Sharon Horgan is buzzing about our fresh tuna puttanesca pasta

Leaving her hungry would be nothing short of a Catastrophe… Writer, actor, director and producer Sharon Horgan joins us to chat about her new show, Youth. A dramedy exploring the perils of ageing and finding love after divorce, it's a fitting addition to Sharon's impressive back catalogue that delves into the less glamorous corners of domestic life. The series sparks conversation in the studio, from the realities of motherhood to fluctuating feelings about ageing. Having grown up on a turkey farm and spent years as a vegetarian, Sharon has seen her food tastes take a few turns along the way, including a return to meat eating. With lasagne among her favourites, it feels like a good excuse to kick things off with Alex Szrok’s recipe for lasagne fritti. These are enjoyed alongside a bitter, sweet and suitably buzzy tequila and grapefruit sbagliato, before Angela serves up fresh tuna puttanesca pasta. It’s accompanied by a bottle of Ayala Brut Majeur Champagne, selected by the Waitrose wine experts. As expected, Sharon proves as entertaining a guest as she is a writer, recalling the bold childhood career plans she shared with her mum at a very young age. Those ambitions have since paid off in shows like Catastrophe, Bad Sisters and Motherland, which counts Nick, Angela and even Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher among its devoted fans. With years spent both behind and in front of the camera, Sharon is the perfect person to settle a debate that’s been on our minds for some time: when it comes to feeding a film crew, does Hollywood really do it best? You can watch full episodes of Dish on YouTube and on Spotify. All recipes from this podcast can be found at waitrose.com/dishrecipes The recipe for the lasagne fritti was created for Waitrose by Alex Szrok A transcript for this episode can be found at waitrose.com/dish If you want to get in touch with us about anything at all, contact [email protected] Dish from Waitrose is made by Cold Glass Productions 00:00 - Coming up on Dish… 00:53 - Welcome! 01:58 - Mesh enters his chef era 03:51 - Catching up with Stanley Tucci 04:44 - Today’s guest! 05:49 - Let’s chat pears 08:07 - Sharon Horgan is here! 10:14 - Press life 12:16 - Tequila cocktails & lasagna fritti to begin 14:02 - Sharon’s food likes 17:30 - Sharon’s food dislikes 18:10 - Returning to meat eating 22:06 - Christmas 24:06 - Career aspirations 25:51 - Pasta is served! 28:21 - Champagne pairing 29:40 - Sharon’s new show ‘Youth’ 32:15 - From motherhood to age 38:39 - The timelessness of Motherland & character writing 42:17 - Liam Gallagher loves Motherland! 44:17 - Seeing Oasis 44:38 - Fast food quiz 46:52 - End of the show question Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:08Nick Grimshaw?

  The heart of Mexico beats in every glass of Don Julio Tequila. 100% Blue Weber Agave, grown in Mexico. Your margarita deserves an award-winning tequila at Waitrose. Find out more at donjulio.com. Select a store subject to availability. Over 18 only, please drink responsibly.

• 0:30Speaker 01

  Ah, now this is living. Tuesday night chili con carne with tilde rice.

• 0:36Speaker 02

  Call that living. This is living. Chicken stir fry with tilde firecracker rice.

• 0:41Speaker 01

  Okay, I see your stir fry and raise you. Tilde sticky rice poke bowl.

• 0:46Speaker 02

  Poke bowl, mate. Tilde coconut rice, lamb curry, poppadoms, chutney, the lot.

• 0:52Speaker 01

  Whoa, okay, now we're definitely living.

• 0:56Speaker 02

  Tilde, cook like you mean it, live like you mean it.

• 1:01Nick Grimshaw?

  Coming up on Dish. With Sharon Horgan.

• 1:04Angela Hartnett?

  Oh my God, I eat salmon jerky all day long. It stinks. Usually when someone comes into the house, I say, I'm sorry, I've just been eating salmon jerky. And I say, I think I say that every day.

• 1:16Nick Grimshaw?

  You know what you should do? Get Angela on your shoots because when we have pictures done, she's like, right.

• 1:23Nick Grimshaw?

  Get done and then we did one recently and I was like, is that it? And then Angela was, oh. That's what you need, like, come on.

• 1:29Angela Hartnett?

  And then I was like, hang on, all the women are in the kitchen.

• 1:32Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah.

• 1:33Speaker 02

  I'm gonna get you some food.

• 1:35Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah, get back to the kitchen, women.

• 1:41Nick Grimshaw?

  Dish from Waitrose is a cold glass production. This podcast may contain some strong language and adult themes.

• 1:54Nick Grimshaw?

  Hello, welcome to Dish from Waitrose. My name is Nick Grimshaw. What's your name?

• 2:00Angela Hartnett?

  My name is Angela Hartnett.

• 2:01Nick Grimshaw?

  Your name's Angela Hartnett. We were just saying we really enjoyed in the Andrew Garfield episode the other day that you said, my name.

• 2:10Angela Hartnett?

  My name is Angela.

• 2:11Nick Grimshaw?

  Is Angela Hartnett.

• 2:12Angela Hartnett?

  Apparently so.

• 2:13Nick Grimshaw?

  It is.

• 2:14Angela Hartnett?

  They say.

• 2:14Nick Grimshaw?

  Hello, Angela Hartnett.

• 2:15Angela Hartnett?

  Hello, Nick Grimshaw.

• 2:16Nick Grimshaw?

  And hey, Andrew Garfield was a great guest. I feel like I've not had a proper chance to have a gust to you about Andrew.

• 2:21Angela Hartnett?

  No, I've been telling everyone how brilliant he was. So I thought he was exceptional and he was here for two hours.

• 2:28Nick Grimshaw?

  He was here for ages.

• 2:29Angela Hartnett?

  He's like a whole day. Yeah, he was just chatting and I think he overstayed. He was supposed to have left and then he stayed.

• 2:35Nick Grimshaw?

  We were welcome for that. We were happy.

• 2:37Angela Hartnett?

  But he was great. He was, he was a great guest. He was chatty, he was funny, he was, yeah, he was good. He made cookies.

• 2:44Nick Grimshaw?

  He made cookies, great cookies.

• 2:46Angela Hartnett?

  Very good cookies, we love those, yeah.

• 2:48Nick Grimshaw?

  And then we had Rob Beckett last week.

• 2:49Angela Hartnett?

  Yes.

• 2:50Nick Grimshaw?

  Again, loved our time with Rob Beckett.

• 2:52Angela Hartnett?

  And you love his new show.

• 2:53Nick Grimshaw?

  I love his new show.

• 2:54Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah.

• 2:55Nick Grimshaw?

  But yeah, I had a nice weekend, just like in, watching telly, cooking.

• 2:59Angela Hartnett?

  Lovely.

• 3:00Nick Grimshaw?

  Meesh cooked a roast.

• 3:01Angela Hartnett?

  I did see that, I did see that.

• 3:03Nick Grimshaw?

  Huge.

• 3:03Angela Hartnett?

  Why, what happened?

• 3:04Nick Grimshaw?

  Never done one.

• 3:05Angela Hartnett?

  Were you ill?

• 3:05Nick Grimshaw?

  We were just hanging out, no, I, we were just hanging out. I cooked like Friday, Saturday, and then Sunday we were just like hanging out. And he was like, maybe I'll do it. And he's like, could I do it? And I said, of course you can do it. And then he did the roast and then when he cooked it and got it in the oven, he was like, is that it? I said, yeah.

• 3:25Angela Hartnett?

  Wow.

• 3:26Nick Grimshaw?

  He was like, so what are on about? It was like, that's it. Chop a few vegetables, boil a few potatoes, stick a chicken in. Is that it?

• 3:34Angela Hartnett?

  Look at him.

• 3:35Nick Grimshaw?

  I was like, that's it. He was like, easy, what's next? And I was like, I knew once he started cooking, he'd be like.

• 3:41Angela Hartnett?

  Now he thinks he can do it all.

• 3:42Nick Grimshaw?

  Working at Marano next.

• 3:44Angela Hartnett?

  Let's test him.

• 3:45Nick Grimshaw?

  And I was like, this is good. He was like, didn't do anything, so that's easy, isn't it? I was like, well.

• 3:49Angela Hartnett?

  Let's send him a few little recipes to test him. Yeah, let's do it.

• 3:53Nick Grimshaw?

  I had an injury though on.

• 3:55Angela Hartnett?

  Hold on, let me get a glass, can't quite see that.

• 3:57Nick Grimshaw?

  It was actually quite bad, it was actually really bad.

• 3:59Angela Hartnett?

  Oh, what happened? You cut yourself?

• 4:01Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah, with that wonderful knife that you got me. Very sharp.

