#2 - Another One Bites The Crust

Hello & welcome back to the second episode of Flour Power Podcast!
In Episode Two, Hannah and Lotty dive into friendships, breakups, and new beginnings while baking pizza and flammkuchen together. You can find both recipes up on our blog here!

Featured in this episode:
Buckwheat Galettes by Riverford
IKEA Miniature Greenhouse
Colleen Hoover, It Ends With Us
Alice Oseman and the Osemanverse
Amelie, the restaurant where Lotty discovered Flammkuchen 

Follow along for delicious recipes and thought-provoking conversations - You can find us on Instagram @flour_power_podcast, and listen across Spotify, YouTube, Samsung Podcasts and the RSS Feed on our website https://www.flour-power-podcast.com/ 

Transcript

HANNAH: Hello, and welcome back to the second episode of Flower Power, a baking podcast with two 20 somethings just waffling through our twenties Together. We're so excited to be sharing this project with you.

LOTTY: Each episode, we choose a recipe to make together, despite being over 150 miles away from each other. In this episode, we're making pizza and flammkuchen while discussing our thoughts on breakups, drifting apart, and starting new chapters. So, we each have our ingredients laid out and ready to go.

HANNAH: Right! This is something we didn't do a very good job of last time, so we're actually doing it this time, and we're actually going to tell you what we're making [laughs] because I don't know if we even mentioned it once.  So, in this episode -

LOTTY: I feel like we did, but, only vaguely

HANNAH: It wasn’t very clear! So, this time we're actually going to tell you what we're doing. So, I'm making pizza, which is a really easy meal, especially if you are not great at baking, or it's like a first time. It's just a really good basic recipe. And once you have the ingredients sort of in your cupboard, you don't really need anything else. So, you can make it when you have like no food, which is my dream.

LOTTY: Sounds pretty ideal. I'm pushing the boat out a little bit, and I'm making something called flammkuchen, which is a German / French, sort of from the Alsatian region, kind of pizza, which I discovered of all places on a little weekend trip to Cambridge with my partner. Flammkuchen was used by bakers traditionally to check whether the oven was preheated or not, so they'd make a fat piece of dough just as a test piece, shove it in the oven for however long it needed to get cooked, and then they would put whatever toppings they wanted on to: traditionally crème fraiche and caramelized onions and sometimes bacon. And then the bakers would have that for their lunch. So, it was essentially a way of just checking whether their oven was hot enough to actually bake their bread. It's very similar functionally to pizza: It uses obviously flour, water, olive oil, and has the necessary making of the dough and letting it rise. It's just got a slightly different origin story, so I've never made this before, so, we will see how we go.

HANNAH: Always fun to try new things. I'm making my pizza with butter and I usually make it with olive oil because I heard it that it makes the dough slightly softer. So, we’ll see if that is true or not.  I'm using spreadable butter, so it's got olive oil in it anyway, so hopefully it won't go too wrong! [laughs]

LOTTY: Sounds like we're both experimenting.

HANNAH: We're definitely experimenting. Right so, for me, the first step is I'm going to use my fun new kitchen gadget, and I'm going to sift which is strong white bread flour, and I've got 500 grams of strong white bread flour. I'm just going to sift it through into my bowl, which I imagine is going to take forever. But this is a fun device and I needed to have it. Look how cool it looks!

LOTTY: That is pretty awesome. Mine also starts, well, I will let you enjoy that, mine starts with flour. I'm using about half the amount because I'm just doing it for two people. So, I mix that together with salt and a little bit of water and two tablespoons of olive oil. So, I'm just adding my water to my bowl now. Followed by two tablespoons of olive oil and, and a generous pinch of salt.

HANNAH: That didn't take as long as I thought it would. Great. Then next up, I will add my yeast! I always put my yeast on one side of the bowl, as you don't want your yeast sugar and salt to touch directly.  Then I'll put a pinch of salt. The yeast is seven grams, by the way, pinch of sugar and my butter, which I have melted beforehand. There we go.

LOTTY:  So interestingly, as a point of contrast, flammkuchen doesn't have any leavening agent to it. It is literally just flour, salt, water, and oil. So, it's an unleavened bread - which is great because I don't have any yeast in my cupboards! So, if you want to make pizza but can't for the life you find yeast or… You know, gone off or something. (I don't think yeast can go off… anyway.) It’s literally just four ingredients. Which I love that kind of simplicity to be honest. That's very helpful.

HANNAH: Yeah, I like things that require minimum… ingredients, minimum effort, just like simple, good food is definitely my favorite kind of food. What I just did then (that you didn't see, because just did it without saying anything) I poured some water in. I've got warm water. When you're doing anything to do with water and flour, do not just pour the full volume in all at once because different flowers from different bags will have a different amount of moisture already in the grain, so you need to pour it in bit by bit. Otherwise, you'll end up with either a really wet sticky dough or there won't be enough water, so less is more. Take your time. It's better that way.

LOTTY: As people have probably noticed, I did not do that! I literally just put the flour in, put the water in, put the salt in, put the oil in. Because my method of baking is… I will just sort of do things and if it needs anything added, I will kind of intuit as I go along. So, for example, this dough, which I need to knead together for about five minutes until it's nice and smooth, if it starts feeling too sticky, I'll add more flour. If it starts feeling too dry, I will add a little bit water to it.

HANNAH: I follow the same practice, but I know of many people specifically in like Food Tech who would just pour in 400 milliliters of water on top of some bread flour and then they would just end up with glue, because glue is flour and water.

LOTTY: Yeah,

HANNAH: And that’s not what you are going for here.

LOTTY: No, you want something edible, for example. I don't think either of us condone eating glue [laughs]

HANNAH: No. You want a, a stretchy elastic dough.  So kneading is something that I assume some people probably never done before. It's quite a common thing in terms of me and Charlotte, we grew up baking, Charlotte's dad made bread all the time - and her mum, so I've watched people bake forever.  So, its kind of is just second nature to both of us at this point!  But when you are kneading, you are stretching the gluten. So, the aim is to pull it away from you and then pull it back. So, push it away, pull it back. You can do that with one hand, you can do it with both hands. You want to just pull out the gluten, which gives the dough that elasticating feeling. And it should take between at most 10 minutes, but five to 10 minutes you’ll get a round kind of stretchy feeling dough in the end, especially if it has yeast. 

So, while we're baking, we are going to share our favorite things that we found recently, a recipe, a book, or just something intriguing we've discovered, as well as sharing a little fudge up or two, because we are human, not perfect, and we make fudge ups. (I'm very good at that) I don't think I can count on one hand for the number of F jobs I've made in the last week. [laughs]

LOTTY: Oh my God.  Mine. I haven't made that many, but the ones that I have made have been kind of significant…

[Music]

LOTTY: My favorite thing that I've managed to do this month is I tried something new for Pancake Day. So, on Pancake Day, myself and my partner had over a friend of ours who's gluten free. So, we needed to try something other than your standard crêpe suzette. And so instead he made Buckwheat galettes. So galettes are a type of pancake that's from Northern France, specifically the Brittany / Normandy region.  And Buckwheat is not actually a wheat tour, it's a member of the rhubarb family, but it's not got any gluten in it.

HANNAH: Huh, I didn’t know that.

LOTTY: Yeah, I didn't either. But it's not got any gluten in it at all. So, it's perfectly safe for people who are gluten-free. I don’t whether that applies to celiacs as well, but anyway, so we made buckwheat that, and normally when I've done these before, I’ve put like spinach and mushrooms and like an egg in the middle. But I found another recipe from the people that I get my veg box from, which used a béchamel sauce and Swiss Chard. So, it turned out really wonderful actually. I was very, very pleased with it. And.

HANNAH: It sounds so good.

LOTTY: It went down pretty well. I'd love to make it for you at some point.

