Jacinda Ardern

‘Kia ora!’ to our next guest, former Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern. We caught up with Jacinda at the start of her book tour, and chatted over another delicious Ixta Belfrage recipe. We hear about how her aunt Marie got her into politics, making her favourite plum sauce, meeting world leaders, learning how to fillet fish from her husband, handling Covid in New Zealand, being pregnant while in office and she talks about studying for a masters at Harvard and now living in Boston. We also found out we have more in common than we thought, as Jacinda & I have both performed at the same Australian music festival, Laneway - hi DJ Jacinda! Jacinda’s brand new book ‘A Different Kind of Power’ is out now, it really is a fascinating read. 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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• 2:08Jessie Ware?

  Hello and welcome to Table manners. I'm Jessie Ware and we're in New Cross. And mum's got another new jumper on.

• 2:16Speaker 05

  Got a new jumper on. Is it a bit of a sun tan?

• 2:19Jessie Ware?

  I do. How was Marrakech?

• 2:20Speaker 05

  Sitting in the bedina yesterday, with the sun on my face.

• 2:24Jessie Ware?

  What did you come back with? Did you come back with some cumin, some saffron?

• 2:27Speaker 05

  I came back with olive oil from the Urika Valley. Which is their particular, that's where they grow, they have all their olives and that's where they get their best olive oil. Delicious. So I came back with a litre of that. I bought, obviously, things for your children.

• 2:45Jessie Ware?

  That's very kind of you. I went to Margate. So you were in Marrakech and I was in Margate for my annual meetup with my girlfriends.

• 2:52Speaker 05

  And?

• 2:53Jessie Ware?

  And we ate pretty well.

• 2:56Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 2:56Jessie Ware?

  I have to say, I didn't go there last time, but shout out to Angela's. They have Angela's and Dory's in Margate. And it was absolutely amazing. Fish.

• 3:06Speaker 05

  I ate a lot of tagine. So we stayed at a fantastic place called Kazba Bar Urika, which was wonderful, really beautiful. And the food was delicious, kind of home cooked, lots of tagine with preserved lemon and olives. And we also discovered there was no alcohol in a lot of places. Yeah, which...

• 3:25Jessie Ware?

  So you've basically been on a detox, rehabilitation centre, Marrakech?

• 3:31Speaker 05

  Thing is, Jill and I, when we arrived at this fabulous restaurant called Nomad in Marrakech.

• 3:36Jessie Ware?

  Oh, I've heard about that. Didn't Phil, somebody Feed Phil, I think, talks about Nomad?

• 3:40Speaker 05

  Well, it's a fantastic restaurant, bit like a very quick in and out. But we got there all ready to go to this restaurant. Recommended by Time Out, 10 best restaurants. Of course, no alcohol there. So we spent the whole time Googling where we could get wine while we were trying to eat our meal.

• 3:57Jessie Ware?

  Did you find wine?

• 3:58Speaker 05

  Yes, we did.

• 4:00Jessie Ware?

  Um. Well, we have a massive, massive guest coming on today.

• 4:04Speaker 05

  Kiara Jessi.

• 4:06Jessie Ware?

  Hello, in Maori. And yeah, we've got the youngest ever female Prime Minister.

• 4:11Speaker 05

  It's also the only pregnant Prime Minister ever.

• 4:14Jessie Ware?

  Really? She was also the most efficient at dealing with Covid in the Western world. She is the ex-Prime Minister of New Zealand. We have Jacinda Ardern coming to New Cross.

• 4:24Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 4:24Jessie Ware?

  I know.

• 4:25Speaker 05

  Wonder what she'll make of New Cross, darling.

• 4:28Jessie Ware?

  Why, New Zealand, does it today?

• 4:29Speaker 05

  Today.

• 4:30Jessie Ware?

  Um. And so I've made something. I suddenly remembered that we had the podcast on Monday and I hadn't done my Ocado order. So whilst I was out with my girlfriends, we went round the dinner table on the Friday night and I said, what is quick and simple and delicious? And my friend Samantha said that Easter belfries is, and I've never done an Easter belfry recipe on here and she's fantastic. And it's tomato and turmeric fish curry with udon noodles.

• 4:55Speaker 05

  Oh, how lovely.

• 4:56Jessie Ware?

  Delish. And you make the sambar, which is so delicious. And then you add coconut milk.

• 5:01Speaker 05

  Quick.

• 5:02Jessie Ware?

  I mean, I've got to kind of assemble it, but it will, once I've assembled it, it's going to be about 10 minutes. And then I've done Alison Roman's semifredo, like berry semifredo, which I made last night. Who knows? It tasted delicious when I put it in. Remind me I need to get it out about 15 minutes before we serve. So that's what's on the menu.

• 5:25Speaker 05

  Fab, darling. Thank you.

• 5:27Jessie Ware?

  So Jacinda Ardern was in office in New Zealand from 2017 to 2023. And she is now currently living in Boston, um, doing, being a fellow at Harvard. So that's quite, yeah.

• 5:40Speaker 05

  I'd love to be a fellow at Harvard.

• 5:42Jessie Ware?

  And she's written a book. It's called A Different Kind of Power. It's a memoir that's coming out this month.

• 5:46Speaker 05

  She writes beautifully. It reads like a novel, I think, a family saga. It's so beautifully written.

• 5:53Jessie Ware?

  I remember.

• 5:54Speaker 05

  Really talented writer.

• 5:55Jessie Ware?

  I remember back in the day when we were in lockdown and you'd see what New Zealand were doing and they always seemed very appreciative of what she was doing. And we had bloody Boris Johnson. Yeah, she was remarkable. So I'm really excited to chat to her about, have you been to New Zealand? Once.

• 6:10Speaker 05

  I've never been.

• 6:11Jessie Ware?

  Auckland. Amazing, is it?

• 6:14Speaker 06

  Well, I was there for like two days. In fact, I was there for Laneway Festival, which I believe that Jacinda was a DJ at in 2014.

• 6:21Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 6:22Speaker 06

  So our paths could have crossed, but if we'd been on the same billing another year. So yeah, I love that she's a politician, Prime Minister, DJ, fellow.

• 6:31Speaker 05

  Mother.

• 6:32Speaker 06

  Mother. Can't wait to meet her. Jacinda Ardern, coming up on Table manners.

• 6:44Speaker 06

  Kia ora, Jacinda Ardern.

• 6:45Speaker 05

  Oh, kia ora. Well, what a fab book.

• 6:49Speaker 06

  Oh, thank you.

• 6:50Speaker 05

  Oh, my goodness.

• 6:51Speaker 06

  You're my, you're my first book interview.

• 6:53Speaker 05

  Oh, wow.

• 6:54Speaker 06

  So this is, yeah, yeah.

• 6:55Speaker 05

  That's so beautiful.

• 6:57Speaker 06

  Quite nerve wracking.

• 6:58Speaker 05

  Have you written before?

• 6:59Speaker 06

  Oh, I've, I've, I've written a lot of speeches.

• 7:02Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 7:02Speaker 06

  So any major speech I used to write. So I, I, you know, it's a form of writing, but.

• 7:08Speaker 05

  It's like a novel.

• 7:10Speaker 06

  But is that so beautiful.

• 7:11Jessie Ware?

  Is that uncommon for a Prime Minister to write their own speeches? Because I always thought that they'd have speechwriters.

• 7:18Speaker 06

  Yeah. And, and I think commonly that that's the case. I think there are some politicians who have a heavy hand in their speeches. Um, but I just found that it was quicker for the big ones because I knew what I wanted to say.

• 7:30Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 7:31Speaker 06

  I think it was quite frustrating probably for the team I worked with. But it's, it is, there are some really big differences. You know, I, I realised early on when writing and going through this editing process that, you know, when you're giving a speech, you can put the pause into it. You can, you can put the emphasis with your voice. And when I was writing on a page, I had to find other tools to do that, to stop for a moment in a place, just to try and give a sense of how something felt or.

• 8:00Speaker 05

  But also you bring the characters alive. That was the most beautiful. It was like a family saga, reading a family saga. And I felt that I knew everyone and felt I knew them quite well, how they looked, how they felt about things.

• 8:13Speaker 06

  Because you would have, you would have had the version without pictures as well.

• 8:16Speaker 05

  Oh, we had all the pictures.

