TALK KING
British Broadcaster Dominic King talks to friends from the entertainment industry about their lives in and passion for the arts.
Many of our long form episodes have been recorded at the homes of our guests who Dom has known and/or worked alongside for many years, offering a unique and more personal perspective than most other 'celebrity' podcasts.
Music composed by Jonny Easton
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TALK KING
The Tooth Hurts! - At home with TV Chef Rosemary Shrager
Season Two of our podcast begins with Rosemary Shrager: British chef, TV personality and author of Murder Mystery adventures including 'The Last Supper', 'The Proof in the Pudding' and 'Too Many Cooks'.
She talks to Broadcaster Dominic King about her childhood, career in catering, life on Television and becoming an author - where "cozy crime meets cookery".
TALK KING is a Laughing Frog Production.
Also check out: 'Watching The Detectives':
Find out more about Laughing Frog Productions at www.laughingfrogproductions.com
Hello, welcome to season two of Talking. She's a chef, a familiar face on TV, and she's a British favourite.
Speaker 2:This is the quietest I will ever be with you. I'm warning you now I've got a very bad tooth.
Speaker 1:I've known you for so many years. This is the first time I've ever heard you so quiet. Rosemary Schrager, welcome to Talking.
Speaker 2:Thank you. It's wonderful to be here. Take advantage of this very low chat so there's no loudness, because I can't go loud, because it's too painful. So this is you are so lucky. You really are quite quiet. People might prefer me being like this. It may be quite nice for people to hear me with a low voice. This is the most quietest.
Speaker 1:I've ever heard you.
Speaker 2:I know you're going quiet now.
Speaker 1:I know I'm joining in your friends and family will be like I've never heard this.
Speaker 2:I know they're not used to me being quiet.
Speaker 1:And yet you still let me come round to have the chat.
Speaker 2:Of course. Of course I wouldn't stop you. There's no way. If people could see me, I'm wrapped in a huge blanket just to keep me nice and warm, because I always have the heating really low, but I need to be warm. So I've got two lots of jumpers equivalent on, so basically it's just to make me feel cosy. So I'm all ready to have a long chat.
Speaker 1:It's nice sharing a coffee with you here, and we're in your home and I know you love this place where you live in East Sussex.
Speaker 2:I love. Do you know what I love more than anything else? I love the fact there's a wonderful community here. There's a wonderful feeling of belonging and I've never had that before. This is the first time I've ever had this, cos I've always either been in London or been in Cornwall. This is a real village. It's a real village and it's a real community and I know so many people here and I work with so many people. Cos what I love? I love the fact that I can ask people locally. So you've got a photographer. You've got a film man whom I met on I'm a Celebrity, so he's moved here. I mean I can say I live in Wadhurst, you know, which is wonderful.
Speaker 1:When you go to the butchers or the shops, do people because you're very well known, but also well, they'll hear you first. Obviously, that you're very well known and because of the telly do people bother you?
Speaker 2:Well, people live here, say hi. Then when people see me coming in and they don't live here and they're visitors, they sort of do a second take and they can't believe it and they're thrilled to say hello. And I always say hello to them. Do you know what? It doesn't cost anything to say hello to anybody. And I think they're the people. If they do like me and they watch me, they're the people who've made me who I am today. Without them, if they'd not turn the telly on, because TV is all about ratings, as you know, and if you have bad ratings you don't get another series. But because I've always had pretty good ratings, so I'm very lucky to actually. So I always say but people leave me low, but they're very protective here about me. So because people want to know where I live and they just say well, somewhere here, I try and be kind and I've always tried.
Speaker 2:Honestly, it's so important to treat people how I like to be treated myself. You know, it's really it's really important to treat people in a good way and you know and say good morning to people. I like saying good morning to people in the village. They say morning, how are you? And all sorts of people. I really like it and also take time out to say hi and they love it, you know, and just have a little convo, you know, and in the street it's lovely, but the problem is my time because I'm always in a hurry. So they but I. I tell you what I'm so funny because I have I'm so jammy when I am really really busy. What I do is I phone the butchers up and can you please deliver this? And they don't normally deliver and they would deliver it to me. And can I phone Anthony up, can you please deliver that one all the way? Yeah, no problems will be, will deliver it to you. I'm so lucky.
Speaker 1:So you get that preferential treatment, or is it just?
Speaker 2:No, I think it's the. I don't think I think do it for anybody, but because they know my work schedule right and because they know I'm up against it sometimes and they realise, and also it's quite funny being in the catering industry because I'm in their sort of industry in a funny sort of way it's a rapport with them and they don't mind helping me out, you know, as I don't mind helping them up.
Speaker 1:The way you just said that there that sense of the catering industry as opposed to television. They're two very separate things. Oh yes, and you've always been with food at the heart, so let me, maybe we'll start there. Yeah, so Rosemary Schrager, born in January 1951.
Speaker 2:Yes, ok, can it be a few months as well? I'm only 39 and a few months old.
