Michelle Wolf

Summary

Off Menu with Ed Gamble and James Acaster – Michelle Wolf

Date: May 20, 2026
Producer: Plosive

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Episode Overview

In this episode, renowned American comedian Michelle Wolf joins Ed Gamble and James Acaster in the Dream Restaurant to design her ideal meal, selecting her favorite starter, main, side, dessert, bread, and drink. In classic Off Menu fashion, the episode is filled with playful banter, food nostalgia, comic anecdotes, and trademark riffs on the obsessions and neuroses of standup comedians. Wolf also discusses the challenges of parenting, her food quirks, and behind-the-scenes stories from her life and career.

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Main Themes

• Michelle's unique approach to "dream dining" – she prefers standing with small bites, rather than a traditional sit-down meal
• Comics sharing food, food taste snobbery, and the culture of small plates versus traditional portions
• Parenting young children while juggling touring and comedy
• American versus British food rituals and snacks
• Experiences from working in food service
• Tales from high-pressure comedy gigs, including the White House Correspondents’ Dinner
• Endearing comedic puns and playful wordplay throughout
• An atmosphere of affectionate teasing and genuine camaraderie

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

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1. Michelle's Frazzled Arrival and Parenting Life

[05:51–12:13]

• Michelle arrives at the podcast frazzled, recounting the chaos of parenting two small children alone while touring.

  • “I forgot to—I brought the one baby to the studio and I didn’t bring diapers or wipes... but I remembered the baby, and that's it.” — Michelle Wolf [05:57]
  • She reflects on how she forgot essentials but did manage to accept offered birthday cake as her first meal of the day. This sparks discussion on how being "on edge" is the perfect guest state for Off Menu.

• Discussion on co-sleeping and how her toddler’s fascination with her belly button is both endearing and irritating, segueing into a debate on innie versus outie belly buttons.

  • “Just like really digging in there, you know.” — Michelle Wolf [12:13]

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2. Food Sharing: Small Plates Versus Big Portions

[07:48–09:01]

• Ed confesses to not being a natural food sharer and laments the current trend of “small plates.”
• Michelle prefers “bits”—nibbles and shared plates, saying:
  • “If my real dream meal is passed hors d’oeuvres, just standing around having pleasant conversation with two or three people that I could walk away from.” [08:29]
• Michelle is the first guest to request her dream meal ‘standing up’—breaking Off Menu tradition.

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3. Stand-Up Tours and Comedy Life

[10:30–11:36]

• Michelle discusses her upcoming tour, “Best Job in the World,” and reflects on performing in the UK with a young family:

  • “I have a toddler and a five month old and I'm only traveling to places I can go up and back in one, you know, one go.” [10:40]

• James reminisces about catching the end of Michelle’s work-in-progress shows, and Ed and James hype their own tours in characteristic self-deprecating style.

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4. Childhood, Family, and Culinary Upbringing

[13:43–20:15]

• Michelle shares growing up in Pennsylvania with canned green beans until her brother became a chef, radically expanding her food horizons.

• Nostalgic favorites:

  • “The brown sugar cinnamon Pop Tarts... cheese curl... the puffy ones, not like the Cheetos.” — Michelle Wolf [14:35]

• The trio joke about the pervasiveness of artificial food (like cheese popcorn) and laugh about Christmas tins of popcorn in America, how the butter flavor is always left uneaten, and the lengths adults might go to avoid it.

• Childhood ice cream memories: Michelle’s brother manipulated their portions, leaving their middle brother only vanilla ice cream:

  • “Now that they have any sort of disposable income…they used to talk about, tip the butter away. Imagine if I get flush enough to tip the butter.” — [20:13]

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5. Water Preference and Social Group Dynamics

[21:20–26:22]

• Michelle usually prefers sparkling water but, while breastfeeding, opts for still because she’s “so thirsty all the time.”
• When asked about her ideal company for the meal:
  • “Preferably it's only, like, one or two of my very good friends, you know, or like, someone I love to chat with... not someone I don't really know and have to make small talk with.” [22:29]
• Ed and James playfully try to guess which comedians her friends are married to; Wolf rebuffs “Eddie Murphy” as a wild guess.
• Notable digression: Ed and James muse on the meaning and use of “pat” (as in “pat of butter”) and wordplay ensues.

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6. Bread Course: Selections, Airplane Pretzel Rolls, and Sourdough

[27:39–33:37]

• Michelle’s bread basket includes a selection—American-style focaccia with a “little bit of sauce” and the “airplane pretzel roll.”
  • “But on the plane it’s great...If it wasn’t touched by heat, it would probably be like a rock, a tiny rock. A pretzel rock.” — Michelle Wolf [30:44]
• Dislikes excessively sour sourdough; is open to more creative takes like “sourdough with seaweed.”
• Sings the praises of “smoked butter” and French salted butter, denigrates unsalted butters for anything other than baking.

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7. Starter: Nobu’s Spinach Dry Miso Salad

[37:05–39:53]

• Michelle’s go-to: “At Nobu, they have this spinach dry miso salad that I love. I could eat it every single day. I don't know what makes a dry miso, but I love this salad.” [37:06]
• Amused at being able to provide the Nobu recommendation Robert DeNiro failed to deliver as a previous guest.
• James and Ed speculate about what “dry miso” entails; Michelle admits to not knowing, but stands by its deliciousness.

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8. Working at Subway and Food Service Tales

[42:24–44:49]

• Michelle reminisces about a youthful job at a Subway sandwich shop in an amusement park. The highlights:
  • The overwhelming quantities of mayonnaise customers demanded.
  • “We're loading mayonnaise onto these subs for people that are, like, drenched in overly chlorinated amusement park water...” — Michelle Wolf [42:19]

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9. Main Course: Cacio e Pepe

[47:12–49:46]

• Michelle lands on the Italian classic despite pronunciation worries:

  • “It’s the cacio e pepe. Is that…am I saying that?” — [47:34]
  • She describes a birthday trip to Rome, where she ate it three times in one day.

• Extended comic riff about the trio’s respective ages and desire to age linearly, not via time-bending science fiction tropes.

• Ed explains how easy cacio e pepe is to make at home, James reveals Todd Barry also chose it on a previous episode, and Michelle shares a running joke about Todd’s love for “middle seats” on planes.

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10. Side Dish: Seasonal Strawberries

[61:48–63:29]

• For her side, Michelle wants “fresh, seasonal strawberries, the tiny little red ones,” referencing the French and British varieties that surpass American supermarket strawberries.

• “I'm just shoveling them in my mouth.” — Michelle Wolf [62:25]

• Conversation veers into how fast comics eat, Michelle and James commiserate over being “Hoover” eaters, and lampoon people who eat slowly:

  • “I am gobbling it down at a velocity that is alarming.” — Michelle Wolf [63:31]

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11. Dream Drink: Champagne in a Coupe

[68:46–74:51]

• “I love a glass of champagne, but in the little coupe, not the…(bowl glass).” — Michelle Wolf [68:47]
• Ed claims the coupe shape was “supposedly based on Marie Antoinette’s breast,” prompting a tangent on glassware and 1990s “Pammy bottles.”
• Michelle values the coupe for feeling “fancy,” enjoys rosé champagne, but admits she can’t recall many specifics about celebrations—parenthood has blurred her memories.
• On shooting her special and getting “$8 gas station champagne” instead of something luxurious, she dryly notes, “Gotta be more specific, I guess…” [73:12]

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12. Dream Dessert: Sticky Toffee Pudding

[80:54–83:18]

• Michelle insists she’s not “pandering” to the UK audience, but “sticky toffee pudding” is her actual favorite dessert.
• James describes a recent dish at Perilla in Stoke Newington with black truffle ice cream, which initially appalled him but ultimately wowed him.
  • Michelle inquires about the flavor; James attempts to explain “umami” as a catch-all for delectable indeterminate flavor.
• Michelle’s favorite classic toffee pudding is from Gordon Ramsay’s Bar & Grill.

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13. Comedy, Gigs, and the White House Correspondents’ Dinner

[75:01–79:57]

• Michelle remembers her White House Correspondents’ Dinner experience as “unsavory” but bracing—acknowledging that silence in the room meant she was “doing great,” given the audience despised being roasted.
  • “The room stinks...no one really wants to laugh. And everyone's looking at each other to see if they can laugh.” — Michelle Wolf [75:35]
• Discussion on the cultural differences in how America reveres tough gigs and the comic ego of wanting “to be the one to nail it.”

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14. Running Wordplay Gags

Throughout the episode, Michelle, Ed, and James riff on language and start signing off weak puns with their own names, e.g.,

• “Shoulder not do that. That was by Michelle.” [60:48]
• “More like Black Trouble—that sounds racist. Don’t sign that one off, Michelle.” [82:14]

Frequent segments of linguistics, “pat of butter,” and other language quirks, are interspersed with affectionate mockery.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “If my real dream meal is passed hors d’oeuvres, just standing around having pleasant conversation with two or three people that I could walk away from.” — Michelle Wolf [08:29]
• “American strawberries are, like, white inside and have no flavor.” — Michelle Wolf [62:11]
• “On the plane it’s great…but I think they just warmed it up too, you know, like, it’s like if it wasn’t touched by heat, it would probably be like a rock, a tiny rock. A pretzel rock.” — Michelle Wolf [30:44]
• “I went to Rome for my 40th and had cacio e pepe three times in one day.” — Michelle Wolf [48:22]
• “I am gobbling it down at a velocity that is alarming.” — Michelle Wolf [63:31]
• “I love a glass of champagne, but in the little coupe, not the bowl.” — Michelle Wolf [68:47]
• “Sticky toffee pudding is my favorite dessert.” — Michelle Wolf [81:01]
• “The room stinks...everyone's looking at each other to see if they can laugh.” — Michelle Wolf (on the White House Correspondents' Dinner) [75:35]
• “More like Black Trouble—that sounds racist. Don’t sign that one off, Michelle.” — Michelle Wolf [82:14]

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Dream Menu Recap

(Read back by James at [86:10])

• Drink: Carafe of sparkling water with ice and lemon from Saga coffee shop (Barcelona)
• Bread: Focaccia with sauce & airplane pretzel roll, with smoked or salted butter
• Starter: Spinach dry miso salad from Nobu (with optional tuna tataki)
• Main: Cacio e pepe (as enjoyed in Rome)
• Side: Fresh, seasonal strawberries (French/British-style, tiny, intensely flavored)
• Dessert: Sticky toffee pudding (Gordon Ramsay’s Bar and Grill)
• Other: Champagne in a coupe glass

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• Welcome/Parenting Chaos: 05:51–12:13
• Food Sharing/Small Plates: 07:48–09:01
• Bread Basket Preferences: 27:39–33:37
• Starter Selection: 37:05–39:53
• Main: Cacio e pepe 47:12–49:46
• Strawberries as Side: 61:48–63:29
• Champagne (Drink): 68:46–74:51
• Sticky Toffee Pudding (Dessert): 80:54–83:18
• Correspondents’ Dinner Anecdotes: 75:01–79:57

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Tone & Language

The tone is fast-paced, improvisatory, playful, and joyously silly—hallmarks of the Off Menu format. The trio riff relentlessly on wordplay, food minutiae, and comic traditions, with affectionate teasing and plenty of in-jokes (“shoulder not do that; by Michelle”). Michelle’s style is honest, unfiltered, and mischievous, fitting seamlessly with the hosts’ banter.

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Closing Thoughts

This episode delivers a hilarious, tangential journey through food, parenting, memory, wordplay, and the life of a world-traveling comedian. For fans of Off Menu, it’s an especially strong episode with plenty of laugh-out-loud moments, delicious specificity, and a memorable, unconventional dream menu.

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Transcript

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[Ed Gamble]

Howdy folks. This episode of Off Menu is brought to you by Boar's Head the Friar's

[James Acaster]

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[Ed Gamble]

It's a lot of effort for a bird.

[James Acaster]

It's a lot of effort for a lunch, isn't it? Well, what if I told you that Boar's Head has brought that exact backyard tradition right to the deli counter?

[Ed Gamble]

Well, I'd say, James, you finally lost it, and I think you lost it a while ago. But this is beyond the pale.

[James Acaster]

Boar's Head brings to the deli the taste of deep fried turkey. It's all the seasoning and that golden fried glory of the Friar's Turkey Breast. But without Big Dave having to set up a perimeter in your garden oh,

[Ed Gamble]

man, that sounds genuinely incredible.

[James Acaster]

Only from Boar's Head, Ed. It's basically craftsmanship you can eat. Speaking of which, you lot listening need to get down to your local deli counter and experience the difference. Boar's Head makes Friar's Turkey Breast in stores now. It's delicious, it's golden. It's the taste of deep fried bull's head.

[Ed Gamble]

Committed to craft since 1905. Welcome, yeah, to the Off Menu podcast. Taking the dirty martini of conversation, stuffing the blue cheese of chat into the big fat olives of humor, and dropping those bad boys into the dirty martini. Sorry, everyone listening?