HANNAH: Oh yeah. You're going to have to start cooking for me more [laughs]

LOTTY: Oh, absolutely.

HANNAH: Not sure how we’re going to make that work, but

LOTTY: I mean, I can't really send galettes in the post. I could send you the recipe?

HANNAH: that's true. That that would count.

LOTTY:  What's your favorite thing been this month?

HANNAH: So, I have a… I'm not going to call it a tiny plant obsession because it's not a tiny plant obsession. [both laugh] When we moved into this house, me and my partner, we'd never lived together before. And he made an off-hand comment just before we moved in that, “oh, it would be nice to have some plants.” And I took that to the actual fucking extreme. [laughs] and now we have minimum five plants in every room in our house.

LOTTY: My god.

HANNAH: And so, my favorite this month was that I treated myself to an IKEA trip. And it is a treat to go to IKEA because I can't not spend loads of money and come out with Swedish meatballs. It's just a rule.

LOTTY: IKEA is a day trip. It's not a shop. It's a day trip.

HANNAH: Yeah. And I don't make the rules. So, when IKEA told me that they have a mini greenhouse and that it was on sale. I couldn't not buy myself a mini greenhouse. So, I'll attach a photo of it either on our Instagram or to the video. Not sure which yet, but I will show you my mini greenhouse. And so currently I've got a mini greenhouse in my bedroom and it makes me so goddamn happy. And then -

LOTTY: That is so sweet.

HANNAH: literally today, just before we started recording, I ended up re-potting one of my favorite plants, and I found loads of corms in it, C-O-R-M-S which are little bits that grow off of the bottom of a root of a plant, which is essentially a bulb that you can grow other plants off of. So, my plant made me 15 babies,

LOTTY: Aww…

HANNAH: now I've got 15 babies incubating in my bedroom. [laughs]

LOTTY: Wait. Does that make you, if you were a plant mum now before, does that make you like a plant Grandma? You're a plant grandma?

HANNAH: well, I've already done cuttings as well, which is when you take a piece of a plant, snip it off, put it in water, or you can put it in Perlite even,

LOTTY: oh, Perlite’s good for drainage.

HANNAH: to grow its own root systems - and that is essentially cloning. So, I would argue that not only am I a plant mom, I'm a plant mom, I'm a plant scientist, and I am also now a plant grandmother. And I'm so excited. [laughs]

LOTTY: That is brilliant.

HANNAH: I've also been planting my spring garden. So, I've got -

LOTTY: Oh, exciting.

HANNAH: loads of flowers and bulbs into the ground.  My new planter is arriving tomorrow, my raised bed, so that I can grow my own fruits and vegetables, my garlic is growing.

LOTTY: Oh wow.

HANNAH: I might end up with an allotment to grow my complete my own fruits and veg because I’m a fairly picky eater anyway. So, it wouldn't be all that hard for me to grow things that I would eat.  But to get to only eat vegetables and fruits that you've grown, just sounds like a dream.

LOTTY: sounds like an episode of the Good Life.

HANNAH: Yeah, and I've got potatoes, garlic, beetroot, flowers so that I can have my own flowers in my vases. These daffodils behind you, I grew those!

LOTTY: Did you actually? Oh, that's so sweet.

HANNAH: so, I can have - the roses, I did not grow. Those were Valentine's present from to me.  Because self-love is important.

LOTTY: We love self-love in this house. You know what my partner did for Valentine's Day?

HANNAH: Go on.

LOTTY: He bought me Lego; he bought me Lego flowers –

HANNAH: That is my true love language.

LOTTY: - and I bought him Lego flowers as well.  Like we both bought each other, not the same pack, but very similar packs. And in the, like in the time since Valentine's [laughs] we've each sort of been like helping the other to make these because I bought him the tiny plants, and he bought me the succulents.

HANNAH: I Like that set!

LOTTY: They're so cute! Oh my God!

HANNAH: The succulents I don't have but the tiny plants I do have, and they are scattered all over my house very affectionately.

LOTTY: Yeah. I've got the succulents here and they're my new favorite thing. But genuinely when on Valentine's evening, we’d just gone out for dinner at this lovely Italian place. And we got back and I presented him with a box, and his face sort of fell slightly when he opened it. And I was like, “are you okay? Is… did I do something wrong?” And then he was like, “no, I just here!” and just thrust this equally sized box at me.  And turns out we'd both fought each other very, very similar things. We ended up laughing about it for about 20 minutes before we started building them.  It was… oh, that was a lovely evening.

HANNAH: yeah. We're both Lego households, aren't we?

LOTTY: Oh yeah.

HANNAH: I don't think I truly understood the joy of Lego – I liked Lego as a child, nowhere near as much as I like Lego as an adult! Because there is nothing better than coming home from a day where you've spent the entire day on a computer, and like sitting there and getting to do something with your hands. So that's baking, gardening, messing about with my houseplant and getting them all repotted or…  Making Lego, I build puzzles.  I do puzzles now.

LOTTY: Oh wow.

HANNAH: I just like doing things with my hands that don't involve being in front of a screen. I feel like we live our lives in front of screens now, and there's just more to it. I don't want to spend my life sitting their doomscrolling. It's very easy to do and sometimes you do need it, but I feel significantly more fulfilled by baking some cookies, doing another 10 minutes of my puzzle, sitting in the bath and having a read.  So, I'm trying to get better at having that time.

LOTTY:  So, I work from home and when it's a quiet minute, I've taken to just getting out my doodle book [singsong] that someone very special got me for Christmas. Thank you, Hannah! And doodling for like 10, 15 minutes or however long it is until the next phone call comes in. Whichever one's longer and I will doodle one of these things. It doesn't happen every day, but when it does, I always feel so much more grounded and rested after having done that. And it's just, honestly, it's lovely. It's, I'm so glad that I get to do that for myself now.

HANNAH: Right now, what I'm doing is I'm just putting my bread in the oven to prove, and by that, I mean I'm putting it in the oven at the lowest temperature it goes to because that can speed up the proving process so that it'll only take half an hour rather than an hour.

LOTTY: That's pretty good. My recipe just tells me to set the dough aside and cover it with a towel. So, I feel like flammkuchen is quite an unfussy thing. It doesn't need to be in a particularly warm place. It doesn't need to puff up too much. I mean, it doesn't have any yeast in it, it just has the gluten, so it doesn't matter too much. So, what a flammkuchen ends up with, and you'll see this at the end of the podcast when we do the reveal, is it's essentially like a thin and crispy kind of pizza dough right at the end. So, it doesn't need to puff up, it just, it's this really nice crispy flatbread. So, I'm looking forward to that.

HANNAH: I can't wait for pizza. love pizza, it's probably one of my favorite meals. When we were talking about episode titles and I was like: “Ooh, Another One Bites the Crust - I get to make pizza!” [laughs] I really wanted to make cupcakes and I really wanted to make pizza, and I really wanted to singsong] that make a bunch of other things, but you'll just have to wait to find out what they are!  Right so next, I'm making my source. Which you don't have to do by hand. You could just buy one. You could use tomato paste. If you don't have any time and don't have to give any fucks. I've done it. It tastes all right. It's not as nice as making it, I would do it undoubtedly. However, today I'm actually going to make my sauce. So, I have these fancy pans now, which are essentially just like fancy camping pans because camping pans have had this capability for a very long time, and it's just great. So, I'm just going to put my hob onto low and pop a little bit of olive oil in the pan. (Well, pot, but same difference, I guess.  At least in this context.)

LOTTY: So, while Hannah's pan is heating up, I'm going to start with my own topping, which as you'll probably see from the ingredients I've got out, is very different to a standard pizza topping. So, I've gone for the traditional flammkuchen topping, which is onions - I've got red onions because I quite like the sweetness - bacon and crème fraiche.

HANNAH: That sounds really nice actually. And I'm not a fan of Onion.