Speaker 1:OK, so obviously you know that period post-war and I'm thinking about the kind of language of food at the time as well, and family life. So tell us a bit about your family.
Speaker 2:I used to I tell you, I tell you, I used to love going to pick up the onage juice in the hall. We had to pick up, you know, because they'd still on Russians then when I was born and and still into my sort of very small days, and the Russians were stopped obviously. The outcome is the fact is we had to eat everything up. Now, nothing was wasted. So if whatever we had to eat the fat, we had the progeny, everything, and the thing was, nobody was fat. Actually in those days it was set me out as a very fat child but I had a hormone problem and they found out my metabolism wasn't working. It's all to do with blood and white corpuscles anyway, but everybody else was thin, but everybody it was a very people were not fat. Then they ate everything. It was like it's like they ate very well.
Speaker 1:But also was that because there was a sense of you know waste, not want.
Speaker 2:Not, you had the food, so therefore you ate the food, the food was there and we had to, jolly will eat it because that's what we ate. I mean, there was no, can we have this, can we have that? We just were given what was put on the table. There is no, there was no choice. Like my children say, oh, can we have this tonight? Can we have that tonight? No, I'm doing something else. As long as you like it tough, you'll have to eat it, but you know it's, but we just, we just eat it, and I don't think that was such a bad thing. I really don't. But then the difference between then and now was they knew how to cook. Women were taught by the mothers and the mothers. Whereas times have changed, everybody works today, all the women, the mothers, the fathers, they, they all work. It's all equal. So everybody needs to play part of the family life. Whether the husband cooks like my son does all the cooking at home he does everything, but that's sort of normal because you know it's what's expected. She does other things.
Speaker 1:So did your influence about cooking circulate around the home then? Was that, is that how you became interested in it?
Speaker 2:No, my well, I love food because my mother, we used to go all our own vegetables, we used to have all our own chickens and geese and everything else, and we used to have all the locoberries and berries you can imagine. So I was always either digging or picking and then suddenly we had a sort of big drive where you know you cars would go around but of course in the middle the cart horse came over one day and left manure and of course we had a load of mushrooms. So of course we ended up, and so it was all part of life where we were very excited because these lovely mushrooms came up and we were thrilled. So basically it was just eating and we used to take a lot of food. We used to go and pick all our cobb naps, we used to pick everything ourselves. You see, the women weren't working. Then, you know, there was time to do it, Whereas there's no time to do it today. So you cannot judge then and now. You can't.
Speaker 1:So the influence of food in your life came from when I was little, yeah.
Speaker 2:But also it's what I loved was the smell. Now I remember, I remember when I was digging potatoes. I can still smell the potatoes. I mean it's like today, if I dig potatoes, like wonderful, wonderful and then lovely peas, and you know, taking the broad beans or the runner beans or whatever you've got, I knew what things were meant to taste like and that was my privilege. I was privileged with that, because a lot of people don't, and why should they? But my mother was a very keen gardener so of course it was all part of our life and they were used to growing everything themselves anyway, Was it an affluent childhood?
Speaker 2:I would say, yes, we were. We were actually a very I was very privileged, yes, went to boarding school, did everything, but I didn't have a very Good childhood. I'm afraid it was a bit challenging because my mother wasn't. She was on the edge, let's put it that way. And so there, that created its own problems had mental health issues.
Speaker 2:Yes, and that created its own problems and it was a basically a challenge and it was one of the reasons why I wanted to go to boarding school at 10 years old. I just wanted to leave home, to escape. To escape, yes, I had to. So basically they did, they sent me to boarding school, so we all went off anyway, or three of us. It was a curious, curious time because I didn't have a lot of love in my. There was no love, there was no um, how can I call it? I was never cuddled, ever, and they used to. It was always my fault, because I would never be cuddled. But I can't, I don't know, I can't believe that, but never mind. I mean, yeah, I love cuddling. I'm a big cuddler, you know, I'm a cuddler first thing we did cuddle cuddle, yeah, but they wouldn't cuddle, never cuddled.
Speaker 2:So I never knew what it was like to be cuddled. And actually, and in fact it's a very it's a curious thing to talk about, because if I cuddled them later on in life, which I hardly did, it felt peculiar, it felt odd, I couldn't do it, I just could not cuddle them. It was very weird.
Speaker 1:So even if they wanted to be cuddled later and I couldn't, Can I ask something that feels a little peculiar in my mind that it's popped into my head. But I don't know, this may not even be relevant. Okay, do you think? And I'm not your therapist. Do you know?
Speaker 2:I don't want therapy.
Speaker 1:Do you think that actually Cooking, providing for people, a dinner for others, is your way actually in life of being able to? And I don't want to be too short to- I'm going to tell you a little story.
Speaker 2:Okay and that's exactly what it is.
Speaker 2:When I was um, I would never forget my grandfather, who was absolutely fabulous. He was such a gentleman. He was an Austrian. He was Austrian Jew. Actually we didn't even know he was Jewish because my grandmother was judgment and and I used to sit on his knee and he used to give us half a crown and he said don't tell anyone. So it's very, but you know what I went and did. I Went to the village and I bought everybody a present and I spent all my money and In the after that afternoon and I think I bought them crisp sweets and I gave it all away, the whole lot, and I felt very happy.