[James Acaster]

That was a filthy martini.

[Ed Gamble]

We're doing these visually now, so I'm trying to give it a bit more pizzazz at the top.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah, we're trying to give it as much. That is that gamble. My name is James Acoust. So together we own a dream restaurant. Every single week, we invite in a guest announcing their favorite ever start a main course dessert side dish and drink, not in that order. And this week, our guest is Michelle Wolf.

[Ed Gamble]

Michelle Wolf. What a comedian Michelle Wolf is. James.

[James Acaster]

Such a phenomenal comic. I remember the first time Michelle Wolf did Edinburgh and everyone was talking about. That was the first time I got introduced to Michelle's comedy by storm. Yeah. And has only gone on to better and better things since. Everyone loves Michelle Wolf.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes.

[James Acaster]

And she's about to do her show. The best job in the world. Round the uk. June, July. And you can get tickets from Punchup Live.

[Ed Gamble]

Michellewolf.

[James Acaster]

Very excited to see Michelle here. Her dream menu. Yes. But of course, if Michelle does choose a secret ingredient which we deem to be unacceptable, we will be forced to kick Michelle Wolf out of the dream restaurant.

[Ed Gamble]

Now, you've picked this one, James.

[James Acaster]

Yes. This week, the secret ingredient is Wolf

[Ed Gamble]

Cola, which is something from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which Michelle was not in. In.

[James Acaster]

No, but Michelle's surname is Wolf.

[Ed Gamble]

Wolf. Yes. And I do get the connection when

[James Acaster]

I think about Wolf. This is what I think of as Wolf Cola, which is the cola. I don't think it actually exists. It's a fake brand of cola. It's for human, invented by Danny DeVito's character. But even in the world of Always Sunny, it doesn't exist.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes.

[James Acaster]

Like Frank has. Has invented it. But he's pretending to be Dr. Mantis Toboggan and he says that he, you know, has. He's selling Wolf Cola.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes.

[James Acaster]

So, like.

[Ed Gamble]

So if Michelle picks that, I'll have explained that.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, well, she'll know about it. I guess.

[Ed Gamble]

Well, yeah, she's not gonna pick it. She's not gonna say Wolf Cola.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

What's that from?

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah, she'll know it.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

So I'll say, you should have known better. Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

You're out of here.

[James Acaster]

Get out of here, Michelle. But hopefully that won't happen. I'm pretty sure.

[Ed Gamble]

I think we can be pretty positive

[James Acaster]

it's not gonna happen. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

I'm going on tour as well. Yeah. It must be said. 2027. Fresh hell.

[James Acaster]

Fresh hell.

[Ed Gamble]

Edgamble.co.uk for tickets.

[James Acaster]

Very exciting, Ed. Looking forward to seeing that show.

[Ed Gamble]

Thanks, man. Me too.

[James Acaster]

I'm looking forward to chatting to Michelle Wolf.

[Ed Gamble]

This is the off menu menu of Michelle Wolf. Welcome, Michelle, to the Dream Restaurant.

[Michelle Wolf]

Thank you.

[James Acaster]

Welcome, Michelle Wolf to the Dream Restaurant. But expecting you for some time.

[Michelle Wolf]

Thanks, Ivan. Sorry, my reactions are. I really. I feel like I don't even know where I am. I've literally been with both of my children for like two straight weeks with no help. And then I traveled and the flat is a mess and it's just I forgot to. I brought the one baby to the studio and I didn't bring diapers or wipes, like the essentials that, that you need for. I remember the baby and that's it.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

And then you guys were very nice and you offered me cake and that's the first thing I've eaten all day today. What time is it? Two one.

[Ed Gamble]

It's quarter past two.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah. That's the first thing I've eaten. I'm running on coffee and hope this

[Ed Gamble]

is how we like our guests. Slightly on edge. Yeah. We want you to on the verge of just going fully insane to the

[Michelle Wolf]

point where you guys just welcomed me and I was very much like, what's happening? Yeah.

[James Acaster]

It was like you properly in another dimension all of a sudden. Like you've been zapped into this dimension.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah. Like having an adult conversation.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

And it was Ed's birthday cake, which I think is like having cake is the first thing you've eaten all day and it's gone. 2 o' clock is one thing, but it being birthday cake is even like, that's even worse.

[Michelle Wolf]

And I had a part of a birthday cake that you haven't even had yet. I greedily started your cake.

[Ed Gamble]

Well, you know, you checked, you checked before I did.

[Michelle Wolf]

I'll just be polite, you know, but

[Ed Gamble]

no, I'm not polite around food. If I, if I thought I want to start that, I would say to you, absolutely not. Keep your hands off that yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

Good.

[Ed Gamble]

This is mine to start.

[James Acaster]

Yes. He's not polite.

[Ed Gamble]

No. Not a polite guy.

[James Acaster]

Good.

[Michelle Wolf]

Okay.

[James Acaster]

Not me. Food.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Thank you, James. With other things. He's food. He's a gentleman.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. Food.

[Michelle Wolf]

Just knock it out of your hands.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, Absolutely. Don't like sharing.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Don't want any of that.

[Michelle Wolf]

Really. Not a food sharer.

[Ed Gamble]

Well, I feel like I've had to become a food sharer because I'd say, what, 90% of restaurants are now small plates sharing concepts.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

So I have, I have to be, I have to be a sharer.

[Michelle Wolf]

Right.

[Ed Gamble]

But I'd rather get two of the same small plate and have one. One to myself.

[Michelle Wolf]

Right. Okay.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

Well, I'm the exact opposite. If I never had to order a full meal, this was very stressful thing for me to pick out my menu because I'm not. I love, I love a bits. I love to have. Let's just order a bunch of stuff and we'll all have some of it.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes.

[Michelle Wolf]

I don't, I think I don't get asked out to dinner a lot because I don't. I'm like, let's just all share. Who. Who's having their own meal. I don't want. Give me a little bit of everything.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

If I, I. If my, My real dream meal is pastor d', oeuvres, just standing around having pleasant conversation with two or three people that I could walk away from.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. So you're dreaming. You want to be standing.

[Michelle Wolf]

Standing. With small bites of food being handed to me.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

At intervals that I have over.

[Ed Gamble]

Michelle, we've done hundreds of episodes of this podcast. No one has ever said they want to be stood up for their dream meal.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. The first one. Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

Well, there we go. Yeah.

[James Acaster]

I guess that, I guess that's why you have the best job in the world.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yes. The best.

[James Acaster]

Because you love standing up.

[Michelle Wolf]

Well done. What a segue that is.

[Ed Gamble]

I mean, it's amazing, isn't it?

[Michelle Wolf]

Top notch. Segue to my new hour of standup that I will be touring here in England. I'm supposed to say just England because I'm not going to other parts of the UK yet.

[James Acaster]

Okay.

[Michelle Wolf]

And best job in the world. My new hour, slightly unhinged because I'm flailing. I'm holding it together, barely, but it's together and that's the important thing.

[James Acaster]

Well, you and I were doing back to back work in progress shows in London last year, and I would arrive all week. I'd arrive and I'd hear like the last few, like 10 minutes of your show every time raising the roof.

[Michelle Wolf]

Well, thank you.

[James Acaster]

That was work in progress. So this is gonna be.

[Ed Gamble]

And I'm presuming you're sort of raising the roof throughout the whole hour. James insinuation there was the last 10

[James Acaster]

minutes not an insinuation. That's all I heard.

[Michelle Wolf]

Well, I mean, I was about to say that I would Hope the last 10 minutes are good. It's the middle part that's always the if, you know, like, start strong.

[Ed Gamble]

And then I would just love it if you were doing 50 minutes of pure silence.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

And every James arrived. So it's like the exact moment that the roof came off, I just had

[Michelle Wolf]

someone run in from the theater and be like, james,

[James Acaster]

act happy.

[Michelle Wolf]

Start talking.

[James Acaster]

Have you done UK tours before? England tours before?

[Michelle Wolf]

I've only ever done. I've done like London, Manchester, like the. This.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

The standard American comes over and does places.

[Ed Gamble]

You've done the fringe before.

[Michelle Wolf]

I've done the French and Yeah. This is my first time going to. And when I put it on tour, people were also like, aren't you gonna come farther north? Cause I'm not traveling that far. But the reason is because I'm basing myself in London and I have a toddler and a five month old and I'm only traveling to places I can go up and back in one, you know, one go. So I will. As soon as they get older, I promise I will go away from them for as long as I can. Really, I will. I will travel. I will stay in a hotel by myself and it'll be. It'll be a dream.

[James Acaster]

Well, Michelle really went somewhere else while

[Ed Gamble]

she was talking far away.

[James Acaster]

Look in your eyes.

[Michelle Wolf]

I can't even imagine. Oh, man. They sleep with me. It's really. This is a.

[Ed Gamble]

They're both in right now. It's in the bed with you. They're both in the bed with you.

[Michelle Wolf]

They're both in the bed with me. Wow.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

And one. I nurse the one and then the toddler's over there just desperately trying to play with my belly button. I don't know what it is just like. And it doesn't. I don't know, you might think. You might think, oh, that's nothing. But it's really weird and invasive.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

And it's just all the time.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

You know, and yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Now I think about it. I mean, I very rarely think about my belly button.

[Michelle Wolf]

Right.

[Ed Gamble]

So if. If someone's constantly like. It's like prodding away at the belly button.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

You're Very aware. You have a belly button then. And I can imagine that's quite uncomfortable.

[Michelle Wolf]

Ye just like really digging in there, you know.

[James Acaster]

You got an innie?

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah, I've got an innie. I'm almost regretfully at this point, I have an innie because if I had an Audi, I feel like it might feel a bit better. But the innie is just a little, tiny little finger.

[Ed Gamble]

I've been talking about this on stage. I don't think I've seen an outie for maybe 25 years.

[Michelle Wolf]

I think if you have an Audi, you had a. You had someone who was pretending to be a doctor deliver you and that's how they cut the umbilical cord. And it was just a.

[Ed Gamble]

They were in a rush.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah, it was just. It wasn't a. It wasn't. Yeah. They just were like.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah. I guess. I don't know.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. Because they can make out. It's like you talk about any's and outies and like, you forget that. It's just. It's not just how you were born. It's just some dog.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Some doc slipping away and going, that's what they are.

[Ed Gamble]

But have you seen an outie in, like. I don't hear about outies anymore. At school, like, I heard about, you know, I was obsessed with like, who's gone in and who's an outie. Right.

[James Acaster]

I feel like we're in an episode of Severance.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

But, yeah, I haven't seen an outy. Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Did we imagine if we just imagined

[James Acaster]

maybe just imagine the Mandela effect.

[Michelle Wolf]

I feel. Yeah. I feel like it was something we talked about in the schoolyard all the time.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

And I don't know if anyone had one.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, it was like Jets, v. Sharks.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

The Innies and houses. Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. You gotta check your own. I think mine's flush.

[Ed Gamble]

You're a robot, mate.

[James Acaster]

I'm a robot. I'm Heidi. Joel Oz.

[Michelle Wolf]

On and off button.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah. Little button there. Are you a foodie? You much of a foodie?

[Michelle Wolf]

I am, and I'm not at the same time. Like, I. Like, I'm from the middle of Pennsylvania, but then my brother became a chef and so, like, I didn't have real green beans. Like, we had canned, like, tinned green beans until. I don't know. I don't think I had like a fresh green bean until I was in my 20s. So growing up, it was very much just like, this is what we eat. And then my brother became a chef and now it's like, oh, look how many Types of cheeses there are, you know, and I don't know. And so I've been to some really nice restaurants and had some very, very excellent food. And then also, I don't know, I love, like, stuff that's not really food. You know, it's just a bunch of chemicals.

[Ed Gamble]

Talk us through some of these things. What are your favorite not foods?

[Michelle Wolf]

Oh, my gosh. The brown sugar cinnamon pop Tarts.

[James Acaster]

Oh, my gosh.

[Michelle Wolf]

They're absolutely delicious. I love a cheese curl with the, you know, the puffy ones. Not like the Cheetos, Right?

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

That really covered in, like, sort of dust.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. Like luminous sort of cheese dust. Yeah.

[James Acaster]

In America recently, and I was very excited at the cinema that you could get a mixture of toffee pop, like caramel popcorn and cheese popcorn. Very excited about that. And it tasted nice. But then I looked at my hand after having it just completely orange.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

And I don't know if I got the smell out for, like, two days.

[Ed Gamble]

That's a smell that's not going anywhere.

[Michelle Wolf]

No, it's not. And it's because it's not. It's a chemically made product. First of all, what movie did you see?

[James Acaster]

I was watching the new. I was watching the Bone Temple.

[Michelle Wolf]

What is the bone?

[James Acaster]

The new 28 days later.