• 8:18Speaker 06

  Well, there will be photos eventually of, and I've tried to include all of those main characters. But yeah, I think to. If you really wanna give a sense, at least this is my view of what brings you into something as heavy as politics, because often people will ask you in this quizzical way, you know, why would you choose that career? Because it is so hard. I think to give a sense of what motivates you, you have to give a sense of where you've come from. And I think my parents were, you know, they're so important to me and such great role models. But that was just through the way they were, not through any great singular act. It was because of who they were as people.

• 9:00Jessie Ware?

  Can we go back to the beginning? You and your parents, your dad was a policeman. Your mum worked in the catering at the school.

• 9:08Speaker 06

  Yes, she ran the canteen, as we would call it.

• 9:11Jessie Ware?

  And you grew up on an orchard?

• 9:13Speaker 06

  Yes, a small one.

• 9:14Jessie Ware?

  So let's talk about like the food. What were you eating from the orchard around the dinner table?

• 9:19Speaker 06

  So we, when we first moved onto the orchard, my grandfather had owned it before us.

• 9:25Jessie Ware?

  Was that your paternal, your maternal, I forgot?

• 9:27Speaker 06

  Maternal.

• 9:28Jessie Ware?

  Maternal, grand.

• 9:28Speaker 06

  And he was always kind of chasing the next big thing. So he planted nasi pears.

• 9:35Speaker 05

  Oh, they're very, they're quite famous.

• 9:38Speaker 06

  Yes, yes, yes, yes.

• 9:40Jessie Ware?

  What makes it, is it a good, is a nasi?

• 9:43Speaker 06

  How do you describe it? It's a cross between an apple and a pear?

• 9:45Speaker 05

  Like a cross between apple and a pear.

• 9:46Jessie Ware?

  More crunch and tang?

• 9:48Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 9:48Jessie Ware?

  Yum, delicious, because pears are a bit of a letdown sometimes.

• 9:52Speaker 05

  We get them sometimes, possibly in Waitrose or somewhere like it's special.

• 9:56Speaker 06

  They just expire really quickly. So they're very hard to export, they're very hard to just keep in good shape, which we learned. And I think it's why they haven't really taken off. And so we would have this kind of abundance of these, of these pears. And I just remember the smell of roshing.

• 10:18Speaker 06

  The fruit, but not in a bad way. It's a nostalgic smell to me, the smell of a cool store. You know, when I was Prime Minister and I'd visit, you know, a shed where they'd be packing fruit. It just took me back to the orchard.

• 10:30Speaker 05

  They didn't think of making something like peri, you know, like a cider on pears.

• 10:36Speaker 06

  Yeah, cider in those days, I mean, when I was growing up wasn't, you know, those fruit ciders hadn't really made it into the market, but it would have been a perfect fruit for that.

• 10:45Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 10:45Speaker 06

  But we, so we had the Nashis and then we had Red Delicious, we had a few Yellow Delicious, we had a lot of Granny Smiths.

• 10:52Speaker 05

  Granny Smiths.

• 10:53Speaker 06

  And so I still love, you know, apple pies with Granny Smith apples.

• 10:59Speaker 05

  Apple now.

• 10:59Speaker 06

  I don't, you know, I still love Granny Smiths. People really have a love hate relationship. I love the tang of a Granny Smith, yeah.

• 11:06Speaker 05

  And you can talk with them as well.

• 11:08Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah, great crumble.

• 11:09Speaker 05

  Very versatile, very versatile. Yeah, you don't have to get, yeah, it's got enough tang for a crumble.

• 11:14Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah.

• 11:14Speaker 05

  You don't have to put sugar.

• 11:15Speaker 06

  We also had Pursemans and Tamarillos and I hate both of them.

• 11:18Speaker 05

  Oh, I love them. What's a tamarillo? It looks like a tomato.

• 11:22Speaker 06

  It does, it says, I think they call it a tree tomato, don't they?

• 11:24Speaker 05

  I don't know, but it looks like a tomato. It's quite shiny and big. And what would you get cooked?

• 11:30Speaker 06

  You would just, you would, you would stew it, you'd put all that very tangy and a bit bitter. So you'd put them with a custard or something. So I would, I would eat them just as an excuse to fill my bowl with custard.

• 11:43Speaker 05

  And who was round the dinner table with you?

• 11:45Speaker 06

  So dinners, dinners for us were a nightly, it was our routine, six, six o'clock, we had to be there for dinner. Um, with mum, dad, my sister Louise. Uh, we had a configuration though where the, the, the TV was in the, in the lounge, facing the dining room table. My dad would sit at the head of the table so that he had line of sight for the six o'clock news. And so, you know, it was a communal experience with a news presenter in the back.

• 12:16Speaker 06

  Do you think that's what got you into current affairs? Just having like the the hum of the six o'clock news?

• 12:21Speaker 05

  I'm sure it was part of it.

• 12:23Speaker 06

  Yeah, absolutely. I'm sure it was part of it. I remember really observing the world. I grew up in a small town. Uh, but I do remember this awareness of everything going on around me. And I remember having discussions, you know, particularly with my with my dad. Uh, debates with my mum. Uh, we weren't a political household, but we were interested.

• 12:44Speaker 05

  It was Auntie, is it Mari or Mary? Auntie Marie that was the big political one.

• 12:49Speaker 06

  She was, you know, she was involved in politics from the beginning because my nana was. But my nana passed away when I was young. So really that kind of interest, I think, went down through my auntie and she got me involved. Yeah, yeah.

• 13:04Speaker 05

  Do you, so you're not prime minister now because she stopped and now you're.

• 13:09Speaker 06

  A fellow. A citizen of the world.

• 13:12Speaker 05

  Do you think you might ever go back?

• 13:14Speaker 06

  No, I could, I could ask that question all the time. I.

• 13:18Speaker 05

  Because you're so young, I think.

• 13:19Speaker 06

  I'm pleased you're thinking.

• 13:20Speaker 05

  And people think, well, I mean, you were young when you started, but you've got so much time to go back, maybe back into it. They might drag you back in.

• 13:28Speaker 06

  This is the thing I love about politics. It's like dog years that because everyone's usually a bit older, that you can be forty five and everyone's like, you're so young. So.

• 13:38Speaker 05

  It's like the opposite in pop music.

• 13:39Speaker 06

  Exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's, uh, yeah, it's, um, probably isn't quite the cachet though. Uh, no, I think in New Zealand, when you choose to leave, that really puts a line under it. It's. You know, the other ways of leaving politics really is you lose or you die. But when you, when you choose to go, I think that means you're really exiting.

• 14:01Speaker 05

  So the choice to go, why?

• 14:04Speaker 06

  Uh, you know, as I say in the book, I, you know, I I've tried to put in all of the detail because I, when I left. I said exactly the reason I was going and yet it's still the question I ask the most. And I think it's because that idea of just saying, well, actually, I think I've I've run out of. The, you know, the energy and the gas that's required for a job like this, and that means I won't do it well. It's such a rare reason that people ask for more. They think there must be more to it than that. But really, that was, that was it.

• 14:36Speaker 05

  I think it's because you appear like such an energetic, enthusiastic person that people can't quite believe that you haven't got more there to carry on.

• 14:46Speaker 06

  And yet, I, I would, I, I hope that by the time people get to the end of the book, they can see, yeah, I understand. Uh, and that's because one of my goals was to share how it feels to lead. You know, I think we get a lot of a rundown of history and, and people will share, you know, the, the facts of what happened behind the scenes. But I wanted to put on the page how it feels.

• 15:09Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 15:10Speaker 06

  Because I think, you know, for lots of reasons, it's very easy to dehumanize people in public office. Um, to take away the idea that they have, you know, human emotions and lives and things going on behind the scenes. And so my book was, I, an effort to try and remind people there are still just humans doing a job. Some often imperfectly, um, but still people.

• 15:35Jessie Ware?

  We sat here in lockdown, uh, watching what you were doing and being like, why can't we have one like that? And, um, were you kind of on the other side, looking at what we were doing, being like, what a shit show? Yeah, I think.

• 15:51Speaker 06

  All of us were looking at each other, you know, because it genuinely, there was, you know, we had an influenza, you know, pandemic plan. But as soon as we saw the way that COVID was moving, that plan was irrelevant. And so everyone, I think, was looking at everyone else.

• 16:07Speaker 05

  Did Boris ring you up and say, what are you doing, Jacinda?

• 16:09Speaker 06

  No, no.

• 16:10Speaker 05

  And did you ring Boris up and say, look, I want to give you a few tips?