Speaker 2:Now, that's very telling, I think, because that's me, because I'm a giver, I'm a natural giver, madness, because at school we used to get fruit once a week. Now in those days we used to have to have patches. It was a dumb thing, pashes, when you had to patch on someone, another girl, it was very strange. Mine, my patch, was Suzanna quail, actually quails daughter, and and, of course, and what we used to do? We used to give our fruit, all our fruit, to our patches. It was madness, crazy, absolutely. When I think about it now. We that's what we did. We all did were you her patch.
Speaker 2:No, she just felt she was, she felt she, she felt she was on a good thing. No, there was nothing funny going on with it. You had to choose a patch. So I decided to choose Suzanna quail because I liked. I thought she was really sweet.
Speaker 1:But you want hers.
Speaker 2:No, I was. No, she was a lot older than me. She's in a form I was with her sister, called Jenny quail, but she was, but she was a lot older than me.
Speaker 1:Did you ever meet her since?
Speaker 2:No, I did. I would be would be very funny if I met her.
Speaker 1:Rose reshraiger is with me on talking and what I love about conversations and people are eavesdropping effectively on the one that we would normally have, which I love. You tell amazing stories. I've sat with you where it's just you and I on our own having a nice meal.
Speaker 2:We just have laughs, so much it's funny, it's brilliant.
Speaker 2:But but that cooking, you know that, that sense of reason I interrupted there because you are talking about it was I loved cooking, right, I loved the smell of Vegetables and things and I just loved cooking so much so Once I tried to do some chips when my mother went out and of course I burnt the kitchen. When she came back, the whole kids was burnt down. Really, yeah, yeah, yeah, what burnt down. It was burnt totally. Oh, my good black. So we had to get out of the house, get a fireman.
Speaker 2:But the thing was that was me, so I burnt the kitchen down. So, anyway, we had to have it all redone, redecorated for everything, because it was just the stove was all burned, all the top was burnt. I think they had to get new tops and things. Yes, it was just a bit of a rough thing and we were cooking Somewhere else at that time with until it was done. But I Used to make scones. I used to always put my scones Into the local fair because we always had local fairs, so I used to put it into the local fate and tram win. I won every single year.
Speaker 1:Where was this?
Speaker 2:This was in presswood. This little, this little girl used to put her scones in and and the reason I won, and I didn't know until afterwards, my mother used to give me rancid milk, because that's what it needs, rancid way. So of course that's what gave it that sort of edge, that that sort of that sort of acidity. It was like, um, it was. It was like you know, when you get something that's away weighing curd, curd and way buttermilk, that's what you get.
Speaker 1:So you were learning the skills on an early age. You just didn't know it at the time.
Speaker 2:I didn't know it, but they were very delicious.
Speaker 1:And actually the point is, though, that because of that you know, something you didn't know becomes a thing. Yeah, then probably sparks your interest in well.
Speaker 2:It did. I thought I was really interested because they were, because no other scones tasted like mine and they were so good and you know it's like curdle cheese or something. You know it's lovely, lovely, so and they won. They won every year and used to be so upset with me. So then my sister used to make gingerbread. She loved her gingerbread and it was gorgeous. So, and then, so, going into all those competitions, I used to love doing that. But then the thing is I loved art as well. I love drawing, I loved painting. I had this thing. They always thought I was going to be a full architect. I'll never forget for Christmas one day. Oh, my goodness me. I was so disappointed. You know what I got for Christmas? It was actually rather beautiful, but I got plans, bricks to build a house. My parents thought I wanted to build a house. Well, and they were proper bricks when I think about now, proper little bits of cement to really. But I was so disappointed.
Speaker 1:What did you want?
Speaker 2:I was. I think I wanted something else than that. I think I would have loved a kitchen aid or something, but they didn't have those in those days. But they wanted me to build a house. I said, my goodness me. But of course, me being polite, I kept it and did it. And so I did it because you can't be rude, we were never rude. We were never rude because it was sort of I was quite scared of my mother, I was frightened of her, so you'd never answer her back. You know, it was quite a scare. Even my father you couldn't in those days. I mean, I'm not sure whether it's respect or I mean there was a lot of respect there, but the problem was it wasn't a loving thing. You couldn't really be yourself. Because if you're going to say, if you're going to say what you really meant as my children all said them what they meant but actually it's a relationship.
Speaker 1:As a result of your own childhood and and it was, as you say, you know a different time. However, you also experienced a tough childhood. Did that make you, when you became a parent, just in your own head thing? I'm not doing it that way.
