Second Helpings - Stanley Tucci

We’re travelling back to autumn 2021 and the start of series 12 where fellow foodie and Hollywood superstar, Stanley Tucci joined us. Mum had just come back from her holidays and I had just had my third baby! Stanley talks to us about growing up in New York, filming his TV show ‘Searching For Italy’ & his fight against cancer. He celebrates his mother’s cooking (& her famous lunchbox lunches!) & reveals his less than fine dining experience with Meryl Streep. Stanley’s food memoir ‘Taste’ is fantastic and is out 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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• 1:36Jessie Ware?

  Hello and welcome to Second Helpings. And this week, we have, well, the much-loved.

• 1:42Speaker 04

  Much-loved and such a fabulous guest, the gorgeous Stanley Tucci.

• 1:47Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, he was the season opener for our season 12 in October 2021.

• 1:53Jessie Ware?

  And we'd recorded it just after your 70th party, Mum.

• 1:57Speaker 04

  So it must have been late October.

• 1:59Jessie Ware?

  Stanley Tucci is Hollywood royalty. He's in Hunger Games, Devil Wears Prada, Conclave, Julie and Julia. He'd also just won an Emmy for Searching for Italy and his memoir had just come out, Taste. And I think he's done another one since. Mum, what did you make? You made, I remember.

• 2:16Speaker 04

  I made tagliata.

• 2:17Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 2:18Speaker 04

  I made something simple because Stanley doesn't like spice. And so I made tagliata and I can't remember what I served it with.

• 2:26Jessie Ware?

  Sauverde, roasted asparagus with tomatoes and pine nuts.

• 2:29Speaker 04

  And then I think I made a polenta cake with orange.

• 2:33Jessie Ware?

  But I had forgotten the orange that you wanted me to bring for the mascarpone, so we had to borrow one from next door.

• 2:39Speaker 04

  What I remember most about that occasion was drinking at least two bottles of wine.

• 2:45Jessie Ware?

  Yes, he rivalled Yanis from Foals on getting through the wine.

• 2:49Speaker 04

  And having fun.

• 2:51Jessie Ware?

  Here he is, Stanley Tucci, coming up in second helping.

• 3:01Speaker 05

  Cheers. Cheers. What a pleasure. My god, thank you.

• 3:05Speaker 04

  Well, I hope the food's up to snuff.

• 3:08Speaker 05

  Come on, you guys have cooked for, come on, are you kidding? You're, you're like,

• 3:14Speaker 05

  the queens of food. Is it bad?

• 3:17Jessie Ware?

  Did Stanley bring this?

• 3:18Speaker 05

  No, I didn't.

• 3:19Jessie Ware?

  Good, because I was about to be like, Mum, that's fucking rude.

• 3:21Speaker 04

  It's just interesting. It's not like, it's very dry. What do you think?

• 3:26Jessie Ware?

  Oh no, you're both making.

• 3:27Speaker 04

  What, 12 quid a bottle?

• 3:30Jessie Ware?

  She really put, pushed the boat out for you, Stanley.

• 3:32Speaker 05

  That's weird.

• 3:33Jessie Ware?

  Okay, let's just.

• 3:34Speaker 05

  Yeah. Sorry, I don't mean to be rude.

• 3:36Jessie Ware?

  No, I'm glad that like.

• 3:38Speaker 04

  But I didn't, can we have this wine?

• 3:41Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:41Jessie Ware?

  Have anything but that rosé?

• 3:44Speaker 05

  No.

• 3:44Speaker 04

  I have got some red to have.

• 3:45Speaker 05

  Do you want me to crack it open?

• 3:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:50Speaker 05

  Do you live near each other?

• 3:53Jessie Ware?

  Yes. Near enough. Near enough, yeah.

• 3:56Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:56Jessie Ware?

  Um, I live in southeast London.

• 3:59Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 4:00Jessie Ware?

  And this is southwest London.

• 4:01Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 4:01Jessie Ware?

  Where do you live?

• 4:03Speaker 05

  Uh, southwest, Barnes.

• 4:04Jessie Ware?

  Oh, nice.

• 4:05Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 4:06Jessie Ware?

  Love Barnes.

• 4:06Speaker 05

  Yeah, I love it.

• 4:07Jessie Ware?

  How long you been there?

• 4:08Speaker 05

  Eight years.

• 4:10Jessie Ware?

  I'm not, you like, you're kind of a Londoner now.

• 4:12Speaker 05

  Completely. Can't you tell by my accent?

• 4:16Jessie Ware?

  Do you just, do you miss the States?

• 4:20Speaker 05

  I miss my family.

• 4:21Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 4:22Speaker 05

  I miss my parents. I haven't seen my parents for almost two years. And that is, and I used to live when, I used to live, that's because of the pandemic. But I used to live, um, my parents were still living in the house that I grew up in. When I moved from Westchester, New York, and I was living ten minutes away. So it was, I even see them all the time.

• 4:42Jessie Ware?

  Is that quite a common Italian thing to do, to not fly too far from your nest?

• 4:45Speaker 05

  Yeah, not, not as much anymore, but the first generations, like my parents, like my, well, my, my grandparents came over, but like, yeah, they, they, my parents never lived too far away from them. And then I ended up not living too far away from my parents. Um, let's try this one.

• 5:01Jessie Ware?

  No, I know I like this.

• 5:02Speaker 05

  Do you know what? This, you know you like this.

• 5:04Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, I love it.

• 5:04Speaker 05

  Oh, so you were just giving me the cheap stuff? Cause you were saving this for yourself, for after the podcast.

• 5:09Jessie Ware?

  Hey, listen, listen.

• 5:10Speaker 05

  Hey, thanks.

• 5:10Jessie Ware?

  Twelve quid on a bottle for my. Twelve pounds for me is a lot, and it was reduced from fifteen.

• 5:15Speaker 05

  Really?

• 5:16Jessie Ware?

  Yeah. Really, you should have.

• 5:17Speaker 05

  Cause nobody was buying it.

• 5:20Speaker 05

  Well, I must pour it right into my microphone.

• 5:22Jessie Ware?

  You're right, exactly. Oh, my god. No, I love this one.

• 5:26Speaker 05

  You like this one?

• 5:27Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, let's hope it's a bit better, yeah, I like it. Now, you're gonna have to say you like this one too, Sammy. Actually, I feel like we're getting on that you'll be like, you know what, I'm not sure about it. No, this is nice.

• 5:38Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 5:38Jessie Ware?

  Not, it's not really heavy enough.

• 5:40Speaker 05

  No.

• 5:40Jessie Ware?

  But it's fine.

• 5:41Speaker 05

  Perfect.

• 5:42Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, for what we need.

• 5:42Speaker 05

  Not too woody.

• 5:44Jessie Ware?

  Are you a wine connoisseur?

• 5:46Speaker 04

  Probably is, he's just bought wine for us darling.

• 5:48Jessie Ware?

  I mean, he bought two lovely parcels.

• 5:50Speaker 04

  I haven't given an opening.

• 5:51Speaker 05

  Nice bags.

• 5:52Jessie Ware?

  They are nice bags.

• 5:53Speaker 05

  The wine is.

• 5:54Jessie Ware?

  But we appreciate it.

• 5:55Speaker 05

  No, I I'm not a wine connoisseur by any means. I only know what I like.

• 5:59Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 6:00Speaker 05

  And I'm not, I don't go for the big fancy sort of stuff, you know, I always try to find a bargain.

• 6:05Speaker 04

  Do you not like Italian wines?

• 6:07Speaker 05

  No, no, I love Italian wines.

• 6:08Speaker 04

  Primativo.

• 6:10Speaker 05

  Primativo is delicious, yeah. And I really love any of the, like, basically any of the wines from the, from Piemonte, like that Longae area where, you know, the Barbaresco and the Barolo and all that sort of.

• 6:20Speaker 04

  Barolo.

