Ep 284: Meera Sodha

Summary

Podcast Summary: Off Menu with Ed Gamble and James Acaster – Episode 284: Meera Sodha

Introduction

In Episode 284 of Off Menu, hosts Ed Gamble and James Acaster welcome celebrated chef and cookbook author Meera Sodha into their whimsical dream restaurant. The concept of the show revolves around guests selecting their ultimate dream meal, encompassing starters, main courses, side dishes, desserts, and drinks. This episode delves deep into Meera Sodha’s culinary journey, her acclaimed cookbooks, and her personal experiences with food and cooking.

Discussion of Cookbooks: "East" and "Dinner"

Meera Sodha shines a spotlight on her beloved cookbooks, East and her latest release, Dinner. She enthusiastically praises East for its accessible vegetarian and vegan recipes that deliver both simplicity and flavor.

Meera Sodha (05:23): "The sauce as well, just the tahini, the chili oil, the vinegar and the soy together with noodles. You could just have that. But with the shiitake mushrooms and Szechuan peppercorns... What a recipe that is."

James shares how East has become a staple in celebrity circles, highlighting its popularity among comedians and public figures.

James Acaster (05:00): "I don't think I've even had a cookbook recommended to me, let alone multiple times."

Transitioning to her new book, Dinner, Meera explains its personal significance, detailing how it helped her rediscover her passion for cooking during a challenging period in her life.

Meera Sodha (07:17): "I wrote the book following quite a difficult period in my life where I fell out of love with cooking and food... dinner is really. It's actually quite a joyful book because it's all the recipes that I cooked that allowed me to come back to myself."

Favorite Recipes and Ingredients

The conversation shifts to Meera’s favorite dishes and ingredients. Ed Gamble reminisces about his favorite lemon meringue tart from Elio’s, while James introduces his dream starter: pani puri—a beloved Indian street food.

Ed Gamble (63:06): "My dream pudding is a lemon meringue tart... super thin, beautiful pastry... real whippy sort of meringue on the top."

Ed Gamble (30:00): "So my dream starter is pani puri. It's like the Indian equivalent of a flaming sambuka, but without the alcohol or flames."

Meera elaborates on the complexity and balance of flavors in pani puri, emphasizing its sweet, sour, and salty profile.

Meera Sodha (30:13): "It's a crispy, crunchy, sweet, sour, salty, like textural sensation that could go wrong."

Personal Stories and Experiences

Meera shares poignant anecdotes about her culinary journey, including a transformative moment when her husband, Hugh, encouraged her to cook a meal amidst her creative slump.

Meera Sodha (11:02): "I kind of had to refind my pleasure. And so I just promised myself that I would start to cook again because that's what this dahl... could feel like. It was almost like... you feel great all of a sudden."

Ed and James contribute with humorous stories about their own culinary mishaps and experiences, adding depth and relatability to the discussion.

Food-Related Anecdotes and Banter

The episode is peppered with lighthearted banter, including discussions about unusual cooking methods, favorite ingredients, and playful teasing about each other's food preferences. A memorable moment involves an animated exchange about camels and their milk, showcasing the hosts' chemistry and humor.

James Acaster (18:34): "When you rode the camel, was it the one hump or two? And did you sit in the middle of the two humps?"

Meera adeptly navigates the conversation, maintaining a balance between insightful culinary discussions and entertaining anecdotes.

Conclusion and Final Remarks

As the episode wraps up, the hosts and Meera solidify their dream menu, highlighting the harmonious blend of dishes discussed throughout the conversation. They also share mutual appreciation for each other's culinary insights and look forward to future collaborations.

James Acaster (72:14): "I'd like to... I'd have all of that. Which is rare, but that sounds great."

Meera extends an invitation to listeners to explore her cookbook Dinner and embrace the joy of cooking as she has.

Meera Sodha (76:08): "Do go and buy a copy of Dinner by Mira Sodha. It is looking like it's going to be my new thing, James."

Notable Quotes

• Meera Sodha (07:17): "Dinner is really. It's actually quite a joyful book because it's all the recipes that I cooked that allowed me to come back to myself and back to the kitchen and back to cooking step by step, meal by meal."

• James Acaster (30:13): "It's a crispy, crunchy, sweet, sour, salty, like textural sensation that could go wrong."

• Ed Gamble (63:06): "The closest I've come to it is the River Cafe. They do an astounding lemon tart, which is beauty and grace."

Final Thoughts

Episode 284 of Off Menu offers listeners a delightful blend of culinary expertise, personal storytelling, and comedic interplay. Meera Sodha's passion for food and her journey through challenging times to rediscover her love for cooking provide both inspiration and practical insights. Meanwhile, Ed Gamble and James Acaster ensure the conversation remains engaging and entertaining, making this episode a must-listen for food enthusiasts and comedy lovers alike.

Transcript

[James Acaster]

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[Ed Gamble]

Race the sails.

[Mira Soda]

Race the sails.

[James Acaster]

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[Ed Gamble]

Roger, wait.

[Mira Soda]

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[James Acaster]

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[Mira Soda]

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[James Acaster]

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[Mira Soda]

I don't know if you knew this.

[James Acaster]

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[Mira Soda]

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[James Acaster]

Acast powers the world's best podcasts. Here's the show that we recommend.

[Ed Gamble]

Hi, I'm Jessica Radloff and this is the official Big Bang Theory podcast.

[James Acaster]

The only podcast where you can hear.

[Ed Gamble]

Behind the scenes stories, Easter eggs from each episode and the origin story of the cultural phenomenon the Big Bang Theory. Join us on our journey through every episode of the Big Bang Theory wherever you get your podcasts and be sure.

[Mira Soda]

To watch along with us.

[Ed Gamble]

Every episode is available to stream on Max.

[James Acaster]

Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com.

[Mira Soda]

Welcome to the Off Menu podcast. Putting the grapes of conversation into the freezer of humor. Taking them out, putting them in the orange squash of the Internet. You got yourself a summer cocktail.

[James Acaster]

A call back to a previous episode that I didn't see coming. Yes, Ed, you always keep me on my toes. That's Ed Gamble. My name is James Acaster. Together we own a dream restaurant and every single week we invite in a guest and asking our favorite ever start and main course, dessert side dish and drink. Not in that order. And this week our guest is Mira Soda.

[Mira Soda]

Mira Soda, wonderful chef, makes incredible cookbooks. I've said it on the podcast before. Potentially. I've definitely said it to you, James. The east is one of my favorite cookbooks ever. Yeah, it is brilliant. It's vegetarian and vegan recipes. Just fantastic dishes, easy to do but you feel like you've really nailed it. It's so delicious. I know Benito's a fan as well.

[James Acaster]

Benito's a huge fan and also good news for you guys, dinner is out. Meera's new book.

[Mira Soda]

Yes. And we've had a little flick through dinner and it looks fantastic. I feel like I'm gonna get just as addicted to that book as I do to East.

[James Acaster]

Yep. And we'll be hearing more about that book when we talk to Mira. Ask her what the book is about, what inspired the book. But listen, maybe that'll be all Mira will get to say on the podcast, because if she chooses the secret ingredient, an ingredient which we deem to be unacceptable, we will be forced to kick her out of the dream restaurant.

[Mira Soda]

And today, the secret ingredient is soda bread.

[James Acaster]

A bit of a lazy one, this.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah, pretty lazy. But sometimes the first choice is the best.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. Benito was trying to think of, like, foods that had Easter them. I suggested yeast and he laughed like I was joking, which I wasn't.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah. So, you know, way worse than yeast.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. Yes. To be fair.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Acaster]

But. But you know, soda bread.

[Mira Soda]

Yes.

[James Acaster]

You know, we're. We're playing a dicey game here. This could be the first. It's gonna be early on.

[Mira Soda]

I don't think cider bread has yeast in it.

[James Acaster]

Interesting. Oh, wow. Very interesting. But, yeah, if Mir, like literally on Papa Doms or bread chooses soda bread.

[Mira Soda]

I bet it does now I'm gonna get absolutely flamed online.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, that. That'd be bad.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Acaster]

Because like, very excited about this episode. A lot of people are gonna be very excited to hear it. Hear what Mir Soda wants to eat. You know, like when we do have a fantastic chef on they're always amazing menus. It would be pretty bad if we kick her out.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Early on.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah. Well, let's hope she doesn't pick bread named after herself.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, well, fingers crossed.

[Mira Soda]

This is the off menu menu of Mira Soda. Welcome Mira to the dream restaurant.

[Ed Gamble]

Thank you so much for having me.

[James Acaster]

Welcome Mir Soda to the dream restaurant. We've been expecting you for some time.

[Ed Gamble]

Woo. It's glorious to be here.

[James Acaster]

It's very glorious to have you here. I don't think I've ever had a cookbook recommended to me as much as east ever. Well, I. Joe.

[Mira Soda]

What?

[James Acaster]

I don't think I've even had a cookbook recommended to me, let alone multiple times. We were on a text group with a bunch of comics about 11 comedians and someone said, what's a good cookbook? About half the group said, you and then got really excited about everyone else knowing about it. And I was like, it's a lot when everyone was talking about DaVinci Code.

[Ed Gamble]

But cookbooks that's really nice to hear.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah. I was one of the people recommending East. I've already waxed lyrical to you before we started recording. I'll do it some more now. I'm absolutely obsessed with it. My shelf in my kitchen is pristine cookbooks. And then east in the middle, that looks like it's been dipped in a full, like, pan of sauce. It's just covered in food stains. It is well used, well thumbed. I love it.

[Ed Gamble]

Oh, don't. I mean, I brown, but I feel like I'm slowly turning red from blushing. Thank you. That's very kind of you.

[James Acaster]

Do you get a lot of people come up to you and be like, I made this the other day from your cookbook?

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. I think one of the first time it happened, I was in Marks and Spencer's shopping for some knickers. Which is definitely not when you want to be approached by someone saying, I've got your dahl in my freezer.

[James Acaster]

Like a hostage. Sinister. They shouldn't have said that to you.

[Ed Gamble]

I've since then never bought pants in Marks and Spencer's again.

[Mira Soda]

No, get them online. Just get them online. You can't be risking Darling the freezer moments.

[James Acaster]

No, I remember I was a kid in Marks and Spencer with my dad walking through the ladies underwear section. I was like, little primary school and I was like, dad, it's like the most awkward thing walking through this section. Like, how. How do you. How do you even do it? And he was like, you get used to it over the years. He says what he told me. Told me I'd get used to it as I get older. Be easier to walk through there.

[Ed Gamble]

How does it feel now?

[James Acaster]

It's still crazy, man. I could go up and tell people I got their Darling on my freezer. It doesn't make it any less tense.

[Mira Soda]

Was this a woman who told you that?

[Ed Gamble]

Yes.

[Mira Soda]

Yes. Okay. Ye. That's better, I'd say, than a man coming up to you in the knickers section and going, yeah, I've got your dahl in my freezer.

[James Acaster]

Once I was in the Dal section of a cookery place. But of course, we're very excited about dinner. The new book, your new cookbook. Well, Moki tells us about it, but also it says on the front, 120 vegan and vegetarian recipes for the most important meal of the day. I've been lied to my whole life and people have told me, that's breakfast.

[Ed Gamble]

Yep. Breakfast is for wimps.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, good on you.