• 4:03Angela Hartnett?

  Is it?

• 4:04Nick Grimshaw?

  No, not your fault, but.

• 4:05Angela Hartnett?

  Did you not have your fingers, you know?

• 4:07Nick Grimshaw?

  I actually don't know how I did this, but I sliced, I had my hand sort of under the vegetable.

• 4:12Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah, well, that's pretty stupid.

• 4:14Nick Grimshaw?

  Sliced through it.

• 4:15Angela Hartnett?

  I mean, you don't know how you did it, I can tell you how you did it.

• 4:18Nick Grimshaw?

  Do you know what I was doing? I was talking.

• 4:19Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah.

• 4:20Nick Grimshaw?

  I was talking, Meesh was in the kitchen, I was talking, then I was like, hmm.

• 4:23Angela Hartnett?

  Ooh.

• 4:24Nick Grimshaw?

  Ooh, it was, you know, it was bad.

• 4:25Angela Hartnett?

  That must have, yeah, because that's a sharp knife.

• 4:27Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah. And it was bleeding all, like it didn't, you know, it's right on the tip.

• 4:32Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 4:33Nick Grimshaw?

  Didn't stop.

• 4:33Angela Hartnett?

  Oh, God.

• 4:34Nick Grimshaw?

  Anyway.

• 4:35Angela Hartnett?

  Better now, though.

• 4:36Nick Grimshaw?

  Better now. Anyway, I survived.

• 4:38Angela Hartnett?

  Brilliant.

• 4:38Nick Grimshaw?

  And I, I made like a roast chicken with just like vegetables, roast vegetables and there's some like broad beans in it. And some preserved lemon.

• 4:46Angela Hartnett?

  Very nice, yeah.

• 4:47Nick Grimshaw?

  Chicken juice in all the veg, yummy.

• 4:49Angela Hartnett?

  Lovely.

• 4:50Nick Grimshaw?

  Mixed with the beans, delicious, really nice. Saw a thing that I was doing last night, Stanley Tucci. And I was chatting to him and he was like, how was your weekend? I was like, good, blah, blah, blah. Got on to cooking, he's like, what have you been making recently? And I said, I made this. He was like, what, what was the recipe? And I was like, oh, not just Stanley. It'd just like thrown in, it's like a casserole. I was like, yeah, he was like, I love casserole. Did you do it the correct way? I was like.

• 5:13Angela Hartnett?

  You didn't even make a casserole.

• 5:15Nick Grimshaw?

  What did I make? A casserole is what I made.

• 5:20Angela Hartnett?

  No, a casserole is the big French dish with the beans and the pork and the pig trotters and stuff.

• 5:27Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah.

• 5:27Angela Hartnett?

  And it wasn't a casserole, it was just a little bean salad.

• 5:29Nick Grimshaw?

  It was a casserole.

• 5:30Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah, well, lovely.

• 5:32Nick Grimshaw?

  I know.

• 5:32Angela Hartnett?

  Anyway, Stanley'd be fine with that.

• 5:34Nick Grimshaw?

  Anyway, sends his regards.

• 5:34Angela Hartnett?

  Now, now he knows, thinks you're at this French connoisseur.

• 5:38Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah, French chef, he's like, wow. And then I was like, oh, maybe I meant casserole. Apologies, Stanley Tucci. Sharon Horgan is coming in today to see us. Love Sharon Horgan.

• 5:50Angela Hartnett?

  Love her.

• 5:50Nick Grimshaw?

  She has a new show called Youth, which is great.

• 5:54Angela Hartnett?

  It's very good.

• 5:55Nick Grimshaw?

  And you'll know her from.

• 5:57Angela Hartnett?

  Motherland.

• 5:57Nick Grimshaw?

  Motherland.

• 5:58Angela Hartnett?

  Well, she didn't appear in it.

• 5:59Nick Grimshaw?

  No, but made it. Motherland.

• 6:01Angela Hartnett?

  Catastrophe.

• 6:02Nick Grimshaw?

  Catastrophe, Bad Sisters.

• 6:05Angela Hartnett?

  Loved that.

• 6:06Nick Grimshaw?

  So a lot to talk to Sharon Horgan about this morning. Have you met Sharon? Have you ever crossed paths with Sharon?

• 6:12Angela Hartnett?

  Never crossed paths with Sharon, a big fan.

• 6:14Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah, same.

• 6:14Angela Hartnett?

  Particularly loved Bad Sisters.

• 6:17Nick Grimshaw?

  Yes.

• 6:17Angela Hartnett?

  I thought that was a genius.

• 6:18Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah.

• 6:19Angela Hartnett?

  And the fact they managed to get a second series out of it, I thought was brilliant.

• 6:23Nick Grimshaw?

  Did you watch Youth?

• 6:24Angela Hartnett?

  I did, I've watched a couple of episodes now.

• 6:26Nick Grimshaw?

  It's a good concept, isn't it?

• 6:27Angela Hartnett?

  So, and you can see parallels with stuff you've done in your life and then your friends and at that sort of certain age. And, you know, and I think a lot of her work is like that, though. It reflects her life, you know, being a mother, having gotten a divorce, now where, you know, life's going and stuff. So I think it's brilliant.

• 6:43Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah, I can't wait to talk to her about it. So she'll be here soon.

• 6:46Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah.

• 6:47Nick Grimshaw?

  Whatever is being cooked smells delicious. But first we talk seasonality.

• 6:53Angela Hartnett?

  Seasonality, pears.

• 6:54Nick Grimshaw?

  Seasonality, pears.

• 6:55Angela Hartnett?

  Pears.

• 6:56Nick Grimshaw?

  Time to talk pears.

• 6:57Angela Hartnett?

  Do you like a pear?

• 6:58Nick Grimshaw?

  Do you know, I love a pear, but Meesh hates a pear. To a phobia.

• 7:02Angela Hartnett?

  You can't have them in the house.

• 7:03Nick Grimshaw?

  No way, can't have a pear in the house. No way, no way. Can't even look at a pear.

• 7:08Angela Hartnett?

  Can't even look at a pear.

• 7:09Nick Grimshaw?

  Love a pear.

• 7:10Angela Hartnett?

  But they're very good, yeah.

• 7:11Nick Grimshaw?

  The apple's sheik a sister, I feel.

• 7:13Angela Hartnett?

  Oh, yes, yes. Do you eat the skin?

• 7:15Nick Grimshaw?

  I feel like never had a pear in my house as a kid.

• 7:19Angela Hartnett?

  Oh, really?

• 7:20Nick Grimshaw?

  Never.

• 7:21Angela Hartnett?

  No.

• 7:21Nick Grimshaw?

  Pear feels quite posh, do you?

• 7:23Angela Hartnett?

  I like baked pears, I think they're great baked, I think they're lovely. So these are conference pears.

• 7:27Nick Grimshaw?

  Bear goes my finger.

• 7:29Angela Hartnett?

  Another one. And these are really in season at the moment. They're lovely and sweet and buttery. And then you've obviously got Commiss pears and then from abroad, you've got Green William pears and Rocho pears. And they're really good because they, they go with loads of things. They can go with meat, they can go with really strong cheeses, you can bake them, you can roast them. We do one where we poach them in red wine. So they take on that beautiful color and then reduce the sauce and then serve it with gorgonzola. You can put them in tarts, you can make a tatant out of pears. I think they're, and in salads at the moment, you know, because in winter, you're always getting all the root vegetables and it's boring. But I think when you do pears in with pumpkin and tardigos and stuff like that, I think they're amazing. And go fantastically well with nuts.

• 8:12Nick Grimshaw?

  Yes.

• 8:12Angela Hartnett?

  And we serve them also game, great with venison, great with duck, things like that. So I think they're particularly juicy. And also you can poach them and store them and pickle them. I know you're into your pickling, you can pickle pears, store them in the jar, then you've got them for next season.

• 8:27Nick Grimshaw?

  So what would you do if you were cooking this weekend? What would you do, Angela?

• 8:30Angela Hartnett?

  With pears like this, if I didn't want to do much work, I would poach them in red wine and serve them with cheese. If I wanted to be particularly flash, I would make a pear tatant. So sugar and butter at the base of a pan, put your pears on top and then puff pastry and bake them in the oven. And then if I just wanted one dish, I'd do them with some really, all those bitter leaves we like, tardigo, radicchio, Paso Franco. Mix them with that, do maybe hazelnuts in there and just do a lovely, beautiful salad.

• 8:57Nick Grimshaw?

  Maybe a little blue cheese.

• 8:58Angela Hartnett?

  Little blue cheese, little blue cheese, so very versatile.

• 9:01Nick Grimshaw?

  Well, thank you, Angela.