• 6:21Speaker 05

  The, yeah, all that, it's like so good. It doesn't have to be like the really expensive ones or anything, it's just.

• 6:26Speaker 04

  Do you go on holiday in Italy?

• 6:28Speaker 05

  When we, yes, we we used to before this happened.

• 6:31Speaker 04

  Where's your favourite place?

• 6:33Speaker 05

  That's very hard to say, I don't know.

• 6:34Speaker 04

  Do you go seaside or?

• 6:35Speaker 05

  Sometimes, sometimes.

• 6:37Speaker 04

  Or the Tuscan hills?

• 6:38Speaker 05

  Sometimes, wherever, you know, we rent different places, different.

• 6:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 6:43Speaker 05

  Times, you know, I I I really do like up north a lot, like I love Lake Como and I just think that's so beautiful.

• 6:49Jessie Ware?

  Well, that's where you met your wife.

• 6:51Speaker 05

  That's where I met my wife. If I could, if I could live someplace.

• 6:56Speaker 04

  Beyond the edge of Lake Como.

• 6:56Speaker 05

  I mean, obviously I live here, but I, yeah, if I could have another something. Can I grab a little of that ice over there?

• 7:02Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, of course. Um, so you have a TV programme that has just come out.

• 7:08Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 7:09Jessie Ware?

  Um, Searching for Italy.

• 7:10Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 7:11Jessie Ware?

  And some friends of mine, such as Bella Mackie, who listens to the podcast, was so in love with this programme. She said, I'm not, I'm, I can't tell you anything about this because it's not out yet. So can you tell us about Searching for Italy?

• 7:24Speaker 05

  Yes, I can. Searching for Italy is this, CNN came to me about two and a half years ago and they said, do you have any ideas for a show? And and I said, yes, I have three different ideas. One, one was about. Cancer, and I saw their eyes glaze over. And then one, one was about refugees and food. Uh, and then there was this one. And this is an idea that I've had for a really long time, which is breaking down Italy region by region and the food and why that food is the way it is. But also to sort of, it's, uh, in a, in a way, sort of hopes of clarifying what Italian food is, which, which is, it can't really be clarified.

• 8:05Speaker 05

  We can only, the only thing that can be clarified is that it's from really simple ingredients and it basically is cucchina povera. It's like all poor food. But the influences over the centuries and millennia are profound because of where it's situated geographically. So if you think about it, you're, the, the, the most southern point in Italy is on the island of Lampedusa. That's ninety miles away from the coast of North Africa. The highest point, farthest northern point is, has a German name and you're in, you're in, you're in the Alps. So everything in between is, is a combination of strains of both of those things.

• 8:46Speaker 05

  And the influences from the Arab world, from Africa, from Spain, from, from Germany, from Austria, from France, from the Baltics, it's just, it's incredible.

• 8:57Speaker 04

  So what would be a dish in Lampedusa that you really feel the African influence?

• 9:02Speaker 05

  Something like, uh, uh, I think they call it becafico, which is like you'd have, you'd have pine nuts, you'd have orange in there, you'd have raisins, and it's made with these tiny little, little fish and breadcrumbs.

• 9:16Speaker 04

  Oh, my goodness. I've never heard of anything like that.

• 9:19Speaker 05

  And then up north in like Lumberdy, right? Which is where, um, you know, Lake, uh, where area of Lake Como, farther north into the Alps, you'll have a, a dish called pizzocchini, which is all buckwheat noodles. You very seldom see a tomato or an eggplant or anything like that. And you'll have buckwheat noodles with this special kind of cheese that's just from cows from that area, cabbage, lots of butter, garlic and potatoes.

• 9:47Jessie Ware?

  So this program takes you basically?

• 9:50Speaker 04

  You went on a food expedition all around Italy, the best job in the world, right?

• 9:56Speaker 05

  Yes, but more tiring than I thought it was gonna be. Yeah, yeah, I have to say.

• 10:00Speaker 04

  Who did you go with? Did you go with your wife?

• 10:02Speaker 05

  She came a couple of times, so she's in a couple of the episodes. And then we're gonna, we're gonna go back and do more, but we, again, we just break it down region by region. But it's much, it was much harder than I thought.

• 10:12Speaker 04

  Do you speak the lingo?

• 10:13Speaker 05

  I do a bit, yeah.

• 10:15Speaker 04

  Enough to sound authentic?

• 10:17Speaker 05

  Yes, enough to get by.

• 10:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 10:19Speaker 05

  So I, I lived in Italy when I was a kid for a year, but that was.

• 10:23Speaker 04

  Was that your parents making you go for a summer?

• 10:26Speaker 05

  No, that was my dad went to, my dad studied at the Accademia for a year. And so this is nineteen like seventy-two, seventy-three, I was twelve. And he, he studied for a year and I went right into an Italian school. So within two months I spoke, I had to speak.

• 10:41Speaker 04

  God, that must have been quite daunting, right?

• 10:43Speaker 05

  I don't know. I don't remember it as being daunting. I remember it as being much easier than I thought. I still couldn't do maths, but I could speak another language.

• 10:52Speaker 04

  So how old were you?

• 10:53Speaker 05

  Twelve.

• 10:54Speaker 04

  Is that why your lunchboxes changed to being fabulous?

• 10:58Speaker 05

  Is that why what?

• 10:59Speaker 04

  Your lunchboxes, you were telling me about his lunch.

• 11:01Jessie Ware?

  I read in your book, so in your book Taste, I'm, I'm enjoying it so much, it's so beautiful. And there was this moment, we always ask our guests, well, actually, we kind of sometimes forget because we drink too much wine. But we asked what their lunchbox was at school.

• 11:16Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 11:16Jessie Ware?

  And you do a whole week of lunchbox.

• 11:20Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 11:20Jessie Ware?

  Um, options that your mother used to give you. Can you go through some of these options?

• 11:24Speaker 05

  Sure, yeah, because the food was so bad, right?

• 11:27Jessie Ware?

  In America?

• 11:28Speaker 05

  At school.

• 11:29Jessie Ware?

  Oh, right.

• 11:29Speaker 05

  Yeah, and in any school, in any school, probably anywhere in the world, let's face it. But you were, and my parents, it wasn't worth the money to, you know, to buy it. And so we would have, whatever I had for lunch was usually what was left over from dinner the night before. So if we had eggplant parmigiana.

• 11:47Speaker 04

  Oh, my favorite thing on earth.

• 11:49Speaker 05

  Then we would, I would have that, but as a sandwich.

• 11:52Jessie Ware?

  Did you resent, did you resent your mum for that? Because was it that thing that yours were quite fragrant? And everyone else had like cheese and ham, your mate had marshmallow fluff.

• 12:01Speaker 05

  Yeah, fluffernutter, yeah, which what is that, you know, what even is it? Um, every now and again, I would swap with him, but I would feel guilty and then I I would.

• 12:10Jessie Ware?

  Guilty because you loved your mum so much.

• 12:11Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 12:12Jessie Ware?

  Are you Catholic?

• 12:13Speaker 05

  Huh?

• 12:13Jessie Ware?

  Are you Catholic?

• 12:14Speaker 05

  Well, I was.

• 12:14Jessie Ware?

  Okay.

• 12:15Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 12:16Jessie Ware?

  Um, but so you'd have.

• 12:17Speaker 04

  God, I swapped the pot, aubergine parmigiana.

• 12:19Speaker 05

  Right, so we had that and then if we had like veal cutlets. So in the nineteen sixties, right, nineteen sixties veal was cheap.

• 12:26Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 12:27Speaker 05

  Right, you could get veal now, it's like. I made veal the other night, you know, I had to take out another mortgage for, you know, with all the kids. But if you, you know, you should have veal cutlet sandwich one day, you know, the eggplant parmigiana, my mother would make like a. Almost like a frittata, she'd make uh just, but at the end of the week, she would make just like. Sauteed peppers, potatoes, scrambled eggs, and you put that on like a half a loaf of Italian bread. That was amazing. These were amazing.