• 16:15Speaker 06

  No, but I did, but I, when he was hospitalized.

• 16:19Speaker 05

  I know, it was such a shock.

• 16:20Speaker 06

  And he had a, he had a New Zealand nurse.

• 16:22Speaker 05

  Oh, yes.

• 16:23Speaker 06

  A New Zealand nurse, you know, and I, that, of course, there was a lot of coverage about, about that, just the reality of, uh, you know, and we all knew watching, you could see what was happening in Italy, how devastating it was for populations and not just those who were vulnerable to everyone.

• 16:42Speaker 05

  Mm hmm.

• 16:43Speaker 06

  So we had the advantage of being a little later in COVID arriving. It was the twenty eighth of February before it arrived in New Zealand. So we could see how it was moving and the impact. So we made a decision because of that to try and get rid of it and see if we could live without it until vaccines arrived. So that was, that was our strategy and we figured if we couldn't do that, then we'd be no worse off than anyone else.

• 17:07Speaker 05

  Did you have so few deaths?

• 17:09Speaker 06

  Yeah, we did, we did. Um, you know, I'm reminded of the reality of that when I'm in the United States where I'm living now. Uh, and, you know, I meet people all the time who lost loved ones and that's just not the common experience at home. So, you know, it's not right to say we were lucky. No one was lucky. And it was hard for everyone. It was still hard for New Zealand, but our experience was different.

• 17:33Speaker 05

  So you shut people out? You wouldn't let anyone in, would you?

• 17:37Speaker 06

  No, so we managed, we just managed. A lot of countries did this. We managed our borders by saying, look, um, obviously New Zealanders needed to come and go, but when you came in, you went into a hotel for two weeks.

• 17:47Jessie Ware?

  And that's what Australia tried to do too, but it didn't really go the same way.

• 17:51Speaker 06

  Yeah, it was, uh, it was harder for the state of Victoria, Melbourne had some difficulties, but for the most part, yes, Australia did the same thing. Yep, Singapore, others, yep.

• 18:01Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, I remember my friend, like, he was in an Australian one and just like, it being quarantined for like, well, I mean, yeah.

• 18:08Speaker 06

  Two weeks in a hotel.

• 18:09Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, two weeks in a hotel.

• 18:10Speaker 06

  Everything that that brings.

• 18:11Speaker 05

  They had hazmat suits on, I think, when they delivered the food.

• 18:14Speaker 06

  Yes, so, yeah. And I remember during that, during that period, because we would deliver the meals because of the circumstances and infection management. Meals would be delivered in kind of takeaway bags. It wasn't a normal cutlery. We had someone who was, he wasn't quite a chef, but he worked in hospitality. He packed with him his specialty knives. So that his activity for the day would be every meal that he had in his room, he would plate as if he were in a five star restaurant. And I started following him on Instagram because I just loved seeing the creativity because of course, any food packaged in takeaway containers never look. But what he did was pure art.

• 18:55Speaker 06

  And I don't know how this happened, but he must have become aware somehow that I started following him. And one day I saw him in an airport and I spotted him and completely forgot the fact that he wouldn't for a moment have any reason to understand why. I just ran at him with my arms out, yelling Sam. And we just hugged and had this wonderful chat about his experience in the middle of this hotel, uh, in this airport. And it was, yeah, he was a little bright spot.

• 19:24Speaker 05

  Can you cook?

• 19:26Speaker 06

  Uh.

• 19:27Speaker 05

  Do you cook?

• 19:28Speaker 06

  Can. What do we do? Fine, can you cook? I, I cook, yes. And I enjoy it.

• 19:32Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 19:33Speaker 06

  I don't think I'm great, but I believe I can do it.

• 19:36Speaker 05

  You're doing the fine dining and putting things out beautifully.

• 19:40Speaker 06

  No.

• 19:41Jessie Ware?

  Well, your first job was in a fish and chip shop, right?

• 19:43Speaker 06

  Yeah, that's right. I mean, it's a form of fine dining in New Zealand. Done well.

• 19:48Speaker 05

  Do you like fish and chips?

• 19:49Speaker 06

  I do, I do. I'm quite nostalgic about it.

• 19:52Speaker 05

  What's the fish that they cook in New Zealand? So if, we, we'd have cod or place. What, what's?

• 19:57Speaker 06

  We would have snapper and tirikihi.

• 20:00Speaker 05

  Tirikihi?

• 20:02Speaker 06

  Tirikihi.

• 20:03Jessie Ware?

  What's, what's that taste like?

• 20:04Speaker 06

  Oh, my husband's a fisherman and, and a real, um, you know, a real expert. So he would give me all of the, I feel like he's going to tell me off if I make an attempt and it's wrong. So I like a, like a, I don't know, like a.

• 20:20Speaker 05

  Someone else was, went fishing in your family because your father smoked the fish. It wasn't.

• 20:24Speaker 06

  It was my mother. She went, she went trout fishing. Yeah.

• 20:27Speaker 05

  And it wasn't big enough really to cook, but your dad smoked it for her.

• 20:32Speaker 06

  She, yeah, she did. She tried her hand at fly fishing for a while. But, um, my husband Clark, uh, had a fishing show called Fish of the Day. And the whole idea was pick a particular species, go and catch it and then have a chef prepare it. And so, yeah.

• 20:48Jessie Ware?

  Gig.

• 20:48Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 20:49Jessie Ware?

  And is that when you fell in love with him? When you saw, you tuned in to that TV show?

• 20:53Speaker 06

  No. Hunter gatherer.

• 20:55Jessie Ware?

  That's my catch right there.

• 20:57Speaker 06

  Well, we, you know, I do remember, Noria, he, he didn't have the, she took up that show while we were seeing each other. But he was, he's a very good fisherman. So I remember really early on thinking, I have to learn a hundred different ways with fish because we, we just had this abundance of fish. And I, you know, so I would start writing down different recipes so that you could have fish six days in a row and not be tired of it. He can cook fish beautifully as well.

• 21:27Speaker 05

  Where was your first date? Did you go to a restaurant?

• 21:30Speaker 06

  Um, what would I officially call our first date?

• 21:33Speaker 05

  Was it on a boat?

• 21:34Speaker 06

  We did go.

• 21:35Jessie Ware?

  Did he take you fishing?

• 21:36Speaker 06

  Well, he did. So.

• 21:37Jessie Ware?

  I mean, I would, if I was really good at it, I mean, I'd be like, hey, let's go fishing. I mean, you, you wanna show off, right?

• 21:42Speaker 06

  One of our, like, really, early on, one of our more memorable dates was he had a, he had a boat and so he took, he took me out.

• 21:50Speaker 05

  Oh, wow, that's so cool.

• 21:51Speaker 06

  And we just went out into the Hawaiki Gulf, so just outside, uh, just, you know, on the water's edge of Auckland. It was a beautiful summer's day. And we didn't go very far. There were dolphins. Like, honestly, there were dolphins.

• 22:05Jessie Ware?

  It was like, it was like the scene in Little Mermaid. You gotta kiss the girl. Like, the, the frogs are kissing, yeah, okay, got it.

• 22:11Speaker 06

  The dolphins were jumping over the boat and I chucked my line out and in I hauled this massive snapper. And he did say to me afterwards, because I think we got about, you know, I got a John Dory and a number of fish. And I remember afterwards him saying, it's not always like this.

• 22:27Speaker 05

  Oh, okay.

• 22:28Speaker 06

  But it was fun.

• 22:29Speaker 05

  Do you cut them into steaks or?

• 22:31Speaker 06

  You fillet them. So fillet them, yeah. And Clark's very good at filleting, so there's very little waste. And his, he told us him last Christmas, what do you want for Christmas? I want you to learn how to fillet fish.

• 22:44Speaker 06

  Because.

• 22:45Speaker 05

  Cause you're.

• 22:45Speaker 06

  When he comes back, he's out there on his own, you know, filleting for hours. And I think he just wants a bit of company out there filleting with him.

• 22:52Speaker 05

  Does your daughter like fish?

• 22:55Speaker 06

  She um, she did eat it and she's going through a phase of not.

• 22:59Jessie Ware?

  How old is she?

• 22:59Speaker 06

  Eating it.

• 23:00Jessie Ware?

  Six. Oh, I've got a six year old that doesn't like eating as well.

• 23:03Speaker 06

  Yeah, so uh, meat is now entirely off the menu.

• 23:07Jessie Ware?