LOTTY: I think once you cook them, they're so much nicer because you get them right and they're all lovely and caramelised and it just works really nicely. Do you remember the type of pizza, (sort of pizza) that my dad makes with like anchovies and such?

HANNAH: Yeah -

LOTTY: The pissaladière - that's another French pizza, actually, I think it's got Roman roots because it's from right down the south in Provence… and again, it uses caramelised onions and they bring this really lovely sweetness to the dish. I've got to try making that because it's got the nicest fluffiest base to it. So, I need to get my dad's recipe for that.

HANNAH: Yes, you do!

LOTTY: And I need to send it to you as well if you want to try it.

HANNAH: Oh yeah. I'm a lot more adventurous with food than I was when we were a kid, like our friends from college and school would probably remember me as incredibly picky. But you know,

LOTTY: I don't know, I've seen worse. But I think, I think that's the joy of being in one's twenties and being able to live independently, is you get to choose what you put on your table. So, I know certainly in the last few years since I've moved out - like I've never been a fussy eater and I'm very grateful to that - But I have also become a lot more adventurous. So, when I first left to go to university, I mostly cooked Mediterranean stuff with the odd curry here and there that I inherited from my mum's side of the family.  And I'd never had something, I think I'd very rarely had things like fajitas at yours, Hannah, but never made it myself. I'd never had a stir fry or done anything like… Japanese inspired or Thai inspired or Chinese inspired. And I know I'm generalising a lot, like there's so much more than just sort of national cuisines, but leaving home and having my own space to cook meant that I got to explore so many different culinary options that I'd never considered before.  And it's really cool. I still just pick up brand-new recipes whenever I can really, because it's just really exciting to try something new.

HANNAH: It is, it is really exciting to try something new. And I used to be an incredibly, incredibly picky eater. I'm not going to stand here and tell you that I'm not a picky eater because that would be a lie. However, I'm significantly more adventurous than I used to be. For example, one of my favorite meals well… let me rewind for a second. So, my partner had a great idea after he went to Vietnam last year, that he wanted us to cook different things because we ate the same stuff all the time, because it's really easy to just get into a routine, isn't it?

LOTTY: Yeah.

HANNAH: And he was bored of it and I was bored of it, but I'm picky. So, we went to some charity shops and we just picked up some cookbooks for nothing or basically nothing. And we said that at least four times a week we would eat something we haven't eaten before, for six weeks.

LOTTY: That's brilliant.

HANNAH: And it was hard because I’m so picky. But now some of my favorite meals include sausage and kale stew, which can you imagine me eating that five years ago? No.

LOTTY: No, but sounds bangin’.

HANNAH: And char pork, which is pork covered in soy sauce, which I was adamant I didn't like! honey and chilies and fried.

LOTTY: Wow.

HANNAH: I was adamant that I would hate it because I don't like soy sauce. Turns out I do like soy sauce and I just need to stop being a whiny baby.

[MUSIC]

HANNAH: But I think as you get older, you grow and you change, don't you? And sometimes that ends up meaning that you leave people behind or people that you thought you would always have don't end up being as close to you as they used to be, and everybody chooses different paths when you're at school, it's very like, “Well, “Emma” sits next to me in English,”

LOTTY: Yeah.

HANNAH: “So I’m her friend,” and now you're an adult you get to choose what you do, don't you?

LOTTY: Exactly - I think school and college and like club-based relationships and friendships, they're friendships by proximity, aren't they? Like you're seeing these people, you know, five days a week, day in, day out. You've got the same classes together. You probably live around the same region. Maybe you take the same extracurriculars, your mums might be friends, or like your dads might be friends or et cetera. And so, you are friends by proximity, you're just, you coexist in the same space and therefore, as a kid, it just makes sense to be friends with them.  And, I think interests are a lot simpler when you're a child. So… when things get more complex as you grow older, because everything gets more complex as you grow older! - it can often feel quite strange when somebody who you've sort of just existed with for the best part of five years, you just start drifting apart, or suddenly you go to different schools and it's like they no longer exist to you, or you no longer exist to them, which is maybe an extreme feeling and one that you don't really feel for a while when you're little, unless you have circumstances that mean you move around a lot for example. [Hannah laughs] Which I think Hannah can probably talk more about that than I can.

HANNAH: I did move a lot as a kid.

LOTTY: And so, it's, yeah.

HANNAH: but I think in my adulthood, it's just an invaluable skill that I've gained. I don't think that if you'd asked 10-year-old Hannah how much she loves moving, that she would give you a positive answer. I think she would tell you that she hates it and she just wants to go back to living next to her friend Charlotte. But in my twenties now having lived back in the UK for 15 years?

LOTTY: 15. Wow.

HANNAH: yeah, I came back when I was 10 or 11, now living back in the UK for longer than I was away by three times the amount of time and -

LOTTY: That’s amazing.

HANNAH: - having experiences. I am not someone who is afraid of change. I'm not afraid to meet new people, I'm not afraid to start over. I'm quite happy to burn that bridge and walk on. I will sit there and think about the bridge that I've burned all the time because I'm anxious, but I'm very happy to be like, “no, I've had enough of this person.” I can look back and think about it, but I don't need to keep going back, and move myself to the other end of the country or abroad, hopefully in the future. I think it's been quite - as hard as it was a child, it has given me a skillset that's quite unique where I do not fear change and moving. I embrace it, I'm excited by it. I kind of get bored sitting still in the same place for too long!  So, I…

LOTTY: Honestly, I… Yeah, I think that's quite an invaluable skill. Just to fill in the gaps of what we've been up to. I have chopped up my onions and I've also grated some fresh nutmeg, which was a gift from my auntie. So, shout out to Auntie Olga if she ever listens to this. And I've dropped the grated nutmeg into a bowl of crème fraiche. And that will be, you know, that's the base of my topping in the same way that your tomato sauce will be. So, this recipe might not be great if you have a dairy intolerance, but the great thing about this is it doesn't have to be crème fraiche. You can have tomato; you can have whatever toppings you like. So that's where I'm up to at the moment.

HANNAH: I have sautéed my tomatoes and chopped garlic so you can see it there - it's really mushy.  It's what you want. You want it to go soft. It'll turn kind of an orangey color as all the juice comes out, and you should still be able to see the bits of skin and the seeds and stuff. So, I'm just going to keep mixing that for a little bit longer.  Just let it really sweat away.

LOTTY: That sounds good.

HANNAH: Sometimes I'll add passata. Sometimes I won't. don't think I need passata today because I don't really want that much salt and sugar in my sauce.  But again, it's a good alternative if you've not got certain things. So, what I do is I'll put a little bit of this tomato puree in literally a tiny, tiny amount - about a tablespoon. I don't measure these things. This is measuring with your heart, which is the art of cooking, and I will not be told otherwise. I feel like you become a comfortable cook. Once you start just going, “that's about right!”

LOTTY: Yeah, the, “fuck it rule” or measuring with your heart for a slightly more PG version.