• 12:55Jessie Ware?

  But did you appreciate it at the time?

• 12:56Speaker 05

  I did, I did, and then you have moments where you go like, I just want to be like. All of the other Americans, you know what I mean? Yeah, Bart or Biff or, you know. Sandy, you know, but I, but yeah, but then I was like, this is so fucking good, you know.

• 13:13Jessie Ware?

  You, you actually, it's really, it's really funny because um I had.

• 13:19Speaker 05

  Can I?

• 13:22Speaker 05

  It's, I love it.

• 13:23Jessie Ware?

  He wants to get on the mirror of our mum, come on.

• 13:25Speaker 05

  Let me, let me.

• 13:26Jessie Ware?

  So, but it's really interesting reading your book because you celebrate your mother's cooking and you say that you.

• 13:33Speaker 04

  Just like you, Jess.

• 13:34Jessie Ware?

  Well, actually, I do celebrate your cooking.

• 13:36Speaker 05

  Is that how it started?

• 13:38Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, and actually I wrote my own kind of food memoir. Do you know you can call it a food war? How do you feel about that?

• 13:44Speaker 05

  I like it, sounds really French.

• 13:45Speaker 04

  Sounds like a.

• 13:46Speaker 05

  Sounds even more French.

• 13:47Jessie Ware?

  I mean, it sounds a bit more kind of a.

• 13:48Speaker 04

  Collaborative a bit.

• 13:50Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 13:50Jessie Ware?

  Um, so anyway, I call mine a food memoir, but mine's very much about kind of my Jewish upbringing, so. And mum's food and her always having food on the table and you marvel at your mum doing that too. There was always a home cooked meal.

• 14:04Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 14:04Jessie Ware?

  On the table every night.

• 14:06Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 14:06Jessie Ware?

  And you and your sisters like different bits and bobs, but she kind of, and she did. I loved what she said about the neighbour. Please tell everyone what she'd say when.

• 14:14Speaker 05

  Oh, she'd say, I'd say, well, she'd say, you say, what are we having for dinner? And she'd say something like pork chops, which I hated. I don't know why I hated it, but I hated them. I go, ah, really? And she'd go, why don't you go over and see what the neighbors are having?

• 14:31Jessie Ware?

  Because the neighbors' food wasn't that fabulous.

• 14:33Speaker 05

  Oh, no, it was horrible. No, no, there was no, there was no one, none of my friends' parents. Now, this is, this is suburbia, but pretty, kind of more rural, a little more rural suburbia than it is now. Um, Westchester, New York, about sixty miles north of the city.

• 14:49Speaker 04

  I saw Barry White sing at the Westchester, whatever it is.

• 14:52Speaker 05

  Are you kidding?

• 14:53Speaker 04

  Biggest place on earth.

• 14:54Speaker 05

  Really?

• 14:54Speaker 04

  Yeah, I was in New York with my brother.

• 14:56Speaker 05

  The Westchester, yeah, what was it called?

• 14:58Speaker 04

  Some big kind of.

• 14:59Speaker 05

  Arts thing or something. Yeah, my, my parents went and saw Frank Sinatra.

• 15:03Speaker 04

  I saw Barry White there and it was wonderful.

• 15:06Speaker 05

  Really?

• 15:06Speaker 04

  And I had to go on a train. It was quite a, a bit of a way, but I was desperate to see him.

• 15:11Speaker 05

  Was he living in New York? Your brother?

• 15:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, my brother lived, my brother lived in New York for a little while and I went when I was, um, must have been twenty-one, twenty-two.

• 15:20Speaker 05

  Right.

• 15:20Speaker 04

  And we lived quite near Grand Central Station.

• 15:23Speaker 05

  Oh, wow.

• 15:24Speaker 04

  Um, he was in an apartment there and I saw Barry White was playing and I was there for six weeks and I just thought, I'm going, so I went.

• 15:31Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah, you just get the train up. It was like near White Plains or Rye. Yes, yeah, yeah.

• 15:35Speaker 04

  And it was great.

• 15:35Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 15:36Speaker 04

  Westchester County.

• 15:37Speaker 05

  Westchester County, yeah.

• 15:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 15:39Speaker 05

  Which is huge.

• 15:40Speaker 04

  It's huge, isn't it?

• 15:42Speaker 05

  Yeah. As soon as you come out of the Bronx, you're in Westchester County.

• 15:47Speaker 04

  It's like moving from London to Windsor or.

• 15:50Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly. I mean, a bit farther, but yeah.

• 15:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 15:54Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 15:55Jessie Ware?

  What I loved about the recipes in your book were, you know, you talk about how to make a pomodoro or, or your ragout, um, family's ragout, but there was something so simple about it, yet, and not, I, I believe every dish is so satisfying and beautiful, but, and it, it reminds, what you said about Italian cooking, the simplicity of it, but like, when done well.

• 16:19Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 16:20Jessie Ware?

  Did your mother like cooking?

• 16:22Speaker 05

  She says, and I wrote this in the book, that, that, that she said she couldn't cook, she didn't know how to boil water when she met my father. I, I, I still don't believe that to this day. Um, her mother was an amazing cook. You know, it's just a sort of, eh, eh, eh, one, one, you, you have to have an innate talent for it, right? But I think that for the most part. The people of Italy have that talent more than almost any other country. So there was just an understanding of taste. There was an understanding of flavor, but there was also an understanding of the genesis of the vegetable, or the meat, or the whatever. Where did it come from? Why did it come from there? What do you do with it?

• 17:06Speaker 05

  How do you make sure that nothing goes to waste? And then, how many different things can you make out of that that taste good? That's the lesson. And I don't even think, as a kid, they knew, my mother, you know, or her sisters, knew that they were learning that. You just learned it. It was just a part of you. And then you're eating the food, and you know what tastes, you know what it's supposed to taste like. And then when you go out into the world, and you start to taste things, you kind of go, "Ooh, what's that? That doesn't taste like blah blah blah."

• 17:38Jessie Ware?

  Should we put the... I'm gonna do it now. Okay.

• 17:40Speaker 05

  Am I?

• 17:41Jessie Ware?

  No, so... We're having tagliata.

• 17:43Speaker 05

  Tagliata?

• 17:44Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 17:44Speaker 05

  Si.

• 17:45Jessie Ware?

  Is that okay?

• 17:45Speaker 05

  Si.

• 17:46Jessie Ware?

  Was this a silly thing to do? Because we're cooking tagliata for an Italian.

• 17:50Speaker 05

  Why?

• 17:51Jessie Ware?

  I don't know, I'm kind of slightly nervous about this.

• 17:53Speaker 05

  Do we cook together? How do we do it?

• 17:55Jessie Ware?

  I mean, you can, if you want. Mum was just gonna whack it on, because it takes such a short time.

• 17:59Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's quick.

• 17:59Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 18:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, whatever you want.

• 18:00Jessie Ware?

  And I'm gonna, I'm gonna keep on asking you some questions, so we don't...

• 18:02Speaker 05

  Oh, yes, I'm sorry, yes.

• 18:03Jessie Ware?

  Well, unless you wanna cook.

• 18:05Speaker 05

  No, no, no.

• 18:06Jessie Ware?

  Are you a bit of a backseat driver in the kitchen, Stanley? Do you need to oversee Mum's tagliata?

• 18:12Speaker 05

  No, no, no.

• 18:12Jessie Ware?

  I feel like...

• 18:13Speaker 05

  Do you need to oversee Mum's tagliata? Which sounds so dirty. Um, no, I don't. I don't need to oversee her tagliata.

• 18:21Jessie Ware?

  Are you sure?

• 18:21Speaker 05

  Yes, I'm positive.

• 18:22Jessie Ware?

  Listen, if you feel like she's not doing something right, like roast potatoes... No, she's not, actually. You can go over there. Not. He's so appalled by the way we speak to... I thought, don't Italians speak to each other like this, too?

