soggy and.

• 54:32Jessie Ware?

  My good canned tomatoes.

• 54:33Speaker 02

  Your good canned tomatoes and I baked the aubergine beforehand.

• 54:38Jessie Ware?

  It was really tasty.

• 54:39Speaker 02

  Good.

• 54:40Jessie Ware?

  Was it fatty?

• 54:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:41Jessie Ware?

  Oh.

• 54:42Speaker 02

  It was a good hour job.

• 54:43Jessie Ware?

  Okay, well, I appreciate it then.

• 54:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:45Jessie Ware?

  Thanks, Mum. And the cheesecake, I'm the least cheesecake person. I actually thought that was really nice.

• 54:53Speaker 02

  Do you?

• 54:53Jessie Ware?

  The little bits of white chocolate in it.

• 54:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:56Jessie Ware?

  Very nice.

• 54:56Speaker 02

  But I think the crust was too thick for me.

• 54:59Jessie Ware?

  I liked that because, yeah, I thought it was great.

• 55:01Speaker 02

  Ginger nuts.

• 55:02Jessie Ware?

  Um, thank you to everyone for listening and watching and we'll see you next week.