HANNAH: So, I’ve just added some chili flakes to that as well.  I like spice.  My partner also really likes spice.  I think when you're younger, you… put a lot on friendships being forever, when you're a teenager, everything is so confusing - Everything is so overwhelming, that when you find somebody where you are like, 2oh my God, they get it.” You think that they're going to be there forever, and it can be the hardest thing realising that they're not going to be in your life forever, and you usually don't realise that until they're already gone, at which point you are having a crisis. And either they leave dramatically with an argument or swearing, I hope not. I hope you don't have to go through that but they can leave that way. Or sometimes people just fade into the back and you don't even really notice that they're gone. And then one day you're like, “oh, I can't wait you to tell so and so!” then realize that they've not messaged you in about a year.  And then you just feel kind of awkward and like you can't say anything because it's been so long. I remember being earlier in my twenties and thinking, “how am I ever going to cope if all these people walk out of my life or aren't in my life longer?” Or “how am I going to cope if this boy doesn't want to be with me anymore?” Or “this breakup, be it, friendship, relationship, whatever.  If this breaks down, I don't know who I'll be because my life revolves around this person.” And what you don't realize at the time is, is that's a really unhealthy dynamic to have, because if you are putting all of you into somebody else, even if they're putting all of them back into you, that's not healthy. You are meant to have a circle. Your life should not be, “oh, my boyfriend, oh, my best friend.” You are meant to have a circle. You are meant to have a group.  It means that when you have disagreements, and you will, that you have someone else to go to, you don't feel isolated. You don't feel alone. And I think that's something that both me and Charlotte have learned the hard way. We have definitely both put emphasis and a lot of our energy into the wrong people or the wrong time for that person where they may have had fantastic intentions, they may have been wonderful people, they might have treated us lovely. Hell, we might have been the bad guy, might have been the one that fucked up. But sometimes it works out for the better. Most of the time it works out for the better. You can look back and miss people - I frequently do. I look back and go, “oh I really wish that I could speak to that person again,” but I feel better, all the same. So that there's an element there of you grow, you forgive and forget while taking those lessons with you.

LOTTY: I think following on from that, like I completely agree with all of that. I think neither of us had a particularly smooth ride out of our teens and into our twenties.  And I, for one, lost a few people in that time. And you don't really realise just how much of an impact they've had on your life until afterwards. And that can sometimes be a negative thing like that can sometimes be, you know, “oh my God, why didn't I break off this friendship sooner? This was actively destroying me.” Or it can be a really positive thing of: “I shared so many wonderful memories with this person. I can't believe I'm never going to be able to talk to them again, or it's going to be years until I talk to them again.” That kind of thing. And sometimes it's a very mixed bag - sometimes you have both of those things, like for example (I won't go into too many details) but there was a TV show that one of my friends and I used to really, really like and it was, it was an old timey classic kind of TV show that not many people had heard of, so to find this other person who also knew this show and who also liked it to the same degree as me was quite special.  Things happened between myself and this person that really, really soured the whole friendship, and it was a very difficult time. And for a good couple of years after we'd had to go our separate ways, I couldn't even think about that comfort show without thinking about them, I couldn't even tune into an episode or engage in online discussions about it without wanting to panic. And that's a show that I had held very dear to my heart for years and it broke my heart that a) I couldn't share it with this person, but also b) that they’d kind of tarnished it for me at the same time. It's taken a couple of years, but I'm now back to fully loving the show and having this nostalgia that I used to have for it, and I don't need to worry about that person anymore. I definitely learned some very valuable lessons from having been friends with them, and from having also gone through that. I mean, it was a friendship breakup really. So, I mean, do I wish it had happened? Hell no, it sucked. It was difficult. But am I glad about the lessons that I learned? Yeah, definitely. And am I proud of myself for getting through it? Absolutely! And I think that's something that we also have to acknowledge is… I don't think we give ourselves enough credit for getting through difficult situations, for sitting ourselves down and going, “actually what I've just done or what I did X amount of time ago was a very difficult thing, and I'm still here and I'm proud of myself.” I think it's so important to actually to do that, you know?

HANNAH: I could not agree more. I think it's really conflicting with friends and losing friends because it's not treated as the same level of, I don't want to say importance, that's not quite what I'm going for, but it's not treated with the same level of respect and understanding. Like when you and your boyfriend break up, chances are your friends will rally around you, they'll tell you how you're so pretty and how you always deserved better, which might make you cry because you don't think that, [laughs] and you might feel really rubbish about it. But they'll rally around you.  When you lose friends, you don't get the same level of leeway, or understanding from people, and nobody is ever going to understand that relationship you have with that person other than that person. So, while you are sat there grieving, you just want to speak to the person that you don't speak to anymore because they would understand how you feel. Whereas in a relationship, while there is still that connection in a very, very similar way, lots of people have those kinds of relationships. Not that they're any more important than any other kind of relationship, but lots of people have partners, boyfriends, girlfriends, life partners that don't involve anything, just living together, people who cohabit. That is a very normalized dynamic, whereas friendship… I feel like you can have a deep friendship that doesn't really have the same title on it. There isn't a word to describe what this person means to you, so when you lose them, you are kind of just lost in yourself?

LOTTY: Yeah, I think people don't often offer the gravitas to friendships that relationships do, because relationships, I suppose, like younger relationships, particularly things like boyfriends, girlfriends theyfriends, whatever you want to, you know. They're almost seen as you'll have an end point. Like you'll either make them a permanent fixture in your life by marrying them or entering a civil partnership or having a ceremony, or you will break up. And so, there's that expectation of an end point. Friendships don't have an end point. Friendships, they're seen as these eternal ephemeral things.  And our society doesn't offer them the same weight. Like, you can have a best friend, but society will see your boyfriend or girlfriend as more important, even if you've known the best friend for far longer shared, far more deep meaningful moments with them, the partner, like the romantic partner will trump the platonic partner.

HANNAH: I wholeheartedly do not agree with that!

LOTTY: oh no, I firmly disagree with that.

HANNAH: I adore my, my partner, I adore my boyfriend. I love the fact that we're a team, but if he ever told me that he was choosing me over his friends, I would tell him he's making the wrong decision.

LOTTY: Oh, I would do the exact same thing. Like my partner might just be the most wonderful guy I've ever known. But I know that that doesn't put me above any of his friends, and he knows that that doesn't put him above any of my friends. Like we have a pretty solid understanding between us that Friendship comes first, really. I mean, he and I were friends for years. Before either of us plucked up the courage to actually go, “ah, actually I have romantic feelings for you too.”

HANNAH: I can’t relate to that one! [both laugh]

LOTTY: no, we… your relationship and my relationship have a quite different origin story. But like, my partner and I started out as friends. We met at a party. We went on, like, I think people would probably, if they were seeing us, would think we were going on a date. We went to the cinema together quite a lot and would like go out for a meal afterwards and talk about the film. And we still do that as a fairly like semi-regular date. But those were entirely platonic. There was never any like extra thing. There was never any ulterior motive. And that was an explicit thing. It wasn't like, “oh, I don't have feelings for you. You don't have feelings for me. Great. Let's go grab a cinema ticket.” There was just no need.  Like we were friends and that was all we needed to be. And then, obviously, you know, cut to a couple years down the line and I go, “Hey Seumas, I have feelings for you!” And he goes,”No way! Same!” This has been a shortened dramatization. But yes, that's pretty much what happened.

HANNAH: and that is so sweet. My relationship is not that sweet. Well, no, my relationship is sweet. Our origin story is not, and we'll leave it at that in case my parents listen to this! [both laugh] But that doesn't change the fact that I love him. I mean, we… from the moment that we started dating, we called each other partners and not boyfriend / girlfriend. Boyfriend doesn't really encapsulate what he means to me.  Not now on job applications and forms where you have to fill in a like an emergency contact. I'll put him as partner. I don't put him as boyfriend cause he's more than a boyfriend to me now. I don't really ever want to get married, but he's more than my boyfriend and he always has been and I can't really quantify that. But he is just, he's not my boyfriend. He's never really been my boyfriend. We've always been something different - in a way. I can’t explain.