• 18:32Speaker 05

  Constantly.

• 18:33Jessie Ware?

  Okay, fine.

• 18:34Speaker 05

  Constantly.

• 18:34Jessie Ware?

  So you feel at home, no?

• 18:35Speaker 05

  Totally.

• 18:36Jessie Ware?

  Okay, fine.

• 18:36Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 18:37Jessie Ware?

  But maybe you've been with a British woman for too long now that you're so polite to each other now you're...

• 18:42Speaker 05

  Well, I'm not, but she is. Sometimes if I say things, and she'll say something, and I'll go like, "Well, I don't know, maybe the guy went over to the blah blah blah." She goes, "Why are you yelling at me? There's no need to take that tone." I'm like, "I wasn't yelling at you." She goes, "Why are you so upset?" I go, "I'm not upset. I'm just telling you that, I don't know, I don't know, the guy, I don't know why the guy did that." You know, something, and then, then that, it becomes, then it becomes this sort of conversation about...

• 19:07Speaker 05

  Were you actually upset? It's like, no, I wasn't upset. Well, what is upset? Do you know what I mean? There's no question a lot of it is cultural.

• 19:16Jessie Ware?

  So, listen, I need to know about this Meryl Streep situation with the, how do you say?

• 19:25Speaker 05

  Andouette.

• 19:25Jessie Ware?

  Undo it, undo it.

• 19:27Speaker 05

  Andouette.

• 19:27Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, you, yeah, cool.

• 19:28Speaker 05

  Yeah, that too, yes.

• 19:30Jessie Ware?

  Um, please paint the picture, because we've had a similar story with another person in this podcast.

• 19:36Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 19:37Jessie Ware?

  Rosheen Murphy, brilliant singer.

• 19:39Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 19:40Jessie Ware?

  Tried this thing. So now, people may not have listened to her.

• 19:43Speaker 05

  The same thing.

• 19:44Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 19:45Speaker 05

  Where?

• 19:45Jessie Ware?

  She had a similar reaction.

• 19:48Jessie Ware?

  She tried it in Paris, I think. Yeah.

• 19:50Speaker 05

  It's very, it's, it's a very common reaction.

• 19:52Jessie Ware?

  So, can you explain for people that haven't heard of it?

• 19:56Speaker 05

  So, so Andouette is made in Normandy.

• 19:59Jessie Ware?

  Hmm.

• 20:00Speaker 05

  And it's basically like a kind of a sausage.

• 20:05Jessie Ware?

  Hmm.

• 20:06Speaker 05

  However, all of, it, it's filled with entrails. So it's not filled with meat. So a sausage is an entrail, right? An intestine filled with meat.

• 20:17Jessie Ware?

  Hmm.

• 20:18Speaker 05

  And spices, whatever. This is just like an entrail filled with entrails. And they're strongly spiced. I don't even know how much they're really cooked. I don't quite know. They're cleaned. I think they're maybe boiled. I don't know exactly.

• 20:39Jessie Ware?

  Why did?

• 20:39Speaker 05

  But they'll also use, well, we didn't know. So we thought, okay. So it'll use like the colon of, of the animal and the, I mean, like everything you don't, you just think, I don't want to eat that. It's in there.

• 20:52Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 20:52Speaker 05

  Whatever you think.

• 20:53Jessie Ware?

  It's a noise.

• 20:54Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 20:54Speaker 05

  All right. Whatever you think you don't want to eat of, of an animal will be in there.

• 21:01Jessie Ware?

  All right.

• 21:01Speaker 05

  Okay. So, and it's a delicacy. And sometimes they're quite big. I mean, they'll literally be, I mean, obviously, this is a podcast, you can't, but they're big. So.

• 21:15Speaker 05

  Marilyn, I said, "Oh Marilyn, they have Andouette." Do you think she, she goes, "Oh yeah." I go, "Have you ever tried it?" She goes, "No."

• 21:22Jessie Ware?

  Did you know what you were doing?

• 21:23Speaker 05

  No, I had no idea.

• 21:24Jessie Ware?

  Okay, so it wasn't like a trick?

• 21:25Speaker 05

  No, I thought it was like Andouille sausage, which is a little sausage that's really delicious. You know, maybe slightly spicy, maybe, you know, but delicious. And I thought Andouette, et.

• 21:37Jessie Ware?

  Even smaller.

• 21:38Speaker 05

  Make even smaller. So tiny little sausages, sweet little lovely little, maybe spicy thing.

• 21:44Jessie Ware?

  Normandy, yeah.

• 21:44Speaker 05

  Is that what, yeah. So she goes, I go, "Have you tried one?" She goes, "No." I go, "Should we try it?" She goes, "Yeah." She goes, "I love sausage, love Andouille sausage." "Yeah, me too." So she ordered it, I ordered it, Chris Messina ordered it, and Marilyn's brother Dana ordered it.

• 22:01Jessie Ware?

  And you're, you're, you're filming at the, what are you, what are you?

• 22:04Speaker 05

  No, we're not filming.

• 22:05Jessie Ware?

  You're not filming?

• 22:05Speaker 05

  No, we're, we're doing a press junket. We're doing, we're on our way to do a press junket in Paris. We went to the Deauville Film Festival.

• 22:12Jessie Ware?

  Right.

• 22:12Speaker 05

  Which is a really amazed, trip remote, Juliet and Juliet. Which is an amazing festival that is so much fun.

• 22:17Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 22:18Speaker 05

  And beautiful, and the food there is like incredible, and you know, you have the incredible wines, and you have Calvados, because it's the Normandy area. And that, and that morning, we went to the D-Day beaches, and we had a tour of that. And it was just, it was just like kind of your dream.

• 22:33Jessie Ware?

  On holiday.

• 22:33Speaker 05

  Then you're going to, then you're going to Paris, you're gonna do a, an incredible, you know, um, a press tour for a movie that you actually like, which doesn't always happen. And, and you're gonna be with your friends, and you're gonna eat, and you're gonna have a good time. So.

• 22:47Jessie Ware?

  And you're with Marilyn straight?

• 22:49Speaker 05

  And you're with Marilyn.

• 22:49Jessie Ware?

  Like, is she as great as everyone thinks?

• 22:52Speaker 05

  She's the greatest, she's the greatest. She's the loveliest person, I mean, in- incredibly generous person, and, and like a very dear. She's a devoted friend. It's really sweet.

• 23:04Jessie Ware?

  That's the sausage.

• 23:05Speaker 05

  All right, so, so we go, "All right, we'll have this." So we have some wine, we have our little appetizers. So our mains come, which is the Andouette. And basically, what, and this is what I wrote in the book, what is put before us,

• 23:20Speaker 05

  I can only say it resembled a horse cock.

• 23:26Speaker 05

  And I looked at it and I thought, hmm. It doesn't even really look like it's, not only does it look like a horse cock, but it looks like an uncooked horse cock.

• 23:37Jessie Ware?

  Oh delicious.

• 23:38Speaker 05

  So, we both sort of looked at each other. And I went, wow, that's not what I expected. She goes, no, it looks like a horse cock.

• 23:50Speaker 05

  So we tasted it and needless to say, um, I almost vomited.

• 23:56Jessie Ware?

  Oh really?

• 23:56Speaker 05

  Oh yeah, it was that, as soon as it went, as soon as it just touched my tongue, I almost threw up. Her brother took one huge bite, swallowed it, took another bite, and then looked at me like he was ashen. Merrill tasted it and she said, oh, well, it does have a bit of the barnyard about it. And, and it, needless to say, then the guy, you know, the owner comes over and he, he looks at us and he goes, so the under we had, we go, oh no, it's really great. It's just not what we expected, you know, it's just not, it's a little like, you know, it's different than others we've had, you know, you're just lying and lying trying to...

• 24:36Jessie Ware?

  Was he offended?