  Mince for us. They've got really weird about.

• 23:10Speaker 06

  Spaghetti bolognese and I'm like. We'll only now eat the pasta, but used to eat the, the mince.

• 23:15Jessie Ware?

  I think, and now I'm being a fool that zhuzhing it up so it goes less. Oh, they'll eat the spaghetti bolognese at school. But not here. So why is the one at school better than ours?

• 23:25Speaker 06

  Yeah, cause I tried to get into the detail of what's the problem and I got something, I thought maybe it was the texture. So I tried, I even tried like a mashed lentil because I thought it might be the meat itself.

• 23:38Jessie Ware?

  Okay, and how did that go down just in there?

• 23:39Speaker 06

  A bit better.

• 23:40Jessie Ware?

  Oh, okay.

• 23:42Speaker 06

  Cause I, I really pulverized it. So it's a bit better, but still not a winner.

• 23:46Jessie Ware?

  You're living in Boston now, right?

• 23:48Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 23:49Jessie Ware?

  And is it a two year call? How long is the?

• 23:51Speaker 06

  It was meant to be three months.

• 23:53Jessie Ware?

  Oh.

• 23:53Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 23:54Jessie Ware?

  And how, how long have you been that up?

• 23:56Speaker 06

  Going on two years. Yeah.

• 23:57Jessie Ware?

  So how long do you think you'll be?

• 23:59Speaker 06

  Uh, I, I think we'll probably wrap up soon. Yeah, it's just, we, we got there and thought, well, that was a bit of an effort to get here. And we arrived in September and the weather was quite nice and we thought, well, why don't we stay a little bit longer? And then winter came.

• 24:13Jessie Ware?

  Uh, oh yeah.

• 24:14Speaker 06

  Um, but then you get out of it and you forget. It's like, it's like childbirth. You kind of get through the winter and then you think, oh well, we got through. We're okay. Why don't we do it again?

• 24:25Jessie Ware?

  So what's the atmosphere politically like over there at the minute?

• 24:29Speaker 06

  I'm, I'm always very aware that I'm living in someone else's.

• 24:32Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 24:33Speaker 06

  Democracy.

• 24:34Jessie Ware?

  Mm hmm.

• 24:35Speaker 06

  Um, but I think there are still a lot of people coming to terms with the change because I think it's a lot.

• 24:41Jessie Ware?

  It's a big change.

• 24:42Speaker 06

  And it's much more dramatic than the first experience. And so I think there's a real reckoning for people at the moment. Keeping in mind, I live in Massachusetts, which is a very different part of, of the country.

• 24:54Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, I think people thought, oh, it'll probably be okay more of the same, but it isn't. It feels quite different.

• 24:59Speaker 06

  It is very different. It is very different.

• 25:01Jessie Ware?

  Having an impact all over the world.

• 25:03Speaker 06

  It is. And I think, you know, coming from a place like New Zealand, you know, we're all, we've always been so attuned to other people's politics. Because it's always impacted us, you know, as a. Child of the eighties and you know, that was a period where, you know, New Zealand took a stand against nuclear testing because the French were testing nuclear weapons in the Pacific.

• 25:25Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 25:25Speaker 06

  And we were sending out our frigates in protest and it caused a big rift between the New Zealand and French government. But we were taking a stand. I then remember, you know, when we lost, we were aware that we'd lost some of our ozone layer because of the environmental impacts and people using certain products and the drift meant we burnt in the sun more than other people did. So we've, I think, always had a, this awareness that the world affects us and people's actions affect us. Uh, and you know, you see it in the climate debate in New Zealand now as well. Maybe it's just a small country mentality.

• 26:03Jessie Ware?

  I, I wanted to go back before, I'm gonna just get the food on, but I wanted to talk more about growing up um, in a Mormon household.

• 26:10Speaker 06

  Oh, yeah.

• 26:11Jessie Ware?

  And the idea of food and kind of you used to have lots of food.

• 26:15Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 26:15Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, you used to kind of store. Would you explain that to the listener about how that was and how that kind of?

• 26:20Speaker 06

  I was raised Mormon and uh, you know, I think, I don't know if this is unique to Mormon culture, but you know, you, we would organise a lot around food. I mean, all events would be um, food based. Alcohol free. So you're really focused on your food in that case. But we uh, there was, there's a practice in the Mormon church of keeping food stores. So, you know, food supply to, you know, support your family and look after yourselves should you ever need it. And in New Zealand, that's actually just basic civil defence protocol. Because we are the shaky Isles, we have a lot of earthquakes, we have, you know, floods. Um, it's a safe and beautiful country, but we're, you know, we're trained to be prepared.

• 27:05Speaker 06

  But it's part of Mormonism as well. And so we had food stores, um, but I don't really, you know, when I was a kid, I don't remember thinking. Oh, we're a bit weird because of it.

• 27:17Speaker 05

  Right.

• 27:18Speaker 06

  It was just part of, we had a, you know, a big cupboard in the shed that was always full. I was only really aware that it might be unusual when my friends would see it. Why have you got all that food? It was just basically baked beans and spaghetti and fruit and rice and flour. Um, but yeah, it was, I guess it was unusual and all our preserves.

• 27:38Speaker 05

  How did you, with all these apples?

• 27:41Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 27:41Speaker 05

  And all the, the success fruit, what did you do with?

• 27:44Speaker 06

  We, we bottled it. We would bottle it. Yep, I remember, you know, doing the boiling, the agar jars and lids and the big, the big rounds of bottling. We would preserve, um, we would make, um, apple purees, um, nashis, we would just slice. Uh, we had a few peaches as well. So it meant breakfast was always accompanied by some fruit preserve. But man, by the end of it, I hated nashis so much.

• 28:11Speaker 05

  So you haven't kind of kept that tradition going and you're.

• 28:15Speaker 06

  I love making a good plum sauce.

• 28:17Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 28:18Speaker 06

  Um, I like making a good relish. I, I haven't.

• 28:24Speaker 06

  I would like a, I'm like a, I like a good basic tomato relish, you know, and my, my plum sauce. You know, I like a good tart, a lot of malt, a malt heavy, malt vinegar heavy plum sauce.

• 28:41Speaker 06

  It's just a tangy, I thought it was pretty standard.

• 28:43Speaker 05

  I've never really made a plum sauce, if I'm being honest.

• 28:46Speaker 06

  Oh, it's the, it's the best.

• 28:47Speaker 05

  To go with what?

• 28:49Speaker 06

  Oh, like you'd put it with anything. Oh, duck is a bit fancy for me.

• 28:54Speaker 05

  So what would you put?

• 28:55Speaker 06

  I used to put my plum sauce, yeah, you'd have it with a good sausage, a good sausage or on the side of a steak.

• 29:00Speaker 05

  So like a ketchup?

• 29:01Speaker 06

  Like a ketchup substitute.

• 29:03Speaker 05

  Is it like a New Zealand thing?

• 29:05Speaker 06

  I didn't think it was, but the way you're reacting makes me think it is.

• 29:10Speaker 05

  I've never heard it.

• 29:11Speaker 06

  Sauce a New Zealand thing, Zach. I didn't think.

• 29:15Speaker 06

  Yeah, good, good plum sauce in the Edmunds cookbook. That's our, our sensei.

• 29:20Speaker 05

  Oh, Edmunds cookbook.

• 29:21Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 29:22Speaker 05

  Right, what would you, so just a quick recipe for your plum sauce.

• 29:27Speaker 06

  Oh god.

• 29:28Speaker 05

  All right.

• 29:28Speaker 06

  Mob vinegar plums.

• 29:31Speaker 05

  So it would go with like a cooked breakfast.

• 29:33Speaker 06

  Oh, oh yeah, you could put it, you could replace, substitute HP.

• 29:36Speaker 05

  Yes. What was in your batter when you were at the Golden Kiwi? Were you part of making the batter?

• 29:41Speaker 06

  No, so the Kovitch family who ran the shop, they would make up all the batter in advance, but it, it wouldn't be, it would be a basic.

• 29:50Speaker 05

  The Kovitch family, were they, were they from, were they New Zealanders born and bred?

• 29:54Speaker 06

  Yeah, well, they've, um, they'd had the store, certainly the family that I would have lived in the same town as I had for decades. And the, I can't quite remember, but I believe, I can't, I, I'll get the origin story wrong, I fear. But they'd had it for decades, decades when I worked there, yeah.

• 30:13Speaker 05

  So you, you're not an indigenous, you're not indigenous New Zealander. So where were all your family?