[Michelle Wolf]

Okay. Okay.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

Also, I saw your clip on Seth Meyers, and that was. You said one of the funniest things I've heard in a very long time, which was the.

[James Acaster]

He made a dog come.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

That was.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes.

[Michelle Wolf]

So, so funny. And also, I used to work with Seth. I used to write on his show. I didn't. He was my boss. I made it sound like we were partners. And the amount. I know he thought it was funny, but also was probably like, I can't.

[Ed Gamble]

I can't run with this. I can't riff off the back of this.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

He's like.

[Michelle Wolf]

He doesn't know how to. I don't feel like. Like, I remember one time I wrote a joke for him that said something about. I don't even think it said. I think it referred to periods. And he, like, dropped the paper on the ground. Like, it was. It's just. He gets really like.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, ye.

[Michelle Wolf]

And so watching you say, made a dog come. And then his reaction and then hearing Mike Shoemaker laugh in the background. Who's the producer? I was just like, this is the best. This is the best clip I've seen on the Internet in years.

[Ed Gamble]

And now, you know, his hand stunk of cheese. When that was happening, my Hand stunk of cheese.

[James Acaster]

Next time I go on, I'm doing a period joke. 100% good to see yourself. I heard you just got your period straight away.

[Ed Gamble]

My favorite bit was the incredibly specific reference to Americans loving dude shoe.

[James Acaster]

That was before it started going well. It was a tough gig until I said about making the dog come.

[Michelle Wolf]

That isn't a very American thing because I. I don't know, it got to like, American tik tok or something like that.

[James Acaster]

Well, this is what I thought.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

I thought every time our American friends or people from the industry come over, they're always like, please, can we go to the Shoon?

[Michelle Wolf]

That the only reason I know is because my brother and his girlfriend came over and they were like, well, we got to go to Dashum.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

And I'd never heard of it.

[James Acaster]

You're getting your own one now in America.

[Michelle Wolf]

Oh, wow.

[James Acaster]

There's one opening in New York and stuff like that. So, like, you know, it won't be as much of a novelty anymore.

[Michelle Wolf]

No.

[James Acaster]

We'll be able to queue. We won't need to queue to get into our own dishones anymore because you guys will finally round the block.

[Michelle Wolf]

I feel like it'll not do well in America.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

I feel like, though, people will be like, Indian.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. Could happen. It's not as popular cuisine.

[Ed Gamble]

Well, there's a Jim Carner in New York now. And an Ambassador's Clubhouse.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Which. And I went to Ambassadors Clubhouse for my birthday last night. Amazing restaurant. And they've just opened in New York. It's apparently going well. But to be fair, the person who told me that was the manager of Ambassadors Clubhouse.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

I feel like he wouldn't be like, by the way, it's not doing well.

[Ed Gamble]

Not good.

[Michelle Wolf]

We're on a lot of money.

[James Acaster]

Everyone on it's going bad.

[Michelle Wolf]

And why, while I have you here, let me talk about what's happened with Jim Connor

[Ed Gamble]

Schumer opening. Apparently. Good luck quickly on the popcorn shout out. Garrett's popcorn.

[James Acaster]

Big shout out.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Oh, boy. That stuff. Because the first time I had that, you. Probably the same as you.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

When you went on Conan to do the stand up.

[James Acaster]

No, no, sorry.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

I thought you would say Amy and Nish bought me some back from Dubai airport.

[Ed Gamble]

No, no, they. They used to give you a big tin of G. Popcorn.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Like have that. Have that popcorn. And I was like, yeah, it was popcorn. Right. And then eating the cheese and caramel mix one. Incredible. And then I bought. I bought some at Chicago Airport when I was in America and Just ate on the plane. Incredible.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Garrett's is the one.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah, they. I only know them from Chicago's airport. I'm sure you can get them other places, but I just know them from the airport. Do you guys do the Christmas tins of popcorn?

[Ed Gamble]

No.

[Michelle Wolf]

Okay. So in America, we have these tins of popcorn that you can get at like any store that's like into three sections. And then one side is caramel, one size cheese. And then they have. It's cut into like three. Like the biggest side because there's like two small sides and then a big side. And that's butter. And no one wants the butter, but it's the biggest section. And you. That's the only way they're not selling the tin with just the two.

[Ed Gamble]

They know what they're doing.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah, they know. They were like, this is the cheapest one to make. Yeah, we'll put the most of that in there. And then, you know, some parents gonna be like, you can't. You gotta finish this tin until we can get a new one. There's a bunch of kids just shoveling in popcorn they don't like.

[Ed Gamble]

I'll bet there'd be some big spenders out there buying two tins of popcorn, throwing away the butter and putting cheese and cheese and the other one mixed in there.

[Michelle Wolf]

Probably that's probably what the adults that grew up having to eat the butter are doing now.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

Now that they have any sort of disposable income.

[Ed Gamble]

They used to dream of that when they were kids.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

They used to talk about, tip the butter away. Imagine if I get flush enough to tip the butter.

[Michelle Wolf]

My brother used to make. I have two older brothers and we had that creamsicle ice cream, which is like vanilla and orange sherbet. And he used to make my brother eat the vanilla. Cause he only liked the orange sherbet part. And my mom wouldn't let him. She wouldn't buy new ice cream until the old ice cream was gone. And so my poor middle brother just eating vanilla ice cream all the time. Where my older brother's getting all the good orange sherbet.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

What have they both become now?

[Michelle Wolf]

Well, the older one's a chef, the sherbet loving one's a chef, and the other one works in insurance.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

If. If he. Yeah, if he'd had the orange. The orange sherbet side, he might be a chef as well.

[Michelle Wolf]

He might be a chef or, you know, I don't know, be living a

[James Acaster]

wild and crazy life instead.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah. It could be a cat Sitting on a boat somewhere. Instead, he's, you know, vanilla insurance.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, you eat vanilla all the time. Yeah, that makes perfect sense.

[Michelle Wolf]

He goes, I need stability. I need to be available when people need me to eat the things that they don't want.

[Ed Gamble]

I need consistency every day.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. We always start with still or sparkling water. Michelle, do you have a preference?

[Michelle Wolf]

Well, I like sparkling better, but. Because ever since I've had these children, I. I'm so thirsty all the time. So now I drink still water.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

But someday in the future, I'll go back to sparkling. I'm breastfeeding at the moment, so I need as much liquid as possible. And so I just have. I need still.

[Ed Gamble]

Do they advise drinking spot against drinking sparkling water when you're breastfeeding?

[Michelle Wolf]

No, it's just I find it harder to drink.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

You know, like, I can't take big gulps, and I'm always very thirsty. I love. I love sparkling water. And I feel like it makes me fuller. Like, especially if I'm starting a meal and I'm like, okay, don't eat all the bread. Don't eat all the bread and just have some sparkling water to fill bread. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's everyone's favorite liquid bread. But yeah, now I'm relegated to. To still. I would. I'm. I'll finish this whole thing for your

[James Acaster]

dream, though, because you stood up in my dreams. You're standing up.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Acaster]

Of course. Talking to. We didn't say who you'd be talking to while the hors d' oeuvres are going around, but we're aware that you want to be able to leave the conversation as soon as you.

[Michelle Wolf]

I mean, preferably. It's only, like, one or two of my very good friends, you know, or like, someone I love to chat with and not someone I don't really know and have to make small talk with.

[James Acaster]

Who are your top two friends?

[Michelle Wolf]

My top two friends. Oh, can I name four?

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

Okay. Because we're all on one group together.

[Ed Gamble]

Run them, right?

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

Okay. Okay. I'll do it this way. We're going to have Kelly, Elaine, Knockey, Stacy.

[Ed Gamble]

Great.

[James Acaster]

How do you know.

[Michelle Wolf]

But that's unranked.

[Ed Gamble]

That's unranked.

[James Acaster]

How do you know that?

[Michelle Wolf]

Those are just four of my best friends, and I met them through comedians. None of them do comedy, but one's married to a comedian and then the other's just comedy adjacent. And we're all friends, and it's lovely because they understand comedy, but they're not like, you Know, I think that says

[Ed Gamble]

a lot about comedians that your best friends, you met them through comedians.

[Michelle Wolf]

Who are these lovely women that are unfortunately attached to these comedians that deal with us now both as a spouse and a friend?

[James Acaster]

You know, can we each have one guess each who the comedian is that they're married to?

[Michelle Wolf]

Sure, yeah.

[James Acaster]

Just guess. A comedian. I guess.

[Ed Gamble]

Just guess. Any comedian. Yeah. I have to think of American comedians.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Who do.

[James Acaster]

It doesn't have to be American.

[Ed Gamble]

Eddie Murphy.

[James Acaster]

Eddie Murphy's wife.

[Ed Gamble]

Is it Eddie Murphy's wife?

[Michelle Wolf]

Is he married right now? I think he's married right now. Right.

[Ed Gamble]

I don't know. It was a big swing anyway, I'll be honest.

[Michelle Wolf]

Um, no, it's not. I've never. I've never met him or his wife.

[Ed Gamble]

But I'm sure his wife would be added to the text group if you did. Mia. I'm sure she's lovely.

[Michelle Wolf]

I mean, listen, we are a tight knit group and I just. I don't know if she'd fit in. And there's nothing against her. It's more about the friend dynamic. We already have.

[Ed Gamble]

Sure.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

It takes a lot to crack those dynamics sometimes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

And I will. I also say that it's also then

[Ed Gamble]

when you're talking to Eddie Murphy's wife, there is always the suspicion that it might be Eddie Murphy dressed up. Yeah, yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

You never know.

[James Acaster]

You never know anyone from his family.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah, yeah, it could be him. That's a really good point.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

And now I can't be friends with her.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, exactly.

[Michelle Wolf]

Because it'll be in the back of my head the whole time. Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Unless it's Hercules. He's not played by Eddie Murphy.

[Michelle Wolf]

Hercules, the.

[James Acaster]

The little kid.

[Michelle Wolf]

Oh, I thought you meant the Greek God.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, the Greek God. No, he isn't either.

[James Acaster]

In the clubs, there's a kid who's called Hercules and he's not played by Eddie Murphy. That's just a little kid.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

And he shows off his muscles and the mum's like, show us your muscles and goes, hercul.

[Michelle Wolf]

Oh, Achilles.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, he's right there like that while he's eating at the table.

[Ed Gamble]

And the clapping is like this, right?

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah, like that. And he's doing. He's doing this while he's eating.

[Ed Gamble]

A lot of our podcast is remembering things that happened in the club.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. That's all the podcast is. I'm going to go ahead and guess. Kyle Kanane's wife.

[Michelle Wolf]

Oh, I never met her. Is he married?

[James Acaster]

I don't think so.

[Michelle Wolf]

I don't think he is either. Love, Kyle, though.

[James Acaster]

Just had to go for someone. Yeah, yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

You didn't have to go for someone. This is a game you invented.

[James Acaster]

Well, I don't know, but even if

[Michelle Wolf]

you've invented the rules, who remembers who invented what?

[James Acaster]

Come on. You would like sparkling water while you're standing up?

[Michelle Wolf]

Yes, I would like sparkling water, preferably with ice and a lemon. There's actually this coffee shop I go to that I get a coffee and they give me a carafe of sparkling water and this glass with like, just two gorgeous ice cubes.

[James Acaster]

Great.

[Michelle Wolf]

And then you just pour the sparkling water over that and it's just an effervescent joy.

[James Acaster]

Would you want the water from that coffee shop? That could be your dream. Your dream water.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah. Can we do the water specifically from that coffee shop?

[James Acaster]

You want to name the shop? Give it a shout out.

[Michelle Wolf]

It's the Saga Coffee Shop, I think. I don't know if it's. It's called Saga. I don't know if they also say coffee shop, but it's in Barcelona and it's just lovely.

[Ed Gamble]

What makes an ice cube gorgeous for you?

[Michelle Wolf]

Well, this is something I've realized as I've gotten older, is that, you know how they say, like, it's the little things. I think it's just because you don't have other things to be happy about, you know, so you're like, this ice cube made me really happy, and that's how I feel a lot about my

[James Acaster]

life at the moment.

[Michelle Wolf]

I love like a, you know, like something that looks like it's like really maintained the shape of whatever it was frozen in, you know, like, I love those cube ones that you can just pop out of the. In the freezer. Like the bigger cube ones that are like maybe inch by inch something. And then the ones there, though, they're like. They're like a cylinder with a hole in the middle.

[Ed Gamble]

Oh, wow. No, yeah, really, like penne pasta.

[Michelle Wolf]

Thicker. Like, I don't know can. I don't like that bad. Yeah, but yeah, yeah, just a little phallic and a tiny penis.

[Ed Gamble]

Cut that bit out of the video episode Benito. Yeah, people are going to run hog wild with that blur out.

[Michelle Wolf]

Be really bad if I started being like, just a, you know.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

Just. Anyway, please don't. Please don't draw a penis into my hand.