• 24:37Speaker 05

  No, not at all, not at all, not, not, not like a, not like a Parisian, no. He goes, okay, would you like anything else? And we said, yeah, can we just have four omelets?

• 24:53Speaker 05

  So, the studio had to pay for our mistake.

• 24:55Jessie Ware?

  Oh my god.

• 24:57Speaker 05

  But it wasn't, I mean, it was really horrible. I'm, I'm very adventurous when it comes to food, but I'm sorry. But I have to say, if you ever get the chance, you have to...

• 25:07Jessie Ware?

  Do not try it?

• 25:07Speaker 05

  No, do not try it, but you have to at least see it and smell it.

• 25:12Jessie Ware?

  Okay.

• 25:12Speaker 05

  You have, not when you're pregnant, but you, no, yeah, that would be not good. But, because it is unlike anything. And just look up the Wikipedia, I put the Wikipedia definition in the book because it's a really funny description of it.

• 25:27Jessie Ware?

  I will. Now, I want to know, because you are adventurous, but... And but you can't, you you can't eat spice, can you?

• 25:33Speaker 05

  No, I can't now, no.

• 25:35Jessie Ware?

  Was that something that happened?

• 25:36Speaker 05

  No, I never, I never cared for spice, but but since I had uh treatments, I haven't, I haven't been able to eat spice, yeah.

• 25:42Jessie Ware?

  How, do you feel like, do you miss any dishes or?

• 25:45Speaker 05

  No, I like a little bit of pepperoncino every now and again, um but I never was a really spicy, I was never interested in spice that much. I mean, every now and again, a little chorizo or something, but I never, I I I would like sometimes like a Thai curry, uh uh you know, not, but not mild, but mild, not.

• 26:05Jessie Ware?

  Could you not even have a green curry?

• 26:07Speaker 05

  Oh, no, oh, no.

• 26:08Jessie Ware?

  Right, okay.

• 26:09Speaker 05

  That's like a, somebody takes a blowtorch to your mouth, yeah. It's the, when you, if you have radiation, and I had very high dose radiation, because I had a tumor in the back of my, base of my tongue, um you, it destroys so much of your soft tissue, it destroys your taste buds, it destroys your saliva, it destroys, and it takes a very, very long time to come back. And it burns out your nerves. So because those nerves are burned, this is what I was told, that the, anything that touches them is like hypersensitive. And you'd think it'd sort of be the opposite, you'd think they'd be dulled, but in fact, the opposite is true. So a doctor suggested to me a little while ago that I take a little Tabasco sauce, I'm not kidding,

• 26:53Speaker 05

  and put it in water and drink it. He said, because what that's gonna do is that's gonna help them, it'll help them work again.

• 27:03Jessie Ware?

  Do you, and how did it feel?

• 27:04Speaker 05

  I haven't done it.

• 27:05Jessie Ware?

  You haven't done it?

• 27:05Speaker 05

  No, I'm too afraid.

• 27:06Jessie Ware?

  Right.

• 27:07Speaker 05

  Yeah.

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• 28:22Jessie Ware?

  I really was fascinated by, well, it makes a lot of sense, but you're very prescriptive about, and I now probably understand that most Italians are the same, about which pasta goes with which sauce. I've been doing it wrong, and I apologize. Well, I think so.

• 28:43Speaker 05

  No, I wasn't here, it's all right.

• 28:44Jessie Ware?

  But like, it really gets you, it gets your goat.

• 28:48Speaker 05

  Yeah, it gets my goat, yeah.

• 28:50Jessie Ware?

  What's the worst thing that somebody could do, though?

• 28:53Speaker 05

  Cutting the spaghetti. Yeah, that's...

• 28:56Jessie Ware?

  It's just an absolute no-no.

• 28:58Speaker 05

  No, no, no, no. Unless you don't have teeth.

• 29:01Jessie Ware?

  Or you're a toddler.

• 29:02Speaker 05

  Yeah, or you're a toddler, yeah. But even then, it's just fun to watch a toddler eat spaghetti.

• 29:06Jessie Ware?

  I quite, my son usually chokes on it because he's such a greedy bugger that he kind of doesn't chew it, so then he's got all these things, and then it's kind of like he's got like...

• 29:17Speaker 05

  Yeah, he's like Medusa or something, yeah.

• 29:20Jessie Ware?

  So would you say that that's like, I guess that's quite a kind of, it's an Italian table manner that you don't appreciate to see?

• 29:28Speaker 05

  No, it's egregious. I mean, you just don't, you just don't do that. I saw somebody do it recently, and I was like, I had to do everything I could to restrain myself. No, it's just weird.

• 29:42Jessie Ware?

  And will you never go out for dinner with them again? Or just not an Italian with them?

• 29:47Speaker 05

  Yeah, I can't, yeah. I'll give them a piece of steak.

• 29:51Jessie Ware?

  I really, I kind of...

• 29:53Speaker 05

  It's tough. It's like people rinsing off their pasta after you cook it.

• 29:58Jessie Ware?

  Hold on, what, to like, cool it down?

• 30:00Speaker 05

  I don't know.

• 30:02Jessie Ware?

  Why do people rinse it?

• 30:03Speaker 05

  I have no idea.

• 30:05Jessie Ware?

  That is a really good point.

• 30:06Speaker 05

  A lot of people do it. They cook the pasta, they put it into the colander, then they run cold water on it. And you're like.

• 30:13Jessie Ware?

  Why?

• 30:13Speaker 05

  Why would you do that? You basically just took all of that beautiful starch, that gluten, all that stuff, and you just got rid of it.

• 30:21Jessie Ware?

  That's a very good point.

• 30:22Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's weird.

• 30:23Jessie Ware?

  Have you found that more people have offended you since you've come to Old Blighty? With how they eat pasta?

• 30:29Speaker 05

  No, no, no, not at all. Actually, no. No, not at all.

• 30:32Jessie Ware?

  But you've been living in London.

• 30:35Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 30:35Jessie Ware?

  Or the UK for eight years, did you say?

• 30:38Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 30:38Jessie Ware?

  Where are some of, I mean, I don't want to give away the whole book, but like, where are some of your absolute favorite places to eat?

• 30:45Speaker 05

  Oh my god, there are so many.

• 30:46Jessie Ware?

  Okay, but like, you know, you're, the one that you booked as soon as you were allowed out of lockdown.

• 30:51Speaker 05

  Riva, which is in Barnes. Amazing.

• 30:54Jessie Ware?

  Really?

• 30:55Speaker 05

  Yeah, amazing. A lot of the chefs go there.

• 30:57Jessie Ware?

  Okay.

• 30:58Speaker 05

  And they love Mr. Riva, who, who, who runs it. Um, Giorgio Locatelli's restaurant.

• 31:03Jessie Ware?

  That's delicious.

• 31:04Speaker 05

  Boca de Lupo, fantastic, in Soho. Um, Francesco Mazzese's restaurant, Sartoria.

• 31:12Jessie Ware?

  So if you are going out, do you go for Italian quite a lot? Because I guess quite a lot of restaurants are off, you know, you, limits to you now.

• 31:21Speaker 05

  Yeah, a little bit, yeah. Uh, Japanese, uh, I love Japanese food. I love Chinese food. I mean, I, I can't really go to an Indian restaurant now. I can't go to a Thai restaurant now, as much as I'd like to. And even Japanese is hard because, um, sushi rice has vinegar in it. And I can't really eat vinegar that much now, um, because it's so stringent.

• 31:43Jessie Ware?

  When you had the treatment, I mean, so it was in the back of your tongue?

• 31:47Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 31:48Jessie Ware?

  I mean, that, for somebody that, I mean, wants to, to live but also likes food.

• 31:53Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 31:54Jessie Ware?

  Were you terrified that you?

• 31:56Speaker 05

  I was terrified. I was terrified. I thought I was never, ever going to be able to do what I'm doing right now. Sit here and have a glass of wine and talk to you. And your mother would be cooking a steak. You were the only two I thought of.