Speaker 2:Okay, this is so interesting. I didn't really know how to be a parent. Now this is, don't get me wrong, I was very lucky as a child. I had everything I wanted. So please, nobody feels sorry for me. I'm not complaining, but you know it's. It was just different. But I didn't know how to be a good parent. Now what I used to do was learn from my friends who had children Strange little things like I'll never forget a friend of mine called Corrine. When the children came home from school, she asked me if they wanted a cup of cocoa. You see, I was never been offered any cocoa or anything as a child, or cup of tea.
Speaker 1:So it wasn't a natural thing to do? No, it wasn't.
Speaker 2:So I said what a lovely thing to do and I started doing that and I did that. I've loved that ever since.
Speaker 1:So you learned from other people? Yes, I learned.
Speaker 2:I learned how to do things, isn't?
Speaker 1:that the way a lot of parents do, though you know everyone thinks that somehow there's a manual about how to be a good parent. There just isn't, is there.
Speaker 2:Nobody teaches you to be a parent. But also I was saying to my daughter it was quite funny you've only got one chance of it and we all get it wrong. We, all of us. I've got it wrong at Tarris. I've got it right as well.
Speaker 2:So I think, for me, I think the most important that I've had, that I've had to do, is always keep communications open and always be accessible to your children. One thing you don't want to do is shut them out, so you need to. For me, I've always been aware that I want the children to be part of you know, I love them. They're my kids, so I wouldn't do anything else. And but even if I didn't agree with some of the things they do, I try very hard not to be opinionated. I might. It's very hard for me at times when I see something, the one thing they do. Let me do now, all of them with my grandchildren. I actually say put your knife and fork down and eat with your mouth closed. Please Come on and they, let me do this with them. And you know, because I'm quite sort of, I want them to know how to behave.
Speaker 1:Well, that was probably how we first saw you on television with Led it to Lady. Led it to Lady, yeah, and this was huge.
Speaker 2:But I had no idea it was massive. I'd been on television way before that. I've been Castle Cook. I've been in Scotland. I've done loads of series, one in America. I've done a lovely one in America, you know, one in New York, one in all around New York, going around New York in the fire engine. I mean it was great.
Speaker 1:Do you think that TV show, though, was the first time it really catapulted you into a show?
Speaker 2:No, that wasn't because it was on channel five and nobody had channel five, so I think only two people watched it.
Speaker 1:Television then as part of your life, and it's huge, I mean unbelievably. It's gone on to huge journeys around the world. You've travelled everywhere. When did the first sort of fluttering of the television big screen stardom come?
Speaker 2:Okay, obviously I think it is Led it to Ladies. But you see, I didn't know how big it was. I had absolutely no idea Because I was working. I was doing my work, so it just so. I wasn't there to be, nobody could be there and see me, because I was just, I just played a part.
Speaker 1:Because that's the point, isn't it? Something we mentioned earlier that actually you know, you mentioned about going having the butchers nearby and the fruit and veg guy, and the fact is that they respect you, not because of a television programme because you're in the same industry, because of who I am. It's my food In catering and all the rest. So, therefore, tv for you wasn't even an idea that you'd become a celebrity.
Speaker 2:No, no, I didn't even, honestly. Okay, I always wanted to be famous. When I was young, I wanted to be famous. I also wanted to act. I wanted to be a comedian because I would have loved to have been some sort of funny show. You know, I wouldn't have been on telly, it would have been just brilliant. But also I wanted to cook as well. So the two go together. I think acting and cooking actually are quite sort of similar in a funny sort of way. It's a performance. It's a performance. So I love putting. When I'm up there demonstrating in front of a thousand people or 500 or however many there, I love it.
Speaker 1:Well, that's been something huge that you've done online. Yeah, I love it Because you were one of the first to go on and do YouTube videos.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was. I did all that YouTube online, but not any that. I mean it was my way and lockdown, curiously, to give back where people could come on every Saturday doing family cooking, family food, and they loved it. I had people from all over the world, literally from America, from everywhere, and had such fun and I really enjoyed it. So I've loved my journey in filming and I'm still filming. I mean I can't believe I'm still filming. And for me I've been all over the world, I mean on different, not on cooking, but cooking played a big part in these programs for me.
Speaker 2:So I used to go off and see people cooking and things like this.
Speaker 1:But also things like the Real Marigold Hotel, which became such a big thing, didn't they?
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, the Marigold Hotel was simply fabulous. I mean I got all over the forest. I mean, seriously, thailand, vietnam, all over, sort of Asia, really, it was all over. And from doing India to begin with, so there was hang on. There was Vietnam, china, thailand, japan, mexico, new York. I mean it was all over. It was all over.
Speaker 1:Because you enjoy the performance of cooking, do you enjoy the performance of television and do you find yourself like an actor inhabiting Rosemary Schrager brand or a skin?
Speaker 2:It's quite funny. You say that because when I perform because me performing is not an ego, performing is I love, performing full stop, just throwing it out there it's something that is a natural instinct. It's a natural thing. So it's not being a show off, that's what I'm trying to say. So performing to me is if I can do it in cooking a thousand people there in front of me, I adore it. I mean, it's like and I'm doing what I wanted to do, but I change.