[Ed Gamble]

Don't give them the idea and still do the thing.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, keep doing the master, guys.

[Michelle Wolf]

Don't put any penises in my hand. That's all. Don't put Anything else in this? Guys, I'm a mother. I'm asking you nicely.

[James Acaster]

Pop knobs or bread? Pop knobs or bread? Michelle Wolf. Pop knobs or bread?

[Michelle Wolf]

Bread.

[Ed Gamble]

We've already heard that you have to sort of prevent yourself from eating all the bread at the start of the meal. So we know you're a bread fan.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yes.

[Ed Gamble]

Is there any particular bread that you want on this. On this dream meal?

[Michelle Wolf]

I really like, you know, when they. There's like a. I don't know. They probably don't. This is probably a very American thing. Sometimes they do like a selection of breads, different types of breads, and sometimes they'll have like a little piece of focaccia that has, like a little bit of sauce on it. I love that little bite.

[James Acaster]

That little bite of sauce on the focaccia.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah, yeah. We love to add unnecessary things in America. We'll just throw it on there. But it looks like someone had focaccia and then it was left over and they put some sauce on it and they cut it up into squares to

[Ed Gamble]

moisten it up a bit.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah. To be like, this isn't a day old. And then. Yeah, and then. Yeah, I love that. I love that.

[Ed Gamble]

It's always the bit in those bread selections. It's always the one you want the most that there's the least of, I think.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yes.

[Ed Gamble]

Because they'll, like, pad it out with all the boring bread.

[James Acaster]

Like the popcorn.

[Ed Gamble]

It's like the popcorn. Yeah, it's like the popcorn.

[Michelle Wolf]

It's like they're. But they're making it. Why are you making the stuff that people don't want? Like, you must know. You must get the basket back at the end of the meal and be like, ah. They still don't like this weird, grainy one.

[James Acaster]

Maybe.

[Ed Gamble]

Maybe that's why, though. Maybe that weird, grainy one then goes into the next basket. So essentially they're just retaining grainy bread all night until the basket is mainly grain.

[Michelle Wolf]

Are you. Do you think restaurants do that? They're giving. They're just plopping the bread from someone's basket.

[James Acaster]

Some of them must be.

[Ed Gamble]

Some of them must be. And I sort of hope they are in a weird way, rather than just chucking away a load of bread at the end of the night. But then you don't know what people have. Might have interfered with that bread.

[Michelle Wolf]

Someone might have been eating a bunch of cheese pops.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, exactly. Old, stinking out.

[Ed Gamble]

Might have been.

[James Acaster]

Picked it up to get the one they want and put it back in. I don't want to eat that. Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

Do you know what bread I also like? So I just thought of it, is that a lot of times on. This is so sad that this is a bread I like. A lot of times on airplanes they'll offer you a bread and it's like the pretzel roll. Yeah, I love a pretzel roll.

[Ed Gamble]

This is someone who's traveled a lot for work, I think. Just that's your dream bit, where you sit down and you get the bread,

[Michelle Wolf]

I get a warm, reheated pretzel roll.

[James Acaster]

Would you like that? Would you like the airplane pretzel roll with the focaccia with the sauce?

[Michelle Wolf]

Yes. Yeah, I'll take both of those.

[Ed Gamble]

Do you think it tastes the same as it does on the plane or. You hear loads of stuff about. They add so much extra salt to stuff on planes.

[Michelle Wolf]

I feel like if I got it. I feel like if I got it on ground, I'd probably be like, what is this? This is three years old.

[Ed Gamble]

This is abreast.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah, this is. Yeah. But on the plane it's great. But I think they just warmed it up too, you know, like, it's like if it wasn't touched by heat, it would probably be.

[James Acaster]

That'd be awful.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah, Like a rock, a tiny rock. A pretzel rock.

[James Acaster]

The way you're describing that focaccia, the other day I had. I went to a restaurant called Perilla in Stoke Newington.

[Ed Gamble]

Shout out.

[James Acaster]

And they bought out at the top, these little bites. And it was called. It's called Yesterday's Bread Soaked in Moul's marinade. You know, that was it. How's it spelled? How's it pronounced?

[Ed Gamble]

Marin. Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Marin. Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

That was a punt, you know, like,

[James Acaster]

you know what, Marino, when you get a big, like, pot of mussels and all this sauce, the creamy sauce.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

So that's. They've got these bits of bread and they'd soaked them in that delicious. It's amazing.

[Michelle Wolf]

Michelle, that sounds like a great way to use yesterday's bread, too.

[James Acaster]

It was so good. And it was like, had like a parmesan and like parsley kind of crumb on the top. I think it was. It was incredibly. It was so good. And because you were saying about the day old focaccia and it's nice and moist in some sort of. It was exactly that kind of vibe.

[Michelle Wolf]

I feel like now this is my. I haven't even heard it and it's tried it and it sounds like it's my favorite bread.

[James Acaster]

It was Just so good.

[Ed Gamble]

It does sound exactly what you like, what you described.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah, it sounds delicious.

[Ed Gamble]

And I knew that bread was good because I got a photo sent to me immediately.

[James Acaster]

Straight away.

[Ed Gamble]

This is what I know. This is what I know.

[James Acaster]

Here's the nightmare. He was in America. I sent him the photo, but it went green on the text so he didn't get it. So I had to go onto WhatsApp to send him the photo.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

And do that. Instead of we're on a text group with a bunch of other friends and his phone was messing the whole thing up.

[Michelle Wolf]

Oh, you were green for however long you were in America.

[Ed Gamble]

No, because there was. I mean, this is so boring. But there was an issue with an esim. I was on an ESIM and then it was using a different number and then. But I sorted out. And so then immediately received three pictures of bread from James on different platforms.

[James Acaster]

But yeah, I had to send the bread pick quite a few times to make sure he saw it.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Important to me.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah. I'm glad that that's a good friend. You know, you were like, he needs to see this and I'm going to try every avenue. Did you send it to him on Instagram like that?

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

Email.

[James Acaster]

The Insta pigeon.

[Ed Gamble]

I got a pigeon arrived at my window three days later.

[James Acaster]

Such so good, that bread.

[Michelle Wolf]

You did say, you said sourdough and I, I, I will say unpopular opinion. Don't like it. Some sourdough. Too sour.

[James Acaster]

Sure.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

I don't know. I don't want it. Wanted sour. Yeah, I wanted.

[James Acaster]

Well, the reason I accidentally said sourdough is because they also did later on in the meal, they bought out a sourdough course. But it was good. I think you'd like it.

[Michelle Wolf]

Okay.

[James Acaster]

It was sourdough that had seaweed in it. Okay.

[Michelle Wolf]

I think I would like that.

[James Acaster]

And it was very good.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

With this really nice butter. But I know what you mean. Sometimes, like if it's not done, if it's just done just because it's like, oh, everyone likes sourdough. So we're just gonna. That's an easy, like one just to say. We'll just make some sourdough, send it out. Who cares? They'll like it no matter what pot. But like, yeah, you can get a pretty bad one and get put. Also.

[Ed Gamble]

It's just everywhere.

[James Acaster]

Right.

[Ed Gamble]

It's just always the default bread. Now, I didn't. When did that happen? You know, it shouldn't be the default bread. It should be like, oh, sourdough. That's interesting.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah, just a nice rustic bread is lovely.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

And then, yeah, maybe a sourdough. But I've also recently had smoked butter, which was very, very nice.

[James Acaster]

Yes.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah, I really like that.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. A good smoked butter.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Salted as well.

[Michelle Wolf]

I love a salted butter. If they, if I've been to France enough times that I love their salted butter. But then sometimes if you order the breakfast in the morning, they bring you the unsalted butter and I'm trying to add salt to it to make it salted and I always end up too much salt. Anyway. This isn't a very exciting story at all, but I love salted butter. Salted butter is my favorite.

[Ed Gamble]

Now, I don't see the point of unsalted butter. I know people use it in baking and stuff, but.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah, keep it to baking. Don't worry. Bring me a pat of unsalted butter.

[Ed Gamble]

No one wants that.

[Michelle Wolf]

What are we doing? Even if you have it on like a adding jam or something, A salted butter.

[Ed Gamble]

Delicious. So good salt goes well with sweet. Just.

[Michelle Wolf]

It's perfect.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Does any other food come in pats? Butter's the only food I can finger that comes in a pat.

[Michelle Wolf]

I mean, I, I think so.

[Ed Gamble]

I mean, even pate. Yeah.

[James Acaster]

You can't even get a pat of pate.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah, you couldn't. I mean, they should sell it. Yeah, they should sell little. This you should have. Yeah, you could have pate merch.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

Where you.

[James Acaster]

We keep saying we've got to have like some sort of like, you know, off menu branded food that we can get on the shelves of the supermarket.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Maybe pate pats. Little pats of pate.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah. Are you guys fans of pate?

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, I like pate. I like a good pate. I like a.

[Michelle Wolf]

Best thing to have is your merchant. Something you feel so.

[Ed Gamble]

So about James's face on all the pat pats with a little speech bubble. So I can take it or leave

[James Acaster]

it or leave it.

[Ed Gamble]

It's fine. This is fine.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

If it's there, I'll have it.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

But what's a pat? Doesn't mean it has to be small. Right. So surely a slice of pate you could call a pat of pate. Because the only other term.

[Michelle Wolf]

I don't know, I feel like pat is a, a very specific size.

[Ed Gamble]

I don't know what the big. You guys have met cow pat. They ain't doing little shits. Are they not? That's the only other time you hear

[Michelle Wolf]

pat, but I feel like that's a distinctly different version.

[Ed Gamble]

Same word though, isn't it?

[James Acaster]

They both come out of cows.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

Well, I mean, like. But this is a pat too.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then that's true, I guess, like,

[Michelle Wolf]

because words can have different meanings.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

I've just realized that you can pat

[James Acaster]

someone with your hand. Yeah. Pat Sharp. Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Different.

[James Acaster]

You won't know Pat Sharp I'm getting

[Michelle Wolf]

as a person, though.

[Ed Gamble]

But he's not this big though.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Huh.

[Ed Gamble]

He's not tiny.

[James Acaster]

Never met him. Yeah, Never met him. I don't know. What 90s celebrities, they're pretty small. Yeah, Yeah. I don't know.

[Ed Gamble]

Okay. I'm willing to admit that. Yeah. You don't get a pat of pate.

[James Acaster]

If someone brought you a massive plate of butter and they said, there's your pat of butter, you go, hold on. What's as big as a cow pat? What do you want from those?

[Michelle Wolf]

You didn't specify what kind of pat you wanted.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah. This is why if you're a butter

[Michelle Wolf]

shaped man, you're like, this is a pat of butter.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Cover your hand in butter. Just slap them on the back. There's your b. Butter.

[James Acaster]

That's what you asked for.

[Ed Gamble]

This is why I don't run a restaurant.

[James Acaster]

I think you'd be good. We got to do it.

[Ed Gamble]

Too pernickety about language, though.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. Too panickety. Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

By the great word.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. That is a great word, isn't it?

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

Pernicates.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. Perniketty's.

[Michelle Wolf]

It's a great name for a restaurant.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Perniket's Pat a pate.

[James Acaster]

Oh, wow. Good luck ordering that.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah. Now we've gotten into a nursery ride.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[James Acaster]

Your dream starter.

[Michelle Wolf]

My dream starter is okay. At Nobu, they have this spinach dry miso salad that I love. I could eat it every single day. I don't know what makes a dry miso, but I love this salad. It's just a huge plate of spinach and whatever this dry miso dressing is.

[James Acaster]

It's good to have a guest on who has a favorite Nobu dish, isn't it?

[Acast Advertiser]

Yes.

[Michelle Wolf]

Am I stupid? No, no.

[Ed Gamble]

This is perfect. We had Robert De Niro on this podcast past.

[Michelle Wolf]

Oh, yes.

[Ed Gamble]

And spent a long.

[Michelle Wolf]

Co Owner of.

[Ed Gamble]

Co owner of no Boots. Spent a long time trying to get any dishes out of him. Really?

[Michelle Wolf]

And none.

[Ed Gamble]

No, he just.

[Michelle Wolf]

You think he's maybe never eaten there?

[Ed Gamble]

No, he has, but he just kept saying they. They bring me whatever's good. But he tried that with every course we asked him for. He went, I Just have whatever's good. And we had to be like, we're gonna have to nail you down on something here, Bob.

[James Acaster]

We knew we were going to bring up at some point, so we obviously

[Ed Gamble]

brought Nobu up because he, you know, he's a part owner of it or whatever, and he was like, I just have whatever's good.

[James Acaster]

Good. Yeah. And what we wanted from him is what you've just said, a specific, noble. Yeah, yeah. So it's nice to finally get it. Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

Oh, yeah. Geez, Bob.