[Ed Gamble]

Someone said it, do away with lunch. Lunch could be Leftovers. Yeah, dinner. I mean, I love dinner. Dinner's the meal. You know, I kind of think of it as like a button that you can push, and depending on the kind of day that you've had, it's like a response button. You've had a crap day. Dinner will make it all right. You know, you share it with friends. You don't do that with breakfast. You don't do it with lunch. I've seen people eating lunch in their offices. They're just like, you know, tuna may are all over their faces whilst they're, like, trying to write an email out at the same time. Well, I wrote the book following quite a difficult period in my life where I fell out of love with cooking and food, which is kind of crazy for me because food is like, life and joy and everything, and also how I pay my mortgage. It's my job, it's how I show love. And so, you know, I knew I needed to find a way to cooking quickly, you know, kind of getting out of this hole. And so dinner is really. It's actually quite a joyful book because it's all the recipes that I cooked that allowed me to come back to myself and back to the kitchen and back to cooking step by step, meal by meal. And so it's a very personal book. And it's also, like, quite a selfish book. Like, before we started recording, you were talking about, like, how dishes can look amazing and taste rubbish. And this is almost the opposite. Like, I'm not saying they look rubbish and they taste amazing, but really, like, they come from the heart and they're really, you know, dishes that I love to cook and eat. And those are like dals. And no one, you know, I'm sure many people photograph dial but dal is dull. You can't, like, sort of sexy up too much. It is just dull. And like, beans and things like that or like, spaghetti, just things that I just love eating. I love sharing and I love cooking.

[James Acaster]

So, like, how. How did you, like, fall back in love with, like, cooking? And what advice would you give other people who maybe, you know, their passion turned into their job and now they've fallen out of love with podcasting?

[Mira Soda]

Oh, no, I didn't even think you were going to say podcasting. Well, I thought you were just talking about stand up.

[James Acaster]

No, I love stand up. Now. I cured myself. This is the new burden.

[Ed Gamble]

So come and lie down on my couch, James.

[James Acaster]

Thank you.

[Ed Gamble]

Well, there was, like, a particular moment. I'm not saying I've got, like, great advice for anybody out There. But there was, like, a turning point for me. And so I wasn't really cooking because I didn't really want to. I was sort of eating, eating all sorts of stuff, you know, assembly things. And Hugh, my husband, was doing, like, all of the cooking and looking after me and the kids. And then one day, I think, starting to crack under the pressure, he said, I'd love it if you can cook me a meal. And it wasn't him saying, you know, cook for me, wifey. It was him saying, you know, I'm really struggling and I just want you to show me some love. And it just snapped me out, you know, in this genie like way. I ran into the kitchen, grabbed a.

[James Acaster]

Pan, relate to this.

[Ed Gamble]

And coconut milk, lentils. I keep all my aromatics, like lemongrass, lime leaves, things like that in the freezer. And I put together this Malaysian dal curry, which is, like, still something that I cook on a weekly basis. And I just. I kind of felt that it was something different, right? Because for years, up until that moment. So I started my career in 2012. The first cookbook that I wrote was a fan family cookbook. But after that, I was writing for other people. I was writing for the newspaper, I was writing for books, I was writing for incremental gains on Instagram. Is this recipe going to get some likes? Is it interesting? Is it innovative? And it didn't come from my belly and my, like, joy. It wasn't, you know, like, I was kind of writing a recipe. Let's say, you know, I've got two kids and Hugh, and all day I'd be writing this, like, lime pickle recipe. Kids come home, Hugh comes home. Nobody can eat lime pickle for dinner. You know, that's not fun.

[James Acaster]

Greg Davis found your house. He'd do it. He gave it a bowl of lime.

[Ed Gamble]

So I just kind of had to refind my pleasure. And so I just promised myself that I would start to cook again because that's what this dahl, like, it could feel like. It was almost like, you know, when your lungs just fill full of air, like, you feel great all of a sudden. And my fingers were, like, fizzing, like, kind of electric, you know, I just felt like there was something different then. And I was like, I really wanted to cook for him. I really enjoyed it. And so I started keeping a notebook, this, like, orange notebook that we keep by the microwave. It's got a sticker of a horse on it. We're gonna give it to the girls when they go to university. The sticker's unimportant in this case, it's an important detail. It's how we can identify it. And all the recipes that we love as a family go in there. And so I started keeping notes, and then I just. You know, suddenly this book just started to fill up. And then I spoke to my editor, and I was like, there's something here. I really want to share. These recipes, they've really given me back, like, a sense of myself, and they're really simple recipes. You know, there's a thread running through all of my books. Like, if you like, you'll love dinner, but, like, they're kind of Southeast Asian, vegan, vegetarian, predominantly. But there's more, like, bung it in the oven dishes, like a paneer butter masala that I cook all the time, which I love because it just allows me to, like, hear the girls talk about, like, plot twists in, like, Paw Patrol or whatever it is that they're watching. Or, like, they have plot twists in.

[Mira Soda]

Terms of humans dressed as dogs. That's the big twist.

[James Acaster]

Spoiler alert.

[Mira Soda]

They're fairies. They're all fairies.

[James Acaster]

Oh, no.

[Ed Gamble]

Foot Patrol, which I just love. You know, it's just a nice way of cooking or, like, putting something like. I like that style of cooking where you're, like, bunging stuff into a pot. One ingredient after another suddenly alchemizes into dinner. And, like, the windows steam up, the smell rises through the house. And so, like, it's less. Oh, I hesitate to say this. I'm throwing shade on my other books, but I don't mean to do that. But it's less fussy, you know, it's much more like kind of homely comfort food, that sort of thing.

[Mira Soda]

That's the sort of food I like cooking the most. I think when you can put it all in a pot and then just leave it, and time is the ingredient that makes it the best.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes.

[Mira Soda]

Oh, I love it.

[James Acaster]

Oh, great. That hit me right there.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Thyme is ingredient.

[Mira Soda]

You're not thinking of the herb, right?

[James Acaster]

Huh?

[Mira Soda]

Are you thinking of the herb or.

[Ed Gamble]

Oh, I think it just looked like he was hit by how profound. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mira Soda]

I'm a profound guy. That happens about five times.

[James Acaster]

You say the herb or thyme.

[Mira Soda]

No, I'm saying time T, I M E. Oh, right.

[Ed Gamble]

Okay. I missed that.

[James Acaster]

That's beautiful.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

You said, I have a question about the book.

[Ed Gamble]

Hit me.

[James Acaster]

Who's that man?

[Ed Gamble]

That's Hugh.

[James Acaster]

That's you. That's your husband sat next to you while you're eating the food?

[Ed Gamble]

Yes.

[James Acaster]

He's got to be happy with that.

[Mira Soda]

Absolutely delighted.

[Ed Gamble]

He's in the book.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, I was. I always, always wondered that with cookbooks, when you're flicking through and there's just people who aren't the chef who are just hanging out with them. I'm just like, who's that?

[Mira Soda]

What's that? What's that recipe for James? That sounds amazing.

[James Acaster]

Taipei.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Crispy pancakes with gru, Gruyere and kimchi.

[Ed Gamble]

So the Taiwanese name for these pancakes is. Is better than my title because they're called Dan Bing.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Which always makes me think of Chandler Bing.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah. Chandler Bing's brother.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, Chandler Bing's brother. And you've bookmarked. This is your copy. I've got.

[Ed Gamble]

This is my copy.

[James Acaster]

You've bookmarked sweet potato summer rolls.

[Ed Gamble]

Have I? Yes, I have.

[Mira Soda]

Well, I'm not sure if Mira's bookmarked it or not because there appears to be one of her child's drawings in there.

[James Acaster]

Well, I didn't wanna. Oh, it's nice actually, isn't it? Some color in it.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

And little note that says that they love you. Isn't that nice?

[Ed Gamble]

That's very lovely.

[James Acaster]

Between Ed's profound statement about time and a child writing about their love for their mother, this has been quite a moving episode.

[Mira Soda]

I went through probably a couple of months with the Benben noodles in east, where I was pretty much. Yeah, bonito. Bonito noodles, where I was pretty much doing them four or five times a week. I mean, that sauce as well, just the tahini, the chili oil, the vinegar and the soy together with noodles. You could just have that.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Mira Soda]

It's incredible.

[Ed Gamble]

Just the sauce.

[Mira Soda]

Just the sauce is amazing. But with the shiitake mushrooms and Szechuan peppercorns and then that thing of pushing them into the pan until they're super crispy with the noodles and pak choi and stuff. What. What a recipe that is.

[Ed Gamble]

It's wild, isn't it?

[James Acaster]

And the most important ingredient, thyme. We always start with still a sparkling water.

[Ed Gamble]

Sparkles for sure, but without the ice. I mean, I know you haven't mentioned ice, but sparkles without ice. So I am. I'm a cactus.

[James Acaster]

Sorry.

[Ed Gamble]

As you can see, I have not touched my water. And I have to force myself to do what comes naturally to other people. And that means drinking sparkling water when I'm out. I mean, obviously when I'm at home, I don't drink water.

[Mira Soda]

You just don't drink water at all?

[Ed Gamble]

No, I just drink tea.

[James Acaster]

Now, that's got water in.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah, that's Water. Well, I mean, look, yeah, it's still or sparkling water is the name of the course. But if you want to hack it and just have a cup of tea.

[James Acaster]

Instead, you could argue that's mainly water. You came here today, I mean, you had a coffee. When you arrived, Benito was very excited to show you his milks. Remember that? That is true. He was very boastful about how much. How many different milks he had.

[Ed Gamble]

He was, yeah, he was quite excited about.

[Mira Soda]

Were you surprised when it was only 3 milks?

[James Acaster]

It was only 3 milks because of.

[Mira Soda]

The way he set it up.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. I think. I mean, he's obviously honed it down to fine arts.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

The offering of the milk menu.

[James Acaster]

But he did. He was very arrogant at the top, up top, when he was like, you want milk? I've got so much milk. And then it was like, there's just three of them.

[Mira Soda]

Take your packet of milk.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. He went, whatever milk you can imagine, I've got it. And then it was like, three milks. It was a bit sad, wasn't it?

[Ed Gamble]

It was a good precursor to being in the dream restaurant. I thought, you know, it was like, you want milk? Any milk? I got milks, yeah.

[James Acaster]

But then what did he have? He had like.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, he didn't. He didn't have camel milk.

[James Acaster]

No, I didn't have camel milk for one.

[Ed Gamble]

Have you tried. Have you tried camel milk before? I've never tried it, no.

[James Acaster]

I thought I. I really thought you were. You had tried it. I thought you were.

[Ed Gamble]

I mean, the person that sounded like.

[James Acaster]

You had an anecdote about when you tried camel milk.

[Ed Gamble]

I was. I'm hoping to find out at some point what it's like without actually having to drink it myself. So they do ask people randomly because they sell it in a local supermarket.

[Mira Soda]

Oh, really?

[Ed Gamble]

Supermarket close to me. So I must find somebody locally eventually if I keep on asking the question.

[James Acaster]

I mean, camels also don't drink that much water. Right. So what was their milk be like?

[Ed Gamble]

Concentrated, maybe like cheese, do you think, without the milk in it comes out like cottage cheese.

[James Acaster]

Cream, like. Yeah. Comes out like cream. Like cottage cheese.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Acaster]

Or like Cheez Whiz, you know, in a can.

[Ed Gamble]

Whose job is it to milk a camel? Because I can't imagine I've ridden a camel once. And you. I think you have to get them to smell a jumper or maybe this particular camel. I mean, I've only done it once. They have to smell a jumper because if they don't like you, they might sort of either throw you off or rip off a jumper.