Speaker 2:I do like you've said. I can't. Okay, I have a lot of humor. I can't help it. I can't help look at the funny side of things. And when I go in, sometimes there's a nice sea of people's heads and I go in, I said right, or put your hands up a wave, and I just think it's brilliant and I just love that. And it's not power, but it's enjoying the moment, it's intoxicating, it's intoxicating and I'm doing so many shows this year. I'm going all over. I always go all over Britain, from Buckinghamshire, shrewsbury, all over the place, scotland, new Namor. I'm going there because I love it. So it's the side I love more than anything else.
Speaker 1:But you're also known the other side of the pond as well, aren't you in the States?
Speaker 2:Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 1:I love you.
Speaker 2:They do.
Speaker 1:When did that really sort of when you realise, actually you know, robbie Williams couldn't break America, but Rosemary Shraig could.
Speaker 2:Well, I wouldn't say a broken America by any means the imagination, but people do like me out there and I think it's because I'm a bit off the wall and I'm a bit sort of bossy. Do you know what?
Speaker 1:I think it is what. I think it's the Julia Child effect. Do you think so? Yeah, because I think that when I think of Julia Child and you know, recently Sarah Lancashire did the TV programme- didn't she?
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 1:When I think of Julia Child and have the passion that she gave to cooking. Yes, that for me, is the kind of person you are.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's true actually. Yes, yes, it is true that Because I always thought I'd love to have played Julia Child but I'm too fat for that one, too much of the full of figure Because she was very thin and very tall and quintessentially British and you know she was very upright and you know, didn't dig any nonsense and I loved her. I think she was an amazing woman. In fact, how I learnt to cook was actually from Julia Child's books, because I used to go volume one and volume two and I went through them. Like you can't say no pictures, but I just went through it and if I found myself in trouble, you know, as everybody knows, I would actually ring a hotel, you know, and just get them ringed larriages or something.
Speaker 1:There's an air about you, there's a and I know that you're also. It's just you.
Speaker 2:Well, the thing is, you always know, when I go into a room, I'm very quiet today because I've been paid, so I have to say this is actually a good thing. I'm actually quite enjoying being quiet.
Speaker 1:Do you know what this is? Quite gentle, this is the most unusual podcast recording I've ever done, in the sense of I've never had a guest who said to me I'll carry on regardless of the toothache.
Speaker 2:Oh yes.
Speaker 1:I mean, this, is you all over?
Speaker 2:Yes, I did, but I wrapped up.
Speaker 1:But always putting other people first, like you said before.
Speaker 2:Of course I always do. Well, do you know what? Actually, I'm going to give you a little bit of philosophy here. I think it's always good to think of other people before yourself and just think what they would like. It's like trying to make people feel special. I think that's really important and that's my philosophy. I love to make people feel important and special and I love to give people things and I love to give people time. I hardly ever say no to anything. I mean, you know if I can help it they want, or two things I've had to say no to because they clash or I can't do it.
Speaker 1:What would you not want to do in your life, now that you, you know and you continue to achieve probably everything you want to achieve in terms of oh, no, I haven't oh.
Speaker 2:Oh no, I haven't. There's so much I want to do. Oh, my goodness, dom, you've not even started. You know there's a thing it's never too late. The only thing I'm going to say to you is I'm now not going to do strictly, no way. I was at one time, but I know where am I doing strictly?
Speaker 1:You did do celebrity.
Speaker 2:Get me out of here. Yes, so basically, well, I was doing strictly but it got into the papers. So they dropped me. They phoned me out, got into the Sunday papers, phoned me up and said we told you, if it got to the papers, you're out. I was out, but actually what they did was they invited me to go into the audience, which is OK. So I sat on the front but it didn't matter. I'm not unduly worried what I. There's all sorts of things I got, all sorts of things I want to do. I would like to go to places where I can really learn different sorts of cooking, because, apart from going to the Far East, everybody's put me as this sequentially British lady which I suppose I am.
Speaker 1:When you do a TV show that isn't about your cookery, that is about you as the character of Rosemary Schrager from the Telly, what's in your mind about the reason for doing it?
Speaker 2:Right, there's two things. If it's a game show, I'm rubbish, I can't do it. If I'm doing, say something like I would do it if I could earn a lot of money for charity. But if I was doing something like I'm a celebrity, I had to think about that quite carefully, only because you could see you in a different light. But this is just me. I was just me. I was the same as this. But what I thought I'd do is I thought I'd go in and I would just be me and I. That's it. There was no edge, no agenda, no, nothing. That's what I decided to do and it really worked for me.
Speaker 1:You came out of I'm a Celebrity.
Speaker 2:I think you were the sixth to come out Sixth, something like that 2012. Yes.
Speaker 1:There's a big time in the country for the Olympics. Yes, and you came out of that show. Yes, and it was brilliant because people you know even more so than ever before.