[James Acaster]

So, yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

This dry. Because I can't imagine what dry miso is. Are they? Because it's wet? Every miso I've seen has been either in soup form or. Or a wet sort of paste.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah. I don't know if it's a. Like a, you know, like a bouillon cube of miso or something.

[James Acaster]

Maybe.

[Ed Gamble]

I don't know, they're dehydrating it or something and putting it in there.

[Michelle Wolf]

But it's. It's really good. He should try it if he. Because I feel like that's something they wouldn't bring out. They wouldn't be like, this is good today.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes.

[Michelle Wolf]

You know, they wouldn't be like, the spinach is particularly, you know, I'd imagine

[Ed Gamble]

they're just absolutely shitting themselves in the kitchen. He just said, whatever's good. What is good? I've completely.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

It's undermined all my confidence.

[Michelle Wolf]

What did we give him last time? I wonder if there's, like, a running, like, menu of what, like a chart.

[Ed Gamble]

The Bob chart.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. He had this last time. Do not give it to him again. Michelle Wolf shouted this out. Send that out. It's good. It's officially good this week. So it's just spinach and this miso dresser. Was there other stuff in there?

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah, you can add, like, a tuna tataki or to it, which is.

[James Acaster]

I would do that.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah. Very, very good. That makes it more of a. Not a meal, but like a heartier thing. But it is a large portion of spinach as well, and it makes me feel good. Cause it's spinach, you feel like you're

[Ed Gamble]

getting some nutrients from it. Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

I'm sure that there's gotta be stuff in the dressing that makes it, you know, particularly unhealthy for you.

[Ed Gamble]

Well, that's why it's delicious, right?

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah, yeah. It wouldn't be delicious if it was, like, spinach with a little bit of, like, lime or, you know, like, it'd be like, this is spinach.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Acaster]

Every time I had a Salad. Today on the way here, I was like, make sure you get a healthy lunch. I was walking past this other place I hadn't been to before, so I'm gonna get that now in advance. And I've got a healthy lunch. Fudge in the bag. I got it as soon as I had my first mouthful. I thought, this is delicious. And I was like. And then my next thought was, that's.

[Ed Gamble]

But, yeah, that's bad for you.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah, yeah. That's not a.

[James Acaster]

This is a really good, delicious salad. It's got a dressing on that I didn't ask for.

[Michelle Wolf]

Right. And now you're just eating a sandwich that's in a salad form.

[James Acaster]

Yes. And then you realize that's.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Every time I went.

[Michelle Wolf]

Could have just had a sandwich, you

[Ed Gamble]

know, every time I went to Sweet Green in the States, bits that happened to me.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

You pick all of the ingredients, and you're like, I'm being such a healthy boy today. Protein, nutrients, iron. And then, like, what dressing do you want? I want that one. Do you want it light, medium, or heavy? Heavy.

[James Acaster]

You would say heavy.

[Ed Gamble]

Oh, yeah, yeah. Half a bottle goes in there.

[Michelle Wolf]

Mix it up.

[Ed Gamble]

It's like eating soup.

[James Acaster]

Also, it's a massive bottle that has about four nozzles on it. Yeah. In sweet green. Yeah, they, like, go like that. It's like, that's four bottles in one that you've gaffer taped together, and you're putting them all on one salad.

[Michelle Wolf]

Sweet Green is a. It's really a dangerous place because they're like, do you want to add anything else? Yeah, and it's all just right there. And you think, like, well, that'll be good on it.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

I do that all the time. I don't think about the structure of the salad or, like, the, you know, the flavor profile. And then I end up adding something, and I'm like, now I've got, like, a Mexican Asian salad, and no one's happy. And it's not a. It's really.

[Ed Gamble]

You've upset two communities.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah. And everyone's just. The whole salad is fighting. I used to work at. One summer, I worked at a Subway sandwich shop. And the amount of mayonnaise you put on those sandwiches is like. It's so much mayonnaise. And then people would be like, more mayonnaise. And you're, like, making it. And they're like, no more than that. And it was just like, I put on so much mayonnaise onto some of these salads. And there's an. I'm from Hershey, Pennsylvania. And there's an amusement park in Hershey called.

[James Acaster]

Called.

[Michelle Wolf]

It's called Hershey park, if you can believe it. Yeah, you can believe that.

[Ed Gamble]

That's crazy. Some of the names of these places are crazy.

[Michelle Wolf]

You'll never find it.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

And there's, like a. There was a Subway sandwich shop in the park that I worked at, but it was right by the water rides. So we're, like, loading mayonnaise onto these shops by people that are, like, drenched in, like, overly chlorinated amusement park slaughter.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. Stinky.

[Michelle Wolf]

They're just, like, more mayonnaise.

[Ed Gamble]

Sopping wet.

[Michelle Wolf]

Just like T shirts sticking to them, like, dripping, asking for mayonnaise. Dream job. You got a free sandwich.

[Ed Gamble]

Best job in the world.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah. Best job in the world.

[Ed Gamble]

That's what the show's about. I think James has got some questions about working in Subway. I heard your brain start pinging.

[James Acaster]

I was excited. It's the first person we've had who's worked at Subway.

[Michelle Wolf]

Oh, yeah. You know, it's actually really fun.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah. Because it's just. It's so gratifying. They ask for a sandwich, you make the sandwich.

[James Acaster]

You get used to the smell.

[Michelle Wolf]

You. When you're in there, you're like, all right, what smell?

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

And then you leave and you're like, this smell. This smell that's now in my car, you know, you have to change.

[Ed Gamble]

Is it true they pipe the smell out onto the street?

[Michelle Wolf]

That wasn't true in our little stand in the park. I think we were competing with too much chlorine anyway, but I don't know if that's true everywhere. They might.

[Ed Gamble]

You can't speak for the corporation.

[Michelle Wolf]

I can't speak for the corporation.

[Ed Gamble]

I've heard they pump it out onto the street.

[Michelle Wolf]

So you're like, Subway, they're also franchises, so maybe some do and some don't.

[Ed Gamble]

That's true.

[James Acaster]

You know, I accused her. Accused. I thought it was common knowledge that Eminem World did that. But the. The guy who I said it to worked there flipped his lid.

[Ed Gamble]

Really?

[Michelle Wolf]

Really.

[James Acaster]

He was like, we did not do that. Do not. That is false. And everyone's going around saying that we do not pump the smell into Lesser Square. Do not tell people that.

[Ed Gamble]

Imagine being a company man for M M's.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah, that sounds like they definitely pump the smell.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, you're pumping.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah. Well. Well, okay. So in Hershey, where Hershey park is, they used to have the chocolate factory there, and it would smell like chocolate. But then they moved the factory to Mexico. But the town still smells like chocolate, so they're pumping it in from somewhere.

[Ed Gamble]

That's suspicious, isn't it? Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Coming through the sewers. Do you reckon that when they had the Hershey factory, they were, like, dumping, like, oil drums of chocolate? That they did. It's all under the city sewers and there's all the turtles under there and stuff.

[Ed Gamble]

This is gonna be a great sequel to Erin Brock.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

Instead of it's everyone just has obesity.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. Aaron Djokovic.

[Michelle Wolf]

Aaron Chuckovich. Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Thanks, James.

[Michelle Wolf]

That was the best. Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

What do we call that? A pun.

[Ed Gamble]

Is that a pun? Wordplay.

[Michelle Wolf]

Wordplay.

[Ed Gamble]

Great humor. Just general great humor.

[Michelle Wolf]

General great humor. By Ed.

[Ed Gamble]

By Ed. By Ed Gamble. That's why I say, after all my joke.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

My Tor shows is Ed Gamble. Yeah. Another great joke.

[Michelle Wolf]

Definitely by me, Ed Gamble. I don't go like this.

[James Acaster]

Straight to the camera.

[Ed Gamble]

Straight into the camera.

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[Michelle Wolf]

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[Ed Gamble]

or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

[Michelle Wolf]

Quick question.

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[James Acaster]

Your dream main course.

[Michelle Wolf]

My dream main course. Okay. So this took me a really long time to think of, and I almost went with just. I almost gave up because I couldn't. I couldn't figure it out. And I was just going to go turkey and cheese sandwich because I just couldn't think of what my. I love so many foods. And this one, it's my dream main course even though I cannot pronounce it correctly.

[Ed Gamble]

Fantastic.

[Michelle Wolf]

It's the cacio e pepe. Is that. Am I saying.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

I mean, I understood what you meant, so it feels like there was, you know, you were circling around the pronunciation.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. I don't know if I say it right.

[Ed Gamble]

What do you say?

[James Acaster]

Cacio e pepe.

[Michelle Wolf]

That sounds better than what I said,

[James Acaster]

but I don't know if that's.

[Ed Gamble]

Well, it's cacio e pepe. Right.

[James Acaster]

I've liked. I've like, missed out a syllable.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. You say catchy. A pepe.

[James Acaster]

Catch your pepe.

[Ed Gamble]

But I knew what you meant.

[Michelle Wolf]

I feel like if I start with the C and end with pepe.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. You're fine.

[James Acaster]

I don't know. Yeah, there's a lot. There's a lot of ways that can go wrong. I wouldn't follow that exact rule.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. Pepe. Just say pepe quickly. Everyone knows that. You mean. It's probably. It's got to be my favorite pasta dish as well.

[Michelle Wolf]

I love it. I went to. I took a little day trip to rome for my 40th birthday this year, and I had it three times. Wow. In one day.

[James Acaster]

Hold on. We're just glossing over that you've also had a 40th birthday this year. The same year Ed gambles had a

[Michelle Wolf]

40th birthday was last night.

[Ed Gamble]

Yesterday. Yesterday was my 40th birthday. Oh, wow.

[Michelle Wolf]

Wow.

[James Acaster]

Looks like I'm the young buck of the pod.

[Ed Gamble]

No. James is 42.

[James Acaster]

Oh, no. I'm not 41.

[Ed Gamble]

I don't know when this is coming out.

[James Acaster]

41. You c. Pepper.

[Michelle Wolf]

That's the best one.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Sometimes you're two years ahead of me and sometimes you're only one. Yeah.

[James Acaster]

And sometimes I'm only a pun ahead of him and I give it to him. You're old now, man. You're the old man of the pod,

[Ed Gamble]

but you're older than me.

[James Acaster]

This is. I don't make the rules.

[Ed Gamble]

Happy to be 40 anyway.

[Michelle Wolf]

I love 40.

[Ed Gamble]

40 is good.

[Michelle Wolf]

I can't Wait. I want to just get older and older, which is luckily how it works.

[Ed Gamble]

So you're going to stick to the linear rules of time?

[Michelle Wolf]

Yes, yes, I would really like to, because anytime any show goes into a space time continuum, I get very confused. I tried to follow along with Loki and it was just every time we go to a different. I'm like, what. What timeline are we on now? It really. It really. Yeah, it's hard for me.

[Ed Gamble]

I like time loops, though. I love a time loop.

[James Acaster]

Oh, yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

I love that as an idea.

[James Acaster]

Same day, over and over.

[Michelle Wolf]

Oh, yeah. Groundhog's Day.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

I was thinking the other day, they got to start, like, someone's got to open it. You know, sometimes they open, like, little parks or whatever where you can go and it's like Victorian times, and everyone's dressed in Victorian times. They should open a place that is a time loop and you can stay there for the whole week and every day you do something different. The whole town goes around in a loop and does. And you can choose a different thing to do each day, or maybe just one, until you get it right and you complete it. And just, like, what would be getting it right? I guess, like, there were certain, like, little storylines. Yeah, yeah. Stuff that you can do that would result in, like, you know, different outcomes and different, like, ways of winning.

[Ed Gamble]

Well, there's some immersive theater things that are a bit like that. There was a show in New York for a long time called Sleep no More that was like, the same. All the actors and all of the dancers and stuff in the show. It was in a massive warehouse.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Did the same thing maybe three times within the course of the show, and you could go anywhere you wanted. It was like open world. And there were little things to solve and do, or you could watch different things at different times and you could

[James Acaster]

try the same one over and over till you get it right.

[Ed Gamble]

You could.

[James Acaster]

Like Groundhog Day.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. You could do. It's more of a sort of theatrical experience than I wanted to do. Some desperate way to get life right.

[Michelle Wolf]

This is. This is my reaction to Sleep no More. Every single time has been. I, like, I. I've heard of it.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

And I just generally agree because I don't have any idea what it actually is.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

Where I'm just like, yeah, it's a theatrical experience.

[James Acaster]

It's always done it.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Whatever it is, people bring it up and he'll be like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

You don't sleep no more.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah. He's done everything. Yeah. Everyone brings up stuff. And he's like, yeah, I saw that, I did that. I've eaten that.

[Ed Gamble]

I went to sleep no more.

[Michelle Wolf]

Well,

[James Acaster]

yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Oh, lovely.

[James Acaster]

He hasn't got two kids. His belly button's absolutely unmolested. He's having a great life.

[Ed Gamble]

No one's been in there for years.