LOTTY: I actually have the same thing with my partner. So, we started out not really sure about the whole romantic aspect or not really understanding the whole romantic aspect. I mean, I classify myself as Asexual, so romance is a strange, strange concept to me anyway. And so, when we started. There were these fuzzy feelings and we classified it as what's known as a queer-platonic relationship where like it was very cute, handholding and stuff. And there was definitely something sort of beyond the realm of standard friendship, but it wasn't romantic for the first couple months. But now, well it moved on into sort of romantic territory, which, I started learning what that actually was for the first time, which was quite fun! But I think the most personal part of when it kind of turned into like “this person is my partner,” was when I had an allergic reaction.  Like, uh, last year, two, no, two years ago - Easter 2022, I had an allergic reaction and we were out with my family, a couple family friends, and my partner. And I had something that contained peanuts and we had to rush to A & E and it was a fun time, not, but they weren't sure about letting my partner in because he wasn't related. They were like, “Okay, well who, who is this guy to you?” And I was like, “he’s my partner.” And by using the word partner, it elevates from just boyfriend. And that sort of, that cemented it really was like, “I want this person with me”. And I think, I know we've digressed from the friendship topic, but I do think that best friends can be life partners to the same level that romantic like companions can be. I think like, I mean maybe this is like a capital R romantic kind of thing to say, but I do think that we're more likely to have platonic soulmates than romantic soulmates.

HANNAH: Oh, I agree. I love all the different kinds of love. And just to let you know where I'm up to, I'm currently rolling out my dough because it's done, it's proved and doubled in size and I've cut it into three pieces, and now I'm rolling it and getting flour all over myself as per usual.

LOTTY: You are doing great. See, doing great.

HANNAH: you can have more than one kind of love with one person.  So, my partner, I love him romantically, really love him sexually! But I couldn't live with him if I didn't love him. Platonically, there is no way, and there is no way that I could spend as much time with him as I do, or, you know, doing things that like friends do if I didn't love him as a friend? I don't think that you could, and there are friends in my life that I love so much that if my romantic life went out of the picture, I wouldn’t be disappointed. Like I'd be upset about losing my partner, don't get me wrong.  But I wouldn't be disappointed about a future of living with some of my best friends. Like that sounds great to me. That actually might sound better.

LOTTY: Honestly, I love that idea. I mean, I’ve been doing a little bit of research lately about, you know, about loneliness and about friendships and about stuff like communal living as well, just as concepts really. And I just think that, yes it's wonderful to live with a partner, but imagine if you could just chill in a group of people who you all like, you all love and appreciate each other. You know, whether that's in the hippie “free love poly-am” kind of way, you know - depends if that's your cup of tea! - But like just having your friends close by and living together and coexisting together just sounds so lovely. That like, I don't know. I like, I love the idea. I really do.

HANNAH: I talked to one of my closest friends, Natalia, who will be listening to this because she listened to the first one. Which means she found out that I bought her a present that I didn't give her [laughs]

LOTTY: [laughs] what did she say to that?

HANNAH: She was fine 'cause she likes her water bottle. Anyway, she's very… yeah, she won't mind me saying this. She's autistic as fuck, and I love her very, very much. (Not that you have to say that you love someone after you say that they're autistic.) She likes a specific cup in the same way that I like a specific cup. And it's not the same as her specific cup, so she wasn't going to be bothered. But like we talked about recently, how she's got her own graphic design business and I told her that she needed to make it work because I need to live next to her and she needs to buy a house with me. And she went “Yes of course!” And I was like, we can share a garden. We can share cats, we can share dogs. It means that when one of us can't be bothered to walk them, the other one has to.

LOTTY: honestly, I, I haven't met your friend Natalia. I'd love to. But I can see you guys doing that. Like I think you two would have such a fun time in your little home, your little mini commune would be so lovely.

HANNAH: We’re equally antisocial in that I like my space. I like my house. I don't want to live in the house with her.  Do I want us to have no fence between our gardens? Yes. Do I want her to have a key so, she can come over whenever she wants? Yeah. Would she come and… like, it's like Christina and Meredith in Grey's Anatomy, right? She is definitely my Christina because she's smarter than me -

LOTTY: Aw,

HANNAH: - in many, many ways.  But like if she showed up and was like, “I really need her, get out!” to Ash, I would look at Ash and go, “sorry. She dib’sed it.” Like if she showed up and was like, “I just need to sleep in your bed,” I'd be like, “okay! Ash, come on. Sofa bed for you!”

LOTTY: That's the kind of friendship you want.

HANNAH: but it's part of a circle, isn't it? You have to have more than one person. I love her to pieces. I also love my friend Sally. I love you. I love so many people, and it's so important that it links us up and everybody's different, and that's so exciting!

LOTTY: I love that so much. I think this is another thing that like society tries to teach us is you only need one person or you only need yourself. And I think that's a total lie! I think that's total BS actually. We need so many more people than that. Like, I’m not saying we should all have to know each other because scientifically you can only really know about 150 people maximum. And I think we’d get overloaded by that, but like, you need a, you need a circle, you need a group. I mean, some of my closest friends… We are all very close and it's really sweet and we've all been kind of interconnected since we were about 15. And they are, well, all five of us are kind of just feral goblins. But we all love each other and -

hANNAH: I can attest to that. I've met all of them! [Laughs]

LOTTY: Yeah, they're all absolutely feral. But they're all so lovely and like everyone's got different strengths, everyone's got different interests. Like there are some which definitely overlap. So, Morgan and Seumas for example, you give them a bunch of Warhammer minis or like Doctor Who or something like standard nerdy stuff, they will go wild. They will have such a great time. Anya and Hannah and I, we will go feral over pretty much anything fantasy based, particularly dragons! Yes. All five of us are nerds, in case that wasn't obvious, but like we have different dynamics between the five of us where like, you know, four of us can go on like a quasi-double date to a board games night, or like three or four of us will be, you know, on a video game call or two of us will kind of just chill and go to charity shopping. It doesn't matter which way we split the dynamic, it always works. And we've had some rough points! We've had some interesting ups and downs over the years, but I think all five of us are a lot closer because of it. And I love that about us. I really do.

HANNAH: I love having a diverse group, which is something that, you know that they say that like when one door closes, another opens. I think it's incredibly hard to feel that way in any kind of breakup, friendship, relationship, even family breakups when don’t go exactly how you want them to.

LOTTY: Oh yeah, definitely. Like,

HANNAH: fabulous doors for you as well.

LOTTY: yeah, I do think that like sometimes friendship breakups can just feel like the end of the world because it feels like it's, your world is ending and no one else notices or no one else realizes that it's quite so, like, so scary. So yeah, scary that your entire life has changed and they're just carrying on. And yeah, it's just, I don't know if that’s… I’ve lost my train of thought, but you know what I mean?

HANNAH: It can be just a lot,

LOTTY: Yeah.

HANNAH: but I, looking back on it now, and I obviously can't speak for you, but I will speak for myself. I do not feel genuinely stood here right now that anybody who I left in the past should be in my life right now.  Anyone who I left in the past or they left me, I made a mistake, upset them, they made a mistake and upset me - Whatever reason it was that we are no longer friends. We no longer speak…  I still wish them well regardless of what they did to me, or I did to them, I still wish them well and I am better for the fact that I knew them and I'm better for the fact that they're not around anymore as harsh and as kind of cruel that sounds to say, I'm better for them not being around anymore. They had their time. They did their bit. I did my bit for them. I like to hope that I left an imprint on them the way they've left on me… but my life wouldn't be what it is right now if they were still in it. And I love my life the way it is now.  Now, I am not saying it's all sunshine and rainbows. I think that's totally us. And I'm on antidepressants, which definitely helps with the rainbows.  But I think that my life would not be the same, and I don't want it to be different than the way it is right now other than growing and developing and changing as you do. I want to build more hobbies. I want to continue to change, but I couldn't have done that. If I was still held down by those people. So, it can be really hard and really scary, but I promise you'll feel better for it eventually.

LOTTY: Yeah, I think I'm going to just… Hold this up to the camera without dropping it. This is my flammkuchen before going in [she holds her pizza up to the camera]

HANNAH: [laugh] not even going to attempt that!  That is how I slide my pizza onto…

LOTTY: that was, that was a slightly perilous moment of is this going to yeet towards my laptop or not?

HANNAH: You aren’t getting that from me. So [she shows her pizza to the camera]

LOTTY: Aw, is that heart shaped?

