Sophie Ellis-Bextor (bite-sized)

On singer Sophie Ellis-Bextor's menu: lobster casserole, pasta by the beach, and cod and chorizo stew. 

Wanna hear the full episode? Listen in tomorrow Tuesday June 2, and make sure to tell someone you know loves Sophie Ellis-Bextor! 

To find out more about the project and Savva - head to threefoodmemories.com
Insta - @savvasavas @threefoodmemories

Email us at threefoodmemories@plated.com.au, we'd love to hear from you! 

TFM is produced and edited by Lauren McWhirter with original music by Russell Torrance. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

So let's learn three things about you. Let's start with your first food memory.

SPEAKER_00 0:11

So I wanted to start with um with Richard, my husband. So we've been married for 20 years, and part of the way that we wooed each other was with food. Um I um this sounds really terrible, but I quickly um de-established his vegetarianism because I was like, I think I can see a possibility of getting that guy into eating fish and meat. So that was my contribution to his diet. But for me, he would just always cook for me. And one of the first things he cooked for me was a Valentine's Day meal where he made a lobster casserole and spent a really long time on it. And he's actually a good, a really good cook. But I think I also could see that he must be quite serious about me to spend time and energy making this really quite complicated meal. So I always think back to those bits because also he doesn't really cook in quite the same way now. He's he's he's he's a great cook, but I think that one was like something he obviously saw and thought I would really want to impress her. So he made this, took him hours, this lobster casserole, but it was delicious.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

Does he repeat the recipe? The repeat the lobster casserole they've eaten up.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

We've never had it again since. So I think that's also that thing, it's quite a good symbol of you know, when you're getting to know someone and you you put on slightly different hats to sort of show, try and like bring them into your world. But yeah, he uh that's yeah, that was what he he gave me this uh this casserole. But yeah, he basically because he ate um seafood and fish, I was like, I'm pretty sure I can get that guy eating meat. And again, I cooked for him, something I never have but I haven't really cooked again since I did him some duck because I was like, well, if you eat things under the water, then maybe if we just go to the the surface of the water and then move slightly over to land. Uh and it works surprisingly easily, I have to say.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

Well, let's go straight to the middle now of your second food memory. What's your second food memory, Sophie?

SPEAKER_00 2:13

Yeah, and actually it ties in nicely with what we've been talking about, actually, because it's about um family. So we we have we actually take quite a lot of holidays together as a family, and I don't just mean the seven of us, I mean uh every summer we go to Italy, and invariably that's that's us lot, maybe some of the boys might have a mate uh that comes out as well, and then that'll be my mum, my brother, my sister, her husband, their baby. So there can be quite a big group of us, maybe like 12 or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

So the Von Traps on steroid.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

Exactly. And uh this is something we've been doing for years, and there's a place in Italy, so just south of the Amalfi coast. Um, there's a place called uh Santa Maria de Castillabate, and there's a little resort there that we first went to when I was probably oh gosh, probably about 10 or something, 11. And then we've we've gone back again when I was maybe a teenager, and then again in my early 20s, and then again uh with as a whole, but bigger, bigger family. And there's a little beach cafe there where the food is so good. So I wanted to pick one of the things from there, and actually, I'm really happy just having like spaghetti, like Pomodoro, like something very simple, lovely glass of greco with the turfo. You sat there in your swimsuit, you've got sand on your feet, um, you're on plastic chairs, you're looking out over the ocean. Um, so it's incredibly chilled and just everything feels safe, smells perfect, you know, like you're just very happy in your world, all surrounded, all a bit busy, kids wanting ice creams, you know, all that kind of stuff. It's fun.

SPEAKER_01 4:01

So what was in what was in the cookbook?

SPEAKER_00 4:04

Well, yeah, because this is my third food memory as well. I was gonna choose a recipe that's in that book, but also links to music. Once we were doing the discos and it it went a little bit bonkers, and we amassed a huge community by the end, actually. It was really extraordinary. Uh actually meant that a really lovely uh publishing house called Octopus got in touch about doing a cookbook. But what they didn't know is that we had ha we'd already tried. So in 2017, Richard and I had pitched a cookbook idea that we had with about 80 different recipes we'd sort of accumulated because we both love food, it's such a big part of our lives, it's such a love language and our world, and also we're surrounded by people who really love it too. So we always wanted the cookbook, if we ever got the opportunity to do one, to have you know some of his dad's recipes, Tony to Sony with the chef, have some of my mum in there, have my brother in there, the kid's first nanny, Claire, she had to be in there because she always cooks, so her cake, just stuff like that. Just wanted it to be really inclusive and convivial and chilled and generous and very family. And so we'd already started compiling all that, and Optopus were brilliant because they were like, Oh, yeah, okay, great. But the thing that had just been the precursor to the pitch was that when I made my let me think, sixth album, I made an album called Familia, when I did that record. Uh, so I made the album, we recorded it in two weeks in this lovely little studio, and I just had my fourth baby, so he was 16 weeks old when we went into the studio, and so I was obviously singing my vocals and and um being present for every day of recording, but I wasn't always needed in the studio for the you know, the recording piano or guitar or whatever. So I would cook and I'd cook supper every day for everybody the engineers, the producers, the musicians, we'd all sit. So Richard was one of the musicians, our friend Ed was one of the musicians, and we'd all sit around a table in the evening and I'd lay out whatever I'd cooked that day with this little four-month-old baby, and it just felt incredibly wholesome. So, one of the recipes in the cookbook that I was gonna suggest as my brood memory is um this codon chorizo stew, because I know that was one of the dishes I cooked during that time making the album. But then also after that, we were like, maybe we can make a cookbook here because we both love it. You know, we we'd I'd cooked for this for the band, I'd cooked as part of this record process, and it was just as I said, yeah, very, very wholesome, but also very us. So that was that's kind of what was part of like the little seed of what became the cookbook.