[Michelle Wolf]

He's actually just going places to see if anyone would be like, is this. Will you touch my belly button?

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

I got kicked out. I tried with all the different actors at different times in the show. Just lifted up my T shirt, get in there. It is great. But it started very late. I think it started at 11pm and went on till about 3 in the morning. So.

[James Acaster]

Whoa.

[Ed Gamble]

And they separate you from who you go.

[James Acaster]

And shaking his head.

[Michelle Wolf]

I'll say this, that sounds like a nightmare to me.

[Ed Gamble]

Right.

[Michelle Wolf]

That sounds like a genuine.

[Ed Gamble]

And you have to wear masks. Everyone in the audience. Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

I'm out. I don't like. I'm not a mask person.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

I don't like it. What do you. What? Those masks are fine. Let's not get into Michelle. People are going to be like, no, I see anyone with a mask now. I see a little old lady with a mask. I'm like, what are you doing? That's scary.

[James Acaster]

I mean, obviously everyone in Covid hated the people who wore the masks with their nose sticking out the top.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

I hate those people even more when I see them now.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

In the modern day, in 2026, I go on the tube and someone's wearing a face mask but they got their nose sticking out. I'm like, what are you doing? We all.

[Ed Gamble]

On so many levels.

[James Acaster]

I thought we'd sorted this out.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

That you don't have your nose sticking out. We all. This got covered years ago.

[Michelle Wolf]

Right.

[James Acaster]

How the hell are you still doing?

[Michelle Wolf]

Because I thought it was. I. I just assumed the people with their nose out were the people who didn't want to wear a mask.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

And they were making a point.

[Michelle Wolf]

Right.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

And. But that seems like someone who's electively wearing a mask but wearing it wrong.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

Do you ever just go up and go. It's like this.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. You want to. I want to so much go like, what do you think that's doing as you breathe out your nose into this carriage?

[Ed Gamble]

But what if you did that and then realized that their mouth was so low on their chest? In. And that's why they have to do it.

[James Acaster]

You move it up and immediately their

[Ed Gamble]

mouth is like, there. Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Right at the bottom of their chin.

[Ed Gamble]

What the hell are you doing?

[James Acaster]

Get your hands off me. This was for everyone's good. Yeah, that would be bad. Yeah, yeah. In that tonight I would feel silly.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah. You got to worry about these people.

[James Acaster]

They got.

[Michelle Wolf]

Oh, you've really put your foot in your mouth.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

Now I'm just trying to think of

[Ed Gamble]

wordplay, but you're not signing any of it off with. That was a joke by Michelle Wolf.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah, I'm gonna sign up. That was by me and Gamble.

[James Acaster]

Should have done that when you wrote for Seth Meyers. Yes. And it would have to be like. And that's why I love periods by me, Michelle Wolf. You get credit every time.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yes. Yeah, I think that was. That was the problem. I should have thought of that.

[James Acaster]

Was there that category of, like, jokes Seth can't say or something?

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah, Jokes Seth can't.

[James Acaster]

Did you make it into that?

[Michelle Wolf]

No, that was. That was after I left. But I did come back one time and I did some jokes. Seth can't tell. Yeah, I did some of the ones which I think I got one joke about. I did get a period joke in there about, we used to do this thing, new slogans where we'd make up slogans for things that don't have slogans. And we did tampons for whales or something like that called tampoons.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. That's worth it.

[Michelle Wolf]

But that's the one I did on this. I don't. The joke Seth can't tell. It's something about tampoo. Yes.

[Ed Gamble]

Did he drop the paper on that one?

[Michelle Wolf]

No, he just looked at me like, you finally got it out.

[James Acaster]

Are you happy now? Are you happy now?

[Ed Gamble]

Have you made it at home? The cacio e Pepe?

[Michelle Wolf]

No, I haven't.

[Ed Gamble]

It's great. Great. It's easy. Yeah. Yeah. You're basically frying up pepper and then using pasta water in the pan and, like, emulsifying the cheese into it and then put the pasta in.

[Michelle Wolf]

What kind of cheese is it?

[Ed Gamble]

Parmesan, Pecorino, I want to say.

[James Acaster]

Do you know who else chose it?

[Michelle Wolf]

Who?

[James Acaster]

And you can decide if you want to do. Because it's a bowl of pasta. If you want to do a Lady. Lady and the Tramp with this guy.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yes. Who is it?

[James Acaster]

Todd Barry.

[Michelle Wolf]

Todd Berry would be the worst person to do a lady in the Tramp with in the history of the world. Let me tell you a very fun Todd Berry story. He's gonna hate that I'm telling this story. So we were at the Comedy Cellar in New York and talking about flying. Cause we're all comedians and we're all like, it's probably like a Wednesday and we're all flying on Thursday. And Todd comes up in the conversation. He goes, he goes, I don't mind a middle seat. And then I think for the next three hours, and I'm not even exaggerating, we made fun of him for saying that a middle seat's not that bad. You fly all the time and you've gotta have points and you gotta be some sort of delta or united something. And he's like, the middle seat. I mean, you got your whole. Most of your life is flying and you can't have a window or an aisle. I mean, we went into him. To this day, I still talk to him about middle seats.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

So anyway, Todd Berry, I mean, I guess I could do a lady in tramp with him because I'd have the window.

[Ed Gamble]

Very rare to see a side by side lady in the tramp because they're facing each other. You can't really do one on a. You'd have to have the plaster in the corner of your mouth.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Face up and then just bump cheeks.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

I feel like Todd would hate a lady in the tramp moment.

[James Acaster]

Like, he's a germaphobe. He'd hate him.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah. He would be like, you have your own bowl of pasta and I'll have my own bowl of pasta and we'll e in separate rooms. And that is his dream lady and the Tramp scenario.

[James Acaster]

If you pushed a meatball across the plate with your nose to Todd Barry, he'd go, I'm not eating that. Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

He might murder me. He might just be like, that's enough. We've had enough of you. You made fun of me for the middle seat for three hours and now you're trying to get me to eat a meatball with your nose.

[Ed Gamble]

I just bumped into Todd Barry in New York, actually, in the hotel bar of where I was staying. And we'd been having a drink, and then I turned round, we got up to leave, and Todd was sat there waiting for a friend and genuinely thinking about it. I think he was in the middle seat.

[James Acaster]

Great.

[Ed Gamble]

I think he was in the middle seat and it was a completely empty table. His friend hadn't arrived yet.

[Michelle Wolf]

Just a middle seat.

[Ed Gamble]

He's in the middle seat.

[Michelle Wolf]

Loves the middle seat. Maybe he likes the comfort. Maybe it's like he's like, I'm surrounded. But I love Todd Berry. I love Todd.

[Ed Gamble]

Oh, he's amazing.

[Michelle Wolf]

But yeah, I don't think he. I think he'd stay so far away from a lady in the tramp situation, it wouldn't happen. You would also, I assume, not like a lady in the tramp situation because

[Ed Gamble]

that's very much that sharing. That is the ultimate share, isn't it? And I couldn't. I think I like the idea of the romance, maybe of a lady and the tramp situation, but I'd be too competitive with get. I'd just suck the pasta up straight away.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

So we did one once.

[Ed Gamble]

We did do one once for a photo shoot.

[Michelle Wolf]

Who was who?

[James Acaster]

I like to think I was the lady.

[Ed Gamble]

I guess I was the drum.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. I mean, we were pretty much just dressed like this.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. But, like, you know, we weren't dressed like dogs is what James is saying.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. They dress us like dogs.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Weren't dressed like the characters.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

We didn't know who was who.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. And there was no sort of, like, stereotypical Italian waiter playing the accordion behind us.

[Michelle Wolf]

Right, right.

[James Acaster]

I assume for the party, he refused to be involved in the photo shoot. We gave him the accordion and a little mustache. He wouldn't do it. Even though he always does an Italian accent. He's always speaking Italian accent all the time.

[Ed Gamble]

That waiter must be so, like, down about his life, don't you think?

[James Acaster]

What, the actual lady the tramp?

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. I'm playing accordion for some dogs. Snobs. Dogging.

[Michelle Wolf]

Well, I don't know. People really love their dogs.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, but they're not his dogs. He's working at the restaurant and he's demoted to. There you go. Go over there and look after the dogs at that table. By the way. They're gonna get off with each other.

[James Acaster]

I'd rather do that than deal with humans.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah, that's a good point.

[James Acaster]

They're, like, going out there serving all the stupid customers in the actual restaurant. I'm on dog duty.

[Ed Gamble]

I'm going in the alley to look after these smugging dogs.

[James Acaster]

I'll tell you what, if I was walking along and I saw two dogs eating a massive plate of spaghetti and meatballs, I'd watch that for the whole thing.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah. That actually sounds. And also eating it. Eating it that way, you know, like.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

Not just chomping it down.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. Quite thoughtfully.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

Really, really classy dogs at the end of the day.

[Ed Gamble]

Dogs with lips.

[Michelle Wolf]

If I saw two humans doing that in a restaurant, I would hope I was not their server.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. I'd flip the table.

[Michelle Wolf]

I would be like, you guys gotta go.

[James Acaster]

What do you think about this?

[Ed Gamble]

Here we go.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yes.

[James Acaster]

Yesterday I bumped into some friends, and one of them was telling the story to the other two, and they were a couple. And I'd say, this couple, every time I see them, they're being a bit too public display of affection wherever I see them, while one of my friends is telling her friend a story and they're looking and making eye contact with each other, this friend's boyfriend, while still maintaining eye contact with the person telling the story, kisses his girlfriend on the shoulder while they're talking. So they're looking at each other, and while she's telling the story, he kisses his girlfriend on the shoulder, and they're all still just making eye contact with each other like that. I thought it was appalling.

[Michelle Wolf]

I would say, shoulder, not do that.

[Ed Gamble]

Sign it off.

[Michelle Wolf]

That's a joke by me. Michelle. Does it even make sense? It made sense in my head.

[James Acaster]

I think it's one of the worst parts I've ever heard.

[Ed Gamble]

It was. And I think you knew it was bad, which is why you only signed off as Michelle. You didn't give your surname.

[James Acaster]

Shoulder, not do that.

[Ed Gamble]

Shoulder, not do that. That was by Michelle.

[Michelle Wolf]

So the whole time you're down, like, you get to the kiss on the shoulder part, and I'm like, shoulder, should. Should not do it. Shoulder, should not. Shoulder, not. In my head. In my head, it felt like it was going to be good.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

As soon as it came out of my mouth, I was like, I don't think it tracks.

[Ed Gamble]

I' still sort of trying to. I can sort of see what you're going for, but I'm still on the journey with it. I think. Sheldon, not do that.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Dream side dish.

[Michelle Wolf]

Okay. Dream side dish. So I don't know if this actually counts as a side dish, but I. I've had them both here and. And in. In Paris is. You can. In the season, really fresh strawberries, like the small ones. We don't really have those in America. We have, like, American strawberries are, like, white inside and have no flavor.

[Ed Gamble]

Huge. But massive as well, right? Yeah, massive.

[Michelle Wolf]

Massive. And the seasonal strawberries, the summer strawberries, I've had them both here and in Paris that are just like. They're amazing. They're the tiny little red ones. I would love that as a side dish.

[Ed Gamble]

And they taste like strawberry jam, basically.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah, exactly. They're so good. They're just like. It's like a. You could. I feel like I eat the stem even. You know, it's just like I'm just shoveling them in my. Just throwing them in my mouth.

[James Acaster]

Yeah,

[Michelle Wolf]

just. I'm not even. I didn't even try that. I didn't. That was just like a Throwing them in my mouth.

[James Acaster]

Just go,

[Michelle Wolf]

Don't do it, Internet.

[Ed Gamble]

I can't wait for the super cut we make of this episode.

[Michelle Wolf]

So that'll be great.

[Ed Gamble]

Just that.

[Michelle Wolf]

That'll be so fun.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. I mean, and you don't even need anything on them. Just those shoulders as they are. Great.

[Ed Gamble]

I love it as a side dish for the cacio e pepe as well. Are you gonna be going back and forth between the two, do you think?

[Michelle Wolf]

A real problem with me is that I eat like a maniac. Like, I'm like a Hoover. Like, I just. I'm like, you could set a dish in front of me and by the time. If you turned around, by the time you turned back around, it would be gone.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, me too.

[Michelle Wolf]

I'm not a really. Ooh, a bite and a bite and a little drink. That's not happening. I am. I am gobbling it down at a velocity that is alarming.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

I really is something that really makes me laugh. Is someone doing, like, an offensive impression of something that's so normal. So just being like a bite and a bite. Oh, a little drink.

[James Acaster]

It's hard.

[Michelle Wolf]

Wave high.

[James Acaster]

We gotta make our thing seem normal.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. Oh, look, I'm a, you know, I'm a guzzler and a gulper.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

I'm the same.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Especially with drinks I'm gulping.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. Somebody ever. Someone doesn't like a musician and they go, oh, that person is just like, that's not how they sound.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. That would be annoying. I agree.