[James Acaster]

It's your jumper. It's not just a special jumper, not just any sniffer.

[Mira Soda]

They're not like a sniffer dog. When a criminal's on the run, they get to smell some of their clothes.

[James Acaster]

And then the camel goes out and finds them.

[Ed Gamble]

No. It's quite an animalistic thing though, isn't it? In order to trust you, I must smell you.

[Mira Soda]

Smell you. Yeah. I've never ridden a camel. When you rode the camel, was it the one hump or two? And did. If it was two, did you sit in the middle of the two humps?

[James Acaster]

Yeah, good question.

[Ed Gamble]

That was a really good question. But I was 8 and I don't really remember. But I think you don't remember when.

[James Acaster]

You ride a camel.

[Ed Gamble]

I can't say for sure how many humps there were.

[James Acaster]

I can't believe. It's just blowing my mind.

[Ed Gamble]

I'm gonna say two.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Because it makes sense that you could kind of hold a hump in front and a hump behind, secure between the humps.

[James Acaster]

Why is that? I mean, it's crazy, isn't it? There's like one hump and two hump camels. If I was a one hump camel and I just hung out with the other one humpers and then I met a two hump, I'd be like, what the hell is going on? Yeah, look, a different animal. It's crazy. We just take it for granted because we're, you know, we're little kids. When we find out about camels, camels are one of the first things we learn about.

[Mira Soda]

Really?

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Mira Soda]

One of the first things.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Mira Soda]

Well, I guess in terms of animals. Yeah. Because they're one of the weirdest ones.

[Ed Gamble]

They are one of the weirdest ones.

[Mira Soda]

It doesn't make sense that they exist really.

[Ed Gamble]

I mean, alongside, like, rhinoceroses, giraffes. What's the plural of hippopotamus? Hippopotami.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah. Giraffe.

[Ed Gamble]

The anteaters with their long.

[James Acaster]

They're crazy.

[Ed Gamble]

They're crazy.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

But again, that's like. That's early doors. You learn about them. Yeah, they're the ones.

[Ed Gamble]

You know what I think I found out a bit later? I think you got lucky.

[James Acaster]

How old were you when you found out about anteaters?

[Ed Gamble]

Possibly the same age as I was when I rode a camel.

[Mira Soda]

I think while you're on the camel, that would have blown my mind.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. You look to your left as an anteater riding a camel, you can't remember this.

[Mira Soda]

You're Just getting over, sitting between two humps and then someone shows you a picture of that long schnozzled.

[James Acaster]

Come on.

[Mira Soda]

I was gonna say wanker. I'll put it out there. That's the only word that was in my head. Long schnozzwonker.

[James Acaster]

They are long schnozzed wankers. If any. If any anteaters are listening to this.

[Ed Gamble]

I mean, I don't like ants personally, so I feel like they're doing a great service.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah, I suppose so, yeah.

[James Acaster]

But they don't ever eat the ants that are bothering us. They're out in the desert eating ants that are all in the desert in a big anthill. But the ants are in my kitchen and I can't get rid of. Where's an anteater then? You're not doing me any favors, are.

[Ed Gamble]

You calling any anteaters into.

[James Acaster]

Actually, I do, yeah. I go, you long schnaut wanker. You come out here and get rid of these ants in our kitchen.

[Ed Gamble]

I think your strategy might need.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, turn up on a camel, take some ages. Hate these nonchalant problems. On Brett Pop knobs on bread. Marisola pops on bread.

[Ed Gamble]

So it was Papadoms until 2014. I would have said poppadoms if you had called me in before 2014, but 2014 is when fisherman's Wolf happened and now I'm very wary of the poppadom. So what? So I don't know about this. In 2014, Hugh was then my boyfriend, now my husband and I went to Goa. Palm fringed beaches, like waterfall, sunshine. He was turning 30 and his love language is fish curry.

[James Acaster]

And so what a love language.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah, I've heard very specific love language as well.

[James Acaster]

That's great.

[Ed Gamble]

Fish curry is dreamy. And so I wanted to find the best fish curry in the area and someone recommended Fisherman's Wharf, this restaurant. And you know, it's very difficult back then to get a table there, but I managed to get, you know, one of the last tables in there, managed to blank a table and then it was an hour's journey to get there. And this journey was part land, part water. And I managed to find the one taxi driver who was willing to take us on this 50 minute journey, Liaise with the man with the ferry, to put his taxi on the back of the ferry in order to get to Fisherman's Wharf. And so when we were having a few drinks in the bar next door, we were elated. Like, we were just totally pumped to have done this, like, challenge, Annika style journey to get there. And they plied us with all the crispy Crunchies, Poppadoms, Crispy crunchy galore. And we ate them all and we were having a great time doing that. But by the time we got to the restaurant and we were shown around the Fisherman's Wharf and like, let me paint a picture. This is like the Aladdin's cave of seafood. Like, this stuff is so fresh, it's like practically jumped into the restaurant. It's like super shiny, gleaming like latex, diamonds, et cetera. And we looked at each other and couldn't really eat a thing. And so we, we ordered some fish and then spent the next two hours like pushing around some of the world's best seafood around our plat.

[Mira Soda]

Oh, God.

[Ed Gamble]

And so we made a vow to each other that day never again to do another Fisherman's Wharf. And so my answer is bread. Not Poppadom's, but with my main course.

[Mira Soda]

Interesting. So you're moving the bread course to be alongside the main course.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes.

[Mira Soda]

This is great because we've never had this before. We've never had the bread course. Become a cliffhanger for later on in the meal.

[James Acaster]

I like that. It's a cliffhanger.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

And how do you want to do it? Do you want to do it that you tell us the bread course when we get to the main course or do you want to tell us the bread course? Don't tell us the main course and see if we can guess the main course or the listeners can guess it.

[Mira Soda]

Well, you love a guessing game.

[James Acaster]

I love a guessing game. And that's what I'm trying to steer you.

[Mira Soda]

My instinct, my instinct would be we'd now just move on. What? And we talk about the bread when we get to the main course.

[James Acaster]

You could just say what the bread is but don't talk about it. And then we go into the starter and then the listeners can guess in their heads what the main course is going to be.

[Mira Soda]

Well, I do. First of all, it's very sensible what you're doing here because so many times I've ruined myself on bread.

[Ed Gamble]

Everyone's been there, haven't they? They've over nibbled.

[Mira Soda]

But I would never get to the main course even if I was really full and be like, I'm too full to eat this. I'd power it down.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. But there is a particular arrangement of. Can I just say it? Can I just say it? It's naan, but from my local kebab shop.

[Mira Soda]

Okay.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Do you want to shout it out or do you fear that People will, it'll become mobbed and then it will not be as good a local kebab shop anymore.

[Ed Gamble]

Well, I mean I can give it a shout out but it's really not about the kebab shop. It's about the tandoor that they've got in the corner and the mustachioed uncle that makes the naan in there. I mean I don't eat an awful lot from the kebab shop so maybe I shouldn't give it a shout out. But the naan, goodness me, I mean anything cooked in a tundoo makes me go weak at the knees. But the naan is like this heavenly plump, charred, semi crispy on the bottom, bubbly on top, plied with garlic butter if you wish. 50p a pop.

[James Acaster]

50P for the nap.

[Mira Soda]

50P a pop. You'll have to tell me what that is now please.

[Ed Gamble]

Where is it?

[Mira Soda]

Yes, what's the name?

[Ed Gamble]

So it's called Al Haq's.

[James Acaster]

Okay, yeah, he's there as soon as, as soon as we finish this.

[Ed Gamble]

And yes, they have the oven of joy in there. For the first four years after I moved in I didn't go there, I mean because got the elephant's leg rotating in the window. I'm not partial to the elephant's leg myself. And he went in after a particularly boozy night and discovered the tandoor in there and our minds were blown and now like the ritual is that we, you know, we've got like a naan jar full of coins. We'll invite people over for dinner, go and take them to go and see uncle, he'll like, you know, push out like at least 10 naans or something, take them back, little plastic carrier bag wrapped in foil and it's just totally, I mean there is nothing finer in my that I can think of no better bread than freshly made naan bread in my opinion.

[Mira Soda]

I love the naan jar.

[James Acaster]

I love the naan jar.

[Ed Gamble]

It's good.

[James Acaster]

Not enough people have a naan jar. It's the first time we've had a naan jar. I sound like a posh person saying ninja. The first time we've had a naan jar mentioned on the podcast actually.

[Ed Gamble]

Do you have a jar for anything?

[James Acaster]

Yeah, I don't think I do have a job.

[Mira Soda]

The only jars you really hear about are jam jars obviously. Yeah, swear jars are up there as well, Barn.

[James Acaster]

If anyone actually has them they use as devices in films. Yeah, there's always like a kid who's making the payment, put a quid in the swear Jar and everything. That's funny. But, like, that's not. That's not in real life.

[Ed Gamble]

No. We've subverted that problem in our house because we're allowed to say ship.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

That's good.

[Ed Gamble]

We don't have to pay because we've learned how to say ship.

[Mira Soda]

Now. I used to do that at school when I was quite little. Someone told me that you could get away with swearing if you said ship, but you pulled your mouth apart when you did it.

[Ed Gamble]

Do you want to demonstrate?

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah. Because it's not your fault.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah. And then it's not your fault because you're saying ship. I got in loads of trouble and I got sent to the. The headmistress's office. This is probably. I was probably like six.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Mira Soda]

When this happened. And then my mum had to come and pick me up and I went. I didn't. I didn't say it. I said ship and I pulled my mouth apart.

[James Acaster]

They let you off.

[Ed Gamble]

Fair enough.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah. My mom was like, right, come on. Like. I remember her being faintly amused by it, is what I'd say.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Acaster]

It's funny, your kids aren't swearing yet. They're still writing Love you, Mummy in your book in a few years time. That's a slave. Fuck you.

[Ed Gamble]

F you, mother.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Not yet. Still too young.

[James Acaster]

So, in context, how are you saying ship in front of the kids? Oh, ship. The naan jar's empty.

[Ed Gamble]

Precisely. Oh, shit. I burnt the. Whatever I'm cooking. Yeah, yeah.

[Mira Soda]

That's good that you're in the moment. You can switch it to ship.

[Ed Gamble]

True, yes.

[Mira Soda]

Because if, you know, most of the time when people are swearing, they're like. It just happens naturally because they're angry about something.

[James Acaster]

Right.

[Ed Gamble]

I mean, I think swearing might increase and the jars might decrease because, like, it's quite hard to use actual real money coins these days. I don't know if you find that too, but I'm just like beeping everything.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

You know, phone beep, card beep. Actually, not even card beep these days. It's mostly a phone beep.

[Mira Soda]

But the kebab shop's cash.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. Well, I mean, I think you can pay on card there, but it's one of those. We quite like cash places.

[Mira Soda]

Well, yeah, Especially if you're just buying naan.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes.

[Mira Soda]

And they're 50p each.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. You do feel a bit bad because they have to pay you the.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah, yeah. Charges two quid for four naans on your. On Apple pay. Doesn't feel great, does it?

[James Acaster]

Your dream Starter. I'm just thinking about what you're going to have as your main now because of the. What the. What the bread was.

[Mira Soda]

See, this is the problem. This is why I said leave it till later.

[James Acaster]

But your dream start.