• 9:03Angela Hartnett?

  Pleasure.

• 9:03Nick Grimshaw?

  Okay, shall we welcome our guest? Let's welcome Sharon Horgan to Dish.

• 9:09Nick Grimshaw?

  Hi Sharon. Welcome.

• 9:12Speaker 04

  Hi.

• 9:12Nick Grimshaw?

  Sorry, I'm eating. How are you?

• 9:14Speaker 04

  That's okay.

• 9:15Angela Hartnett?

  How are you?

• 9:15Speaker 04

  I'm good.

• 9:17Nick Grimshaw?

  You look great.

• 9:17Angela Hartnett?

  You do.

• 9:18Speaker 04

  That's my white pack. Is it?

• 9:19Nick Grimshaw?

  Oh, yeah. Oh, we love it, yeah. It looks good. And how are you?

• 9:26Speaker 04

  I'm okay.

• 9:27Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah?

• 9:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 9:28Nick Grimshaw?

  You hungry?

• 9:28Speaker 04

  I am.

• 9:29Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah?

• 9:30Speaker 04

  I wasn't sure how to play it. Do people... Because I ended up not really... I had an apple.

• 9:35Angela Hartnett?

  Oh, good. Now we're gonna feed you.

• 9:37Nick Grimshaw?

  Well, come in. We'll get you a seat and a drink. Come on in.

• 9:42Speaker 04

  Uh, still, still. I'm a burper, so...

• 9:46Speaker 05

  We've had a nice amount of burping.

• 9:48Speaker 04

  Really?

• 9:48Angela Hartnett?

  No, we've been quiet, yeah. Could all start today. We'll be fine.

• 9:54Nick Grimshaw?

  Our guest is here, Angela.

• 9:56Angela Hartnett?

  Yes, fantastic.

• 9:56Nick Grimshaw?

  Shall we give our guest a proper introduction? It feels only fair. Uh, we have an actor, a producer, a writer, a director, a show creator, who, and I quote, "can eat faster than a piranha." It's Sharon Horgan, everybody!

• 10:14Speaker 04

  That is true.

• 10:16Nick Grimshaw?

  That's... Hello.

• 10:18Speaker 04

  That is true.

• 10:19Nick Grimshaw?

  That is true.

• 10:20Speaker 04

  Well, I haven't heard the piranha bit before, but I am a fast eater.

• 10:25Nick Grimshaw?

  This was a thing that robbed Delaney.

• 10:27Speaker 04

  I knew it.

• 10:27Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah, I knew it was him.

• 10:28Speaker 04

  I knew it.

• 10:29Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah.

• 10:29Speaker 04

  Uh, I mean, in fairness, he eats fast as well, but just not as fast as me.

• 10:34Angela Hartnett?

  Not as fast.

• 10:35Speaker 04

  I think maybe it comes from, uh, being from a big family and sort of wanting to get it in there before someone takes it from your place.

• 10:44Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 10:45Speaker 04

  So I think it stems from that.

• 10:46Nick Grimshaw?

  And hello, actor, producer, writer, director and show creator.

• 10:49Speaker 04

  I'm just doing it.

• 10:50Nick Grimshaw?

  You're not having a leisurely lunch? You've got shows to make. Gay, down, yeah.

• 10:54Angela Hartnett?

  She's doing everything in that one.

• 10:56Speaker 04

  That is part of it, I guess.

• 10:57Nick Grimshaw?

  Is it okay that you're here today? Do you have time? If we could just get through this, please, yeah. Uh, but no, thank you for coming. We're so excited about having you on.

• 11:08Angela Hartnett?

  Yes.

• 11:08Speaker 04

  I'm excited to be here.

• 11:09Nick Grimshaw?

  We are both big fans of you. We're just insane, we are. So we're dead excited that you're going on. How is life for you at the moment? Because it feels like full on.

• 11:19Speaker 04

  Yeah, it feels like a whole other job promoting the show. I mean, you always have to do a certain amount, but this feels excessive.

• 11:29Speaker 04

  I'm slightly embarrassed to be here.

• 11:31Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah.

• 11:32Speaker 04

  So I feel like I've been, you know, putting it about all over the place.

• 11:35Angela Hartnett?

  It's all right. We'll allow you to do that.

• 11:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's because we had our premiere in New York, so we did all our press there and that felt like a lot, like junkity stuff. And now... And then we had another one in London, did that, and now there's all the extras, sort of... I mean, you want people to see it.

• 11:53Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah, of course, yeah.

• 11:54Speaker 04

  But like, especially if you're a woman, there's a whole other thing that goes along with it, which is glam. You know, you have to have... You have to do all that and that takes...

• 12:03Nick Grimshaw?

  Photoshoots and things and all of that.

• 12:05Speaker 04

  Barf, yeah.

• 12:06Angela Hartnett?

  We're in a costume.

• 12:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly.

• 12:10Nick Grimshaw?

  That's quite your, uh, sort of viewpoint on a photo shoot is that bar? It's not like your favorite?

• 12:15Speaker 04

  Some people love it. Yeah, I remember reading Tina Fey saying, "What's not to like?" You know, you get people pampering you, you get to wear nice clothes, and someone does your hair, makes you look great, like what's not to like? But I can think of many things not to like about it.

• 12:32Angela Hartnett?

  Great, yeah.

• 12:32Speaker 04

  All of that stuff I just said.

• 12:34Nick Grimshaw?

  What you should do, get Angela on your shoots, because when we have pictures done, she's like, "Right, come on." Get done. And then, we did one recently and I was like, "Is that it?" And then that Angela was, "Oh."

• 12:45Speaker 04

  Really?

• 12:46Nick Grimshaw?

  That's what you need, like, come on.

• 12:48Speaker 04

  That's it. Like a quick photo shoot is the dream.

• 12:51Angela Hartnett?

  Well, yeah, because then you feel... I don't like it when they're like, "Oh, let's do it again." He was brilliant, because he goes, "Yeah, we've got it."

• 12:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:57Angela Hartnett?

  He took great... I hope he has, I haven't seen him.

• 12:59Nick Grimshaw?

  We've not seen him, but... He's retouching them now.

• 13:02Angela Hartnett?

  His confidence was, "No, we've got it." And I thought, "That's it. That's what you want."

• 13:06Speaker 04

  That's the thing. You can't... Why not just do it quick and then do all the work on the computer after?

• 13:11Nick Grimshaw?

  After work. Get CGI on, please. Yeah, mix it up after, yes. Um, well, we're starting today with a tequila grapefruit spagliato, because we heard you wanted a drink with a bit of a buzz on. Like, it feels like an upper.

• 13:25Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 13:26Nick Grimshaw?

  That's what we heard.

• 13:27Speaker 04

  Well, yeah, I mean, I was asked, um, what I like to drink, and generally it is something that instead of... That, yeah, gives you a buzz.

• 13:34Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah.

• 13:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, makes you feel like you've got a bit of energy. I mean, an espresso martini, but then that is also, you know, caffeine, like after lunch. But yeah, tequila generally, like good tequila.

• 13:46Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah.

• 13:47Speaker 04

  It's great.

• 13:48Angela Hartnett?

  And then we've got some delicious lasagna fritti. And this is a recipe by Alex Shrock, because we know you love lasagna.

• 13:54Speaker 04

  I do love lasagna.

• 13:55Angela Hartnett?

  Just a little nibble before your second course of pasta.

• 13:58Speaker 04

  Thank you. What do I eat it now?

• 14:00Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah, of course.

• 14:01Speaker 04

  Do I use my hand?

• 14:02Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah, you get involved, yeah.

• 14:04Speaker 04

  But then when you... Are you guys not having some?

• 14:06Angela Hartnett?

  He can't.

• 14:06Nick Grimshaw?

  I'm allergic to fruit.

• 14:08Angela Hartnett?

  He's gluten free.

• 14:09Speaker 04

  Oh, really? What happens when you eat gluten?

• 14:12Nick Grimshaw?

  Ah, so many various things.

• 14:14Speaker 04

  Oh, really? Like butt stuff?

• 14:16Nick Grimshaw?

  Butt stuff.

• 14:19Nick Grimshaw?

  These guys hear this every week. And but cheers.

• 14:22Speaker 04

  Cheers.

• 14:23Nick Grimshaw?

  Cheers.

• 14:23Speaker 04

  What is it called again?

• 14:24Nick Grimshaw?

  Uh, grapefruit tequila spagliato. So it's like, uh, tequila, grapefruit, uh, red vermouth, some sugar syrup and then some prosecco.

• 14:34Speaker 04

  Oh my god.

• 14:34Nick Grimshaw?

  And a sliced grapefruit.