Speaker 2:But you know also why I did it. Because I was moving to Tumbridge Wells opening the Cookery School, so I also did it. So I thought it would be good for my profile, so I did it. Did it work? Not really, no. The thing is you should never go into these programs thinking you're going to get something over it. I think you need to go into the programs if you want to do it, if you're joined. Like Mary Goldenthal, I love that. I wanted to go to A India A, to the Far East. I wanted to go all over the place and I was given the opportunity to go. So I mean, who wouldn't do it? Who wouldn't do it?
Speaker 1:Now, as I look down onto your table in front of us here and this is a lovely room and I can see your island over there, where you do lots of cookery, a lot of stuff online as well, which you'll do from there. Yeah but one thing I do see in front of me is what looks like a Sherlock Holmes Eyeglass, and all you need is the gloves underneath it is a book. Yes, and it says here, rosemary Schrager, too many cooks. Now, this is one of a number of books that in recent years you've written.
Speaker 1:This is the one that came out in 2024 the last supper, proof-in-the-pudding as well. When did you realize that you had another part of your life? You were gonna be the Agatha Christie.
Speaker 2:Not her, but my agent Heather. I went to boarding school with her. I went to school with her. She phoned me up, my literary agent, and she said to me look, rosemary, I know you love murders, mysteries, why don't you try and write one? Because I've always written for so magazine, as you know, and With all the different magazines, the mail and things and even the telegraph I've done, you know, bits and pieces for everybody. So writing is not a problem, because If you're dyslexic, like me, it doesn't matter, because you've got spell check and all this new editors to read it all for I was gonna say that I knew you were dyslexic, but I wondered whether that was in a way you, you also challenging yourself.
Speaker 2:Well, I am, but also I'm imaginative. I'm very imaginative. So I did a synopsis, I put the names down and I decided at that point that I would only use people that I, that I knew Right, that I knew from, or whatever. So suki, my granddaughter she's my assistant, prudence bolster it is me, my assistant is called numbers in the book. It is suki's best friend. So I put all the characters I knew as the main Characters. So that was easy. So I did all that, and then I did.
Speaker 2:I've done a lot of things like country house shooting, weekends for fun, and so I set it in a country house in the Cotswolds the first one and we had all that, and then all the people who were there and it just sort of did anyway, sent it all off. It didn't send the script, just sent the first chapter and and then they had a synopsis of all the other chapters, and Because you have to find out who's the murderer and who isn't, and who's going to who's been murdered and who's the murderer, and it was really difficult, really difficult, and I got someone in to actually Help me learn how to do it, because I had to learn to write again. I had to learn and I wasn't good. So this person put me in the right direction, showed me how to do it, and it was just brilliant. I mean, it was a wonderful thing. And I still I still ring him up and saying, look, shall I do it this way or what do you think? Because if you've got that help, it's wonderful but you're now three books in.
Speaker 2:I know I can't believe it Actually gets harder. It's actually got a lot harder than it was. Because the first one was pretty straightforward, to be honest with you, because it's quite, it's about prudence going to a country house and it's all it was and having the weekend there and somebody being murdered and the chef being murdered and who was a rival, and then there's another murder in it. So those are what I don't want to give it away. And then the other one was about. The other one was about Yorkshire, where I lived. In Yorkshire there was a whole load of fracking and engineering company Actually where I lived and they were trying to do this. Some fracking, of course up in arms wouldn't have it, so of course that was about that too. So that was easy.
Speaker 1:So you it's not easy but you were gathering all this kind of back story and and making it all happen and and having well, I was working.
Speaker 2:I didn't know that, though while I was working I Didn't realize, as my all my jobs, like Cornwall, this latest one setting cool. I lived in Cornwall. It was easy. My daughter went to school in pensance and boarding school it was easy, so I'd based it all on that.
Speaker 1:So what, what is that life like as a writer, then? And and it's if you can, if you compare it, rosemary, to the other things that you do in life, from the catering side, cooking, creating, okay, art, yeah, all these things, they're all part of this artistic life.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes. Well, I would say writing is probably one of the hardest, because I get stuck, because the actual story is quite organic, because you know the people, you know everything that's happening, but you have to have Dummies going round and it's hard. So I've had to learn that. I'm not that brilliant, so but I've had, I've had to learn and I have learned and I Would say, although it's getting harder, the writings get a harder. I would say now I've sort of getting older. It's actually probably the better thing for me now because, as as I'm getting older but I love my TV, if I could, okay, if I could cup up with the writing and the events and all the events around the country and filming happy, happy bunny, I mean because I'm doing everything I love. I mean, wow, how many people actually are given the opportunity to do everything they love? And I'm doing everything I love. I mean it's so wonderful.
Speaker 1:What's your secret?
Speaker 2:I think keeping busy is Terribly important, because you know what they say always ask a busy person, always you'll get things done. It's true, always ask a busy person.