• 30:19Speaker 06

  I'm what they call, would call pakia.

• 30:21Speaker 05

  Pakia.

• 30:22Speaker 06

  Pakia, hmm, which is the Maori word for white New Zealander.

• 30:26Speaker 05

  Yeah, so you've been that generation?

• 30:28Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah, but my family, so on my father's side, his, um, mother's mother migrated from Scotland.

• 30:36Speaker 05

  Scotland, I remember that, and she, yeah, because she had the Scottish lament at her funeral, yeah.

• 30:42Speaker 06

  On my mother's side, there's, uh, her, uh, great, great grandfather was from Denmark. Um, and then there's a lot of Irish, Irish in my family as well.

• 30:53Speaker 05

  Where's your name, Jacinda?

• 30:55Speaker 06

  Jacinda came from, um, a book, with the, oh, just a baby name book.

• 31:01Speaker 05

  Oh, baby name, it's such a lovely name.

• 31:04Speaker 06

  Got no decent origin story. My mum and dad, my mum tells it that it was the only name that they agreed on, so, yeah.

• 31:13Speaker 05

  It was a good name.

• 31:14Speaker 06

  It's a good name. So my full name is Jacinda Kate Laurel. It was just meant to be Kate, but my father had the job of registering me. And he thought it would be a nice surprise for my mother to put her name into my middle name.

• 31:29Speaker 05

  How lovely.

• 31:30Speaker 06

  Lovely for him. Now my name does not fill, fit on any government form. So it's quite, yeah, I've got quite the long.

• 31:37Speaker 05

  I've never been to New Zealand. Jessie's been once and she thinks, yeah, she's got to come back for this.

• 31:46Jessie Ware?

  I've actually only been once and it was for Laneway Festival.

• 31:48Speaker 05

  Oh, did you?

• 31:49Jessie Ware?

  Apparently you were DJ.

• 31:52Speaker 05

  Jessie was singing there.

• 31:54Jessie Ware?

  Not, not, not the same year, I don't think.

• 31:56Speaker 05

  It wasn't.

• 31:56Jessie Ware?

  You were 2014, I think.

• 31:58Speaker 06

  Yes, yes, it would have been 2014.

• 32:00Jessie Ware?

  I think I was like 2013, we just missed each other. I could have been dancing to your set, Jacinda.

• 32:05Speaker 06

  In a silo. Mine was in a concrete silo.

• 32:07Jessie Ware?

  What would, uh, what was on the, um, the setlist, um, of, uh, Jacinda Ardern's, uh, DJ?

• 32:13Speaker 06

  Well, maybe, maybe I could provide it. So the whole, so I'm not a, I wouldn't consider myself to be an actual DJ. That's like, my husband was an actual DJ.

• 32:23Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 32:23Speaker 06

  I would call myself a tune selector.

• 32:26Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 32:26Speaker 06

  So.

• 32:27Speaker 05

  So which was the tune that got everyone going at the?

• 32:30Speaker 06

  I had a little, I mean, granted this was over 10 years ago. Um, I mostly did what I would describe as random covers. So I had like William Shatner covering Common People.

• 32:43Speaker 05

  Oh my God, I didn't even know that was a thing.

• 32:46Speaker 06

  Um, I had a little bit of, um.

• 32:49Speaker 05

  You're an indie girl then.

• 32:50Speaker 06

  I am an indie girl. Yeah, I'm an indie girl. Um, uh, I had a cover that the Finns did of a Chris Knox song called It's Love. It was, yeah, it was a, it was a random collection, but yeah, I remember people dancing. So I think it went off okay.

• 33:09Speaker 05

  So we ask everyone, what would be your last supper? You're going on a desert island for six months.

• 33:15Speaker 06

  I love that you do the desert island as opposed to you're on death row. It's a much more cheerful way to pronounce it.

• 33:20Speaker 05

  Me too. I couldn't dare, deal with the death row bit.

• 33:23Speaker 06

  So, um, I think that I would probably, as a starter, it's a heavy starter, but I would go for some kind of variation on a cheese roll.

• 33:34Speaker 05

  As a starter.

• 33:35Speaker 06

  As a starter. So a cheese roll, I don't think that's a thing here. It's a very New Zealand.

• 33:40Speaker 05

  No, I've heard of lobster rolls, but not cheese.

• 33:43Speaker 06

  It's not nearly as fancy. So think lobster roll with no lobster and cheese.

• 33:49Speaker 05

  Okay, so what sort of bread is it?

• 33:51Speaker 06

  It's white bread.

• 33:52Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 33:53Speaker 06

  And this is common in the South Island. I should be really pro- make sure that I'm clear about its origin.

• 33:58Speaker 05

  And that's where you're from?

• 33:59Speaker 06

  No, so I've just owned this because I love it so much. So it's a piece of white bread, crusts, crusts, oh, actually on or off, but I think most of them actually are crust on. And it's this, it's almost like a s- a spread. You've got a grated cheese, you've got like some reduced cream. And then that's your base. There's a lot of debate about some of the little additional bits and pieces that you put in there. But just think a cheesy spread, a really cheesy.

• 34:26Speaker 05

  So you mix, grate your cheese with cream?

• 34:29Speaker 06

  With a reduced cream.

• 34:31Speaker 05

  What's a reduced cream? I don't know what that is.

• 34:33Speaker 06

  No, no.

• 34:35Speaker 05

  Is it like, it's not mayonnaise?

• 34:36Speaker 06

  It's in a can. No, it's not, no, because it's not sweet. It's kind of like.

• 34:41Jessie Ware?

  Is it like a coconut cream?

• 34:43Speaker 06

  The easiest way to describe, I think, a cheese roll, and please forgive me New Zealand if I'm doing this badly. I would think, think like a cheese and onion dip with like grated cheese into it, put down the centre of white bread, rolled up and toasted.

• 34:56Jessie Ware?

  Sounds filthy and delicious.

• 34:58Speaker 06

  It's delicious.

• 34:58Speaker 05

  I think we need to know how to do that.

• 35:00Speaker 06

  I'll pull out, I'll pull out a recipe for you.

• 35:02Speaker 05

  Will you?

• 35:03Jessie Ware?

  So now we need the DJ set and the recipe for the plum sauce and the cheese roll.

• 35:08Speaker 06

  And the cheese roll.

• 35:08Jessie Ware?

  So would that be your starter?

• 35:10Speaker 06

  That'd be my starter.

• 35:10Speaker 05

  And where is that?

• 35:11Speaker 06

  So you roll it up, toast it, you put butter on the top and then toast it. So you, you eat it like.

• 35:16Speaker 05

  And what, how of, when do you eat it normally?

• 35:19Speaker 06

  Um, so it's probably like, I, some people down in the south, you could, they, you would sell pre-made cheese rolls as fundraisers. Um, and then you just keep them in a freezer and grill them. Uh, just have them on hand and grill them.

• 35:31Speaker 05

  Does your daughter like a cheese roll?

• 35:33Speaker 06

  She likes grilled cheese, so she probably would like a cheese roll.

• 35:36Jessie Ware?

  Has she been Americanized?

• 35:37Speaker 06

  No.

• 35:40Jessie Ware?

  The way you said that.

• 35:42Speaker 05

  Let's not peanut butter them in jelly yet.

• 35:45Jessie Ware?

  No, thank God.

• 35:46Speaker 06

  Well, no, no, it's like, she's actually, she's just very, she's, her, her New Zealand identity is really strong. You know, so we, we went to the Dollar Store the other day and she loves the Dollar Store. And so the person behind the registers said, where, where is your accent from? And she said, well, I'm from New Zealand. And she's, they said, do you live here? And she said, well, for now. And they, and she said, do you like it here? And Neve said, well, I like the Dollar Store.

• 36:17Jessie Ware?

  God, she's already a politician.

• 36:19Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 36:20Speaker 06

  You could see her really thinking about it.

• 36:22Speaker 05

  That must have been a big decision about moving because you'd disrupt her education for a while.

• 36:27Speaker 06

  Well, she hadn't started school, so that made it easier. So she started in, in America.

• 36:32Speaker 05

  Yeah. And then when you go back, which part of New Zealand will you live in?

• 36:36Speaker 06

  We go back to Auckland.

• 36:37Speaker 05

  You go back and you'll live, oh, you've got your house there still. Okay.

• 36:40Speaker 06

  It's home.