[Ed Gamble]

So my dream starter is pani puri.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

And I love pani puri. It's like the Indian equivalent of a flaming sambuka, but without the alcohol or flames. But it's like the ultimate high risk all in one mouthful. And so it's really fun. Like it can get. It will guarantee to get a party started with a bang. I think occasionally someone might have to drop out. Let me explain what it is. People who don't know. So it's a crispy, crunchy, hollow semolina shell that you pop a hole into the top of it and then you put inside. There are like plump black chickpeas, sprouted mung beans mixed together with chat masala. Maybe potato. I don't want the potato. Maybe potato. Little squirt of date and tamarind chutney for all of your sweet and sour desser desires. And you serve them like six up on a plate with a little jug of pani. And now pani means water in Hindi, but it's. It's like a mint and coriander lime, bit more date. Like it's quite complicated water. But basically it's like being slapped in the face with some herbs, like, accompanied by a lemon. Like it's gorgeous. And so this thing is like a crispy, crunchy, sweet, sour, salty, like textural sensation that could go wrong. Because if there's a hole in the bottom of your puri, then you know, it could be game over at the starter.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. But I love it. It's. It's like. It's a street food that comes under the genre of chaat in Indian food. And chat means. I mean, it means to lick, but it translates to so good you want to lick it.

[James Acaster]

Wow. Really? I know it translated to that.

[Mira Soda]

So good you want to lick it.

[James Acaster]

Wow. I'm gonna drop that little bit of trivia. Next time someone orders some chaat, please.

[Mira Soda]

Use it in an appropriate context. James, we all know what you're. I can't wait to use that. You're thinking.

[Ed Gamble]

And it sort of typifies that sort of sweet, sour, salty. You know, that's not really addictive food. You're like, why is it so addictive? And then you realize it kind of hits all of those notes. It's quite hard to find it in, in. In the uk, London is the land of everything. You can go to Wembley and. But my favorite, I like making it at home because it's quite fun. But the last time I had a really good one was at Elko Pani Puri center, which is in Bandra, Mumbai. And all of these people are queuing and you're just off a main road and you're like, what on earth are people queuing for? And it is just Pani Puri. And there's a man with like one of those backpacks you see at festivals. Like the beer, you know, the beer guys come around and like fill up your pint glasses. So he's kind of got one of those hoses attached to a rucksack, but in there he's just got like this herby water and he's just squirting it in, dishing them out.

[Mira Soda]

That's so cool.

[James Acaster]

Wow.

[Mira Soda]

How's he getting the aim on that with one of those.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah. How big's the hose?

[Mira Soda]

Oh, is he doing it in juts? He's not doing it directly into the.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, it's all about the size of the nozzle.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

So he's got a small nozzle.

[James Acaster]

It's what you do with it. So it's like pretty small. And not. It must not, not like jet out very fast either, because that's gonna. If you. If it's small, but that's coming out fast. That's the.

[Mira Soda]

You're blasting a hole right in the middle.

[Ed Gamble]

The penny's still, but like, imagine. So the only way I can describe to you, because I can see how keen you are to establish this is like a box of wine. You know, the nozzle on a box of wine.

[Mira Soda]

Okay.

[Ed Gamble]

I mean, it doesn't like rush out of there, does it? You're not like suddenly drinking a pint of wine when you give it a little squeeze.

[Mira Soda]

It's like if you tip it towards your mouth. It does.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

A semi slow trickle.

[Mira Soda]

Okay.

[Ed Gamble]

But it's like. It's not. It's not too slow.

[Mira Soda]

It's not. Blast. He's not blasting it out of there.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Mira Soda]

It's not like a, you know, like a jet wash. No, exactly.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Mira Soda]

I thought it was a jet wash, too.

[James Acaster]

It's like a jet wash. Do you want it flaming?

[Ed Gamble]

I mean, that flaming sambuka style? I mean, why not? That could be quite fun. I mean, I don't want to lose my eyebrows.

[James Acaster]

But have you ever thought, like, could I do that? Could I figure out a way of doing a flaming one? And would that taste you Know it would affect the flavour.

[Ed Gamble]

Sure. Would we be waiting for the flames to die down or would I then need to learn how to do an all in one with the flames? I wouldn't.

[James Acaster]

You know, I think we have to Luca people blow it out and then down the shot. But yeah, don't fire. Don't eat the fire.

[Ed Gamble]

No, I suppose I haven't really that how you thought about it With a.

[Mira Soda]

Pani puri, if you're leaving the fire for too long, it's gonna burn and make it sort of a bit acrid, isn't it? So I think it's just a quick.

[Ed Gamble]

Like blow it out anyways. Yeah.

[Mira Soda]

Or you set it on fire when you've got a little bit in there and then the man comes around with a gun, puts more in there and that puts the fire out.

[Ed Gamble]

Actually, you know what that could be?

[James Acaster]

He puts the fire out.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, it could be really good. Because after a shot you probably need to line your stomach. Right. And so once you've drunk the shot and then you follow with something crispy, crunchy, nice. I mean, that sounds like it. It sounds like a really good strategy not to get totally.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Work.

[Ed Gamble]

Ship faced.

[James Acaster]

I saw him. Really?

[Ed Gamble]

I did say ship.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Acaster]

Did you say ship face?

[Mira Soda]

Yes, yes, yes. Very good.

[James Acaster]

The face of a ship. They have faces, don't they?

[Ed Gamble]

Ships, they. Well, boat faced.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking of.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

As always. I saw a really bad fire breather once. Absolutely awful. Fire eater.

[Ed Gamble]

As in they were bad at fire breathing.

[James Acaster]

Atrocious.

[Ed Gamble]

Burnt the esophagus or something.

[James Acaster]

It's like they'd done like a whole magic show. They're meant to be a magician. A whole thing was awful. Every single magic trick sucked. And then at the end they were like, this is the finale. I'm gonna. I came up doing circus skills and I'm gonna like eat this fire. And they talk for 10, 15 minutes about how they fell in love with fire breathing and fire eaten and how amazing it is and how difficult it is and telling you about it so that you appreciate what you're about to see. And then they got these flaming sticks out and then they just really slowly, for one, they filled their mouth with this lighter fluid that was dribbling out the side of their goddamn mouth as they were trying to do this. So it was like unsightly. And then every time they tried to like eat the fire, it was just really slow and anticlimactic. And they kept burning the side of their mouth and going. And they're doing it again. Just kept saying, God damn it all the time. Every time. They burnt the side of their mouth. And that was the end of the show.

[Ed Gamble]

I had a not dissimilar situation where I was in.

[Mira Soda]

I'm very interested to hear how not dissimilar this is.

[Ed Gamble]

Well, as in, like, it was a. It was someone who was looking after poisonous venomous snakes, and this was in Thailand and. And was telling us about how venomous they were and showed us by getting this snake, he had. He'd sort of wrapped a glass. He put some cling film over a glass, and then I don't know what he'd done to sort of anger the snake, but the snake then bit the glass because it was angry. And you saw this venom shoot out of its mouth. And then at some point during the show, he was bitten and had to be taken off.

[Mira Soda]

Oh, my God.

[Ed Gamble]

And there was an ambulance just outside. And so the show just suddenly ended.

[Mira Soda]

So was the ambulance outside before the show started? This happens every week.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. Surely they're just there.

[Ed Gamble]

I mean, it was quite. I wouldn't recommend anybody go to a place like this, because if you kind of. I remember looking at his arms thinking, it looks like he's been bitten before, numerous times.

[Mira Soda]

Either that or he was a heroin addict. But, you know, either way, it's not gonna be a good show.

[James Acaster]

He could have a crippling addiction, and he's trying to wean himself off of it by finding a different passion. And he's looking after snakes, and now they're biting him all the time.

[Ed Gamble]

It's true. He could have been manning the Tandor because, you know, going back to tandoors, I did have to work a Tandor at some point in my career. And they. They burn on up the arms.

[Mira Soda]

Oh, I bet.

[Ed Gamble]

Singe the eyebrows off, all the hair disappears. And apart from the dangerous job.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Mira Soda]

Apart from the mustache.

[James Acaster]

That's the guy who works in the thing, not you.

[Mira Soda]

Right.

[Ed Gamble]

Thank you.

[James Acaster]

Thank you.

[Ed Gamble]

The uncle.

[James Acaster]

The uncle. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. As soon as I said it, I.

[Mira Soda]

Was like, better clear that up. Yeah, I knew what you meant.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is it all the hair disappears? I was like, we know one guy who's doing all right on the hair front, works a Tandor.

[Ed Gamble]

He's got longer arms than I have.

[James Acaster]

Oh, has he? That's another thing.

[Ed Gamble]

I feel like I've got short arms. I feel like I'm.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, well, I didn't think it before, but. Yeah, now you stuck your arm out.

[Ed Gamble]

You do think T. Rex Arms.

[James Acaster]

That's crazy.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Mira Soda]

Feels proportional to me.

[James Acaster]

No, that's short. That's short.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. So it was. Yeah, it was a dangerous job for me to do.

[Mira Soda]

You got to really get in there. Right, Got it.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. It's one swift move.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

You got to. To plaster it with this kind of gigantic powder puff to the side of the tandoor quite swiftly and quickly and get out of there. Yeah. Because it's like 400 degrees in there.

[James Acaster]

Wow.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

What?

[Mira Soda]

I love that. I love seeing videos of that, of people just like sticking. Sticking the naan to the side of the tandoor.

[James Acaster]

Oh, yeah. Confidently.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Really jealous you saw that guy get bit by a snake. Were you really? Afterwards, if you're honest, were you like. That was brilliant when he got bit.

[Ed Gamble]

No, I do have to. I have to say I didn't think that.

[Mira Soda]

Good story now though, isn't it?

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, it is a good story now.

[James Acaster]

I would have been really laughing about it.

[Ed Gamble]

I do have another snake story coming up though.

[James Acaster]

Coming up.

[Ed Gamble]

I didn't even. Well, I mean, in the main course, there's. My main course actually features a snake. I mean, not eating a snake.

[Mira Soda]

I can see why you didn't want to save the bread now because you already had a snake story lined up.

[James Acaster]

Wow.

[Mira Soda]

Wouldn't it be amazing if the pani puri man, when he's putting the liquid in, he also has a snake in his backpack and the snake bites the hole in the top.

[Ed Gamble]

That would be genius.

[Mira Soda]

That would be a show.

[James Acaster]

Wouldn't it be good, actually? Yeah, yeah. If it just bounces out a little hole in it.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Cuz that's the hardest for me when I ever had panty poo actually putting the hole in it.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

You know, the last. Last I can tell you when I had it was my birthday pow. Too hard. Cuz I was so amped up cuz it was my birthday. I went drunk starter pow. Immediately ruined it. Just too big of a hole.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

I felt a little sad.

[Ed Gamble]

Oh, I'm sorry about that. But I. I think snakes could be good. But the venom thing might be an issue. But you could have like a hygienic squirrel standing on a. That was like a little.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah. A hygienic squirrel. Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Good luck finding one of those. I tell you who, we could get one of those long schnauzer wankers to come in, whack their schnoz on it.

[Mira Soda]

Tell them there's an ant inside.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. Side. Not an ant in this one.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Was an ant in that one. That better be. Race the rudders.

[Ed Gamble]

Race the sails.

[Mira Soda]

Race the sails.

[James Acaster]

Captain, an unidentified ship is approaching. Over.

[Ed Gamble]

Roger, wait.

[Mira Soda]

Is that an enterprise sales solution?