Speaker 1:You talk about the sort of busy side of your life, and it is. It is incredibly busy. It's frantic how do you juggle?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, one day is every day is never the same, ever. So I get up and I know I've got my diary two diaries. I look at my diary the night before so I know exactly what I'm doing. I think what is it? It's because it's exciting and interesting. I mean, what I'm really excited about, really excited about is if this my books get made into a TV series. I have signed an option to go with a production company and in fact we've redone it right, which is very exciting. So, but you know, you never know if it's going to go through or not. So I'm always keeping a very low key about it because if it does go ahead it will be so exciting. I think the prudence bolsteroid mysteries will be really exciting. I love the name prudence bolsteroid.
Speaker 1:Will you have a One of those directors, chairs and sit while it's all being made and I would definitely sit there.
Speaker 2:I would definitely sit there. But the other thing I'm doing at the moment, which actually is equally as exciting, is I'm bringing products out. I'm bringing the rosemary products out. The company is called rosemars and I'm so excited about it. It's jammed chutneys and you can get it from a card on all those sort of things From farm shops and things and pies. I've got pies, also, rosemary pies. It's really exciting how my coffee is coming out soon, which I'm excited about, and I'm bringing some soft drinks as well.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's exciting when you say that and you say about all those things We've just spent the last you know period of time talking about here in your home. At the heart of it, you're a very, very and this is not patronizing at all that you're a very, very shrewd business person, aren't you?
Speaker 2:Well, I've got to think about pension. So my pension, uh, it's very important that you know it's all very well, you can have all this thing, but you know, because of my I think I mean I can be honest with you because you know I've had some financial hardships in my life, so I want to make sure that things will go Right when I retire, which is not yet, can't afford to retire yet, so I have to. Um, so it didn't just happen thinking, oh, I want to get some products because I want a pension. No, it's happened because I'm a diabetic. So I couldn't find anything. No, sugar added to nice chutneys or anything. I couldn't find any.
Speaker 2:And I thought, oh, this is ridiculous, I think I'm gonna make my own so you went into the kitchen and did it that's what happened, yeah, so I went to the wooden spoon and we came up with some sugar free, you know, no sugar added, and so I've got all this and I'm I'm adding to the collection because there's so many people, um, who need no sugar added, you know where. Maybe you're on a diet, maybe your diabetes or whatever because it's a natural sugar, but there's no processed sugar added to it.
Speaker 1:And I and I guess that's really important for you as also a chef, a cook to oh, to make sure that you get it right.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and it is absolutely Delicious. People ring me up and they say, oh, my god, I can't believe that jam, the strawberry and raspberry jam is absolutely delightful. My chili jam is wonderful.
Speaker 1:Oh, a fig and chutney, a fig and apple jam is delicious over all these years of what you've done on television, what you've written in newspapers, the book writing, the art, the, the sense of actually, as a business person, being part of culinary Worlds, that you've done all the cooking. I can't even imagine how many, how many different meals you've made over the years. What is it about the physicality? We talked about performance earlier. What is it about the physicality? Bringing ingredients together and wanting to create something. What do you get out of it?
Speaker 2:I tell you what I get out of it. I get Joy that something is right, that something combination is right, balance. I get, if you've come up with something. Knew my famous chicken potato pie. That is famous. Everybody loves it. How that was developed is how I like to do it.
Speaker 2:I see everything through pictures because going to our college and things, it was all through pictures. So, and because living in Cornwall at the time and everybody loves opacity, everybody loves opacity. So I actually thought hang on a moment, why can't we make a great big round pasty? So that was when I did the chicken and potato and the tarragon pie and made a huge one, massive one, because I thought at the time it was far too small to take on a picnic. That's it. I made a big one and that's where that came from.
Speaker 2:So it's a creation. It's creating something almost out of nothing, but I love it when the seasons come in. I'm a great season person. So if you have the autumn with the root vegetables, how lovely is that. You have June, when you've got your lovely strawberries, You've got the asparagus in May, you've got the April May, you've got all that, the English stuff, all these lovely, lovely things. You've got the delicious loganberries coming in, you know, late summer You've got the raspberries. You've got raspberries all through the spring, right through to the winter raspberries nearly so. All in all, I think for me it's about making the best of the produce you've got and just making it delicious and creating delicious dishes. I don't what I feel very strongly about. I don't think you need to play around with food, because if food is good and if it's fresh, you get it from the markets or you get it from the side of the road too. You pick up some wonderful stuff on the side of the road, you know.
Speaker 1:And what do you mean about playing around with food?
Speaker 2:Well, what I mean is people, when somebody puts something into a pan, they play with it. They literally play with it and they don't know how they need to stop and just let it do its job and it's like not caressing it. But you have to treat food like a baby. You don't bash it, except puff pastry, Just a little bit.
Speaker 1:It sounds to me like it's your respect for the food that is in front of you.
Speaker 2:Always respect for food, always respect. And I'll never forget watching Pierre Kaufman in the kitchen at Tom Clare, and when he cooked it was as if he wasn't cooking.
Speaker 1:Tell me about him.