• 14:35Speaker 04

  Really delicious.

• 14:36Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah.

• 14:36Nick Grimshaw?

  Mmm.

• 14:37Speaker 04

  That's really good.

• 14:38Nick Grimshaw?

  It's good, right?

• 14:39Speaker 04

  Yeah. It doesn't taste too alcoholic, like I do like to feel my drinks when I drink.

• 14:46Nick Grimshaw?

  I think it feels a little...

• 14:47Speaker 04

  Does it?

• 14:48Nick Grimshaw?

  Mum and dad's downstairs cabinet, a little... A little scent of, uh...

• 14:53Speaker 04

  Did you... Did you... To do that, did you both use to...

• 14:56Angela Hartnett?

  Stick stuff out the cabinet?

• 14:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, but like make your own sort of weird cocktails?

• 15:00Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah, make your own disco... Hello, I'm still doing it.

• 15:04Nick Grimshaw?

  Shall we start with your food likes and dislikes, Sharon? Uh, we always like to get to know a guest through food, so we're gonna do this. It's a great list, 10 items long. It's almost like a chart rundown format. It's a good top 10.

• 15:16Angela Hartnett?

  I like it, I like it.

• 15:16Nick Grimshaw?

  It's a really good top 10. Sushi, spaghetti vongole, lasagna, hence this. Cabbage and bacon.

• 15:23Angela Hartnett?

  Love that.

• 15:24Nick Grimshaw?

  Seafood, especially oysters, a full Irish breakfast. What's on a full Irish breakfast?

• 15:29Speaker 04

  Well, I mean, I... Well, you get white pudding and black pudding.

• 15:32Nick Grimshaw?

  Black pudding, yeah.

• 15:34Speaker 04

  Um, you usually get like a potato farl...

• 15:37Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah.

• 15:37Speaker 04

  Kind of thing.

• 15:38Nick Grimshaw?

  What's that, like a potato cake?

• 15:39Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's like a potato cake, but what else would be different? I mean, just the sausages are better in Ireland, because we kind of own the fact that they are... You know, they are what they are.

• 15:50Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah.

• 15:50Speaker 04

  We're not pretending that they're meat. We're kind of like... Irish sausages are amazing. They're kind of... They're so sweet and juicy and... Do you do beans, tomatoes, mushrooms? Yeah, yeah, all of that as well. It's just the best. It's just a great meal.

• 16:05Nick Grimshaw?

  Have you ever had a potato cake?

• 16:06Angela Hartnett?

  I love a potato cake.

• 16:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, me too.

• 16:08Angela Hartnett?

  And I like the soda bread, the Irish soda.

• 16:10Nick Grimshaw?

  Oh, I love soda bread.

• 16:11Angela Hartnett?

  I think having that toast... I just need to put some pasta down.

• 16:14Speaker 04

  Oh, okay. All right, sure.

• 16:16Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah, the soda bread, so good.

• 16:18Speaker 04

  Soda bread's the best.

• 16:19Nick Grimshaw?

  The best.

• 16:19Speaker 04

  I used to bring it back for my girls all the time and they used to get so excited about it. Now, now they're not anymore. It's a sad thing.

• 16:27Nick Grimshaw?

  Well, they're just...

• 16:28Speaker 04

  They're just over it, you know?

• 16:30Nick Grimshaw?

  Like, we've had it.

• 16:31Speaker 04

  I think they used to love it more to sort of see it. They would see how happy it made me. And now, now they just don't care if it makes me happier.

• 16:39Nick Grimshaw?

  Whatever. Uh, also on there, we got roasts, salmon jerky. Never had salmon jerky.

• 16:44Speaker 04

  Oh my god, I eat salmon jerky all day long. I definitely had salmon jerky today, because I have it all... I have it every day.

• 16:50Nick Grimshaw?

  So like beef jerky but salmon, so it's like a freeze-dried situation?

• 16:53Speaker 04

  So I think it's good for you.

• 16:55Nick Grimshaw?

  Yes.

• 16:55Speaker 04

  It must be, right?

• 16:56Nick Grimshaw?

  Must be.

• 16:56Speaker 04

  Nigas and all that. Uh, it stinks. Like, any... Most time... Usually when someone comes into the house, I go... I say, "I'm sorry, I've just been eating salmon jerky." And I say... I think I say that every day. I hug my girls when they come back from anywhere. I'm like, they say, "Have you been eating salmon jerky again?" I'm always eating salmon jerky. It's just such a great chewy, delicious snack. Salty.

• 17:21Nick Grimshaw?

  And good for you, like good fats.

• 17:23Speaker 04

  I feel like it's good fats.

• 17:24Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah, I never, never crossed my path, salmon jerky.

• 17:27Speaker 04

  You should try it.

• 17:28Nick Grimshaw?

  Have you done a salmon jerky, Anne?

• 17:29Angela Hartnett?

  Never. That's never been my thing. I don't like the beef jerky.

• 17:33Nick Grimshaw?

  The beef I like, they're pure.

• 17:34Angela Hartnett?

  I don't like beef jerky.

• 17:36Speaker 04

  Why? Because it...

• 17:37Angela Hartnett?

  I think it's too dry, the stuff we've had over here. Because, but then when I've had it out in South Africa and stuff, it's amazing.

• 17:43Speaker 04

  Chewy and juicy.

• 17:44Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah.

• 17:44Speaker 04

  It's really good.

• 17:45Angela Hartnett?

  And do they make it out in Ireland?

• 17:47Speaker 04

  Uh, no, this... I just get it from my local store. My local store has it.

• 17:52Angela Hartnett?

  We'll have to give that a try, though.

• 17:53Speaker 04

  I really felt like Amanda there. You know, she would call her... She'd go, "Call it a shop..." A store.

• 17:59Nick Grimshaw?

  Store, store.

• 18:01Speaker 04

  I did it in reverse.

• 18:04Nick Grimshaw?

  Um, black bean chili oil, really good. Is that just on everything?

• 18:08Speaker 04

  Everything.

• 18:09Nick Grimshaw?

  I always make... That makes me feel, when I put that on some eggs, I'm like, "Wow."

• 18:12Speaker 04

  I've just made... I'm a chef now, yeah.

• 18:15Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah, I'm a chef now, yeah.

• 18:15Speaker 04

  Everything, breakfast, doesn't matter.

• 18:18Nick Grimshaw?

  Delicious.

• 18:18Speaker 04

  Bread.

• 18:19Nick Grimshaw?

  Also a big sweets fan. That was number one, Haribo and sweets.

• 18:22Speaker 04

  Yeah. I mean, I feel like I've controlled that a little.

• 18:25Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah.

• 18:25Speaker 04

  Um, but, um, yeah, very addicted to sugar.

• 18:30Nick Grimshaw?

  Uh, your dislikes, Sharon Horgan. Sweet meats, bone marrow, uh, and then octopus, orvee, or foie gras.

• 18:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 18:39Nick Grimshaw?

  Foie gras?

• 18:40Speaker 04

  I mean, I... Foie gras.

• 18:42Nick Grimshaw?

  Foie gras.

• 18:43Speaker 04

  I was a vegetarian for 16 years and I was a vegan for two years. So, and it was, you know, because I didn't want to eat animals. And then all of a sudden, aged 32, like actually just a year before I got pregnant, not even that, it was like six months or something, I just suddenly thought, "I want to start eating meat again." But those kind of... Those kind of meats, which I think are bad meats.

• 19:05Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah, that's like the...

• 19:06Speaker 04

  All meats are bad, really. I feel guilty about it all the time, but, um, but I still do it.

• 19:10Nick Grimshaw?

  What was the turning point back to meat eating? Was there like a smell, a flavor?

• 19:18Speaker 04

  I genuinely don't know. I don't know what happened. I mean, I'm thinking that maybe it was slightly connected to something hormonal that was going on with me, because I did get pregnant so quickly afterwards and, uh... But I don't know. I can't remember, because it feels like it's like a big thing. You know, you say like, not eat it for so long and then just suddenly... And then suddenly mad for it. Like, I would go into supermarkets and just stand in the meat aisle and be like...

• 19:45Speaker 04

  Really excited because when I had stopped eating meat aged sixteen, I still lived in Ireland. And like, you know, that would have been in the mid eighties and meat was kind of different then. It wasn't that exciting. You know, you you'd get like a lamb chop or a pork chop, or you might get like a spaghetti bolognese or maybe a steak and kidney pie, but but there was no no exciting meat.

• 20:12Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah, yeah, sure.

• 20:13Speaker 04

  Um, so it just, it felt really, yeah, really exciting to dive back in, yeah.

• 20:19Nick Grimshaw?