[James Acaster]

Reach sales professionals, not professional sailors. With LinkedIn ads, you can target the.

[Mira Soda]

Right people by industry, job title and more.

[Ed Gamble]

We'll even give you a $100 credit.

[James Acaster]

On your next campaign. Get started today at LinkedIn.com results, terms and conditions apply. Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile with a message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop with Mint. You can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying. No judgments. But that's weird. Okay, one judgment anyway. Give it a [e-mail] Switch upfront payment.

[Mira Soda]

Of $45 for 3 month plan equivalent.

[Ed Gamble]

To 15 per month required intro rate.

[James Acaster]

First 3 months only, then full price.

[Mira Soda]

Plan options available, taxes and fees extra.

[James Acaster]

See full [e-mail] hey folks, it's Marc.

[Ed Gamble]

Maron here, host of WTF with Marc Maron on Acast. I've been doing this show a long time, more than 15 years. Research shows that 74% of listeners recall the brands they hear when listening to podcasts. So if you're a business owner or marketer and you want your business to be top of mind, podcast advertising with.

[Mira Soda]

Acast is the way to go. Run podcast ads with acast by visiting go.acast.com Marcus.

[James Acaster]

Your dream main course has a snake in it.

[Ed Gamble]

Have you been to Sri Lanka?

[James Acaster]

No, no, sadly not really want to.

[Ed Gamble]

I love Sri Lanka. Wherever you go in Sri Lanka, you'll be able to get a curry and rice, which is a misnomer because it's not just one portion of curry. It's like four or five or six portions. Like it's a buffet. But the best buffet you've ever had. And it's for one. And it vet, you know, the curries will change depending on where you travel in Sri Lanka. And the best one that I ever had was on New Year's Day in 2016. So at this point, Hugh and I got married and we were there for our honeymoon and someone had recommended this place called Samakanda. It's like a tea plantation that's in like a rainforest sanctuary, like quite close to Gaul. And when we got there, we hadn't realized that there was absolutely nothing to do, like not even picking tea. There was no Wi Fi, there wasn't anybody else staying there. There were no books to read. And so on New Year's Day, we go for A walk and come face to face with, like, a long, brown, massive snake.

[Mira Soda]

Oh, God.

[Ed Gamble]

And this is like, as I didn't realize until. Until I came back, that Sri Lanka actually has, like, over 200 species. I mean, it's like kind of one of those, like, you know, where are the most densely populated places of snakes in the world? Sounds like Sri Lanka's up there.

[Mira Soda]

You don't hear about that.

[Ed Gamble]

You don't hear about it. No.

[James Acaster]

I'd have been hoping it was like, bonito and the milk and there wasn't actually that many.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

You know, like, we got. We got 200 and then about three.

[Mira Soda]

We've got soy snakes.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Mira Soda]

Or cow snakes.

[James Acaster]

If someone ran their mouth off because they got cocky, put a show off to a chef.

[Ed Gamble]

This was terrifying. It's definitely, like one of the most terrifying days of my life. And so we ran all the way back to the house.

[Mira Soda]

Sorry. People running away from stuff all the way back somewhere really makes me laugh and I don't know why. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[James Acaster]

It is really funny, people running all the way back somewhere. It would have been funnier if you were shouting, help. If you were shouting, help us, help. That's good stuff.

[Mira Soda]

How long were you running for when you saw the snake?

[Ed Gamble]

I mean, maybe. Maybe like 10 minutes or so.

[James Acaster]

And when did you say you just got married?

[Ed Gamble]

So we got married in June 2015, but, you know, we'd spent all of our money on the wedding. And so six months later, we were there.

[James Acaster]

Honeymoon. Is Hugh outrunning you or is he matching your sp. Is he. Is he matching your speed? Is he lagging behind? So are you out running him or you don't care?

[Ed Gamble]

Well, so he has quite. He. He's an ex hockey player, and so he's. He's athletic, but he's got quite big thighs and he tires easily. And I'm quite short and five two. And he calls me the Gujarati Express because I can run quite quickly but for short distances. So initially, okay. Initially, good job.

[James Acaster]

He's your husband.

[Ed Gamble]

He has a head start, right?

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

And then he tires. But I'm the kind of consistent runner. Yeah, I can kind of go the distance.

[Mira Soda]

But you're not. It doesn't feel like you're running together at any point.

[Ed Gamble]

No, because if I was him, I.

[James Acaster]

Can outrun my girlfriend, naturally. She. I've got longer legs than this. I could. Yeah. She'll keep up with me. When we're walking through town, I could. I would be like. If I was running full pel. I'm leaving her in the dust.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Okay.

[James Acaster]

That's not good stuff. So I. I would. If a snake is chasing us and we're running all the way back, what's.

[Mira Soda]

The snake chasing you?

[Ed Gamble]

No.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah. Did you check at any point? Because you're running for 10 minutes.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes.

[Mira Soda]

Did you check to see if it was still behind you? Yes. Then why did you carry on running for 10 minutes?

[James Acaster]

Could have been another mistake. At your destination, you were like, we just need to.

[Ed Gamble]

Adrenaline did back.

[Mira Soda]

Get your passport, go straight to the airport. I'm staying in this goddamn country.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes, exactly that. No. So maybe we ran for five minutes.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Just feel like he should have been, like, matching your pace.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

And running with you. That's what I'm saying.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

That's love.

[Ed Gamble]

That's. That's true. He should have. He. I mean. Yeah. It's grounds for divorce, now that I think about it. Yeah.

[Mira Soda]

It is, definitely.

[James Acaster]

Instead, he's just calling you, like, names and stuff that I don't think he should be calling you.

[Ed Gamble]

No. And it is totally fine to bring things up from, like, over a decade ago and, like, whack the other person over the head with.

[James Acaster]

Right. We get up when you get home that one time. Word of you, you little ship.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, you ship.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Ship bag.

[Mira Soda]

You ship head.

[James Acaster]

You ship head. So you're running all the way home.

[Ed Gamble]

Running all the way home. And then one of the scariest days. So totally freaked out. And then these two women turn up with a man who is like. Turns out, he's like the man that climbs up the coconut trees with his bare hands and feet. And the two women were cooks. And they cook us the full kahuna, the full curry and rice. And so they light these fires using cinnamon bark. The cinnamon's native to Sri Lanka. It smells gorgeous. They're clay pots. They're cooking, like, a baby jackfruit curry, a beetroot curry, leeks curry, cashew nuts, like, just all of this dreamy stuff, like using the coconuts that the man is like. Like, carefully throwing down to them. They're cracking them open. They're using the fresh coconut. They're using the coconut water. It's the most sensational meal I've ever had. It was so good. And I'd have the naan alongside.

[James Acaster]

Yes.

[Ed Gamble]

So this is my dream meal.

[Mira Soda]

Amazing. And are you at this point as well, you're relieved that you haven't been killed by a snake?

[Ed Gamble]

Well, exactly.

[James Acaster]

That must have added to it.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, I think it did add to.

[James Acaster]

It, because where were you? Sounds like you Were outside. But you were.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes. So you were eating? Yeah. Yes.

[James Acaster]

Are you not worried the snake's gonna come back?

[Ed Gamble]

Well, it was a cleared space. I think we'd be able to. I'd be able to see if there were snakes. It wasn't in the. It wasn't in the rain for us. No, it was light.

[James Acaster]

Okay.

[Mira Soda]

That's almost quite a good sort of dining experience. Like a pop up dining experience where you scare someone with. With sort of the threat of death or wild animals and then you serve them their meal and they're automatically gonna. To enjoy the meal more. I think.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes. I do feel like I've remembered meals more when there's been like a moment of jeopardy because I was. Can't remember the name of the fort in India. Anchor Fort. I can't remember the name of the fort. Hugh and I didn't pay to sit on the elephants to go up to the fort. We walked up them, but we're walking alongside the elephants. But the road on the way to the fort had two walls. And so there was like one time where I felt like I was going to be squashed by an elephant butt.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

And then had a really good salad after that. That's.

[James Acaster]

There it is.

[Mira Soda]

I think this is the way forward. I think this is, you know, that's that third Michelin star.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. Even remember being on the camel because there was no jeopardy.

[Ed Gamble]

No.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

But always pay for the elephant is what I've realized.

[Mira Soda]

I think that's good. A good rule for life in general.

[Ed Gamble]

Amber Fort. Amber for. Yes.

[James Acaster]

What if someone offered you freebie free elephant, would you. Would you be like, no, I pay for this elephant because I don't trust a free elephant. Free elephant.

[Ed Gamble]

Well, I feel like that would be taking advantage of the elephant if it wasn't paid for its services.

[James Acaster]

Sure.

[Mira Soda]

I'm not sure how much of the money the elephant's seeing.

[Ed Gamble]

Oh, I like to think that there's peanuts. Yeah. Yeah. A little. What else my elephants have. Okay.

[James Acaster]

They mainly like eating peanuts.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

A little bit of pineapple, maybe. A pineapple.

[Ed Gamble]

Well, I don't know. I don't know. But I'd imagine that they like pineapple. It's juicy, sweet.

[Mira Soda]

I thought you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. I thought that's the frank phrase.

[James Acaster]

That's a phrase.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah. Yeah.

[James Acaster]

But elephants eat peanuts.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

They. They.

[Mira Soda]

But I think that's because they've not been given anything else as an option.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. I'm still surprised that I was reading about pandas the other day. I've got kids, they're interested in pandas.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

And I. I think I've got a. I think I eat like a panda. Not as a knife, you know. 99. Bamboo. Yeah. But they are like 98 sort of. Of vegetarian. Vegetarian. And then like the other 2%, I think, is made up with, like, small mammals and eggs and things like that. And I think that's quite a nice way to eat. I was quite.

[Mira Soda]

I think it is. And I, you know, I should. I should do that more. But, you know, panda. I'd say eat like a panda, but I'd say maybe 70 of my diet is small mammals and eggs.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. Mainly it's like, I'm going to do a shop, love Jordan needs small babbles on eggs. Maybe what I'm getting.

[Ed Gamble]

It's crazy that they just. I mean, they predominantly do eat bamboo and they have to eat loads of it because they're quite chunky, aren't they? And I imagine there's like tons of calories in bamboo, so I think they are, like, chewing most of the day. And quite a lot of bamboo, I read, is, like, quite fibrous. And so they go. They have, like, up to TMI, 50 bowel movements a day.

[Mira Soda]

Fifty?

[Ed Gamble]

Yes.

[James Acaster]

That's the loudest he'd ever talked on the podcast.

[Mira Soda]

50.

[Ed Gamble]

I mean, you'd think that they might adapt their diets a little bit more.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

To. I don't know, they might not need so much fibre and so no wonder.

[James Acaster]

They'Re on the verge of extinction.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

If I had 50 dumps a day, I'd be doing well to make it through the night. What was your favorite? The. You said there's about three different curries.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, there were multiple curries and, like, some of them were quite unusual. Like a cashew curry. There was like a garlic curry, which is mind blowing because it's not what you'd. It wouldn't. It's not actually as garlicky as you imagine it might be. But my favourite one was the young jackfruit. It's like. Have you had jackfruit before? Like, it was. It's not like the tinned stuff that, like, is more commonly available here, but it was like, super sweet and, like, quite meaty. But they pair it with something called gueraca, which is like a malabari tamarind. It's like a berry and it sort of gives a sourness to it. And it was really good. Like, phenomenally, phenomenally good. And they. They have this lovely Pol Samble, which is like a. Like a fresh coconut Relish, I guess you'd call it.

