I won a competition in primary school for my painting of Nottingham’s Goose Fair; it was a riot of colour with glitter and sequins. The Goose Fair was the cornerstone of the city’s year. The smell of fairs is amazing: deep-fried donuts, hot dogs, the frying of onions. You never wanted to eat all your baby pink candyfloss – it was so sickly sweet – but seeing it made with a stick around the barrel was like magic.
I’ve known James and Jamie [her collaborators in the podcast My Dad Wrote A Porno] for almost 15 years now, starting at Leeds Uni student TV. Jamie is the one whose dad wrote the eponymous porno book under the name Rocky Flintstone – and our show of that is now being made into an HBO special. That’s after we got to do it in bucket-list venues like the Albert Hall. Food’s always been a big part of our podcast, because guests like George Ezra and Daisy Ridley come for dinner and a chat. What was embarrassing was welcoming Michael Sheen, because we didn’t have any snacks or booze. We were desperately unprepared. But Michael brought a bottle of wine and we discovered a rogue bag of Popchips.
We do a drinking game in My Dad Wrote A Porno. Every time Rocky Flintstone mentions breasts, or gives unnecessary details about his life which you wouldn’t possibly want in a pornographic book, we have a drink and invite the audience to drink too, which a high percentage of them do. I think Jamie self-medicates with alcohol during the show.
Jamie’s dad doesn’t quite understand that food can be an aphrodisiac. He refers to blue cheese fish mousse in one of his books, which doesn’t particularly sound like it’s going to instigate an orgy. There’s also a woman in a lake of chocolate, which sounds a bit sexier.
My brother Max is three and half years younger than me but more of a fussy eater. We still talk about the salmon and broccoli pie my mother bought once, after we went swimming and were late home. She says: “For 20 years I made everything from scratch and you remember that bloody packaged pie.”
Mum was ahead of the curve with healthy lunchboxes with grapes in sandwiches. There was always an apricot, raisins and pieces of apple. She’d make egg sandwiches for car journeys while Dad, a sociology lecturer, would always stop and buy chocolate bars on offer and which we wouldn’t like. “Dark chocolate mint Kit Kats? We want normal ones!” This meant he’d be forced to eat them all, which was probably his plan.
For Sleeping With The Far Right, the documentary I made for C4, I lived for a week with a British nationalist. It’s like the weirdest French exchange ever because I wouldn’t say our opinions exactly align. But the thing is when you’re living with someone you just get this incredible insight into every section of their life. I wouldn’t say it was gastronomically the best time of my life. He did cook me pasta one night which was very nice of him, and he said he didn’t like to eat much because it keeps his mind sharp.
Dad wasn’t doing a lot of the cooking and yet claimed Mum didn’t know how to boil an egg when they first met. He said he taught her everything she knows, but I think that’s a myth to push her buttons. She was out once and we told him: “Mum always makes us linguine.” He had no idea how to make it and just put Greek yogurt on some pasta. It was pretty repulsive.
My favourite things
Food
Bread in all forms: big doorstops of sourdough; white bread for bacon sandwiches; bread and butter pudding; warm salty bread straight out of the oven. And toast, which tastes even better if someone makes it for you.
Drink
Sparkling water. I put it away like there’s no tomorrow. I suppose if you squint you can pretend its lemonade, although as a child I wrote sparkling water off as an adult drink.
Dish
A golden roast chicken with garlic bread and loads of butter. With lots of different salads. A chicken is a meal that keeps giving – you have leftover meat and bones to boil for soup.
Sleeping With The Far Right is available on All4