  What made you go vegetarian in the first place and vegan?

• 20:22Speaker 04

  My dad, who I loved and adored, um, we we had a farm, like I was, I brought up on a turkey farm. Yeah, but we had, so I was like surrounded by death all the time.

• 20:33Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah, of course, yeah.

• 20:34Speaker 04

  Like up close, you know, and, um, but but we had a couple of pigs and some sheep. But we had these two lambs and I loved those lambs and they would come up to our back door and they would do, lambs are so playful and fun and they would do this little jumpy thing on the step to attract your attention. You'd go out, you'd be so happy to see your lamb. And then my dad fed us that lamb, but it said, guess who? He, he, he, and I think he thought it was funny, but it sort of, it really, um.

• 21:05Angela Hartnett?

  Don't judge, you'll eat it too.

• 21:07Speaker 04

  It just, it really like [BLEEP] me up. And so I stopped from that, from that point on. At the time, you were called a sort of a pudding vegetarian because no one knew how to eat properly as a vegetarian.

• 21:19Angela Hartnett?

  You probably had carbs the whole time.

• 21:20Speaker 04

  Just say chips.

• 21:21Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah, it wasn't like, oh, there's all this great nutritious frankfurters.

• 21:24Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's like chips and pita bread, chips on their own.

• 21:28Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah.

• 21:29Speaker 04

  Um, and so I wasn't getting what I needed, but, um, but then we sort of, you know, worked around it. And then, then I was like a fully fledged hippie really, um, in London. So I was like, this is where my people are. And everyone was either a vegetarian or a vegan. And then slowly the, the, the sort of health food shops started popping up and, you know, it was, it was like fun back in the day, what was available. It was literally just sacks of grain.

• 21:55Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah.

• 21:56Speaker 04

  And, and this thing called sauce mix, which you would make, you would add water to it. You would make, you'd roll your own sausages and it was pretty, pretty tasty.

• 22:05Nick Grimshaw?

  It's a hard core time, I feel, to have to be vegetarian and vegan.

• 22:09Speaker 04

  Cranks, my friend worked in Cranks. He would bring us food back from Cranks.

• 22:13Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah, yeah, that was the whole. First chain, I think, of vegetarian restaurants in London, yeah.

• 22:17Speaker 04

  And we used to eat with the Harry Krishnas a lot.

• 22:19Angela Hartnett?

  Oh, yeah.

• 22:20Nick Grimshaw?

  So is square.

• 22:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, they would come to us, actually, because we were a whole, like, tribe of hippies because we were squatting in this sort of community. So they would come to our tower block that we were squatting in. And we would all like sit around and they'd, they'd do their thing and, uh, and then we'd be like, where's the food?

• 22:40Nick Grimshaw?

  And would you get into it? Would you have a little chan and?

• 22:43Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, I dug it for a little while because, you know, it kind of, it was, you know, very meditative and I liked incense.

• 22:52Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah. Right, I'll do this.

• 22:55Speaker 04

  And then I was like, hang on, all the women are in the kitchen.

• 22:58Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah. I'm gonna get you some food.

• 23:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, get back to the kitchen, woman.

• 23:03Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah, back to the. And how's your relationship with turkey now, after growing up on a turkey farm?

• 23:11Speaker 04

  Uh, I, I, I eat it.

• 23:13Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah.

• 23:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, for sure. I mean, has my relationship with Christmas is, uh, more.

• 23:19Nick Grimshaw?

  That's more of a question.

• 23:20Speaker 04

  More of a question.

• 23:21Nick Grimshaw?

  Do you do Christmas dinner? Are you in charge of that?

• 23:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, quite often I am. I mean, it took me a while to learn how to cook meat. I still, I'm a bit scared of meat, cooking it.

• 23:30Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah.

• 23:31Speaker 04

  So, so like cooking poultry was one of the easier things, I think. But no, I, I mean, my, my, my parents, um, you know, when your whole income is pretty much based around one time of the year, like that was their big time. I mean, this is, you know, this is before turkey was sort of considered a, you know, a healthy, a healthy choice. It was like people ate it at Christmas and they ate it at Easter. And, and I guess that was kind of it. So it was, that's when they made their money and, and they would work like dogs, you know, right up until Christmas Eve. And even on Christmas Eve, we were like paying the pluckers and it was intense.

• 24:13Speaker 04

  And then, and then they would, you know, do the meal and then they would fall asleep. But it was a very intense period of time because it was so stressful and my dad would always start smoking again. Every eight days before Christmas, he would just, and we were like, oh, no, dad's started smoking again.

• 24:28Angela Hartnett?

  Oh, no, he's starting, no.

• 24:29Speaker 04

  Yeah. And, uh, you know, my mom just constantly had feathers in her hair.

• 24:33Angela Hartnett?

  Oh, my God.

• 24:34Speaker 04

  Because she would be there, you know, like checking all the birds and giving out tickets.

• 24:37Angela Hartnett?

  Were you ever made to work in it, like helping the farm?

• 24:40Speaker 04

  We were absolutely a hundred percent taken out of school.

• 24:42Angela Hartnett?

  Really?

• 24:43Speaker 04

  Because my dad was like, yeah, I can't trust too many people. I trust these kids.

• 24:47Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah.

• 24:48Speaker 04

  So we were, we were, we all worked on the farm, plucking.

• 24:52Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah. And when you were working then, were you seeing stuff and being like, I don't want to be plucking? Were you thinking like, what do I want to do? Like, where am I gonna go?

• 25:01Speaker 04

  I was for sure thinking this isn't the job for me.

• 25:04Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah.

• 25:05Speaker 04

  Um, but, but, yeah, I mean, I, I think I was thinking about the writing side of things quite, quite young.

• 25:11Nick Grimshaw?

  What age do you think?

• 25:13Speaker 04

  I, I, I think quite young because I was obnoxious and pretentious. And, and myself and my best friend used to have like, you know, and, and, and way too intensely close friendship. So we would write poetry, you know, we would like, yeah, we were, we were very into sort of expressing ourselves through, through poem.

• 25:35Nick Grimshaw?

  And did you talk to your family about that? Were you like, I think I'm gonna do writing? How did they, did they take it, were they encouraging? Were they like, don't be so ridiculous?

• 25:43Speaker 04

  I embarrassingly told my mom, really young, really young, I was like, so I'm, I'm gonna be an actor and, uh, I'm gonna win an Oscar, just so, just so, you know, that's gonna be happening, so get ready.

• 25:58Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah.

• 25:59Speaker 04

  Get ready, get ready for that.

• 26:01Nick Grimshaw?

  Bad to the turkey.

• 26:02Speaker 04

  And she, she very, you know, cleverly said, maybe, you know, set your sights a little bit lower, but I, I don't know what it, what it, what it was. It was funny, isn't it?

• 26:13Nick Grimshaw?

  But I always liked meeting people and they had that like vision of, that's what I'm gonna do. And like, you know, when you're a kid saying something like that, it's kind of incredible, like, I'm gonna be an actor, I'm gonna win an Oscar.

• 26:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 26:25Nick Grimshaw?

  Amazing.

• 26:26Speaker 04

  Weird as hell.

• 26:27Nick Grimshaw?

  I love it.

• 26:28Speaker 04

  Just that it took me so long then, you know, as well. I mean, it's not something I, I certainly didn't walk into it. I mean, I, I think I, I got my first, like, paying acting, well, when I was thirty one or something, you know, it took a long time to get that mood board.

• 26:45Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah, to get it. It's going now. The mood boards come to life, guys. Our main has arrived.

• 26:54Angela Hartnett?

  Indeed.

• 26:55Nick Grimshaw?

  Um, so we have a fresh tuna putanesca.

• 26:58Angela Hartnett?

  Yes, pasta, yeah.

• 27:00Nick Grimshaw?

  Um, yeah, tell us, uh, what we've got here, Angela.

• 27:02Angela Hartnett?

  So it's the base of a putanesca sauce. So in a pan, you put olive oil, then you do your sliced garlic, add some pitted calamata olives and some capers. And basically in the oil, you just sort of saute that down for a few minutes. Then you add stalks of the parsley. Then you add your tinned tomatoes and then you cook your sauce for about ten to fifteen minutes till you have this lovely delicious sauce. While that's cooking, you prepare your tuna. So take your yellowfin tuna steaks and dice that up. And then you add some lemon rind and juice to that, some virgin olive oil, little bit of touch of seasoning, some more capers and some chopped parsley. And you give that a good stir. So the tuna sort of marinades on the side.

• 27:44Nick Grimshaw?

  And how long you leaving that for? Just as long as you want?

• 27:46Angela Hartnett?