• 36:41Speaker 05

  Okay. So we've got to start a cheese roll.

• 36:43Speaker 06

  So we're gonna have a cheese roll and then I think we'll have a kingfish curry.

• 36:48Speaker 05

  Oh, wow.

• 36:49Speaker 06

  But a curry that's lemongrass, tamarind.

• 36:53Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 36:53Speaker 06

  Coconut, uh, coconut milk. It's a, it's a Peter Gordon recipe.

• 36:57Speaker 05

  I think you're going to love, oh, I've got Peter Gordon cookbook.

• 37:00Speaker 06

  He's so great.

• 37:00Speaker 05

  The Sugar Club cookbook.

• 37:02Speaker 06

  Oh, he's so amazing. This recipe, um, which I first discovered because he did it on Clark's show, has tofu in it with the kingfish.

• 37:10Speaker 05

  Oh, wow.

• 37:10Speaker 06

  And it's really beautiful. None of the things I'm saying go together in any way. These are just independently things that I like to eat.

• 37:18Jessie Ware?

  Great.

• 37:19Speaker 06

  The third thing, am I allowed to give two and just say, well, either.

• 37:24Speaker 05

  Yeah. Can you have a bit of both?

• 37:25Speaker 06

  For pure nostalgia, I would either have my mother's trifle or my, my nana's rice pudding. They're just, yeah.

• 37:33Speaker 05

  Yeah, the rice pudding was a big thing for her, wasn't it?

• 37:36Speaker 06

  So my nana had a, cooked in a coal range. And so I remember when an electric oven arrived in her house. I think my grandfather bought it for like at Christmas or something. And so this electric oven shows up and is suddenly on one wall of the kitchen. And I barely remember her using it. She always cooked on her coal range. And so there was just something about rice pudding cooked in that coal range. And she would always make me my own special rice pudding because I didn't like steamed pudding. So if ever steamed pudding was on the menu, I'd get this, this little tin dish with my own little rice pudding.

• 38:16Speaker 05

  And did she make it with whole, whole milk? Did she put cream in the rice pudding or?

• 38:20Speaker 06

  The thing that I've, and this is the unfortunate thing of kind of losing her at an age where I didn't really have those kinds of conversations because I was young. All I remember is knowing it wasn't an eggy one. It never tasted eggy to me, you know?

• 38:35Speaker 05

  Rice pudding, is it, does it taste eggy?

• 38:37Speaker 06

  Well, there you, there's some versions that can be eggy.

• 38:41Speaker 05

  I've never really cooked it. I don't eat rice pudding enough.

• 38:44Speaker 06

  Yeah, it is such comfort food. So knowing my nana, because my grandfather's staple breakfast was porridge made with salt because.

• 38:55Speaker 05

  The porridge with salt.

• 38:56Speaker 06

  Porridge with salt. And I still cook my porridge with salt.

• 38:59Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 38:59Speaker 06

  Uh.

• 39:00Speaker 05

  A lot of salt?

• 39:01Speaker 06

  Not too much. His was saltier than mine and.

• 39:03Speaker 05

  We do it with salt. Yeah, we always put a pinch of salt. Jessie's husband loves porridge so much, he would have it as a dessert, like rice pudding.

• 39:12Speaker 06

  Well.

• 39:12Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 39:13Speaker 06

  But my, my grandfather would have it with cream on top. Yeah.

• 39:16Speaker 05

  Or cinnamon and things like that. Yeah.

• 39:18Speaker 06

  A lot of brown sugar.

• 39:19Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 39:19Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 39:20Speaker 05

  Yeah. Did you put jam in your rice pudding?

• 39:22Speaker 06

  No, no. Pretty plain. It was pretty plain. It was delicious.

• 39:27Speaker 05

  Drink? Do you drink now?

• 39:30Speaker 06

  I do. Yes, yes. Yes, I do. Yes, I do.

• 39:33Speaker 05

  Have your first glass of wine?

• 39:35Speaker 06

  Oh, I would have been in my, I would have been in my twenties.

• 39:37Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 39:38Speaker 06

  Twenty, I don't know, I had a guess, I was maybe twenty four, twenty three, twenty four, something like that.

• 39:44Speaker 05

  Like it?

• 39:45Speaker 06

  Yeah, I, I.

• 39:46Speaker 05

  Cause you have fab wines in New Zealand.

• 39:48Speaker 06

  We do.

• 39:49Speaker 05

  I know.

• 39:49Speaker 06

  The great thing about coming to alcohol a little later in life is that you, there aren't things that you, well, in my experience anyway, there aren't things that you overdid so much in your youth that you can't go near them now.

• 40:00Speaker 05

  Okay. Did, did.

• 40:02Speaker 06

  So I like Scotch a lot.

• 40:03Speaker 05

  Oh, do you?

• 40:04Speaker 06

  Yeah, I do. So maybe, I don't know.

• 40:06Speaker 05

  Where from?

• 40:07Speaker 06

  Scottish. I like a good, I like a good, I like a good Isla. I like a good Highlands. Is it all single malt?

• 40:15Speaker 05

  Yeah, you like, not the Japanese whisky.

• 40:17Speaker 06

  I actually think the Japanese whisky is really good as well.

• 40:19Speaker 05

  Cause you're quite new, you're ne- you're not far, are you?

• 40:22Speaker 06

  Yeah, well, I guess 12 hours, we consider that close.

• 40:24Speaker 05

  Yeah, quite close, yeah. But I, I.

• 40:27Speaker 06

  One flight.

• 40:27Speaker 05

  I remember going on Air, Air New Zealand.

• 40:30Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 40:30Speaker 05

  Used to fly to LA. I'm not sure if they still do.

• 40:33Speaker 06

  Yes, they do.

• 40:34Speaker 05

  They still do.

• 40:35Speaker 06

  Direct routes out of um Houston, San Francisco, LA and New York.

• 40:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, but they never did, they used to do it from London.

• 40:43Speaker 06

  Ah, right.

• 40:44Speaker 05

  To LA.

• 40:45Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 40:45Speaker 05

  And it was the best.

• 40:46Speaker 06

  NZ one, I think it was. NZ one was the route.

• 40:49Speaker 05

  That's right. And they, and they had the most fantastic, it was Lord of the Rings for their safety.

• 40:55Speaker 06

  Yes, video.

• 40:56Speaker 05

  Do you remember? Yeah, it was so funny. But I remember the most exquisite wines.

• 41:00Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 41:01Speaker 05

  And great food.

• 41:02Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 41:03Speaker 05

  And it was just so comfortable. Even if you were in economy, it was very comfortable.

• 41:08Speaker 06

  Air New Zealand.

• 41:08Speaker 05

  So bring it back to London.

• 41:10Speaker 06

  Air New Zealand do a great job. They do do a great job. They're a great airline. I always feel like, actually, it's such a strange thing. But when I step onto an Air New Zealand flight, anywhere in the world, I feel like I'm home already.

• 41:21Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 41:22Speaker 06

  It's, it's nice.

• 41:22Speaker 05

  It must feel very comforting for you, yeah.

• 41:25Speaker 06

  And the excellence.

• 41:25Speaker 05

  And all those laws of the hobbits, yeah.

• 41:27Speaker 06

  Yeah. It was a real thing for, and, and I assume it still is really. The Air New Zealand safety videos are a thing themselves.

• 41:34Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 41:34Speaker 06

  You know, it's, they, people actually would watch them on YouTube because they were.

• 41:39Speaker 05

  It's so fun.

• 41:48Speaker 00

  Hey, we're Nick and Jack, hosts of The Best One Yet. Behind every episode, there's research, emails, spreadsheets and our shared Google Doc, the headline hammer. With Google Workspace with Gemini, Google's AI is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalized AI for the way we work. That means less time on the work around the work and more time finding the stories worth talking about. Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at goo.gle/workspacewithGemini. That's goo.gle/workspacewithGemini.

• 42:21Speaker 01

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• 43:56Jessie Ware?

  I think you're so mad. So sorry, you're wearing white. I'm wearing white. This is Easter belfry stew, is an amazing chef. Mmm. It's a tomato and turmeric coconut. Beautiful. Cod curry with udon noodles. Really, really nice. So delicious. How good is this? Really delicious. And actually, I hate to say that I haven't made a big effort, but it was really easy to make. It's really nice. It's quick.

• 44:20Speaker 05

  Have you met Barack Obama?