[Mira Soda]

Nice.

[Ed Gamble]

And then some pootoo and rice. It was just.

[Mira Soda]

That sounds so good.

[Ed Gamble]

It was really, really good. It was really, like, really, really lovely.

[Mira Soda]

James got scared, though, when you said Garaka, because Garaka is the name of the villain in Ghostbusters Frozen Empire.

[James Acaster]

Frozen Isle, Frozen Empire.

[Mira Soda]

James is in Ghostbusters Frozen Empire.

[James Acaster]

We had to defeat Garaka, the name of ice demon who was trying to. To extinct humans. So I. I'm afraid your meal sounded lovely. And then you mentioned probably the biggest challenge I faced in my life, which is defeating Gorakha, and that was that.

[Mira Soda]

Took me out and then you tuned out. Luckily, I was listening because it sounds amazing.

[James Acaster]

All I was thinking was, if Garaka's involved in this meal, we've got to figure out how to get him back in the brass orb or how to contain him somehow, because otherwise.

[Mira Soda]

And that's up to you. You're the. You're the brain.

[James Acaster]

Brains on the brains. I work in the lab. I've got to figure out how to get. How to contain Guraka. And if he. If he has managed to get a human to. To say the chant which will release him, then we're toast. I mean, there's not much we can do.

[Ed Gamble]

But could you. Could you use your magic lamp to get.

[James Acaster]

I'm a scientist in Garaka's world. This is where. This is where it gets difficult, actually. Maybe if I was a genie. If we're doing a crossover of Off Menu and Ghostbusters Frozen Empire, then I guess I am a genie still. And then there's a chance I could beat him.

[Mira Soda]

I don't think we can do a crossover.

[James Acaster]

I could get him in the brass lamp, but then I'd have to go in there with him in room with Guraka. He'd be my flatmate. I hate that. I hate karaka.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah. But this guraka sounds really nice.

[Ed Gamble]

It is very nice.

[James Acaster]

I'm really. Separate the two.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. Sorry about that PTSD moment. It's okay.

[James Acaster]

Your dream side dish.

[Ed Gamble]

So I love Sri Lankan food. I suppose when I've eaten it for an extended period of time, I feel the need for something fresh and crunchy. And my love language is tomatoes. So I am not quite crunchy, but, like, I love just sliced tomatoes, little bit of crunchy salt on there. If you're offering to make it a bit more fancy in my dream restaurant, like, maybe, you know, that sort of taka thing where you kind of heat some oil, like, let's say coconut oil, mustard seeds, garlic, curry leaves, which have this lovely citrus and smoke flavor. A little bit of lime juice. Pour it over. That's what I'd want to scoop up with my naan bread from my local kebab shop.

[Mira Soda]

Shout out as well. You're saying tomatoes. The tomato curry curry recipe in east as well. Stunning.

[James Acaster]

Oh, that sounds good.

[Mira Soda]

It's so good.

[Ed Gamble]

I. I'm amazed that so many people have cooked that recipe because it is. It's tomatoes.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Mira Soda]

Well, that's what intrigued. Intrigued me about it. But it's just so. It's so flavorful, like, and it's got. It's that. That sweetness as well, and the acidity and it's just. It's proper delicious. I love that recipe.

[Ed Gamble]

Thank you. I. I think it's like, there's an unlocking moment in there, which I quite like. Cause you don't often get it in cooking where, like, it transforms, but you can kind of see the point at which it transforms, and that is that, like, all the milk solids are, like, burnt off the. Or cooked off. Cause you separate the curry into two pans, and then you're basically just driving off the milk solids until you're left with this, like, quite oily mass that just like, wraps itself around the tomatoes and all the spices. So I think it is, like a really magical dish that is kind of bonkers because it is just a tomato curry. But I love. Love it. I love it too.

[Mira Soda]

But then, yeah, you get rid of all the. The milk, but it's still t. It's still got that creamy taste to it as well.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, it's rich, isn't it?

[Mira Soda]

It's really good. I need to do that again.

[James Acaster]

Thank you. Sounds delicious. Really, I should. I should get this book and start learning these recipes.

[Mira Soda]

It's been recommended to you so many times, man.

[James Acaster]

I don't cook.

[Ed Gamble]

Do you know, I've heard you. I've heard you talking about mash.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah. You cook?

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

The king of mash.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Dream drink.

[Ed Gamble]

Okay, so my dream drink, it's one of those cocktails that has a suggestive name.

[James Acaster]

Can we guess?

[Ed Gamble]

I mean, sure, guess away.

[Mira Soda]

The only one I can think of is. I mean, I've definitely told this story on the podcast before. Once when I was little, I was in a restaurant with my mum, and I was reading the cocktail list, going, have you had her? And just going through all of the different cocktails, and then she knew what was gonna happen. She was like, you know, you can tell something's gonna Happen and you can't get there quick enough to stop it. It all goes in slow mo. And I said really loudly, have you had a slow, comfortable screw against a wall?

[Ed Gamble]

Oh, no.

[James Acaster]

I thought it was going to be screaming orgasm.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah, I think that was later on in the menu. So she was like, just took the menu off me at that point. Yes, I've had all of those. Thank you.

[James Acaster]

I wish more than anything that I knew I'd gamble as a little boy. But not like when I was a boy as well, because I don't. I want to know Ed now. Like me, my age.

[Mira Soda]

That's weird, man.

[James Acaster]

As that little kid, huh?

[Mira Soda]

You wish I was a little boy now.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, I think that would be great. I think if Ed was like whatever age he was in that story, I think it would be really fun hanging out with him.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah, I think it would be.

[James Acaster]

Still is now, but like, that kid's funny, man.

[Mira Soda]

So what's your. What's your cocktail?

[Ed Gamble]

It's a super cringeworthy to order. It's called Naked and Famous.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, that's a shame.

[Ed Gamble]

It's not something that you'd want to Google.

[Mira Soda]

No.

[Ed Gamble]

So instead I can tell you how to make it.

[Mira Soda]

Yes.

[Ed Gamble]

So that it's equal parts mezcal, lime juice, aperol and yellow chart.

[Mira Soda]

Now we're just some cocktails. I don't really like reading what's in cocktails because I'm like, I don't even know what that ingredient is. I think we're just getting there with Chartarou. So I've got no idea what that is.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, I've never been sure.

[Ed Gamble]

I mean, I don't think anybody knows. So I ordered a bottle the other week so. So I could make more cocktails at home. And I was limited to one bottle per week. And this little note of this website that I ordered off said it will be. Your order will be canceled if you order more than two bottles. So it's been going since the 1600s. I'll tell you what I know, right? Made by Carthusian monks. They don't really like making it. Turns out that's why there's not that much of it left. And you can only order one.

[Mira Soda]

It's still the monks making it.

[Ed Gamble]

It's still the monks making it.

[James Acaster]

It.

[Ed Gamble]

And so they were handed a manuscript in the 1600s that it was the elixir of life. Like this potion that could cure all ills that had 130 different botanicals on it. And so they. I think they make it, but reluctantly and slowly.

[James Acaster]

I Love this Grumpy Monks.

[Ed Gamble]

And because. Because it's such a secret recipe, nobody knows what's in it, so I don't know.

[Mira Soda]

Okay, so what. What's the. Is it botanical sort of flavor to it?

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. Well, so I've only ever had it in the cocktail and so I've ordered this bottle, it hasn't arrived, but, like, I think what it gives, like the cocktail is, you know, the color of Sunny D or Miami Sunset. It doesn't taste like Sunny D. It's like quite complicated, elegant, like.

[James Acaster]

I love that you're calling it Sunny D, by the way.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah, I know it's called.

[James Acaster]

I know it is called Sunny D now, but I still call it Sunny Delight in my head because that was what it was originally called when it came out, but now I know it's changed its name fully because it was then the slang term was Sunny D for the cool kids.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

And then they just went full all in, changing it, calling it Sunny D. Right. But I've not heard someone call it Sunny D out loud because, like, it doesn't really come up much in conversation.

[Ed Gamble]

Right.

[Mira Soda]

Sunny D at the time maybe had worse press than Turkey Twizzlers.

[Ed Gamble]

Is it still around? Because it does.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah, I think it might still be, but it was like. That was one of the things where you're like, I can't believe we're giving our kids this.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes, definitely.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. I had to really beg to have some. Like, it was. We weren't getting that very often in the house.

[Ed Gamble]

No.

[James Acaster]

Whereas, please let me have some Sunny Delight, please.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. I want to go orange. I mean, I don't know what color I would have turned. Like, what does brown and orange make together? Maybe as if I'd gone to like a tanning salon or something.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah. Just might have worked lovely, actually.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like a Trumpian.

[Mira Soda]

Yes. So it's the mezcal, which I guess is smoke. Smokey.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. Yes, yes. A smoky, sour, like quite sort of bright. I mean, I don't know how you describe Aperol. Like slightly fruit forward, maybe got some.

[Mira Soda]

Bitterness to it as well.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes, a bit of bitterness.

[James Acaster]

They're all very, like big flavours.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, yeah. But it's so like. I haven't had my mind blown like that by a drink ever, I don't think. And was just in search of my favorite cocktail. And I love a margarita, don't get me wrong. But this is. It's like a sort of elevated margarita. It's very good.

[Mira Soda]

That sounds so good. I mean, I don't Know what the Chartreuse. Chartreuse tastes like. I know for a fact that the monks are going to be livid that we're talking about it on the podcast.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. Hey, hey, you fucking monks. If you're listening to this bad luck. Everyone's going to order Chartreuse now. You've got to keep on making it. You've got to keep on making it. See you in heaven.

[Ed Gamble]

I think part of the reason why I loved it so much as well is that I think the Chartreuse not Don't. You know, I'm not sure about this, but I think it's 80% proof.

[Mira Soda]

Oh, yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

And so it's like one of those drinks where like one isn't enough and two is definitely too many. It's good.

[Mira Soda]

I'm gonna try and make that. I've got some mezcal at home. Shout out to. Cole sent me that ages ago. I've never, never cracked into it.

[James Acaster]

Lovely.

[Mira Soda]

Lime's easy.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. Lime juice.

[Mira Soda]

I think I've got some Aperol as well, actually.

[James Acaster]

So this is exciting.

[Mira Soda]

So it's just the. It's just the old monk juice.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Gotta get the monk juice. That's those. The hard bit.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Also, I'm thinking when you first ordered it, because you're saying the name is like awkward to order. So the first. Can you remember the first time you went, I'm gonna try, but I've got to say naked. Can I have a Naked and Famous to this bartender?

[Ed Gamble]

Well, I actually didn't have to say it because they got my order wrong. So I was meant to be having a non alcoholic drink at this particular bar and they served me this. And that's maybe why my mind was blown because I was like, gosh, this is the best non alcoholic drink I've ever had in my life.

[Mira Soda]

You'd ordered a clothed Anonymous. The non alcoholic version.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah. What the hell is that?

[Ed Gamble]

And so luckily I did. I didn't have to say it that time around. Yeah, yeah.

[Mira Soda]

That's good. And now you can. Do you make them at home?

[Ed Gamble]

Well, I'm still waiting.

[Mira Soda]

You're waiting on the shots.

[Ed Gamble]

So is it. But I've had to sort of explain how to make it. But it's. Yeah, I haven't had many of them, but it is like, it's, you know, it's a diamond in the rough. It's definitely my favorite drink.