[Michelle Wolf]

That would be annoying.

[James Acaster]

That's the worst. That's not what it sounds like.

[Ed Gamble]

Oh, hello, my name. That's always an impression. Offensive impression of someone as well. It always starts with, hello, my name. My name is.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah. Then straight into that.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

I mean, yeah. I mean, I, I. But I do like your impression of someone.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Eating normally.

[Michelle Wolf]

Thank you.

[James Acaster]

A little bit of this. A little drink. It's good. I. So quickly. And people comment on it who have just met me.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

So that's like. That's always bad. You ate that fast and you have

[Michelle Wolf]

to be like, I did. Yeah.

[James Acaster]

I didn't even know.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah. I wasn't real. It's just the thing.

[James Acaster]

You don't keep going in bullet time for me. I didn't know.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah. I guess I have to redo this day. I'll eat slower.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

Maybe I'll get it right next time. But I. Yeah, I'M a. I eat too fast to really even enjoy a meal. I just.

[Ed Gamble]

Just inhaling it.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah. Just inhaling. And. Yeah.

[James Acaster]

People always say to me, is that. Oh, is that because your family. You had. It's not. No, it's not a fact. There's so many people are like, we are so many brothers and sisters. We had to get there first.

[Ed Gamble]

First.

[James Acaster]

And.

[Michelle Wolf]

Which is not a story I even believe, Like, I don't. I don't believe that there's, like, some free for all for dinner.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

That there's like eight kids and everyone's. The mom's just like, have at it. You know, Like, I.

[Ed Gamble]

And there's like, some, like, it's not

[Michelle Wolf]

dogs, you know, like, you're like, everyone had, like a. Like, I'm sure the. If you. If an older sibling took all the chicken, the mom would be like, don't do that.

[Ed Gamble]

What about your. What about your siblings?

[Michelle Wolf]

This is for everybody.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

You get back of the line, you know? Like, I don't. I just. I don't believe the story. I don't know.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. Even your brother, like, had half sherbet and gave your other brother the vanilla.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah. He wasn't gonna eat the whole thing.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

He was just gonna eat the parts he liked.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

But I guess there's, like. With everything, there's, like, the nice bits that some people like and the bad bits that some people don't like. So if there's, like a race for, like, the best bit of chicken or whatever.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

But usually it's portioned out to everyone.

[Ed Gamble]

Sure.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. People aren't really just going, there you go. Go nuts.

[Ed Gamble]

Well, I think there must be families like that.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. They just put the main pot in the middle of the table.

[Ed Gamble]

They just put a whole chicken in the middle of the table.

[Michelle Wolf]

A real, like a. Maybe like a Christmas carol goose. Like, just right in the middle. And everyone's like, just with their hands just.

[Ed Gamble]

They're just grabbing off chunks of goose.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah. No one's even cutting it. No one's serving it. It's just, go eat. I've done enough.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. This is what I think. Yeah. I might be, like, too privileged here. Maybe. I don't know this. That they just put a big pot of goose in the front of everyone, and everyone just goes for it.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah. And if you get there last.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

You get their last.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. The beak.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah. Yeah. You don't. And there's nothing else for you.

[James Acaster]

And you think, oh, man.

[Michelle Wolf]

And your siblings don't care.

[James Acaster]

Shoulder not do that. I should have not be so slow to get that goose. I should have. I should have got the bake.

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[James Acaster]

Your dream drink.

[Michelle Wolf]

Okay, I love a glass of champagne, but in the little coupe, not the I'm making it a bowl, but it's, you know, the glass that's like.

[James Acaster]

Oh yeah, the wide, wide but shallow

[Ed Gamble]

glass, supposedly based on the shape of Marie Antoinette's breast.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yes.

[James Acaster]

You've said this about every glass on the podcast.

[Ed Gamble]

Well, I've never met the lady, so, you know, you're never sure what shape of boots.

[James Acaster]

Every time time Ed's got a glass, he goes, whose titty does this remind you of? Going around the park?

[Michelle Wolf]

Everyone's glass. Everyone gets.

[Ed Gamble]

As good as I shoulder not do that.

[Michelle Wolf]

Thank you, guys. You're just trying to. That's a better one.

[Ed Gamble]

Come on, you're getting there.

[Michelle Wolf]

You're getting there.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, I don't. I don't. I've never said this before, apart from I've mentioned this class, but there's not.

[James Acaster]

You know, you've mentioned Marianne to that's breast before on this podcast. Yeah, but not in the context for a different glass.

[Ed Gamble]

Just that they seem nice.

[James Acaster]

It was his dream main course when he did 14.

[Ed Gamble]

No, apparently that's the glass. It's always the glass thing. But apparently this is. This is what?

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Was she really young?

[Michelle Wolf]

Well, when they got married, I think she died at like 21 or 22.

[James Acaster]

So when did they do the glass? Patient address.

[Michelle Wolf]

I don't think that's a different tag.

[Ed Gamble]

I don't think they mold. I don't think they molded one on her, as far as I know.

[Michelle Wolf]

I would hope not. It would be molten.

[Ed Gamble]

It'd be horrible. I think it was more like whoever, whatever perv made the glass was like, still.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

And maybe she was like. She was like, make me a glass.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

That reminds you of my breath.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

And then it was like the olden days. Pammy bottle. You remember the Pammy bottle?

[James Acaster]

Yeah, I remember the Pam bottle. Of course.

[Ed Gamble]

Virgin cola. Released bottle of virgin cola that was in the shape of Pamela Anderson. That's what they said called the Pammy bottle.

[Michelle Wolf]

Okay.

[James Acaster]

And it was only virgins who liked it.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. Very appropriate.

[James Acaster]

We loved them as kids just going around in primary school. That's Pam Anderson's body. What do you love to kiss on the lips? Prophetic Ed. Obviously the only one going, well, what about Mary Antoinette?

[Ed Gamble]

Please, I could pull this into a Marie Antoinette glass.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

What a threesome I'm having.

[James Acaster]

Naughty evening. Pouring my virgin cola. Put my Pamy bottle into my Mar Antoinette breast. Breast glass.

[Michelle Wolf]

Oh, look, it's Pam and Ed and Mary. A nice little dinner party.

[Ed Gamble]

All of my friends have walked off. This is just me alone in the playground saying this.

[James Acaster]

Don't go anywhere near.

[Michelle Wolf]

He's having a dinner party.

[James Acaster]

But you would like champagne in this shallow, wide.

[Michelle Wolf]

I love champagne in one of those glasses. It makes me feel, I don't know, fancy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[James Acaster]

And like, what kind of champagne? Do you have a favorite kind?

[Michelle Wolf]

There's a champagne that I had and I don't know the brand of it, but it was a. I really liked it. It was at the. It was at a Four Seasons in Austin, Texas. They had a champagne. It was very good.

[Ed Gamble]

I love a rose champagne.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

I'm not sure I can tell the difference taste wise between rose champagne and.

[Michelle Wolf]

I felt like maybe it was a little sweeter, but I don't know.

[Ed Gamble]

It's good. It feels more celebratory, I think, as well. Yeah, yeah. Bit of pink fizz.

[James Acaster]

Have you ever. What's been, like the best occasion you've had? Champagne at the biggest celebration.

[Michelle Wolf]

The biggest celebration. I can't remember a single place I've been to

[James Acaster]

anything you celebrated ever.

[Michelle Wolf]

I can't remember a single thing. My friend had a. I guess it must have been like her 48th birthday party in her friend. In a friend's Backyard. But then they had these little champagne glasses like that. And that was a fun celebratory thing. I taped a special once, and I asked for champagne after to celebrate. And they brought me the champagne that in America you can buy at, like the 7 11. And I was like. Cause, you know, you put something on your rider and you had champagne, but you didn't like, specify, like the brand. And they. I mean, it must be like a $8 bottle of champagne. Like, it was just. I was like, what? I gotta be more specific, I guess.

[Ed Gamble]

Especially if you're like, shoulder not done that. You're not normally putting this on your rider. Right. So you're like, oh, it's gonna be a treat. Cause it's a big night. So I feel, you know, it's not my normal sort of thing.

[Michelle Wolf]

Everyone knows I'm shooting a special. Like, it's not like it was a surprise. Like, there's a whole cre. You know, and you think someone would be like, we gotta. I think they just forgot. And then they, like got it on the way or something.

[Ed Gamble]

Or the special cost so much money.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah. They were like, we don't have anything left. Here's eight. Here's $8.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. She wants to marry Antoinette. Tick glasses. We're not getting those either. Come on.

[James Acaster]

Surely those are the kind of bottles. Bottles of champagne they smash off of ships. Yeah, just the cheap ones. 711 ones.

[Michelle Wolf]

I would hope so.

[James Acaster]

Smash that off of a ship.

[Ed Gamble]

No, because when I imagine that, I imagine like the golden age, right, where everything's fancy and everyone's excited. I think they're smashing fancy champagne.

[Michelle Wolf]

I feel like.

[Ed Gamble]

Because it's good luck though, isn't it? As well.

[Michelle Wolf]

I feel like ship people waste, you know, like, if you have a ship.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

You'd probably be like, yeah, I also have a couple of the fancy bottles.

[James Acaster]

Show off.

[Michelle Wolf]

I'm really trying to think of other. Other things I've celebrated. There's a thing about having kids is that with the first one, I. I was like, oh, my memory is worse. And now with the second one, I'm like, I don't remember anything. I couldn't tell you what I did yesterday. But then on the way here, I was thinking about something and my mind got to diabetes. And then I remembered this girl I went to school with, elementary school with, and that she had diabetes. And I was like, I wonder what she's doing now. And I remembered her full name, first and last name. And I can picture her.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

But I can't.

[Ed Gamble]

Completely useless to you.

[Michelle Wolf]

I literally thought I was like, why is this what I can remember?

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

And I'm searching for a thing. I've celebrated.

[Ed Gamble]

You did the correspondence, Didn't. Didn't you?

[Michelle Wolf]

Yes, but I didn't have champagne then I had tequila that night.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, of course.

[James Acaster]

Person we've had on the podcast, who's on the correspondence dinner. I think so did Todd Barry Reader.

[Michelle Wolf]

I would love to see Todd Perry do the correspondence dinner. I think that would be very Tom.

[James Acaster]

Bam. Of course. Wouldn't offend either side because he sits in the middle. Yeah. Sign off by me, James. A. Thank you. Tough gig or just a lot of pressure leading up to it?

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah, I mean, I think it was. The room stinks. It's not like a. It's also like this big ballroom. Like, it's not made for comedy. And no one there really wants to laugh. And everyone's looking at each other to see if they can laugh. And it's really. And you're insulting the people in the room, and especially with the people who were in the room when I was doing it. They're not like, people that were like, I love a roast.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, let's solve.

[Ed Gamble]

Please. Do me, do me.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Like.

[Michelle Wolf]

Like, I started telling my jokes and Sarah Huckabee Sanders looked like. I mean, it looked like she thought I was gonna give, like, a bridesmaid toast. And instead I started to be like, look at this bitch. You know? So, yeah, it was unsavory. But my friend also texted me right before I went on, and he was like, you know, if they're not laughing, you're doing well.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

So as soon as I started, then they were just kind of silent. I was like, we're doing great.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. It's not for the people in the room. It's for everyone else watching it afterwards. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[James Acaster]

It seems like in America there's much more of a reverence or, like, a lot of respect for stuff like that. Over here in the uk, if there was a gig that is routinely impossible and really harsh, hard, we'd all be avoiding it. And if, like, if someone did it, it was because it's well paid or whatever, but they don't want anyone to see it or to know about it. In the US you have that. And like snl, when they're literally going live and, like, they could bomb on live television and all these things are, like, way, way higher esteem than. But in a way that's, like, quite encouraging as a comic because obviously it's part of being a comedian is having these Gigs that are really hard, and it doesn't have to go brilliantly every time or in the room, and it's cool to watch on tv. Like, why do you think that is in America that you can kind of, like, have those kind of things become part of, like, such a. The foundations of, like, being a comic? And in other countries, that might just be. It wouldn't take off as much. I don't know.

[Michelle Wolf]

I think there's something about, like, the ego of Americans that, like, every. Every comic thinks, I'm gonna be the one.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

I'm gonna be the one to nail it. You know, like, that we're all kind of like, you know, it was hard for everyone else, but for me, this is. I'm the one.

[Ed Gamble]

Or the thought that. Well, they're not laughing, but I know that I'm doing great.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

I think is.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Like, I wouldn't be able to do that.

[James Acaster]

I'd crumble so fast. It would be so bad if I could do it.

[Michelle Wolf]

I think the way I was thinking of it was that, like, I was like, oh, I'm. I want to make these people.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes. These specific people.