Speaker 2:Right, pierre Kaufman is one of the greatest chefs of our time and he's what I call one of the last of the classics, big classics. Monsieur Baudin, who was at Clareages, he was one of the big classics but he's retired now. So is Pierre Kaufman, but he still goes around doing stuff. I have a lot of time for him and I was there at Tom Clare with him and I was sort of a lonely person and but he basically was. He had, when you watched him he treated it so respectfully. The food it was never plonk plonk there. You just he just had a way and it was almost as if he wasn't cooking. I mean, it almost got done before you realised. And that's what I wanted to be like and I think that's what I'm like now.
Speaker 1:And that experience of being in kitchens as well, particularly when you first start out. Everyone talks about these places being really scary and actually the personalities that you sometimes are with and sometimes the chauvinism and all these things that happen. What was your experience?
Speaker 2:Oh, I think being in kitchens can be a bit of a scariest thing. It depends who the chefs you're with too. That doesn't help if you have horrible chefs, so it depends who you're with and how you get on with them. It's very good to have banter in the kitchen.
Speaker 1:Are you a tough chef?
Speaker 2:Yes, I am, actually when I'm in charge. Yes, I am, I'm sorry to say I think, because you are only as good as your last supper, and that's the important thing. And it's tough because all of the blame goes to the chef in charge, the head chef, nobody else. That's your responsibility.
Speaker 1:Do you think that new people coming into the kitchen for the first time, do you think they accept that that is probably the way it's going to be, and is it a good thing to actually have them under pressure?
Speaker 2:Okay, today there isn't as much pressure as there was. There's still pressure, believe me. There has to be in service, still pressure and to get things done. Maison plus it's very important, but the kitchen is a pressured place. The old saying if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. It's exactly that, but it's very rewarding. I think the kitchen has had a very bad reputation. Also, the fact is that we've and I'm to blame you make people work very, very hard and longer hours, but now you're not allowed to. So it's been. I think, for people who's going into the catering world now it's not nearly as bad as it used to be. But the thing is, you know the chefs who are going to make it, because they're the chefs who don't clock off. They're the chefs who really take it seriously, because I would never clock off. I would always finish what I was doing and make sure everything was going to be okay. You can't just clock off. It's as simple as that.
Speaker 1:Is it a job that also comes at a cost to family, to friends?
Speaker 2:It is a job that comes at a cost, because I had to give up all entertainment. I had to give up a lot of weddings, a lot of parties, dinner parties. I just gave up. So my social life were the chefs. I mean, you know, for a long time and in a way I still have that slight thing because my friends are still chefs and they're still in the zone. So I do feel quite close to you. Know, this is as part of our life and that's what it is for you. But you also get to meet some lovely people along the way, like actresses and actors. So you make them your friends because you're in the same sort of industry, but not quite, but you are, because it's still on TV and you're still entertaining. So I've been in the TV for many, many years. So I do know a lot of people just because I've been around a long time. It's not because I'm, you know, famous or anything, but I do think that it's. It's a wonderful career and so I've had to. I'll never forget.
Speaker 2:The only thing I really regret oh, my gosh, when my daughter was graduating, I'll never forget and we had these Italian brothers coming over from Positano and they had to be. They had to have a dinner that night, obviously, because I was doing all the functions in this place and everything else, and I wanted to go to my daughter's graduation and they wouldn't let me. There's no way. So, of course, and today, she still suffers from that and she still says I'll never. You know, she's still, you know, at the time said, oh, mum, don't worry about it, don't worry. But of course she did worry about it and I've never forgiven myself for that, because I should have been there but I couldn't.
Speaker 2:I would have lost my job at that time. I would have. I was lucky to do what I'm doing. I was doing so at that time. I think if I had gone, just gone, it would have been bad, I wouldn't have got back. So, um, yeah, I didn't go to the graduation. That's sad. Weddings, all those sort of things, christenings, it's fine, you know it doesn't matter, but that was different, that was different. That was a, that was a moment that I should have been there.
Speaker 1:So this life does sometimes come at a cost.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, yes, it is. My husband went, but it wasn't the same he, you know, he just basically it wasn't enough. She wanted me there, oh. So it's tough. Yes, so it does. It does get to the heartstrings really. It does, um, it does catch you a bit, but it's life and that's what you have to give, that's what you do give up when you you know you're chefing. So chefs are friends and everybody knows what it's like and you know, if you have a party, for instance, you always have to have a party on a Monday because that's the only time chef's free. So basically, it's a different life. It can't be a Saturday or a Friday or a Sunday, it has to be a Monday.
Speaker 1:It's amazing talking to you. Thank you for being a guest here on Talking Is that the time already Pleasure.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me Don.
Speaker 1:Now, how's the toothache?
Speaker 2:It's really painful, it's really bad. I'm having really bad, but you know what it's. How can I say you put me off my pain, which is great.
Speaker 1:Until next time. Thanks for listening. The music for this podcast is composed by Johnny Easton. Talking is a laughing frog production.
Speaker 2:My face. I've got a swollen jaw, but I'm drugged up to the eyeballs. Cocoa de mole. Don't worry, not with drugs. I don't do drugs. Just say no, kids. Just say no Very important.