[Mira Soda]

It sounds great. I'm definitely gonna try and make.

[James Acaster]

It's the first shout out for Naked and Famous on the.

[Mira Soda]

Yes.

[James Acaster]

On the pod. So That'll become a staple now of Ed's life.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Drink it every day.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah. Probably not every day. Maybe.

[James Acaster]

Well, you cook the tomato curry all the time. Yeah. You trust me?

[Mira Soda]

I do trust Mirror, but I feel like a naked and famous every day. It's probably a bad idea.

[Ed Gamble]

Like if you were to be in your dream restaurant every day, maybe you wouldn't. It's a bit like, you know, there's people who. There is someone, isn't there out there who eats Christmas dinner every day.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

But you wouldn't actually want to do that because it would really spoil it.

[Mira Soda]

No. I think to be in the dream restaurant every day is a nightmare.

[James Acaster]

Yes.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes.

[James Acaster]

It becomes a nightmare. That's, that's, that's the film we to make of the podcast.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Is someone. We get trapped in here and it becomes nightmare restaurant.

[Ed Gamble]

Not with gaka.

[James Acaster]

Oh, God.

[Ed Gamble]

Please, sorry.

[Mira Soda]

Please stop saying gaka. We've got to get through this episode. He's absolutely terrified of it.

[James Acaster]

GA ever comes in. Yeah, I don't know what I'm. Race the rudders.

[Ed Gamble]

Race the sails.

[Mira Soda]

Raise the sails.

[James Acaster]

Captain. And unless. Unidentified ship is approaching, over. Roger.

[Ed Gamble]

Wait, is that an enterprise sales solution?

[James Acaster]

Reach sales professionals, not professional sailors. With LinkedIn ads, you can target the.

[Mira Soda]

Right people by industry, job title and more.

[James Acaster]

We'll even give you a $100 credit on your next campaign. Get started [e-mail] results. Terms and conditions apply. Ryan Reynolds here from it.

[Mira Soda]

I don't know if you knew this.

[James Acaster]

But anyone can get the same Premium Wireless for 15amonth plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities. So do like I did and have one of your assistant's assistants switch you to Mint Mobile today. I'm told it's super easy to [e-mail].

[Mira Soda]

Switch upfront payment of $45 for 3 month plan equivalent to $15 per month.

[Ed Gamble]

Required intro rate first 3 months only.

[Mira Soda]

Then full price plan options available, taxes and fees, extra fee, full [e-mail] calm.

[James Acaster]

We arrive at your dream dessert.

[Ed Gamble]

My dream pudding is a lemon mering pie or a tart Lem Merang tart. But it specifically it's Elio's lemon meringue tart. So when I was younger I lived in North Lincolnshire and the most exciting night you could have was a night at Elios, which is this Italian restaurant a stone's throw away from the Hummer bridge, basting upon Hummer. And the most exciting thing in the most exciting restaurant was the lemon meringue. Tart. And, like, this is a typical, you know, 1980s, 1990s Italian restaurant. I mean, we've got, like, plastic crab nets all around the sides on the walls. Like, the whole place just, like, smells like Estee Lauder and Brut. There's people, like, you know, celebrating, like, big birthdays there, women with big hair downing the limoncello shots. And I definitely wasn't gonna do a Fisherman's Wharf before I got to pudding because, like, that was the best thing that you could. So I'd, like, share a tomato spaghetti with my sister and then just make sure to get through to it. Now, Elio, unfortunately, is retired. The restaurant's been sold. And I live in London, which is the city of everything, but I can't. Haven't yet found something that replicates what he did. Like, super thin, beautiful pastry, like, zingy zangy. Like, lemony filling and, like, real whippy sort of meringue on the top. The closest I've come to it is the River Cafe. They do an astounding lemon tart, which is beauty and grace. And it's, like, magnificent. It's sort of almost like you end up winking after you've had a bite of it, because it's really zingy zangy. You know, that kind of like, you have to be facing away from, like, the table so that they.

[James Acaster]

That's the last time you start ordering a Naked and Famous when you're feeling.

[Mira Soda]

Zingy zangy in the lounge. The River Cafe, though, I mean, you know, it's a rare occurrence for me to go to the River Cafe because it's so. Eye watering is so expensive.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes.

[Mira Soda]

But I don't trust myself to get to pudding at the River Cafe and not have the chocolate nemesis.

[Ed Gamble]

I'm not really a. I'm not really a chocolate. I know that. I feel like the world's divided maybe between, like, a sort of zingy zangy, but sort of comforting thing to round out a meal. And then that kind of. I'm gonna say, like, mouth, you know, that kind of cheese chocolate, like something quite. Quite dense. And I. I didn't know.

[Mira Soda]

You're zingy zangy.

[Ed Gamble]

I'm zingy zangy.

[Mira Soda]

Is Hugh the other one?

[Ed Gamble]

No, he's one of those. He's very irritating when it comes to pudding because he says he'll share, and then it's not like he orders one, but then I'm kind of left eating it by myself. And I think I really want to be able to share in this pudding with you. You know when you're like, at the cinema with someone but you know they're not really enjoying the film. And that's kind of annoying because it's kind of like, it kind of creeps into my skin. I'm very aware of it for the whole film. It's a bit like that with pudding. I'm not, like, grateful that he's not sharing because I get all the pudding to myself. I'm like, no, no. I want you to, like, crack the top of the.

[Mira Soda]

And you both want to be talking about how delicious it is.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

Would you prefer a food sharer or a not food sharer?

[James Acaster]

Oh, I love a food sharer and I love sharing food. And it is like. I get exactly what you mean. Like, it's nice, especially with your partner, to be like, sharing the dish, puddings, nothing else.

[Ed Gamble]

I guess the fear is I have met someone who doesn't food share at all. So my agent doesn't food share at all. And that's because she doesn't want to try.

[Mira Soda]

She takes 15% of all of your food.

[Ed Gamble]

Eh? Yep, yep. Nice. But for the fear that what I've ordered is better than what she's ordered.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah, I do understand that instinct.

[Ed Gamble]

And then that you'll be ruined. So I do do that with Hugh. I food share and then if I really like it, life becomes quite difficult then because I will expect him to hand over the rest of his meal and to swap. And that just is like, you know, just something that he'll have to do when we all have to sacrifice in relationships, don't we?

[James Acaster]

Sure.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

It's like a zero sum game.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. If he's going to run ahead and leave you for Dust and the snake, you should swap food.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah.

[Mira Soda]

So is that, Is that the.

[James Acaster]

Oh, no.

[Mira Soda]

You want the lemon meringue tart from Elios?

[Ed Gamble]

I mean, I suppose what I'd say is that, like, maybe the Lem. Maybe I don't want to throw shade on, like the River Cafe's lemon tarts. It is amazing. But maybe the lemon tart from the River Cafe. But could they put on. On. I mean, could you, Jeannie, put on like a bit of the whippy meringue over the top of that?

[James Acaster]

Yeah, absolutely. It would be my pleasure. What's the ratio? I think we always ask this when people bring up the lemon meringue. Pie or tart? Because you're saying lemong tart, not pie. So what's the difference?

[Ed Gamble]

I know. I realized I sort of Said, did I say pie? And then switched to tart.

[James Acaster]

You did. And I thought, oh, I have actually never really known.

[Mira Soda]

Is it deeper? I guess, like a. Is a pie deeper?

[Ed Gamble]

I'm just wondering if one of them is American and one's in the English. English way. I mean, I feel like pie is the Americanization, the American one, and that ours is like a tart. But I'm not sure. I think I've got mixed up because of the River Cafe one, which is a tart. And I haven't ordered Elio's Lemur pie tart in a long time, so I can't remember which. Which one it was. But you'd imagine a pie to be a bit more deep, dense, deeper.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah, yeah, sure.

[Ed Gamble]

I'd go with like a very thin pastry. And the river caf is pastry. Pastry is astoundingly good. Flaky in all the right places. Just like, melts. That's what you want. Right. And then you want the lemon. I want the lemon filling to be not too rubbery. No, you don't want it to be rubbery at all. And just like on the wrong side of zingy zangy. So you kind of want it to kind of slap your eyes shut because you're eating it and you're like, wow.

[Mira Soda]

It'S a bit too much.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. If I semi want to be woken up at the end of a meal and then I want to go for a brisk walk. Especially, like, if you. If you're at the River Cabbage, there's nice walks around there. Right?

[Mira Soda]

The river.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. But quite a lot of the lemon filling, because that is just the best.

[James Acaster]

How much measurements we talk in here. An inch.

[Ed Gamble]

Gosh. What is an inch? Is it like 2 1/2 cm? I'm a metric. I'm a metric mirror.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. Maybe two and a half centimeters.

[Ed Gamble]

Maybe one. Maybe one and a half of just pure filling, not including the pastry. And then like maybe about 2 cm meters or. I don't know, it's kind of. There's a gradient, isn't there, to the meringue? Because it has to.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah, there's peaks.

[Ed Gamble]

There's a peak.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

And so top of the peak. What is that? 8. 8 cm. Like fading away. And so you want to get to the. You want to. You want to eat the nose first, maybe.

[Mira Soda]

I agree with the lemon being the best bit, you know, I mean, look, a lot of people like it, but that lemon meringue tart, Gloria, those and the other restaurants that Big Mama have, like, when it's like that much meringue. It's like. It's like 30 centimeters of meringue.

[Ed Gamble]

I mean, it's fun, but I might feel a bit sick after that, I think.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah. Yeah. I can't. I can't get through that.

[James Acaster]

I'd happily eat a bowl of that sort of meringue.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

And then have a lemon tart without meringue on the side and then sit there just going back and forth between the two.

[Ed Gamble]

Ah, yes, that is. That's my new way to drink coffee. With the milk and the coffee separately.

[James Acaster]

And I put it straight in your coffee.

[Ed Gamble]

I know he did. I was too embarrassed already.

[James Acaster]

Embarrassed himself with Benito saying he had loads and loads of milk over all the.

[Mira Soda]

All the different milks on the side.

[James Acaster]

Three different milks on the side. Bed. But you didn't. You.

[Ed Gamble]

No, you see, that's the kind of quirk and whimsy you can get away with in your own house when you're.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

You know, when you. Because I. I, you know, write from home, I work from home. Whereas if you go somewhere, you just look like a real oddball if you. If you ask for the milk separately, as if you don't trust the other person to get your, like, little splash. Right. And so you don't want to establish that first. Pissed off, being like, you know, I don't trust you to get the splash right.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

You know, he did check, though, like a gentleman.

[Ed Gamble]

He did.

[James Acaster]

He bought over your coffee and he said, is that enough milk?

[Ed Gamble]

He did.

[James Acaster]

You said, yes, I did. Were you being polite? Because you're on the podcast now, you can be honest about if he got it right or not.

[Ed Gamble]

He did. So the thing about oat milk, though, is that it's not like. It's not like normal milk. This is normal milk. It is normal milk, but I mean, dairy in the, like, the color, you know, there's like, gradients. It's like sometimes depending on the brand of the oat milk, it will just still look, like, quite murky, but taste quite sort of like you want it to taste, you know, to sort of take the edge off the coffee. And so it's quite hard to tell, I think, with a. With. With oat milk, whether it is, like, the right amount or not. And so I think I did say it, you know, maybe. Maybe to please Benito. But it turns out, I mean, I, you know, I've drunk a lot of it, and it is. It's really good. You absolutely smashed the Benito.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah, he smashed it.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, he did.