• 32:09Jessie Ware?

  We got you through it.

• 32:12Speaker 05

  Yeah, no, I thought I'll never be able to do this again. It was so bad and it lasted for months. I had a feeding tube and, and I mean, I couldn't eat orally for months. And then eventually when I did, it was, it was very slow going. I still like certain things still. I can't really eat fruit that much. It tastes odd to me and it sort of hurts a bit. So, yeah, I was really frightened and it was very depressing and I, I, there's no question. I suffered from depression during it and yeah, during the treatment, after the treatment. It was really hard.

• 32:53Jessie Ware?

  Did, is that why you've potential, I mean, you've made this TV show? You've written this book, maybe you were writing the book before you got the treatment, but you, you're celebrating food in so many different.

• 33:08Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think it's.

• 33:09Jessie Ware?

  Spaces.

• 33:10Speaker 05

  I think it's really just, honestly, it's coincidental. Um, I had written, I had a bunch of stuff written down about food before. I never intended to write a memoir. I never thought, uh, my, my life certainly would ever be worthy of a memoir. I'm still not sure, but because it's through the prism of food, then it, there, I do have something to say, I think, about it.

• 33:35Jessie Ware?

  I, I honestly, I, I'm loving it.

• 33:37Speaker 05

  Oh, good.

• 33:38Jessie Ware?

  So it's brilliant and it's just.

• 33:40Speaker 05

  But yeah, but I was, I was writing stuff because I always wanted to write a little book about, just little essays about food. So it'd be just sort of, you know, a collection of little food essays, little stories and maybe some recipes, a few sketches, stuff like that, thought that'd be cool. I never expected it to take this, you know, to, to turn into this. But also the, the show, it's a show that I had thought about 12, 15 years ago, almost. And I had made notes about it and came up with the sort of like little mini treatment for it. And then they came to me and they said, what would you like to do? And then I thought, oh my God, really?

• 34:19Speaker 05

  And I said this and they went, you saw their eyes light up, the CNN people, you just saw their eyes light up and go. And like almost immediately was, okay.

• 34:31Jessie Ware?

  Would you do another, um, series?

• 34:34Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, we're doing more, yeah, so.

• 34:36Jessie Ware?

  So will you go to other countries?

• 34:38Speaker 05

  No, I, I, and they, we talked about that, but I don't know that I'm the right person to go to other countries. It was interesting, somebody, somebody, uh, review in The Guardian, and, and The Guardian review of our show was amazing. It was really lovely, and the guy said, but if, if he were to go to France, or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever he said, it wouldn't be the same, because there's a connection, and that's what I had said. I don't feel that it's my job to go to, to France, or to Scandinavia, or to China, or to whatever. First of all, I would never see my family, second of all, I, I don't have a connection to, to those places.

• 35:15Speaker 05

  I have a connection to Italy, but what we are going to do, uh, we have now, we're planning spinoffs of the show. That I'll produce, oh my god, how gorgeous is that? That I'll produce, and, and, and then we'll, with the same production company, and with CNN, we'll, we'll spin this off, and start to do, we'll do Spain, we'll do Italy.

• 35:37Jessie Ware?

  But with different people?

• 35:38Speaker 05

  We'll rather, we'll do France, yes, with people who are, like me, food obsessed. Uh, maybe they're actors, maybe they're whatever.

• 35:47Jessie Ware?

  Shit, yeah, it's really fucking hard, sorry.

• 35:49Speaker 05

  Jesus, Jesus.

• 35:51Jessie Ware?

  Sorry, yeah.

• 35:53Speaker 05

  Jesus.

• 35:54Jessie Ware?

  Do we swear more than your family swear?

• 35:56Speaker 05

  No.

• 35:56Jessie Ware?

  Okay, fine, that's good to know.

• 35:58Speaker 05

  No. Um, so that's, so that's the plan, so that, because I think it's really important that you have a connection to that, to that country, thank you so much. I think you have to.

• 36:09Jessie Ware?

  Thank you, mum.

• 36:10Speaker 05

  Wow, this is an absolutely gorgeous salamata.

• 36:14Jessie Ware?

  Would you like some more wine, because you're a bit empty? Good, I like, I like. Do you want some red wine?

• 36:20Speaker 05

  I'm okay right now, this is great, thank you.

• 36:23Jessie Ware?

  Shall I pass you some asparagus?

• 36:25Speaker 05

  Um, sure.

• 36:25Jessie Ware?

  Jesse, make sure you get the tortoise in.

• 36:28Speaker 05

  Look how beautiful that is. Oh, guys, this is gorgeous.

• 36:32Jessie Ware?

  Are you a good cook?

• 36:34Speaker 05

  Sometimes.

• 36:35Jessie Ware?

  Like, so which which recipe did your mother pass on to you that you feel like you were talking about that with saying it just kind of becomes inbuilt in you?

• 36:43Speaker 05

  There's a lot of them. I mean, like, to me, the eggplant parmigiana is just one of the greatest things ever.

• 36:49Jessie Ware?

  Yes.

• 36:49Speaker 05

  The lasagna bolognese is one of the greatest things ever. Steak oregano is amazing. Chicken a la cacciatore, uh, rabbit stew, veal stew, um.

• 37:01Jessie Ware?

  Which one is the one, if we were coming over to yours and you were like, Lenny and Jesse coming over. I'm gonna pull out the big guns. Which one are you gonna do?

• 37:08Speaker 05

  Lasagna bolognese.

• 37:10Jessie Ware?

  Really?

• 37:10Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 37:11Jessie Ware?

  Oh, Jesse, we never do lasagna.

• 37:12Speaker 05

  It's really, really hard to make.

• 37:15Jessie Ware?

  Well, that's why we don't do it, Mum. Because Stanley's not there. Well, no, because it's really hard to make. Why is it so hard to make? Is it?

• 37:22Speaker 05

  Because you gotta make the pasta, it has to be the right.

• 37:25Jessie Ware?

  You make the pasta?

• 37:27Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 37:28Jessie Ware?

  Oh, yeah, that's fine, fair enough, yeah. What would be your last supper? Are you gonna return to your mother's kitchen, or are you gonna go somewhere else?

• 37:37Speaker 05

  No, why would I go anywhere else?

• 37:40Jessie Ware?

  Jesse, take note.

• 37:41Speaker 05

  I think you have to.

• 37:44Speaker 05

  I think you have to, you know, it's comfort food, isn't it?

• 37:48Jessie Ware?

  So what what would be? Actually, I think aubergine parmigiana is going on my desert island meal. Don't bloody steal his line, why do you have to say that?

• 37:55Jessie Ware?

  No, you reminded me how it's delicious.

• 37:59Speaker 05

  I'm gonna make you some.

• 38:00Jessie Ware?

  I'm gonna come.

• 38:01Speaker 05

  I'm gonna make you, I'm gonna make you some.

• 38:03Jessie Ware?

  So starter, what we're doing?

• 38:05Speaker 05

  Starter's hard, but I almost feel like I wanna say something, something like a starter that I had at Scott's, you know, the restaurant Scott's? Which was razor clams with a little bit of, maybe it was.

• 38:26Speaker 05

  Huh?

• 38:26Speaker 04

  Is it a bongole?

• 38:27Speaker 05

  No, no, a razor clam.

• 38:29Speaker 04

  Oh, I hate those.

• 38:30Speaker 05

  You do, why?

• 38:31Speaker 04

  I don't know why I don't like them.

• 38:32Jessie Ware?

  They can be a bit gritty.

• 38:33Speaker 04

  They're chewy.

• 38:34Speaker 05

  No, no, no, that's because.

• 38:38Speaker 05

  They've been overcooked.

• 38:39Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 38:40Speaker 05

  That's why, you have to cook them really fast.

• 38:42Jessie Ware?

  Okay, so it's razor clams, what's they?

• 38:43Speaker 05

  I think a razor clam, they had like olive oil, and they had like maybe a little bit pancetta or a little bit of prosciutto or something. I mean, they were like.