• 44:22Speaker 06

  Yeah. One of the... I don't know if surprising is the right word, but memorable. And and I wrote about this, but in a very brief way, but one of the more memorable bilaterals, I remember having, and bilaterals are such an unusual thing. Having these formal meetings where everyone is watching your conversation.

• 44:43Jessie Ware?

  Like the one that Trump just did with Zelensky, which was horrendous.

• 44:47Speaker 06

  Which is not the norm in a bilateral, but sometimes they'll be over lunch or they'll be over a tea or, but I remember having lunch with Chancellor Merkel. Uh, and she was just extraordinary.

• 45:02Jessie Ware?

  She interesting.

• 45:03Speaker 06

  She really was. And I think the thing that really stood out to me, when you're from a small country, you're you're you're used to often transacting foreign policy in a very particular way. There's not always a lot of, it's not always conversational. But she was so interested in the world that even after being in office for well over a decade, she would ask questions and she wanted your perspective and and, you know, I just think maintaining curiosity when you're a leader is so important. I think it's a leadership trait to maintain curiosity.

• 45:37Jessie Ware?

  Isn't that interesting that you've just named another woman as well?

• 45:40Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 45:41Speaker 05

  But I I wonder if all the the more liberal thinking people that have been in power and developed more liberal politics, we've now got this terrible populist backlash. And I wonder if it's, I mean, I don't know, I'm not a politician, whether it's anything to do with that.

• 46:01Speaker 06

  You know, I think there's so many thoughtful people and scholars and people who will put a large evidence base behind their analysis of what's happening in the world. Um, but I think life feels really hard and is hard for a lot of people. And people are looking for solutions and ways to make their life feel easier. And sometimes that means they'll reach out to, you know, politics that are different to what they've had.

• 46:26Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 46:26Speaker 06

  But I think the idea that in doing so, to win, you need to to, you know, abandon empathy and to abandon compassion. I think that that's, those are leadership traits that we need more of in the world, not less of.

• 46:43Speaker 05

  But I think that marked your leadership, if you don't mind me saying, being too fangirly. But it was, it marked your leadership, that that your compassion and your.

• 46:55Jessie Ware?

  Your connection with the people that you were serving.

• 46:58Speaker 06

  I feel in a, in a way that I was lucky that my road to leadership was so unexpected. I had no, there was no time because I became leader of my party in a bit of a surprise situation. Seven weeks out from the election. Uh, no one could tell me who I needed to be or how I needed to reinvent myself. Or what character traits I'd pulled with voters. Uh, I could only be myself. And, uh, that meant that, you know, the fact I wore my heart on my sleeve, I just took that with me. And tested, you know, in real time, whether or not that was something that voters thought was weak

• 47:39Speaker 06

  or made me a lesser leader. And as it turned out, it, it didn't. You know, people, people still supported, um, still supported us. Yeah.

• 47:50Jessie Ware?

  Um, you talk about the fact that you found out that you were pregnant when you'd kind of just.

• 47:57Jessie Ware?

  Started and.

• 47:59Speaker 06

  My surprise pregnancy.

• 48:00Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, terrible.

• 48:01Speaker 06

  Which isn't really meant to happen when you're in your thirties, really, the old surprise pregnancy, but there it is.

• 48:06Jessie Ware?

  What was the name of your friend that brought you the pregnancy test?

• 48:09Speaker 06

  Julia.

• 48:09Jessie Ware?

  Julia, yeah.

• 48:10Speaker 06

  Yes, yeah.

• 48:11Jessie Ware?

  You know, the feeling of, um, having to like deliver speeches and, uh, having morning sickness and.

• 48:17Speaker 06

  It was bad.

• 48:19Jessie Ware?

  Dealing with the fact that you are potentially gonna become a mother. And also you've just taken on this big role. Must have been.

• 48:29Speaker 06

  Yeah, and, and the thing, the thing that was really tough was having that experience, but also feeling like I couldn't really talk about that experience because, you know, so few. I mean, women are multitasking all the time, every day. They are doing all of the things that are expected of them with morning sickness and with many other, you know, other issues going on in their lives. And I felt like, look, I'm only the second leader in the world to have a baby while in office. That that's probably, I'm pushing the boundaries out. Who's the first? Benazir Buto. Of course. And so I didn't feel like I could talk openly about the experiences of pregnancy in office, because it was enough that I was doing it.

• 49:14Speaker 06

  If it ever looked like it was, you know. Hard. If it if I looked like it was hard, or if it was looking like it was affecting my job, I thought that would. Weakness. That I thought that would be a disservice to women.

• 49:26Jessie Ware?

  But then that's just, that's the frustration.

• 49:29Speaker 06

  The reality.

• 49:30Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, it's reality, but it's also that thing, and I think so many women, whether they are being a prime minister or not, it's that feeling of feeling like you can do it all. Because and you must not complain and you must appear, because it's inspiring to people, of course, but also you don't want.

• 49:47Speaker 06

  Yeah, it.

• 49:48Jessie Ware?

  People to be like, well.

• 49:50Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 49:51Jessie Ware?

  You can't do that, because you're so much, you it's impossible, you know what I mean? You have to become superwoman.

• 49:55Speaker 06

  It's incredibly hard, because, but, you know, there's lots of people in this boat. You want to show that you can, that you can do it, that you can, of course, no one should question that a woman should be able to have a leadership role and still be a mother. But in trying to prove that, you then feel like you can't actually demonstrate the realities of it, or that you are meant to look like you're a superhuman. I remember not wanting to give that perception, though, because I didn't want to create this impossible standard. And I I remember this woman coming up to me once, uh, and saying to me, oh, I don't know, I think I was in the supermarket, I was like, I don't know how you do it all.

• 50:32Speaker 06

  And my response to her was, I don't do it all. And that was a real moment for me of thinking about, how do I put on display more that? Actually, Clark, Clark is the one looking after Neve most of the time. My mother and my mother-in-law helped me a lot. Even my colleagues, while Neve was being breastfed, they would hand her around at a meeting. I had a whole village. Mm hmm. And I started to think about, how can I put that village on display? So that I'm not creating an impossible standard, that just no one should be expected to to meet. How long maternity, how long did you have off? I took six weeks. Mm hmm.

• 51:11Speaker 06

  Um, uh, and, you know, physically, I was older when I had Neve, so by the time I went back, I was thirty eight. So I I yeah, I needed the time to recover to start. I needed that time to walk upright.

• 51:25Jessie Ware?

  Oh, you're making out that six weeks is like a while.

• 51:29Speaker 06

  I had a year.

• 51:31Jessie Ware?

  I I mean, it's we're very, very different, but what you're saying rings so true with me. I mean, I I had the most amount of success with my music whilst also having children. And I wonder whether and you'd have kind of other pop star girls being like, this is really inspiring that you're doing. And I'd be like that, being like, this is so like, kind of.

• 51:54Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah. Cause you you want, you you you want to encourage people to see it like, but you also don't want to be unrealistic. But I think the I and this was, again, it'll be different in every area, but for me, it was actually, let's not create the impossible expectation. Let let's everyone look at what we can do to make it easier for anyone else.

• 52:17Jessie Ware?

  But do do you I mean, and this is not because I believe that you should have regrets. Do you have any regrets about, cause I was not leading a country, but this idea of like your career.

• 52:28Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 52:29Jessie Ware?

  And this defining moment in your career.

• 52:31Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 52:31Jessie Ware?

  But also the level of responsibility and expectation happens whilst you're also discovering how to become a mother.

• 52:39Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 52:39Jessie Ware?

  And you've got this little person.

• 52:41Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 52:41Jessie Ware?

  Is there anything you would have done differently? Um, oh, it's it's kind of an impossible question because.

• 52:47Speaker 06

  I think a lot about.

• 52:48Jessie Ware?

  So unique.

• 52:49Speaker 06

  I think a lot about this because it actually taught me something about being a parent and holding guilt.

• 52:56Jessie Ware?

  Hmm.

• 52:57Speaker 06

  Uh, and I think what it taught me was that it's always there. Because if any job is going to give you not an excuse, but a reason to not feel the weight of guilt as much, it would probably be running a country. You know, yes, I'm missing this out on this thing.

• 53:15Jessie Ware?

  But I'm doing something important.

• 53:16Speaker 06

  But I'm doing something important. So, you know, I knew that intellectually and yet I still felt the guilt. And so actually, I think I came to terms with the fact that I'll always feel it. It's just there. I think when they hand you a baby, they give you your allocation of parental guilt. And it you'll just experience it at at different points and different inflections, but it's always there.