  Literally while the sauce is sort of cooking. This is one of these dishes that you literally do all at the same time. You know, your sauce is cooking, you marinate your tuna and then you can cook your pasta. Then cook your pasta, drain it, your tuna, add into the tomato sauce, cook that for about two minutes and then add your pasta into the sauce and toss it all together with some more fresh parsley and finish with a touch of olive oil if you need to. And if you need a little bit of the pasta water to sort of bring it all together, use that. And there's your, um, fresh tuna putanesca pasta.

• 28:15Nick Grimshaw?

  It's really good.

• 28:16Speaker 04

  Delicious.

• 28:17Nick Grimshaw?

  Really good, delicious. Thank you, Angela. And then do you think, yeah, you need to do the fresh tuna with this, I think, don't you?

• 28:22Angela Hartnett?

  Well, to be fair, you can do tin tuna because we've made it before where we've come through the fresh tuna. But, I mean, it works with fresh or tinned, but I think it's better with fresh, this particular recipe, yeah.

• 28:32Nick Grimshaw?

  The olives are great in it as well. Like, they're really, mm.

• 28:35Angela Hartnett?

  And it's sort of one of those things, if you did cook tuna and you had some left, all those other things you've always got in the cupboard. You know, you've got olives, you've got capers, you've got chili, if you want to add chili to it, you know, garlic's there, you know, it's all those sort of things that you have all the time.

• 28:48Speaker 04

  It's really easy to just, uh, make pasta every night because it's just, it's the best and it's quick.

• 28:55Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah. Do you cook every night?

• 28:57Speaker 04

  No. No, I don't cook every night.

• 28:59Angela Hartnett?

  No.

• 29:00Speaker 04

  At all or anything like it. But, I mean, I used to and.

• 29:04Angela Hartnett?

  With the daughters, yeah.

• 29:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, with my girls. And then you just end, you, you just feel like you're, you're feeding them the same thing all the time. But when I do cook, and I still, I would say I cook a couple of times a week.

• 29:14Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah.

• 29:15Speaker 04

  Um, one of those times will definitely be pasta. And then the other time will be noodles.

• 29:21Nick Grimshaw?

  The wine pairing we've gone for is a champagne, um, which is an Ayala, um, brew Majeur champagne. So this is a great pairing actually, isn't it? With it's quite like high acidity and.

• 29:35Angela Hartnett?

  Listen to him, he knows it all.

• 29:36Nick Grimshaw?

  Just reading off a bit of paper. No, but all jokes aside, that does work perfectly with it.

• 29:42Angela Hartnett?

  It's lovely.

• 29:43Nick Grimshaw?

  I think it does make fizzy.

• 29:44Speaker 04

  Yeah, they are, it is. I'm just gonna burp a lot now, so you'll have to.

• 29:48Angela Hartnett?

  It's all right, you can, you can burp away.

• 29:50Speaker 04

  I really love burping.

• 29:52Nick Grimshaw?

  You gotta do it, yeah.

• 29:53Speaker 04

  Just such a, it's so fun.

• 29:55Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah.

• 29:56Speaker 04

  And it's such a release.

• 29:57Nick Grimshaw?

  Unless sort of, it's a release, it's fun, more fun, less offensive than the other end, I feel. The other end, I think, no.

• 30:06Speaker 04

  It's so much less offensive. It's not even in the same.

• 30:09Nick Grimshaw?

  No, yeah.

• 30:10Speaker 04

  Come on.

• 30:11Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah, because that's more.

• 30:12Speaker 04

  It's a different thing.

• 30:13Nick Grimshaw?

  A burp's like pre-ferment, I feel.

• 30:16Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. It's almost just like a compliment, really.

• 30:19Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah.

• 30:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 30:21Nick Grimshaw?

  I think so, yeah. If you want to try this recipe, uh, or if you want to get any ingredients, waitrose.com forward slash dish recipes, the champagne pairing on there, genuinely great with like the tuna and the capers and the olives, really great. And you can watch Angela doing this exact recipe on our social channels.

• 30:41Nick Grimshaw?

  We should talk about Youth.

• 30:43Angela Hartnett?

  Oh, we should.

• 30:43Nick Grimshaw?

  Because we watched this. When did you watch it?

• 30:45Angela Hartnett?

  Last night. Me too.

• 30:46Speaker 04

  You did?

• 30:47Nick Grimshaw?

  Yes.

• 30:48Speaker 04

  When did you watch?

• 30:49Nick Grimshaw?

  I watched the first one and then I watched half of the second one today after the radio. Yeah, but I really loved it. Like, like we said at the start, we're such big fans of yours. And I think that you managed to, and Angela, I think, said it before you joined us, that you always managed to write about moments that feel really real and like really reflective.

• 31:07Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah.

• 31:07Nick Grimshaw?

  I think you always managed to do sort of writing that feels, I don't know, sort of naturally emotional. And it could happen to you.

• 31:16Angela Hartnett?

  Or you've had an experience.

• 31:17Nick Grimshaw?

  The start of the series, I just felt immediately like connected and emotional to you and like, [bleep] our life, which I always feel with a lot of your writing. But yeah, tell us about Youth and how much, when you know, when a project starts, do you know where it's going? Do you know the direction? Or do you just start off of a feeling or a mood?

• 31:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think you do start off of a feeling. I don't think you ever really fully know what direction it's going, except maybe Bad Sisters, because that was, you know, an adaptation of a show that already existed. And so I knew, you know, what my A was and what my Z was. But with Youth, I started writing it about six or seven years ago, pre-Bad Sisters. And it was just reflecting what I was feeling at the time. And what I was feeling was, you know, I was, you know, I'd had hit 50 and I was not in a relationship. I'd just come out of a long-term one and I was thinking, well, that's it now for me.

• 32:17Speaker 04

  And I remember like saying it to my Bad Sisters sisters, that I was never gonna have sex again. And, you know, and I was just like, well, that's it now. And I had a good innings. And I just, you know, it didn't, at that time, wasn't thinking about starting over. I was kind of thinking of it as an end and I was feeling quite down about it. But at the same time, I guess with any of the shows, it kind of, it really helps to start writing about that stuff and thinking about it, you know, and then with time you get perspective, you know. And so the fact that I had to park it, I mean, I'd come up with the characters and I knew I wanted it to be about mother and son and I knew I wanted to have an ex-husband

• 33:02Speaker 04

  and an ex kind of love who comes back into my life and all of those things. But the perspective that I sort of gained over those years, kind of, it was just so much better to write it now or whatever.

• 33:15Nick Grimshaw?

  One of the things I was saying before, when I was chatting to Tom, our producer, was when I watched it, I was struck by the, because I always think like, maybe I'll grow up next year or something. So there was something, do you know what I mean? Like, there was something quite amazing to see.

• 33:32Speaker 04

  I completely know what you mean.

• 33:33Nick Grimshaw?

  You in the form, like when your son leaves and goes off to uni and then you're just like hanging out in your undies, eating ham from the fridge.

• 33:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 33:42Nick Grimshaw?

  And I sometimes have for my dinner, like cottage cheese out the fridge and like a handful of like crackers and a Diet Coke. And I think, oh, and in my head, I'm like, no, I'm 42. I should be, I should be like Stanley Tucci. I should be in like, you know, like I should be like Colin Firth or something. Like in a wood clad apartment.

• 34:01Speaker 04

  What does Colin Firth do?

• 34:02Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah. And I was like, you're basically just like a still a student. And it just made me think like the sort of delusions of what it means to be older or to be an adult.

• 34:12Speaker 04

  Interesting, that whole area. And Aaron, who plays my son Rory, was fascinated by that. That he was surrounded by adults who hadn't grown up, like adults who are, you know, beyond 40, who hadn't figured it out.

• 34:27Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah.

• 34:27Speaker 04

  Or maybe it's not hadn't figured it out, but we're still figuring out other stuff, you know, which I think is one of the things that I'm trying to get across in the show, I suppose. Because I felt like I had a sort of ageist approach to getting older, like even with regards to myself. Like, I kind of thought, well, I'm done now or I'm on the scrap heap. And I felt that from quite, you know, even when I was in my 40s, I kind of felt like, well, what? What do I do now? Like, what does that mean for me as an actor? Like, whereas your ability to still learn new things and or even just to get better at the thing that you do. And I think that's amazing.

• 35:10Speaker 04

  And, but yeah, but also just not to have stuff figured out. I mean, why would you?

• 35:17Angela Hartnett?

  It should be actually refreshing for a child or a teenager.

• 35:20Speaker 04

  It was.

• 35:21Angela Hartnett?