• 38:50Jessie Ware?

  Heaven.

• 38:51Speaker 05

  Absolutely delicious.

• 38:53Speaker 04

  That's just started.

• 38:54Speaker 05

  Delicious. Then probably as a main, lasagna bolognese.

• 39:00Jessie Ware?

  Made by you or your mother?

• 39:01Speaker 05

  My mother, not by me.

• 39:03Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 39:03Speaker 05

  No. Yeah. And then what?

• 39:07Speaker 04

  Pud dessert.

• 39:08Jessie Ware?

  You big pud man?

• 39:09Speaker 05

  No. I probably just have another helping of lasagna bolognese.

• 39:15Jessie Ware?

  Or a cheese plate?

• 39:17Speaker 05

  Yeah, cheese plate.

• 39:18Jessie Ware?

  Okay. And drink?

• 39:19Speaker 05

  After the lasagna.

• 39:20Jessie Ware?

  Oh, you're you're taking it too si- like literally.

• 39:22Speaker 05

  I know, but I'm thinking about it.

• 39:24Jessie Ware?

  And then drink?

• 39:26Speaker 05

  Well, to begin.

• 39:28Jessie Ware?

  Okay, well, cause you like a cocky tea, don't you? Yeah.

• 39:31Speaker 04

  What's a cocky tea?

• 39:32Jessie Ware?

  Cocktail.

• 39:33Speaker 04

  Oh, oh, me too. Which one's yours?

• 39:35Speaker 05

  Well, I have a martini.

• 39:37Speaker 04

  Oh, you like what? Dirty?

• 39:38Speaker 05

  No.

• 39:39Speaker 04

  Oh, I like dirty.

• 39:40Speaker 05

  Very clean. Yeah, I'd like to have a a really beautiful gin or vodka martini.

• 39:47Jessie Ware?

  Does the James Bond, do the James Bond people know that you're?

• 39:51Speaker 05

  Hmm?

• 39:51Jessie Ware?

  You're partial to the odd, I think they're casting the new James Bond.

• 39:55Speaker 05

  I know, I know, I know. I'm just, you know, thirty years too old. Too short and bald.

• 40:02Speaker 04

  You're not.

• 40:03Speaker 05

  But the, yes, that, and then I'd have the martini.

• 40:08Jessie Ware?

  Hmm.

• 40:09Speaker 05

  And then with the bolognese, I'd have a little bit of white wine in between.

• 40:13Jessie Ware?

  Hmm.

• 40:14Speaker 05

  And then you'd have a proper like.

• 40:16Speaker 04

  A big glass of red.

• 40:17Speaker 05

  Yeah, a nice glass of red, you know, something from canjes or verola, something, something of real substance. And then with the cheese plate. With the cheese plate, I had the Barolo. With the with the bolognese, I'd have something, I don't know what, like something a Nebbiolo grape would just.

• 40:35Speaker 04

  I don't think you drink, I don't think you're a big drinker.

• 40:37Jessie Ware?

  What are you talking about? He's bloody, he's paired every meal with a drink and he's drunk a bottle of wine with you in bloody hour. He's ready for the next one.

• 40:46Speaker 04

  That's a little slow.

• 40:47Jessie Ware?

  And another one.

• 40:48Speaker 04

  I think that's a little slow.

• 40:52Jessie Ware?

  So, okay.

• 40:53Speaker 04

  Do you, do you like karaoke? I bet you don't.

• 40:56Speaker 05

  I don't, I'm, I.

• 40:58Speaker 04

  Would you if you had to?

• 41:01Speaker 04

  If Meryl said, do a duet with us?

• 41:03Speaker 05

  No.

• 41:04Speaker 04

  You wouldn't?

• 41:05Speaker 05

  No, no, she has a beautiful voice and I, and I, yeah, gorgeous.

• 41:08Speaker 04

  She didn't sound like it in Florence, Switzerland.

• 41:10Jessie Ware?

  Well, you have a Florence thing, you sound like it in Mamma Mia.

• 41:13Speaker 05

  Come here, have something on your face.

• 41:14Speaker 04

  The Florence thing.

• 41:15Jessie Ware?

  What Flo, the one with?

• 41:17Speaker 04

  No, the one with Hugh Grant, yeah.

• 41:19Speaker 05

  She didn't have an, shit, what do you have?

• 41:20Speaker 04

  What is it?

• 41:22Speaker 05

  You had a piece of potato, it's gone. No, it's gone. It was a piece of potato.

• 41:26Jessie Ware?

  This is put a lot of highlights to glow for you, but no, potato. Um, I thought you were gonna say she wasn't good in Mamma Mia.

• 41:33Speaker 04

  No.

• 41:33Jessie Ware?

  She did a good job going on that bloody rock.

• 41:35Speaker 05

  Florence Foster drinking thing, she, she wasn't supposed to be able to sing.

• 41:38Speaker 04

  No, I know.

• 41:39Speaker 05

  No, I thought you were.

• 41:40Jessie Ware?

  Okay, so what, what would be your karaoke song?

• 41:43Speaker 05

  Oh, God.

• 41:45Jessie Ware?

  Can you sing?

• 41:46Speaker 05

  Huh? No, no, I, I don't.

• 41:47Jessie Ware?

  Cause you have a very nice kind of fruity voice.

• 41:50Speaker 05

  Thank you, thank you, thank you, yes, but I'm not a singer. I, I like the, I know the lyrics to a lot of, like, the American Songbook and all that. I love all that. Um. I might say, it's something like.

• 42:01Speaker 04

  Musicals?

• 42:02Speaker 05

  Yes, I do.

• 42:03Speaker 04

  Me too.

• 42:04Speaker 05

  Yeah, I do.

• 42:04Speaker 04

  What's your favourite?

• 42:05Speaker 05

  Hmm, hard to say. On the Town's pretty great.

• 42:10Jessie Ware?

  I don't know that one.

• 42:11Speaker 04

  Yes, you do, with the three.

• 42:13Speaker 05

  Gene Kelly, we're going on the town, we're gonna take that city.

• 42:18Jessie Ware?

  He's got a good voice, I think you should do West End next, Stanley.

• 42:21Speaker 04

  Stanley, you, you, you're very, you evoke lots of memories of food. What's a fragrance that would remind you of your mum or a fragrance that takes you back?

• 42:32Jessie Ware?

  Somewhere.

• 42:32Speaker 04

  That takes you back somewhere.

• 42:34Speaker 05

  I think really something simple, like just, when you just have olive oil in a pan with a little bit of garlic and onion, just that. And then, and then my mother starts to make a marinara. It just, the whole house just changes. You know, that's, that's what I do. Like, if we rent a house someplace, or if I go on, on location and I have to stay in a hotel, a, a apartment for an extended period of time, I will, the first thing I'll do is stock up and I'll just light the, the stove and just cook mud in all the sauce. So that the smell goes through.

• 43:09Jessie Ware?

  That's so lovely.

• 43:10Speaker 05

  Everything. And then you just feel.

• 43:12Jessie Ware?

  At home.

• 43:12Speaker 05

  Better. You feel slightly grounded.

• 43:15Jessie Ware?

  I love that.

• 43:16Speaker 05

  Just makes you feel better.

• 43:17Jessie Ware?

  It's like you've been chopped and fried, mum, fish balls.

• 43:20Speaker 04

  Never again.

• 43:21Jessie Ware?

  Feel right at home.

• 43:22Speaker 05

  What? What'd you have?

• 43:23Jessie Ware?

  Fried fish balls, Jewish.

• 43:24Speaker 04

  It's something called gefilte fish.

• 43:27Speaker 05

  Oh, gefilte fish, yeah.

• 43:28Speaker 04

  Yeah, so whenever I've cooked it, my mum used to cook it every week. But if I cook it, this, it smelt, the whole house stinks. And you stink. So you can only cook it before you have a bath.