HANNAH: not intentionally,

LOTTY: It's cute.

HANNAH: I just need to put the pepperami on it. And luckily because I made tons of dough, so I've got two big pizzas! which will make perfect lunches for me and my partner, I've also got some dough left, so we're just going to make some dough balls. And the easiest way to make dough balls to just roll it into a sausage, chop it into equally sized bits, chuck it on a baking tray. Shove it in the oven.  The Bob's your uncle, Fannie's, your aunt. You've got dough balls, which you can make.

LOTTY: That one sounds so weird in America.

HANNAH: What…?

LOTTY: You know, the whole Bob's your Uncle, Fanny’s your aunt thing. Like, it's a very British thing to say

HANNAH: [laughs] is it?

LOTTY: is all I'm saying. Yeah! It's really, really British.

HANNAH: I've just out mine in the oven to cook, and I'm just scattering my pizza with pepperami, which is better than pepperoni. I don't know why - I did it once and now just better.  It just is.

LOTTY: So I was watching The Incredibles like the other night, and first of all, it's still good - It came out in 2004, it's still beautiful. Second of all, Edna Mode says something that I think has always stuck with me and she said, don't look back. Well, “I don't look back. It distracts from the now.” And for a lot of my life.  I always used to think, “what would happen if I'd done something different? Like what would happen if I'd gone to a different school? What would happen if I picked up a different musical instrument? What would happen if I did more sport?” You know, I lived my childhood, my teen years in a whole series of fantasies and what ifs. And at some point, I grew up to realize if you live your life in the what ifs, you’ll never really understand what's actually happening in your life. You'll never get to the why nots. And I still do sometimes catch myself going, “what if this had happened?” But I think once you go through a couple of things, you know, once you lose a couple people, really, you can't really sit and mull, “what if something had turned out differently?”

Because the fact is you can't go back. You can't reverse that, or time travel to fix anything. So, you have to just keep going forward with what you're learning.  And that means you have to learn stuff from it.  Because if you don't, then you are doomed to repeat yourself. So, I’ve learned through friendship, breakups and leavings not to look back like what happened, happened. What was wonderful was wonderful. What sucked? Sucked. Sometimes worse than I thought at the time. But that is life, and that's what having a good therapist tells you with. But it, you can't read all those things you can't do over, and that's okay. That is completely okay, as long as you learn from it and you appreciate it for what it is.

HANNAH: Definitely

LOTTY: So.

HANNAH: you can’t - it’s so easy to think to yourself, “but, but, but what if I did this and what if? And well, if they just hadn't said that, then maybe I could have forgiven them.”

LOTTY: Yeah! Or, “well, if I hadn't, you know, put my foot in my mouth that one time and said that thing. Yeah.”

HANNAH: - And -

LOTTY: Which is so easy to do.

HANNAH: maybe if

LOTTY But if you live your life in the maybes, then you know what? What are you going to actually do?

HANNAH: I like to live my future in the maybes:, maybe in the future I will not. Maybe I could have.  It is so fun to daydream and that is something that you can still do as an adult, but you don't need to take the negative energy and daydream on the past. Now, I will say, scientifically speaking, based on a book that I have read, or I'm midway through reading because it’s, I’m not going to call it a slog, but it, it's quite heavy.  and it's about trauma in the body, which I will lend to you when I actually finish it.

LOTTY: I really appreciate that.

HANNAH: It's a really heavy book, but I do recommend it. Our brain is wired to look at where things went wrong, because if it didn't, then how were we ever going to survive? If we didn't problem solve and think about the past, we wouldn't probably still be a species. Being able to look at the past, think about it, about what might have happened differently and how we could have changed, it enables us to make different choices in the future.  It's just hard when you get stuck in that cycle.

LOTTY: Yeah, I think I can't remember where I found this analogy, but like, you know, the phrase to be stuck in a rut.

HANNAH: Yes.

LOTTY: So, our thought process is like if we're going, like if we're in like a wagon or something, or a bicycle, I don't know, wheeled vehicle… and we're going down a road -

HANNAH: Yeah.

LOTTY: and every time we go down this road, we carve with our wheels a deeper trough or deeper rut and say it keeps raining. You know, if it's like a really bad time – e.g. keeps raining, you will just get more and more bogged down in the same rut. Whereas if you start looking at things differently, you start looking at new paths, new opportunities, then you won't get stuck in the same rut because you'll have new pathways to taking the brain, which is… it's an interesting analogy. I don't know how well it works, but it seems to work for me.

HANNAH: It does make sense.  It does… It does make sense. Huh.

[MUSIC]

HANNAH: Well, I think we should move on to our Fudge Up of the week. Mine is excellent because it basically just, I think it's all the evidence I need to submit for an ADHD diagnosis to be honest! [both laugh] So basically, I had a meeting with a prospective company customer that we were going to use at my current role. And the meeting finished three minutes before I was meant to finish work. I was also then meeting my friend straight after that, so all of a sudden panic blinders ensue - I could not find my work keys to save my actual life. Could not find them. I checked my desk, I checked my bag, I emptied my bag out on the floor like a gremlin [laughs]. I was rummaging through my drawers. I was like, “how have I managed to lose my keys? Where have I put them?” I went down the stairs to check if I dropped them, I was losing it. I turned off the lights in the office and used a torch to see if I could pick up the shine from the keys!LOTTY: [laughs] Oh my God.

HANNAH: So eventually I was like, “Right, enough is enough. It's been 10 minutes. I don't have enough time to stand there any longer. I'm just going to have to go without them and hope I find them later.”  I did in fact find them later, about 20 minutes later when I was on the phone to Charlotte in Primark I found them in my front jean pocket… I never put anything in my front jean pocket ever.

LOTTY: Oh my God.

HANNAH: And I, I did in fact find them in my front jean pocket where I must have been physically able to feel it the whole time.

LOTTY: Goodness.

HANNAH: so that's my fudge up of the week. I think it's quite funny.

LOTTY: I think that's, that's brilliant. Mine is kind of just a continual little fudge up that's been, you know, bugging me for the last while. But I just haven't done anything about it. And the biggest fudge up - which I finally decided I'd actually do something about - was I wore boots to work that I knew were leaky and it rained like crazy. Just - don't recommend. It was horrible. Like, I've known these boots have a hole in like the side of the foot for a while (I'm not going to say how long because that's embarrassing.) But I discovered when I got home after having thoroughly soaked through my socks, which yikes. There was a hole right at the bottom of the shoe, in the sole… you know, the thickest part of the boot. There was just a hole that's probably been steadily worn away over however long I've had these boots for. And it, just… I finally did make the decision to actually throw the boots away, which means I'm now down a pair of shoes and I’ve got to go shopping. So, my fudge up is leaving things too long, and not doing anything about it until it posed an actual genuine problem. Don't do that, Kids, do better!

HANNAH: I do that as well. Ash took my car for a service and MOT because I put it off so long that the light was blinking at me to tell me to do it. [laughs] It passed its MOT. It was fine, but thankful to have a boyfriend / partner who says: “Maybe we don't need to wait till it's flashing at you to do it. Maybe we could just do it when it says Service Needed.”  I'm like, “no. 'cause that's not urgent enough.”

LOTTY: I hate to break this to you, but I think that's a metaphor that we could both do it with taking on board. [laughs]

HANNAH: Yeah...  Anyway, what is your fresh find of the week?

[MUSIC]

LOTTY: So, my fresh find of the week, well, month? I don't know.

HANNAH: Episode?