  To actually think, God, because you do think, oh, they've got it figured out and the pressure on them these days. You know, whereas actually, that's the hardest thing is say, listen, I still haven't, you know, I've got, we always talk about, I said, have you still haven't got a job and you're my age? Have you ever worked? Have you got a job? You know, why should you?

• 35:37Speaker 04

  But you're absolutely right. It really stresses me out to hear kids who are, you know, in their late teens and early twenties, thinking that they should have figured out what they want to do. Why? Why would they do that?

• 35:48Angela Hartnett?

  The better advice is try something. If you like it, great, then try something else.

• 35:52Speaker 04

  Because then you've got to do that thing for the rest of your life. When you find out what it is you want to do, that's it. That's what you're doing.

• 35:57Nick Grimshaw?

  That's what you're doing.

• 35:58Speaker 04

  Enjoy finding that.

• 36:00Nick Grimshaw?

  Before I watched it, I spoke to one of my friends who's been a really good friend of mine for like 20 years now. And she had, she's a little older than me and she had four kids. And now they're all, I think the youngest is like 21. And so they've all like, they're off and doing their stuff. And it was quite funny because I spoke to her on the way home and then when I got home, I watched Youth. And I was like, oh, that's so weird. And I messaged her and I said, I've just watched this show. And she was like, it's so weird because they sort of, she had four kids and your whole life is dictated. And then they're like, see ya. And then you're just in this house like, who am I? And then she does all like this fab shit now that she'd never done and like doing all different stuff. And my mum as well, my sister always says she had a rebrand.

• 36:44Nick Grimshaw?

  So she had like a rebrand, like my mum's 83. My mum's in Vegas this week. Like, she's like, I said, why? She was like, cheap flights, let's go. So it's always something ahead about like, you know, she's just gone with her sisters to Vegas. They're like 85 and 83 and 86.

• 37:01Angela Hartnett?

  Do it.

• 37:01Speaker 04

  God, I love that.

• 37:02Nick Grimshaw?

  And just gone and like, you know, just getting on it for a few days in Vegas.

• 37:05Speaker 04

  I mean, I've got friends who, who like, you know, had, in a long-term relationship and their last kid left home and they suddenly like fell in love again. Because, you know, they got to just do things on a whim or just, just, you know, date again or just be together in a whole different way.

• 37:23Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah.

• 37:23Speaker 04

  But the scary thing is, is like, you feel like that world is out there for you when they leave. But then you also have this like deep kind of remorse as well, like you feel.

• 37:34Angela Hartnett?

  Guilt, yeah.

• 37:35Speaker 04

  I mean, you're in mourning, you know, because, I mean, I have it all the time, like just flashes of them when they were little in my head all the time. And then I see them as adult women and one of them has moved out and one of them is like first year of uni. And the thought of them not being out there anymore. Yes, you have all this freedom and you can sort of, sort of do what you want. But like, but like, it's.

• 37:59Angela Hartnett?

  But they've been part of your life for 20 years.

• 38:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. And then, yeah, like you said, who are you?

• 38:04Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah. And how do you guys feel about aging generally? Because half of me flits between like, oh my God, so depressing. And then I'll see someone like, I don't know, a friend, Libovitz or something on Instagram. And I'm like, oh, it's like the fabest thing ever. Or you'll see Vivian Westwood saying something like, great. I'm like, oh, actually, doesn't matter. Like you get better, you get smarter, you can learn more. Half of me is like, oh, [bleep] horrible. So it's all flits between, you know, for me.

• 38:31Speaker 04

  I'm a flitter between, yeah. Because I really do want to get to that place where I don't care anymore.

• 38:37Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah.

• 38:38Speaker 04

  You know, so I do feel like, you know, more confident in myself and in what I do, I suppose. And but at the same time, I am, you know, riddled with insecurities because you're kind of at that stage where you're sort of seeing things just sort of drop off, literally fall off.

• 38:58Speaker 04

  And I'm like, remember down there, they used to be here. And so it takes a while, I think it takes a little while to sort of make peace with that new you. And you've got to adjust and you've got to find a way to sort of be out in the world and continue to have that confidence. But at the same time, it's like, you have to, you have to learn it, I think, you know. And then you've got to enjoy the new you. And but the women I admire, like the women I want to be are the women who don't give a [bleep].

• 39:25Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah, come on.

• 39:26Speaker 04

  You know, completely.

• 39:28Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah.

• 39:29Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah.

• 39:29Speaker 04

  That's, that's my goal.

• 39:31Nick Grimshaw?

  That's the goal, to not give a [bleep] basically. Yeah. And you've got to watch it. If you've not seen it, do watch Youth, which is on HBO Max.

• 39:40Nick Grimshaw?

  I know that you said to your mum when you were young, like, I'm gonna win an Oscar.

• 39:44Speaker 04

  That's so embarrassing.

• 39:45Nick Grimshaw?

  No, I love it. I love it. I said that to my mum. I said, I wanna host Radio One. And she was like, shut up. But you are, yeah, but you truly are a BAFTA winner, which is our Oscars.

• 39:57Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 39:58Nick Grimshaw?

  That's our Oscars. It's just geography. It's just geography. It's just geography. BAFTA's for Motherland and then also for Bad Sisters as well. Love Motherland, of course. I loved when, I think it was when a mandaland started and they sort of shot it near our house.

• 40:17Speaker 04

  Yes, yeah.

• 40:18Nick Grimshaw?

  And then there was some like, like the gag was like, oh, she's moved to like the shitty area. And then we were like.

• 40:26Speaker 04

  I know. We were in so much trouble.

• 40:28Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah, and you got in trouble.

• 40:29Angela Hartnett?

  Love that, yeah.

• 40:30Nick Grimshaw?

  Love Motherland. Motherland, sometimes I like to watch, you know, and you're like, need something like cozy in bed.

• 40:35Speaker 04

  That makes me so happy.

• 40:37Angela Hartnett?

  I love that.

• 40:38Speaker 04

  I really feel that, because, you know, the people who watch it, and also teenagers watch it. And I feel like, knowing what my girl watches, like, when she wants to get cozy, she puts on The American Office or Modern Family or, you know, Superstore or something like that. So I'm thrilled about that.

• 40:54Angela Hartnett?

  It's got that staying power that you can go back and watch The Good Life and Forty Towers. Motherland is gonna be in that genre that you can definitely, I think I must have watched it about four or five times.

• 41:05Nick Grimshaw?

  I've watched it a lot.

• 41:06Angela Hartnett?

  Because it's exactly that. And you still love the jokes and it's just, you know.

• 41:12Nick Grimshaw?

  We were saying like before you joined us about how Angela said like, you feel like you must write for those actors. Or maybe the writing's so good, every actor can become the character you've created.

• 41:21Speaker 04

  Well, you kind of, you start off just writing the characters and in fact, you spend so long thinking about the characters. Because a big part of writing is, you know, especially if you're writing for an ensemble, you're so worried that they aren't, that they are interchangeable and they aren't sort of standing out. So you do a huge amount of work, sort of making them stand out. And then an actor comes along and takes it, you know, a step further. And then, once you have your actor, you start writing to them. So it's the same with anything, even with Bad Sisters. Like, we were doing, casting those girls before, I think I'd only written two scripts. So then you have them and you can start, you know, sort of honing it into their sort of, you know, particular thing.

• 42:06Angela Hartnett?

  And how else do you, because you were in Bad Sisters, obviously, you know, and you're acting there and you've written the script. And then they're doing their thing. How do you sort of guide them in the way diplomatically without sort of saying?

• 42:18Nick Grimshaw?

  Not like that, no.

• 42:20Angela Hartnett?

  All right, shall we say that again?

• 42:22Speaker 04

  They were all incredibly, they were all incredibly up for the fact that I was there and kind of found it useful more than anything. And then, but then I am quite aware that I can also be a pain, you know, that I have this thing in my head of what it is.

• 42:36Angela Hartnett?

  That's what I mean, you've written it, you've got a vision.

• 42:37Speaker 04

  But the thing is, you have to kind of let go of that. And I kind of, it took me a while to learn that, actually, with lots of mistakes along the way. But it took me a while to figure out that there's my way of doing things and there's other ways, which are also right. Yeah. I used to just think there is my way.

• 42:55Angela Hartnett?

  My way, my way.

• 42:57Speaker 04

  And then, and then that was it. But, but no, it's something I've kind of learned. It's like a collaboration thing, you know, you collaborate with your actors as much as you do with the director and, you know.

• 43:08Nick Grimshaw?

  Because Anna Maxwell Martin, she came on here, we had the best time with her. Like, that character is unbelievable. Like, so unbelievable. Can you tell us about the Liam Gallagher interaction? Where were you? Were you going to see him or Oasis?

• 43:23Speaker 04

  No, no, I went to see, I missed the whole Oasis thing.