• 43:40Speaker 05

  Is gefilte fish from herring? Is it herring?

• 43:42Speaker 04

  No.

• 43:43Jessie Ware?

  No, it's just white herring.

• 43:44Speaker 04

  It's just a mixture of white fishes, carp, place, hake.

• 43:48Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 43:49Speaker 04

  Haddock. And then you mix it all together with onion and egg. And that's a meal. And then you fry it.

• 43:56Speaker 05

  That is one thing I miss about New York.

• 43:59Speaker 04

  The Jewish, yeah, really.

• 44:01Speaker 05

  Oh, my god. Yeah, because I lived on the Upper West Side. We had so many Jewish, Jewish delis. You had Zabar's on the Upper West Side, which is incredible.

• 44:12Jessie Ware?

  What's Zabar?

• 44:12Speaker 05

  Eli Zabar, this guy, opened this place, I don't know how many years ago, fifty years ago. It's huge. It's basically an emporium of food. Um, but particularly like, sort of New York Jewish. Then you had Barney Greengrass, which was an amazing deli. Uh, meaning, like, you'd go in, you could order stuff, you could sit down and they'd make, you know, sturgeon and eggs. And all that sort of lox and bagels and, I mean, I really miss that. You know, chicken noodle soup, soup and matzo balls, borscht, all that.

• 44:45Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, you can't really get it.

• 44:46Speaker 05

  You can't get it, no.

• 44:52Jessie Ware?

  So your book is out.

• 44:54Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 44:54Jessie Ware?

  And the TV show is out.

• 44:57Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 44:57Jessie Ware?

  Can people watch it in the UK, by the way?

• 44:59Speaker 05

  Now they can.

• 45:00Jessie Ware?

  What, what, what's it on?

• 45:01Speaker 05

  CNN International.

• 45:03Jessie Ware?

  Oh, have fun.

• 45:03Speaker 05

  So I guess if you have Sky.

• 45:05Jessie Ware?

  Okay. Where do you get it on Netflix?

• 45:08Speaker 05

  Well, I.

• 45:09Jessie Ware?

  Maybe.

• 45:09Speaker 05

  I agree. But that was not.

• 45:12Jessie Ware?

  Can it?

• 45:13Speaker 05

  Under my, well, maybe someday if, if they choose to sell it to them. But it's up to CNN. They're the ones who, they control it.

• 45:21Jessie Ware?

  So what's next? Are you, are you, are you shooting anything at the moment?

• 45:24Speaker 05

  No, we're gonna shoot the London episode here. So we're shooting an episode of our show, but here with Italian chefs and Italian immigrants. And so on and so forth, telling the story of, cause you have, I think, close to 400,000 Italian immigrants in London.

• 45:41Jessie Ware?

  Oh, I didn't know.

• 45:42Speaker 05

  It's huge. It's huge. And a lot of them are in the hospitality business. And as you know, we have incredible restaurants here that are Italian restaurants. So that's gonna be the focus of this episode. We're doing it because we can't go to Italy. And we thought, well, let's.

• 45:56Jessie Ware?

  You live here, it's authentic.

• 45:57Speaker 05

  Yeah, why not? And you have, and what, what are those stories? Why are so many young people coming from Italy still to, to live and work in London? And that's a really interesting story to me. And a lot of them end up going into the food business, but even if they don't, we're, we're telling stories that are connected to food, because Italians are always connected to food. Um, no matter what their sort of social statuses. A cab driver and a princess will have, will, will be on equal footing when they talk about food. And that doesn't happen in any other country as far as I, as far as I know.

• 46:32Jessie Ware?

  Even with the north-south divide of Italy.

• 46:35Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 46:36Jessie Ware?

  There's still that common thread with the food, or do you think, I mean, I don't.

• 46:40Speaker 05

  I thi- I think without question. I think without que- I think it is the, the common denominator. It's the thing that brings everybody together. I mean, Garibaldi united the country in, in the 1860s. The real thing, and one of the reasons we wanted to do the show was to show the diversity of Italian food. But also to show that no matter who you are, no matter what your so- social standing, no matter what your upbringing, there is this obsession with food.

• 47:09Speaker 05

  And it is, it is the only way that they communicate.

• 47:16Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, that that's the kind of very, there's a real similarity with that. And Jew Jewish food, but it's kind of, it's not the same because I think that.

• 47:26Speaker 05

  Well, it's not the same because there isn't, you know, because. You know, the Italians come from this one place, the Jews are scattered all over the world, so. There are dishes that are similar from, you know, if you go to Israel, if you go to. You know, to Eastern Europe, there are dishes that are similar. But it's it's it's different because it's not necessarily a single race of people.

• 47:57Speaker 05

  What is that? Stop it.

• 48:00Speaker 04

  Um, but you don't have to eat.

• 48:03Jessie Ware?

  I feel like you have used quite Italian um ingredients.

• 48:07Speaker 05

  This is gorgeous, this is, Gennaro makes one of these.

• 48:10Speaker 04

  And that's some mascarpone. Jess, do you want?

• 48:13Jessie Ware?

  You're very, you're a lovely guest.

• 48:15Speaker 04

  Jessie, do you want some?

• 48:16Jessie Ware?

  Yes, a sliver, please.

• 48:17Speaker 05

  Is this, is this the way you grew up, like this?

• 48:20Jessie Ware?

  Yes, my mom has always done this, I mean, look, she's she's juiced it up today. But she always kind of, um, there was always a kind of dessert after. Even if it was, you know, the offering of ice cream in the fridge.

• 48:33Speaker 05

  This is gorgeous.

• 48:35Speaker 04

  Mum, this is great.

• 48:36Jessie Ware?

  You've really done good today, gal. Good.

• 48:38Speaker 05

  Amazing, perfect Italian meal.

• 48:41Jessie Ware?

  Oh, it's been such a pleasure having you and just, I mean, we knew you were gonna be a goodie, but. You, we could talk, we'll have to do a part two when you've got your next book or series out because.

• 48:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, and you can bring the um Parmigiana.

• 48:54Jessie Ware?

  Let's do this again, thank you.

• 48:56Speaker 05

  Yeah, well, thank you, thank you.

• 48:57Speaker 04

  If you don't mind me saying, you look very young and very handsome.

• 49:01Speaker 05

  Thank you.

• 49:01Speaker 04

  Your skin is beautiful.

• 49:02Jessie Ware?

  And that is not the wine talking.

• 49:04Speaker 05

  No, baby. Wow.

• 49:07Speaker 04

  Your skin is beautiful.

• 49:08Speaker 05

  Shut that mic off.

• 49:25Speaker 04

  Jessie, after that session with Stan,

• 49:30Speaker 04

  my head was swimming.

• 49:31Jessie Ware?

  Oh my god.

• 49:31Speaker 04

  He liked a glass of wine.

• 49:32Jessie Ware?

  As do you.

• 49:33Speaker 04

  So he was my perfect.

• 49:35Jessie Ware?

  Companion.

• 49:36Speaker 04

  Perfect guest.

• 49:37Jessie Ware?

  He also name checked Eli Zabar and Barney Greengrass, which came up a lot in our New York season.

• 49:45Speaker 04

  So it's Eli Zabar that we met.

• 49:47Jessie Ware?

  Yes.

• 49:47Speaker 04

  Oh my goodness.

• 49:48Jessie Ware?

  Talking about how he missed the Jewish food from the Upper West Side in New York. So that's a funny, serendipitous.

• 49:53Speaker 04

  How sunny.

• 49:55Jessie Ware?

  Moment. We both totally fell in love with Stan Lee. Total gent, full of stories and grace.

• 50:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 50:00Jessie Ware?

  You're welcome back anytime, Stan Lee.

• 50:02Speaker 04

  Maybe cook for us.

• 50:04Jessie Ware?

  Yes, I'd love that. And we'll have another second helping next week for you. So we'll see you next week.

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