LOTTY: Yeah. So my fresh find of this episode is two YouTubers who I've been sort of following for a little while, but I've kind of dived into them a little bit more recently because they've brought out some really interesting videos partly on things that I'm already interested in, and partly on things that I hadn’t really put much thought to, like I'd considered them, but not really thought about. So, Dami Lee is an architect on YouTube, and she does some really interesting episodes on architecture, particularly in films and in fiction and relating that to reality. And she did a very interesting video on hostile architecture recently, which hostile architecture for those who don't know, is stuff like things that try and deter people from sleeping rough on the streets. So, for example, you see where your bus stops don't have benches, they just have sort of bars that you're supposed to lean against? That's hostile architecture. You see where you have these funky little cobbled parts outside buildings, or blocks or bricks where they are pointed outside of the ground. That's hostile architecture. And so, Demi Lee did a really interesting video on that, that gave me a whole new perspective on the hostility of our cities. And following on from that, I found another creator called Mina Le, who most of the time discusses things about fashion and fashion history, for example, and its impact on pop culture. And she did a very interesting deep dive into the loneliness epidemic recently. Which has sent me on a whole research rabbit hole, which I've had the time of my life with. Because obviously researching stuff is what people like to do with their spare time! So, Mina Le's latest video was discussing the idea of a third place which is a concept of activities. So, your first place is your home, your refuge, your point of closest connection. Your second place is your workplace, where you spend most of your time. Your third place is neutral ground or congregational ground, which is sort of both first and second place. And also, neither.  And Mina raises the argument that we are running out third places like our society is not structured around them the way they used to be. So, I know traditionally this would entail something like a church or a local pub or a leisure space. That's what you consider a third place. You'd go there, you'd meet a couple people, it would be a general communal space that you wouldn't have to put on too many expectations for that wasn't work and wasn't home. And nowadays, particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic, we have been losing those, partly due to funding cuts, partly due to things shifting online. And it makes us all a much lonelier community because it destroys our sense of community.  And some people might argue that online is the new third place, but how can that be if we don't even see the people we're talking to? We just shout into this void and hope that somebody replies - that can be very, very isolating. So yeah, that's my fresh finders to YouTubers that I will link down in the description. And it's given me so much food for thought, like, oh my God.  So, what's your fresh find?

HANNAH: My fresh find is Colleen Hoover! Now, she has been massive all over the internet for a while, and I actually saw one of my friends, Sarahjane, review one of these books a while ago, and I remember thinking to myself, “oh, but everybody's reading it!” which is exactly why I don't do a lot of things. I'm like, “everybody's doing it, so I don't want to.” Rather than just accepting that sometimes everybody is right [both laugh] and actually having a multitude of opinions on something all with positive feedback suggests that maybe it's worth my time. So, the books that I read, I read in a ridiculously short period of time. Sometimes I will find just a book, a special book, and I just cannot for the life of me put it down. I read one book famously in eight hours. I didn't sleep. I started reading it at 10:00 PM and I just didn't stop reading it. Every time I went to put it down, I was like, “oh, just one more page.  It's 4:00 AM just one more page… I’ll finish it.

LOTTY: Like, “oh, it's dawn now. I may as well finish the book!”

HANNAH: Exactly: “I won’t sleep anyway.” The book series was originally meant to just be one book which is, it ends with us and it covers some dark matter particularly domestic violence, and it covers it in such an incredible way that I haven't seen before because it really picks up on the nuances of domestic violence and how you can go six months without somebody hurting you or berating you or whatever, and you have this wonderful life with them and everything is great - apart from the one incident, the two incidents, the three incidents, and how it completely caves your self-esteem because you are convinced that they are your person and you don't understand why they're doing this to you, and why they're doing this to both of you to us. And she just put it fabulously. It was so, so well written. So  then the next day when I found the other book in a bookshop, I bought it. And I read both books in under a week.  While -working

LOTTY: That's amazing.

HANNAH: - having like things to do, I still read it in under a week.  and that is, it starts with us and I, I just, I was just obsessed! and I am now Atlas's biggest fan and everybody needs an Atlas. And Charlotte. I will give you the books. You have to read them because you -

LOTTY: Yes, please.

HANNAH: - You need to understand my love affair with this fictional character and how badly I want one, I love my partner, but there's no harm in having a bit of like, “but if I was her,”

LOTTY: oh, you can absolutely have like a fictional, I don't know if you could count that as a crush, I guess, but just like I need to have a fictional person be real. Absolutely. Yeah.

HANNAH: He is an incredible character. And the depth of characters is something very similar to Alice Oseman where - 

LOTTY: I love Alice Oseman.

HANNAH: AThere' great diversity. It's not like everybody's a white, mid-twenties, you know? There's a bit more diversity and more background to it. There is, it's not so... I don't want to say bland, but it's not like "shy female girl meets male hockey player and then they get together and then there's a bit of chaos- "

LOTTY: [sarcastically] Lovely.

HANNAH: and then they have sex and then they get married. Oh, wow!" It's not like –

LOTTY: Yeah. This, this same story we've all read. I mean…

HANNAH: And there is no shame in those books, I love those books in the bath! 

LOTTY: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Like, I won't deny, I've got quite a few, not quite like...not a lot of romances between, you know, a girl and a guy, but like I have enough on my bookshelf. But I also do have things like Heartstopper from Alice Osman, who I love Heartstopper. it's so beautiful. It's so beautiful. But the wonderful thing about Oseman's work, and I'm assuming also about Hoover’s, although I haven't read any, is the diversity never feels forced. It's not like you have this sort of roster of characters and it's like, “oh, that one's the gay one. That one's the Muslim one. That one's the white one. That one's the one with the traumatic backstory.” It's not like that - they feel like actual people that you could meet on the street and they're not archetypes. They are people. And I think when telling diverse stories, I mean, I know I'm white, I'm very white, I'm very aware of that! [laughs] So, I can only talk so much. But when writing diverse stories, it’s not about making it a tick box exercise. It's about making it real. And even if that's set in a fantasy world with dragons, you don't have to throw realism out of the window just to have dragons, you know? Or like a futuristic sci-fi setting. Just because the tech is completely fictional doesn't mean the characters have to feel it. And I think the best form of writing is when the characters feel like you could just walk into a room with them and they'd just be real. Just like you, just like your friends.  And I think there's something incredibly special about books and films and things that make us feel that way.

HANNAH: Definitely, it makes you feel less alone and find yourself in books. I think as humans we have a tendency to just cling to things that make us feel like we're not alone. Which is part of the reason I think podcasts is such a big thing, because it's nice to clean your house and have someone talking to you. They're not talking to you, they're kind of talking at you, but it feels like they're talking to you. And that's -

LOTTY: Yeah.

HANNAH: - part of what we also aim to do with this podcast is we want to empower people to cook.  Even though it can be scary, it can be daunting, especially if it's something you've not done before. And my partner couldn't cook very much when we got together, the same as Charlotte's partner. And they have both grown so much to love it from us.  And will I say that my partner loves when I'm like, "oh, you can make the bread." And he's like, "I don't want to."  But he makes a great naan bread, he makes fantastic meatballs,

LOTTY: There we go then.

HANNAH: and I don't even make meatballs anymore because there's no point and they're never as good as his! So, we want to empower people to feel less alone. Put us on while you're cooking, maybe cook along with us, make the same thing. We're not editing out loads and loads of time, so you should be able to do it in roughly the same sort of timeframe as us and just enjoy, try and find a bit of connection. It can be extremely lonely and isolating. In the modern world, in your mid-twenties, in your early twenties, when everybody moves away and everybody does different things and these friendship breakups happen and relationship breakups happen and everything changes all at once.  But just because you're a hundred miles away from somebody, just because you're 200 miles away from somebody doesn't mean you can't still have a connection.  mean you can't still have that time. And having this time with Lotty is just invaluable. I love that we're doing this together. It's a real team effort and it's just like essentially every month I have carved out time to spend time with one of my favorite people in the world.  And I get to call it a project, a - actual, it's a thing. I get to have something to show for it. I get to build some skills up the process, but more importantly than anything, I get to have time carved  out that is with my best friend. That is guaranteed. I'm going to spend an hour and a half with her doing this, and I just love it. I, I don't ever want to stop doing this.