• 43:27Nick Grimshaw?

  You got next year?

• 43:28Speaker 04

  Really? Yeah, but, okay. Well, I went to see Liam and he was playing loads of Oasis anyway. I was there with Tim Burgess and we were at the side of the stage. It was so, so cool. And when he was, when he was coming off, he said to Tim, he was like, all right, Timothée. And then, and then he said, you make my favorite show. And then I got really giddy, obviously. Like, which, what's, which one?

• 43:54Nick Grimshaw?

  Which one?

• 43:55Speaker 04

  I was not expecting Motherland.

• 43:58Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, you weren't.

• 44:00Nick Grimshaw?

  Nobody loves the telly, don't they?

• 44:02Speaker 04

  Yeah. And then his partner, and I wish I could remember her name, she's so lovely.

• 44:05Nick Grimshaw?

  Debbie?

• 44:05Speaker 04

  She was Debbie, yeah. She was saying he would love to do, you know, a walk on park. So we were, we were doing this, I think it was a Christmas special and we had this, we had this teacher. I can't, I think the guy from Toploader and stuff.

• 44:21Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah.

• 44:22Speaker 04

  I remember that scene, yeah. We had a teacher who just sort of rocks out on the guitar and we were thinking, it would be so funny if Liam did that. Or even if he just walked by the school gates, you know, he just like walks by with like eight children.

• 44:32Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 44:33Speaker 04

  But, but, you know, that was a bit of a pipe dream. But I was so made up that he was watching it. I love that.

• 44:41Nick Grimshaw?

  That's so good that he loves that. I remember doing a show with him. I went to Alan Carr's show years ago. And when he had Chatty Man, and I was a guest and Liam was playing and they'd record it at like sort of tea time or whatever. And Alan was doing his links like, this week on Chatty Man or whatever. And he kept doing a few, doing a few like that. And then Liam was like, ****, hurry up, Alan. I've gotta get home to watch The Jungle. And it was like, when I'm a Celebrity was massive and Liam was like, I'm going. I wanna watch The Jungle. Like with his sunglasses on, like, you know, full Liam Gallagher flex. And he was like, hurry up, Alan, come on.

• 45:16Speaker 04

  It was such an amazing gig, though.

• 45:18Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah, that's the, you gotta go next year. Did you go last year?

• 45:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, I went last year, yeah.

• 45:23Nick Grimshaw?

  When did you go? Wembley?

• 45:24Speaker 04

  Wembley, yeah.

• 45:24Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah, I went up to Manchester.

• 45:26Angela Hartnett?

  You went Manchester. You went home, you went home.

• 45:28Nick Grimshaw?

  And it was, you've gotta go. It was so fun.

• 45:31Speaker 04

  I will.

• 45:32Nick Grimshaw?

  Because people are just like.

• 45:33Angela Hartnett?

  You have no voice by the end, no? You're just singing the whole time.

• 45:36Nick Grimshaw?

  It was the best. It was the best.

• 45:40Nick Grimshaw?

  Sharon Horgan, it is time for your fast food quiz. Here we go. Quick fire, quite serious. What's your favorite way to eat eggs?

• 45:47Speaker 04

  Boiled, actually. Boiled, you know, like seven minutes, a bit, a bit jammy, lots of salt. No, actually, I peel them. I immediately peel them and cut them in half. Because then you can kind of control the temperature, right?

• 46:02Angela Hartnett?

  That's nice. Favorite sandwich, fill in?

• 46:04Speaker 04

  Um, well, uh, oh, hang on. But this is more sort of bagel, but like salted beef, mustard, loads of pickle.

• 46:14Nick Grimshaw?

  I'd say the sandwich. I'd say the sandwich. What do you think is the best flavor of crisp?

• 46:19Speaker 04

  Cheese and onion, yeah. But it has to be like King Crisps.

• 46:24Angela Hartnett?

  Right, okay.

• 46:26Nick Grimshaw?

  An Irish crisp.

• 46:27Speaker 04

  We used to call them King Crisps, like at the end of ****. King Crisps.

• 46:34Angela Hartnett?

  I'll have to get some of those.

• 46:35Nick Grimshaw?

  King Crisps.

• 46:35Angela Hartnett?

  What's your favorite form of potato?

• 46:37Speaker 04

  Well, I love, I love mash.

• 46:40Angela Hartnett?

  Love mash.

• 46:42Speaker 04

  But I love a really good roastey, like properly done roastey. All potato's good, though.

• 46:48Angela Hartnett?

  We're with you there.

• 46:50Nick Grimshaw?

  Do you have a favorite pasta?

• 46:51Speaker 04

  Linguine. I like, I like a slightly flat, slightly fat, yeah.

• 46:57Angela Hartnett?

  Okay. What's your favorite kitchen utensil?

• 47:02Speaker 04

  I have a wooden spoon. It was from a film I made years ago. But it's a wooden spoon that's been carved into a fork. So I think it's great. It's like a wooden spork.

• 47:13Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah.

• 47:14Nick Grimshaw?

  A customized wooden spork.

• 47:15Speaker 04

  That's my favorite.

• 47:17Nick Grimshaw?

  What's your favorite beverage?

• 47:19Speaker 04

  Soft beverage or a hard beverage?

• 47:21Nick Grimshaw?

  Let's go hard.

• 47:21Speaker 04

  I love a tequila with like a squeeze of orange in it and some sliced orange. But it has to be like really good tequila.

• 47:30Nick Grimshaw?

  What tequila do you like?

• 47:31Speaker 04

  I like George Clooney's tequila. That's what I drink. What's it called?

• 47:35Nick Grimshaw?

  Casamigos.

• 47:36Speaker 04

  Casamigos. The darker one, not the lighter one. The light one, I do like lime and stuff, the dark one, orange.

• 47:44Angela Hartnett?

  And favorite ice cream?

• 47:46Speaker 04

  Pistachio.

• 47:48Nick Grimshaw?

  Correct answer. Absolutely correct answer.

• 47:54Nick Grimshaw?

  Sharon, it is time for your end of the show question for your chance to win this Waitrose goodie bag.

• 48:01Angela Hartnett?

  Goodie bags.

• 48:02Nick Grimshaw?

  In the Dish bag.

• 48:04Speaker 04

  Goodness, what's in this? Wow, amazing.

• 48:09Nick Grimshaw?

  Okay, Sharon, for your chance to win the Waitrose goodie bag, all you've got to do is answer this question. What is the best set catering you've ever experienced and the worst? Does Hollywood do better?

• 48:25Speaker 04

  Hollywood, okay. So Game Night, Game Night, 100%. I was writing Motherland while I was filming Game Night, because obviously I wasn't on set all the time. I was kind of in and out. And I would FaceTime with Holly Walsh, she was writing Motherland with me. And I would be eating like lobster rolls.

• 48:43Speaker 04

  Zooming with her, just like tucking in. And every time she'd zoom with me, it would be like a different ridiculous food.

• 48:49Nick Grimshaw?

  Seafood tower.

• 48:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, unbelievable. Because then you have crafty and then you have all the incredible, you know, set meals. But like crafty is just, that's where you get your lobster rolls. And worst is just any UK, probably our very own. You know, it's like a box of biscuits and some tea bags. It's shameful.

• 49:13Nick Grimshaw?

  The UK.

• 49:14Speaker 04

  But also you put on less weight. If you go, if you're on an American film set, you really. Like, I came back from, where were we filming it? Somewhere in Georgia. And I was just like, at least a stone heavier.

• 49:26Angela Hartnett?

  Oh, wow.

• 49:27Nick Grimshaw?

  That's good catering.

• 49:28Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's good. That's good catering.

• 49:31Nick Grimshaw?

  Okay, so congratulations.

• 49:33Speaker 04

  Do I win it?

• 49:34Nick Grimshaw?

  You win the goodie bag, yeah. Commiserations to the UK film industry. The goodie bag is yours. The goodie bag is yours.

• 49:43Nick Grimshaw?

  Sharon, thank you so much.

• 49:45Angela Hartnett?

  Thank you.

• 49:46Nick Grimshaw?

  You can see Youth right now on HBO Max. Sharon Horgan, everybody.

• 49:57Nick Grimshaw?

  If that episode has left you wanting more, find us on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. Just search Dish.

• 50:04Angela Hartnett?

  If you wanna make any of the meals I cook on Dish, head to waitrose.com/dishrecipes for all the ingredients and the recipes.

• 50:13Nick Grimshaw?

  Email your questions, thoughts and suggestions to [email protected]

• 50:19Angela Hartnett?

  Dish from Waitrose is a Cold Glass Production. Waitrose, the home of food lovers.