• 53:38Jessie Ware?

  Hmm.

• 53:38Speaker 06

  And so for me, it was about. Instead of thinking about the guilt, thinking about regret, what will I regret missing? And how can I, how can I reduce down some of those moments? And when I looked at it like that, there were ways that I could have less regret. Yeah, but not less guilt.

• 53:59Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, I mean, you talk about kind of reaching this level of the burnout and just being like, I can't, I don't think I can lead in the same way, but did it all just get too much as well with the, with the juggling?

• 54:10Speaker 06

  Yeah, and so I, I, I kept thinking of other ways to express it because I remember what I felt being really clear in my mind when I made the decision to leave, that it wasn't, it was something other than burnout.

• 54:21Jessie Ware?

  Uh huh.

• 54:21Speaker 06

  Cause I think, you know, burnout rightly or wrongly leaves this impression that you're kind of a shell of yourself and, and you're in the corner and you've got a fragility to you and you just can't keep going. I could keep going, but I didn't think I could do justice to the job. And I came into the role, uh, you know, with a really strong sense of responsibility. I, I need to do this job because my leader's left and we need someone to run in the election. And, uh, you know, my, my team is supporting me. I've got to do this job and I've got to do it to the best of my ability. And I think sometimes for some people, the reason we don't leave is that sense of responsibility, the people we'll be letting down. But when I started to think about, well, if I'm not doing the job as well as I should, I'm letting people down too.

• 55:05Speaker 05

  But no one felt you weren't doing the job as well. It must have been within you.

• 55:09Speaker 06

  Uh, yeah, it was within me and I think it's because I also, having had a volcanic eruption and a pandemic and a, you know, a, a domestic terror attack. I, I knew that, uh, what it took if another thing landed and something's always there waiting. And I thought, I can, I can, you know, I can go, you know, I can keep going with the status quo, but the moment that extra thing lands, have I, have I got enough in reserves? And I knew I wasn't the only one who could do that job. You know, I think if you lead well, you've always got people who are ready to take over. Well, this looks semi-fredo to me.

• 55:46Jessie Ware?

  Um, I, I don't know. I'm not a purg person really, so.

• 55:49Speaker 05

  So what is it? Other grapes?

• 55:51Jessie Ware?

  Well, the thing is, it's Alison Roman, who I love, but it's got, it's got whipped cream in it and Greek yogurt. So I'm a bit worried it's a bit icy.

• 55:57Speaker 06

  But my mother-in-law has this amazing ice cream recipe.

• 56:02Speaker 06

  Six hundred mils.

• 56:03Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 56:04Speaker 06

  Of cream, you whip it, so just standard whipped cream. And then pour in a can of condensed milk.

• 56:13Jessie Ware?

  Stunning.

• 56:14Speaker 06

  And then take your favourite chocolate bar. I, I choose a crunchy.

• 56:17Jessie Ware?

  Like that, like that.

• 56:18Speaker 06

  And just blitz it to whatever consistency of chunk that you like in your ice cream. Mix it in, freeze it, it'll be the best ice cream.

• 56:27Jessie Ware?

  That's.

• 56:27Speaker 06

  I don't wanna say you've ever had, cause it's a bold statement, but it's very good.

• 56:31Jessie Ware?

  How many crunches?

• 56:33Speaker 06

  She, she uses one, but I actually probably would go at least two. I'd go two. And chunky.

• 56:38Jessie Ware?

  Nice.

• 56:39Speaker 06

  Mm.

• 56:40Jessie Ware?

  Well, this is icy.

• 56:41Speaker 06

  It's still, it's still really nice. It's really nice.

• 56:45Jessie Ware?

  It's, it is what it is.

• 56:46Speaker 06

  But next, next, you know, for your.

• 56:48Jessie Ware?

  I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna say, oh, my friend Jacinda. Gave me a little recipe and that is what I'm gonna do. Six hundred mils.

• 56:56Speaker 06

  So it'll be, it'll be a can that big of condensed milk. Your standard condensed milk can, yeah. Oh, and a teaspoon of vanilla.

• 57:03Jessie Ware?

  Um, you're leaving London soon, I think.

• 57:06Speaker 06

  Mm-hmm.

• 57:07Jessie Ware?

  Um, what will you be looking forward to getting back to in Boston?

• 57:12Speaker 06

  Do you mean food-wise or do you mean generally?

• 57:14Jessie Ware?

  I mean, obviously your child first and foremost, but food, food-wise.

• 57:17Speaker 06

  Um, I haven't been there for a while, but it is my daughter's favourite place to go. It's a little Spanish tapas. Place called Dali that has been around since the eighties and it is, as the name implies, it's just chaotic and full of character. Um, and yeah, we celebrated most birthdays here and I think mostly because my daughter loves the ritualistic humiliation, that they'll come over with tambourines and a candlestick with a frog on it. Light it and then every staff member will dance around your table.

• 57:51Jessie Ware?

  I love that.

• 57:53Speaker 06

  Yeah, and my daughter just loves it.

• 57:55Jessie Ware?

  Jacinda Ardern, it's been such an honour to meet you.

• 57:59Speaker 06

  So nice to talk with you.

• 58:00Jessie Ware?

  Wonderful.

• 58:01Speaker 06

  Thank you for being here.

• 58:02Jessie Ware?

  Thank you so much.

• 58:04Speaker 06

  No, I loved it. Thank you for being my first discussion about the book.

• 58:09Speaker 05

  I'm sure it will. Honestly, it's such a beautiful book.

• 58:12Speaker 06

  Thank you.

• 58:12Speaker 05

  And it's, it's a family saga, I think, of your life. And yeah, but you write, you've got to write a novel.

• 58:19Jessie Ware?

  Maybe you can be in the new like succession writers' room or something.

• 58:22Speaker 05

  You have got a novel in there.

• 58:24Speaker 06

  Oh, do you know what? I just finished The Bee Sting and thought, how do people write like that?

• 58:29Jessie Ware?

  Oh my god, that was unbelievable.

• 58:31Speaker 06

  It's so beautiful. I mean, yeah, I mean, mine is very different to this.

• 58:36Speaker 05

  But you write beautifully. You bring characters alive. And that's the important thing. They felt real.

• 58:43Speaker 06

  It took me well over a year because I had to learn how to write. So, yeah, so thank you for that.

• 58:48Speaker 05

  Well, you write beautifully. Definitely should write more.

• 59:05Jessie Ware?

  Jacinda Ardern, what a guest. Such a brilliant woman, so inspiring, so interesting. Shared it all. It was really glorious to have her. And I have to say, that recipe, Easter. You are amazing.

• 59:21Speaker 05

  How do you spell her name?

• 59:22Jessie Ware?

  I X T A.

• 59:24Speaker 05

  Oh, I thought it was.

• 59:25Jessie Ware?

  She used to work with Ottolenghi in the test kitchens.

• 59:28Speaker 05

  I'm definitely buying that. But it looked easy.

• 59:31Jessie Ware?

  It was quite easy. However, Easter makes it easy. It's just like you make the sambar, which she says you should have just in your fridge for any curries. Because you could do that with something else.

• 59:43Speaker 05

  You could do it with tofu, couldn't you? Or vegetables.

• 59:46Jessie Ware?

  That would be right on your list.

• 59:47Speaker 05

  No, I was thinking for Jill and Johnny, if I ever have them.

• 59:50Jessie Ware?

  Or she says with rice, you could put that into rice. Delicious. She's amazing. You're amazing, Easter. And then the Alison Roman semifredo, I probably should have brought it out when you told me to, because it was a little bit hard. However, light. And tasty. It tasted good for you. Yeah, because it only has honey in and a bit of Greek yogurt and some whipped cream and fresh berries. They can give that to their children. Yeah, they'll have that. It's on their five a day. Yeah. For Sammy Fredo. Thank you, Jacinda, for coming on. A different kind of power is out now, and I can't wait to join you at Laneway sometime in the future. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week.

• 1:00:49Speaker 00

  Hey, we're Nick and Jack, hosts of The Best One Yet. Behind every episode, there's research, emails, spreadsheets, and our shared Google Doc, the headline hammer. With Google Workspace with Gemini, Google's AI is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalized AI for the way we work. That means less time on the work around the work and more time finding the stories worth talking about. Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at g o o dot G L E slash Workspace with Gemini. That's g o o dot G L E slash Workspace with Gemini.

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