[Michelle Wolf]

And so that for me. But, like, you know, when people host, like, any of the award shows or anything like that, it just feels like unless you're going with a specific. I want to make these people mad. I feel like everyone's like, it was okay or it was, you know, I don't know.

[Ed Gamble]

Well, I've had a couple of those things where whoever's booked me for it was. Or my agent will say, it'll be really hard, but it's a good opportunity. I'm like, no, those two. Those two things don't exist together for me.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Then that is a bad opportunity.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Because I want to just make people laugh and have a nice time. That's my main opportunity.

[James Acaster]

Sure.

[Michelle Wolf]

I think there's something about. I do. I think it's us being like, oh, it's really hard.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

All right, I'll crack the code.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, this is me.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah. Yeah. And we're just very. I don't know.

[James Acaster]

Also, like, in America, it'll be talked about if you, like. Like over here, those tough gigs, they don't really get discussed, especially not in public or, like. But if you do the correspondence dinner, that's going to be, like, talked about by loads of comics, and it is like a badge of honor. It's something that's, like, seen as being, like, quite. Well. It is. It's a very impressive thing to have, to have got to do. Which we don't have the equivalent of that here, I guess. There's no, like, Wings and Rogues. The prime minister.

[Ed Gamble]

Stay here.

[Michelle Wolf]

It'll be fun.

[James Acaster]

It would be nice. Especially this current one. If you're watching.

[Ed Gamble]

He ain't watching, man.

[James Acaster]

No, he ain't even listening.

[Ed Gamble]

Oh, no, he's listening. He just hasn't made the jump over to the YouTube episodes yet.

[James Acaster]

Yet. Listen to the people.

[Ed Gamble]

Oh, this is good.

[Michelle Wolf]

You know, I was trying to make a pun out of his name.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

And I just really think it's gonna work.

[James Acaster]

Care Shoulder. You gonna call him Care Shoulder?

[Michelle Wolf]

I was gonna say don't get me cured.

[Ed Gamble]

That's as good as the show.

[Michelle Wolf]

But as I was. This is me improving, though. As I was thinking of it, I was like, it's not gonna.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

And the next time, Michelle, you come up with one of those, you won't even say it out loud or say it. This is the.

[James Acaster]

This.

[Ed Gamble]

We're going around on this day again. We've. Groundhog Day it. Next time you come up with a joke, you're just gonna keep quiet about it.

[Michelle Wolf]

It's not a. It's not.

[James Acaster]

Not a.

[Michelle Wolf]

It's not even wordplay. It's actually just. You're just shoehorning in something that doesn't work.

[Ed Gamble]

Don't get me started.

[James Acaster]

Don't get me Starmeted.

[Michelle Wolf]

It works when you say it.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. Oh, yeah. I felt like it worked.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, it did work.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

Dream dessert really, really went around on this because I. Sweets person, I love a sweet treat, and I feel like this is going to sound like I'm. What's it called when you're. I don't know, like, trying to placate an audience or something? Because I'm here in England.

[James Acaster]

Pandering.

[Michelle Wolf]

Pandering. Thank you. I promise this isn't pandering. This is actually my favorite dessert is sticky toffee pudding.

[James Acaster]

We gotcha. Well, hey, that place that I mentioned earlier.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yes. Parade. Perilla.

[James Acaster]

Perilla

[Ed Gamble]

went to check with me what the restaurant was called, but luckily you remembered. That's good. You remembered that.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

So you don't remember what you did yesterday, but you remember what he ate two weeks ago?

[James Acaster]

That's good.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah. That's so useful for me.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

The whole meal was like. It's one of the best meals I've had in ages. So good. Start with those little bread bites. Dessert was sticky toffee pudding. It was a set menu, and that's all I'd seen was. It's I didn't read the whole description of it. And as they're getting it ready, I see that they're great in black truffle over it. And I'm like, oh, no.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Because I thought, you know, black truffle's fine, but I don't. I don't want it on my sticky toffee pudding.

[Ed Gamble]

This. How much this guy's changed over the.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. Oh, I've changed a lot before this podcast. I've never had black truffle before, anything like that. They'll start going to fancy places to eat, think black truffle is amazing. Amazing. Then I'll start being like, would these restaurants stop putting Black Truck?

[Michelle Wolf]

It's always black Truck.

[Ed Gamble]

That's his observational material now.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

So now, anyone else fed up a black truffle? Hello. Hello.

[Michelle Wolf]

More like Black Trouble. That sounds racist. No, that sounds very.

[Ed Gamble]

Don't sign that one off, Michelle. Don't sign that off.

[Michelle Wolf]

I was like, you got it this time. As soon as I said it, I was like, like, very racist.

[Ed Gamble]

The words.

[Michelle Wolf]

People in a room talking about black trouble.

[Ed Gamble]

The words. We're not talking about it. Don't bring us in on that joke.

[James Acaster]

Not us.

[Ed Gamble]

The word play was stronger, but the. The intent sounded way worse.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah, way worse.

[Ed Gamble]

But you've not signed it off so that. You're fine.

[Michelle Wolf]

You're all right by me, Michelle Wolf.

[Ed Gamble]

No, no,

[James Acaster]

the tour is cancelled,

[Michelle Wolf]

so turns out I need a new jab

[James Acaster]

anyway. It was delicious.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

It had black truffle ice cream. The sticky toffee pudding was a very, like, dark, rich, sticky toffee, and I fully expected I wasn't gonna like it. It's one of the best desserts I've had in ages. The. The whole meal was phenomenal. I think you should go there, Michelle Wolf, because the things that you're shouting out sound exactly like this great meal I just had.

[Michelle Wolf]

Well, I'm. Well, maybe. Sounds great. Is it? It's here in London.

[James Acaster]

Yes, Here in London. Stone,

[Ed Gamble]

I'm still laughing at your last word play. Sorry.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, of course.

[Michelle Wolf]

It's really offensive.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

I mean, it's how quick it was,

[Ed Gamble]

how quickly you said that sounds racist after you said it as well, thankfully.

[Michelle Wolf]

Because it's going to be harder to clip.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

You know, like, maybe you cut something off there.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, we won't clip it up.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah, harder. Harder to. Harder to. Harder to cut off the. Whoa. No, that's racist.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, the whole thing will go in the edit, but, like, he can't snip it down to make you look worse.

[Michelle Wolf]

Right, right, right. But you never know what the Internet can do these days.

[Ed Gamble]

These guys, what are they up to?

[Michelle Wolf]

I have a question about the black truffle ice cream. Was it savory?

[James Acaster]

No, I just, it was sweet, but definitely tasted like black truffle. So I had a bit of it on its own. So we just. See. And that was a bit too much for me. But then I was like, come on, you're an adult. This is meant to be had all together. Let's not, not just put the ice cream to one side.

[Ed Gamble]

That's how you realize you're.

[Michelle Wolf]

Let's not separate all our food. So it's not touching.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

If you're a grown up now, eat the black truffle with the ice cream.

[James Acaster]

Don't just have a bit of the black truffle ice cream and write it off. Yeah. You got to have it all as intended. And then it was like, just really sweet, but with this, like, I guess there was like an umami flavor in there when it all combined together and I didn't know that word before I started this podcast either.

[Michelle Wolf]

I've heard it a lot. I don't really know what it means. Means.

[James Acaster]

Nah, it's the fifth flavor. It's the fifth flavor. Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

But it's not, it feels like more. It's like a feeling.

[James Acaster]

I think I use it to describe flavors that I can't describe.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

Oh, yeah, that's umami.

[James Acaster]

So it's got some umami flavor there. It's a bit salty and sweet at the same time, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

[Michelle Wolf]

It's actually licorice.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah. That's what I.

[Ed Gamble]

Because they sell it in paste as well. Umami paste. Paste. You're like, you feel like you're being ripped off somehow. It's just invented.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

There's a particular sticky toffee pudding you would like.

[Michelle Wolf]

I did like the one from Gordon Ramsay's. That's the one I had here that I really liked.

[James Acaster]

Would, that would, Would you want to hang out with Gordon Ramsay?

[Michelle Wolf]

I would, actually.

[James Acaster]

You would?

[Michelle Wolf]

I would. I, I wanna, I like how intense he is and I, I, I'd be interested to think, see if he thought I was an idiot or. Okay.

[James Acaster]

What, what way are you leaning towards?

[Michelle Wolf]

If I, I feel like I could talk to him about running.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

And he loves your money. Yeah. Maybe he would think that I'm not an idiot.

[James Acaster]

He would like that.

[Ed Gamble]

I love all that. When he's clear, when he Runs to the kitchen.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

In his shows. And then he's like getting. He's getting changed in the kitchen while talking to the camera. Yeah. I wish I had that level of self confidence.

[James Acaster]

Well, I'm gonna read your menu back to you now, see how you feel about it.

[Michelle Wolf]

Okay.

[James Acaster]

You would like a carafe of sp Water with ice and lemon from Saga Coffee in Barcelona.

[Michelle Wolf]

Correct.

[James Acaster]

You would like focaccia with sauce on it and an airplane pretzel roll. You would like spinach dry miso salad from Nobu. You would like caccia pepe as a main course. Side dish. You would like fresh seasonable straw. Seasonable seasonal strawberries. Drink. You would like a glass of champagne in a coupe.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yes.

[James Acaster]

And dessert, a sticky toffee pudding from Gordon and Ramses.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yes.

[James Acaster]

How do you feel about that menu?

[Michelle Wolf]

I don't know if it actually all goes together, but I.

[Grow Therapy Advertiser]

It doesn't.

[Ed Gamble]

It doesn't have. It doesn't have to.

[Michelle Wolf]

Incredibly happy after that meal. Yeah, Yeah, I would be. That would. Sounds great.

[James Acaster]

I think it's very nice.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes.

[Michelle Wolf]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

I would. I would eat all that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Which one, which one did you have? Which of his places?

[Michelle Wolf]

The one on Grosvenor Square. I can't remember what it's called, but I remember the stick to before fourth grade. The girl who had diabetes, her full name cannot remember the name of the Gordon Ramsay restaurant.

[Ed Gamble]

Gordon Ramsay's Bar and Grill.

[Michelle Wolf]

There we go.

[Ed Gamble]

Thank you for coming to the dream recipe.

[Michelle Wolf]

I remember one time she had to get a. She had low bronze blood sugar and had to have a coke in the middle of class.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

And we were all like, amazing.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Michelle Wolf]

Diabetes sounds great.

[James Acaster]

Correct.

[Ed Gamble]

Correct. It is great. Thanks, Michelle.

[James Acaster]

Thank you, Michelle.

[Ed Gamble]

Well, there we are, James.

[James Acaster]

There we are. What a brilliant menu. And Michelle Wolf didn't say Wolf Cola. So we didn't kick about the dream restaurant. And we can promote the best job in the world.

[Ed Gamble]

Best job in the world. Touring across England in June and July. Punchup Live. Michellewolf for tickets.

[James Acaster]

And you're on tour with Fresh Hell, of course.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes. That's in 2027. January 2027. That's 10 [e-mail] for tickets.

[James Acaster]

What a lovely chat with Michelle. What a lovely food podcast.

[Ed Gamble]

What a great podcast.

[James Acaster]

What a great little food podcast. Ben, you did another great job. Well done, Ben. Benito there. Not much to say, really. It's weird that, like when we're being filmed now for these intros and outros,

[Ed Gamble]

the pressure, you feel like you had

[James Acaster]

to add more Pressure feels on. And like, I'm pretty sure, you know, I. I've heard sometimes my partner will be listening to off menu and as soon as this bit starts, she turns it off and starts listening to something else. So I don't think a lot of people listen to the Outros.

[Ed Gamble]

The Outros are always good though. I think.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, I think they're good. But she's in love with me and she's not listening to him. I mean, I'm imagining that the average listener was just going, okay, cool, chat's over.

[Ed Gamble]

Sorry. But she's actually listening to the podcast though. My wife ain't listening to the podcast.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, I'm aware of that. Yeah, she's not even pressing play.

[Ed Gamble]

Well, there we are. Another great outro to done. Benito, can you put at the edit thing of like a TV being turned off, it goes like down to a small dot. Yeah, I'd like that to be the end.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, do it, do it like that. So it goes down to the small dot and then do you want the dot to go.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, and then the dot fades.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah. That's like a TV being turned off. Yeah, like. And subscribe.

[Ed Gamble]

Oh, that's good. Did they say that?

[James Acaster]

I think we've even told people that this is on YouTube. And this, he likes us to do that in the intros and outros.

[Ed Gamble]

Sorry, this is on YouTube. So tomorrow.

[James Acaster]

Too late now.

[Ed Gamble]

Or now, if you're watching it on.

[James Acaster]

My girlfriend's turned this off ages ago. She doesn't know it's on YouTube.

[Ed Gamble]

She left you? She moved out.

[James Acaster]

She's moved out.

[Ed Gamble]

Bye. Bye.

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