[James Acaster]

Well, if you're trying to please Benito to. I got bad news for you. He cannot be pleased. I'm going to be your menu back to you now, see how you feel about it. You would like sparkling water, no ice.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes.

[James Acaster]

And a cup of tea. We'll throw in a cup of tea there for you because that's mainly water. Pablo. Bread. You want the naan from your local kebab shop. Starter pani puri, main course, Sri Lankan curry and rice from Samakanda. And then the naan is going to be with that side dish. Sliced tomatoes with crunchy. Oh, I think we talked about that enough, actually. It's so good. Sliced tomatoes with crunchy salt and tar and tarka.

[Ed Gamble]

We call it chonk in Gujarati, but it's chonk. Chonk.

[James Acaster]

I love that.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah, we'll stick with chonk.

[James Acaster]

Chunk. We'll call it chonk.

[Ed Gamble]

Little spicy oil over the top.

[James Acaster]

That's very satisfying to say. Drink naked. And famous dessert, the lemon meringue tart from River Cafe with the whippy meringue from Elios.

[Ed Gamble]

Yes.

[James Acaster]

On top.

[Mira Soda]

Delicious.

[James Acaster]

I think that sounds great.

[Mira Soda]

That's an incredible menu.

[James Acaster]

I'd like to. I'd have all of that.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Which is rare, but that sounds great. And like, I think.

[Ed Gamble]

Thanks, James.

[James Acaster]

Actually, the tomatoes fingers that weirdly reading it back, I was like, I'd love some tomatoes now with some crunchy stuff.

[Mira Soda]

That's something you can definitely just go and do at home.

[James Acaster]

I don't know. Is it in the cookbook?

[Ed Gamble]

It isn't.

[James Acaster]

But you basically don't know how to do it.

[Ed Gamble]

I can write something down for you. Yeah, Yeah.

[James Acaster]

I appreciate that.

[Mira Soda]

But you have to do a little drawing to go. To go in Mira's copy of her own book as a bookmark.

[James Acaster]

Okay.

[Mira Soda]

Of Garaka.

[Ed Gamble]

You don't have to write Love Mummy on the back of.

[James Acaster]

Well, I always write that. Can we be in the next cookbook like Hugh?

[Ed Gamble]

Certainly can.

[Mira Soda]

Just one page. We're just suddenly there.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. Just having food in the background, you know, like. Cause Hugh's got, like, half of his face and then he's like, cut off at the end of the page. So we could, like, be like that. So people could be like, set those off, menu guys.

[Mira Soda]

Like, we are in the Beano.

[James Acaster]

Like, we are in the Beano, for example.

[Ed Gamble]

In the Beano.

[Mira Soda]

Yes. We're in one panel of an issue of the Beano in a mini. The Minx cartoon in a restaurant.

[Ed Gamble]

Very cool.

[James Acaster]

Half our faces just in the background. Yeah. Little Easter egg for people. And Minnie the Minx was the coolest.

[Ed Gamble]

One was that a mic drop moment for you. That's pretty awesome.

[Mira Soda]

Completely lost my mind when that happened.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah, I would too.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. If you told me that as a little kid, I would have been like, well, I don't care what else happens to me in my life.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah.

[Ed Gamble]

We could have a sort of a limb and we could have a guess the limb competition. That could be one of those Easter eggs. You know, when you get books, especially with kids books, they're like. Like a lot of the Julia Donaldson kids books. There's the Gruffalo on each page and then you have to kind of find it in the other books. It's not the Gruffalo book.

[Mira Soda]

Right.

[Ed Gamble]

And so with my next cookbook, what.

[Mira Soda]

We could have is like a limit every page.

[Ed Gamble]

Yeah. Well, not.

[James Acaster]

And it's the Gruffle every page.

[Ed Gamble]

But then people would have to guess who's who. We could. I don't know, they'd be like, he could unlock some recipes.

[Mira Soda]

That's good.

[James Acaster]

Or like, if they guess it properly.

[Ed Gamble]

If they guess it's a secret recipe.

[James Acaster]

A new recipe. Yeah. The chopped tomatoes.

[Mira Soda]

But I think people should go and buy dinner. I cannot wait to start cooking things from that.

[Ed Gamble]

Thank you.

[Mira Soda]

Thank you so much, Mira.

[Ed Gamble]

Thanks so much for having me.

[James Acaster]

Thank you. M sorry about Ben.

[Mira Soda]

Just heard that soda bread doesn't have yeast in it, so I was right in the intro.

[James Acaster]

This just Justin.

[Mira Soda]

This Justin does not have yeast. Thank you so much to Mirror for coming on the podcast. That was absolutely fantastic. That menu was delicious.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, I'd eat all of that. I think you're literally gonna eat at least one thing off that menu tonight, aren't you?

[Mira Soda]

Yeah, I think so. At least one.

[James Acaster]

Hunt it down, seek it out.

[Mira Soda]

I can't wait.

[James Acaster]

Also didn't say soda bread.

[Mira Soda]

No, it didn't say soda bread. Said naan. So that's good.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, that's good.

[Mira Soda]

I'm glad because the rest of the menu was so nice. And, you know, if we'd kicked Mira out early, she wouldn't have had to put up with all your guraka.

[James Acaster]

What? Ed, that's a. That's serious business. And it's. I wasn't the one who bought.

[Mira Soda]

As soon as she said garaka, I was like, there's going to be a lot of explaining to do in a second. Because I felt you go, oh, no. And not listen to anything else that Mira was saying.

[James Acaster]

Couldn't tell you. Couldn't tell you what was said after that because you were thinking about baraka. It's a lot to worry about that. And as you. You just explained that I did not bring Garaka up.

[Mira Soda]

Yes, you, you. No, you didn't bring Garaka up. You normally do. You're not. You're the one who normally brings up Garaka.

[James Acaster]

We ever brought up Garaka. And I hate him. And I. And so I, I couldn't listen to the rest of the story of what was in the food.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

Because I just heard Garaka's name and it made me so furious about that time when, I mean, luckily, luckily we, we had a. A fire master with us.

[Mira Soda]

Who's the fire master again?

[James Acaster]

Kumail Kamala.

[Mira Soda]

Yes.

[James Acaster]

And he did really well. And we all, we all, we all pulled together as a team, but it was really touch and go. And when someone brings up Garaka just so nonchalantly like that, how am I meant to just keep my head in the podcast?

[Mira Soda]

Yeah, fair enough. Fair enough. Do go and buy a copy of Dinner.

[James Acaster]

Yeah.

[Mira Soda]

By Mira Soda. It is looking like it's. It's going to be my new thing, James.

[James Acaster]

I think it is. And also we should say thank you to Mirror, who bought us in some. Some sauce. I mean, this is something we didn't really talk about in the podcast because I think we thought. So Mira came here.

[Mira Soda]

Yes.

[James Acaster]

And gave each of us, all three of us a bottle of this sauce.

[Mira Soda]

Algerian.

[James Acaster]

Algerian. And said it's her favorite sauce.

[Mira Soda]

She doesn't really know what's in it.

[James Acaster]

Said it's great on everything. It's so delicious. And I thought, well, this will feature in the menu. I'm assuming it's going to come up in the podcast and it didn't. It's my fault for talking about Guerraka too much, but, like, but we would like to shout it out because just feel like this is clearly Mirror's favorite condiment.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

We've all been gifted.

[Mira Soda]

It looks like the sort of sauce I wouldn't normally have in my house because I'd start just squirting it directly into my mouth.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. Well, that's what's gonna happen.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

You're taking this home and you're gonna be squirting it into your mouth. Yeah. Yeah. Very excited to see. Also, she was like, I can't really describe to you what it's like. It just is based on.

[Mira Soda]

It's a Sriracha mayo Y. It looks like it's got a sort of mayo y consistency, but there's a picture of grilled meat on the label. So I guess it goes well with grilled meat. Maybe I'll, you know, grill myself up a bit of lamb and hit it up with that Algerian.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, Yeah, I like that.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah, nice one.

[James Acaster]

I think that's pretty cool. Anything else? Benito says no. Oh, no, there is something else. Oh, this little worm has a naan jar. And.

[Mira Soda]

Oh, yeah.

[James Acaster]

And he didn't. Didn't talk about it in the other worm. He has this thing where he's like, oh, I don't talk in the episodes. As soon as we finish the record recording, Benito says to Mira, I have a naan jar. And we're like, what the fuck?

[Mira Soda]

Yeah, I have a naan jar. Cause it's a place that does naans for 50p. Near me.

[James Acaster]

Yeah. Has a whole thing about it.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

This is what happens when producers refuse to talk. It's like, that could. That would have been interesting for the listener.

[Mira Soda]

He said, no, it's a naan jar. And simultaneously, the window cleaner jar.

[James Acaster]

Yes, he did say, it's also the window cleaner jar. And then Ed said, don't get those confused. And he did a mime of cleaning a window with a nan, and it was clearly with a nan. And he said, oh, his windows are looking a bit greasy.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah.

[James Acaster]

And I was like, well, that could have been on the podcast.

[Mira Soda]

What a great.

[James Acaster]

Thanks for you keeping all of your stuff to yourself. Your little secrets over there. It meant that we couldn't do it. Yeah.

[Mira Soda]

Benito, do you ever spend so much on nuns that you can't pay the window cleaner? But he says it's impossible because of how cheap they are. I'm assuming he's referring to the nuns and not the window cleaner.

[James Acaster]

Yeah, the window cleaner's not listening to this.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah. When I lived with my mum, there was a window cleaner. I was terrified because you sort of never knew when he was going to come. So I was a. Never nude.

[James Acaster]

You were. You were the opposite of naked and famous.

[Mira Soda]

Yeah, I was, yeah. Clothed and anonymous.

[James Acaster]

I used to refer to yourself as that when you were a kid.

[Mira Soda]

Yes. Thank you very much for listening to off menu. We will see you again next week. Goodbye.

[James Acaster]

Goodbye. Race the rudders.

[Ed Gamble]

Race the sails.

[Mira Soda]

Raise the sails.

[James Acaster]

Captain, an unidentified ship is approaching. Over. Roger.

[Ed Gamble]

Wait.

[Mira Soda]

Is that an enterprise sales solution?

[James Acaster]

Reach sales professionals, not professional sailors. With LinkedIn ads, you can target the.

[Mira Soda]

Right people by industry, job title and more. More.

[James Acaster]

We'll even give you a $100 credit on your next campaign. Get started today at LinkedIn.com results. Terms and conditions apply. Acast powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend.

[Mira Soda]

Hey, guys. Welcome to Giggly Squad, a place where.

[Ed Gamble]

We make fun of everything, but most importantly, ourselves.

[Mira Soda]

I'm Paige Desorbo.

[Ed Gamble]

I'm Hannah Burner.

[Mira Soda]

Welcome to the squad.

[Ed Gamble]

Giggly Squad started on Summer House when we were giggling during an inappropriate time.

[Mira Soda]

But of course, we can't be managed.

[Ed Gamble]

So we decided to start this podcast. To continue giggling.

[Mira Soda]

We will make fun of pop culture news.

[Ed Gamble]

We're watching fashion trends pep talks where.

[Mira Soda]

We give advice, mental health moments, and games.

[Ed Gamble]

And guests listen to Giggly Squad on Acast or wherever you get your podcasts.

[James Acaster]

Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcast. Cast everywhere. Acast. Com.