LOTTY: Me neither. I know we're only on episode two, but we've got plans. But what is absolutely lovely about this and what has been ever since w even went to each other and went, hey, let's make a podcast, was, it was something we could do together. It wasn't, we're making a podcast because everyone makes podcasts - It's a passion project, and the passion comes from the fact that both of us are, you know, such core parts of each other's lives and have been for so long. And honestly, I cherish every single second that I get to spend time with you. Whether that's digital, whether that's just via messenger, whether that's actually getting to see you in person, which I cannot wait until we get to do that again, like every single second.

HANNAH: Not long! Not long. 

LOTTY: I know I'm counting it down every single second is a treasure.  And so, to have something tangible from that, that I can go and replay it and go like, "oh my God, that's, that's amazing. That's a memory that we've made." Or, "oh my God, we're hilarious." Or, "wow, why did I say that?"  [both laugh] It's so wonderful to have something tangible like that. That's, I wonderful to love that so, so much.

HANNAH: Exactly and having it be a real thing. Like you remember when you clicked onto Spotify for the first time and it was there?  That was just an insane feeling! How have we made something That's actually a thing, like it's - 

LOTTY: It is out in the world.

HANNAH: Like anyone could listen to it! 

LOTTY: So, I was on the train coming back home when you released it - because Hannah was in charge of the release schedule - and I actually squealed on the train.  Thankfully it was quite late and I was the only one in the carriage with my boyfriend. But I did actually go, “Aah!!” in this, you know, like “it's a real thing! It's out there, it exists in the world!” This is something we made and I think that's so, so special.

HANNAH: I could not agree more, and it's so nice to have this for us.  Even if it doesn't end up being something that anyone else is ever particularly interested in.  Having this for us is so nice because I can imagine when we're like 45, I could miss you. We could be on the other side of the world from each other and I could be like, I'm just going to listen to this back because I miss her.  You know?-

LOTTY: I love that.

HANNAH: It will always be there. We will always have this and essentially all we're doing is recording the kind of conversations that we have anyway, and then letting other people listen to it and hope that we don't get into much trouble for some of the things that we say! [laughs] particularly me, I've got a big mouth, 

LOTTY: that's pretty much it.

HANNAH: I mean, I have strong opinions, but I hope I -

LOTTY: I mean, I feel like that's, that's two of the key ingredients for a podcast right there. So, I think we're doing pretty well.

HANNAH: What? Getting yourself in trouble?

LOTTY: No! making a podcast!

HANNAH: I now can't find the one thing that I really need when I've made pizza...

LOTTY: the Pizza Cutter…?

HANNAH: oh, I've got it! “Can't find it.” She says, finds it straight away.

LOTTY: Magic. All right, I'm really hoping, I'm hoping this is done because it's had an extra 10 minutes. And I did preheat the oven all the way up. So, fingers crossed my flammkuchen will actually be… kuchen… I’m afraid I don't know German. I don't know German. I think it maybe means cake or cooked? I don't know. Sorry!

HANNAH: I think it means cooking… because [ge]kocht is cooked

LOTTY: Yeah.

HANNAH: Kocht is like… to cook… So maybe Flammkuchen means flame-cooked.

LOTTY: I know flamm - I think that's what it means. I should maybe have looked this up before, but yeah. Anyways,

HANNAH: I don’t know a lot of German before anyone accuses me of knowing German. I am learning German on Duolingo and I'm doing my best, but I do not know that much German! I was so confident… I bought a GCSE book.

LOTTY: My expertise is vaguely French, but I haven't properly spoken it in about five years at this point. So… yeah, alas. Anyways, the flammkuchen is out the oven.

HANNAH: Kuchen?

LOTTY: Uh, I might have put too much crème fraiche on it, but we will see.

HANNAH: I put too much cheese on this one and it’s gooey.

LOTTY: No such thing as too much cheese on a pizza.

HANNAH: Are you sure? Look at this.

LOTTY: I don't know. I was, I was wrong about the icing. So,

HANNAH: It’s dripping oil.

LOTTY: depends if that's what you like.

HANNAH: I'm going to leave that one for my partner, who I love dearly, so, I'm going to give him the worst pizza [laughs] because he won't know about the other one because I'll have eaten it. And when he watches this on YouTube, it'll have been almost a month. So, it doesn't matter.

LOTTY: I love that. I am not actually sure whether I'm sharing this or not, because my partner hasn't told me what time he's finishing tonight. Because I think he's on a late shift, but I have no idea. So, we will see! He can always reheat it, it will be fine.

HANNAH: My partner is not in the house either. He is out till late. So, he will have it when he gets home at, I would like to say that he'll be home in an hour, but I actually don't know. It's 9:00 PM right now, by the way, for context! But I don't know if he'll be home by then [laughs]. I now can't get it off the baking tray! I did such a good job at sticking my pizza to the baking tray that I now can’t get it off.

LOTTY: A trick for next time: Grab some corn meal, because that helps it not stick.

HANNAH: I meant to buy that and forgot. [laughs]

LOTTY: Ah well, next time you make pizza.

HANNAH: Probably won't remember that, because the next time I make pizza; I'd be willing to bet is next week. [laughs]

LOTTY: Right, this is not a pretty dish, but my God, it smells good. It's also very hot.

HANNAH: I am not going to take all of this off the baking tray. I'm going to take one piece for visuals…  and to eat for the camera, then the rest I'm probably going to eat off the baking tray like a gremlin!  Ah, I'm losing my pepperonis! (I'm going to have to have a dough ball, it’s just sacrelige, I can't not.

LOTTY: Right. You have to!

HANNAH: Oh, you're taking professional photos.

LOTTY: I'm attempting - It's a decent camera, I am not a professional at all.  These are amateur at best!

HANNAH: Gotta be better than with a Samsung phone.

LOTTY: Well, you say that, but this thing is, (when did I get this?) This thing is about… when was 2008?  Because it's that old.  So -

HANNAH: I, I can't do that. That's in my head. It's too late.

LOTTY: I still think that 2008 was 12 years ago.

HANNAH: If you'd told me what was 30 years ago, I'd tell you it was the seventies!

LOTTY: Yeah, same. Which is definitely not true. It, no, I still, yeah, I don't know.

HANNAH: All right. You ready to try a slice?

LOTTY: Heck yeah, are you?

HANNAH: Oh yeah.

LOTTY: Cheers.

HANNAH: Best part of cooking. Fuck yeah.

LOTTY: MHmm mm-Hmm. That tastes really nice.

HANNAH: Hell yeah.  This is so good.

LOTTY: I can't believe I've never made this before. Like I shouldn't – wait, no. Tell a lie, I have made this before a long time ago, like when we got back from Cambridge, my partner and I made flammkuchen and it was really lovely, but like, I've never just made this for myself… which like, honestly, I've been missing out. I deserve this.

HANNAH: Yes, you do. This is delicious. I am definitely going to have to try the flammkuchen.  

LOTTY: Well, the recipe will be up on the website! And I will release it two days after we post. So, it will be up along with your pizza recipe - if you'd be so kind as to send that across to me. And I'm sure it'll be over on Insta as well.

HANNAH: I’ll type it up! it's in here.  It's not a written down recipe and a lot of it is like “pinch of that!”

LOTTY: "It'll do, yeah!"

HANNAH: Anyway, it has been lovely having you with us on this episode of Flour Power.  You can find us on Instagram at Flour Power Podcast, or our website, ww – bleh, ble-bleh… [both laugh] www.flour-power-podcast.com, all with dashes in between - where you can find episode transcripts, recipes, and bonus content.

LOTTY: Our episodes are released monthly via Spotify, RSS, and on the website and anywhere else that we will figure out eventually!

HANNAH: [stage whisper, voices overlapping] It’s also now on Samsung and Google Podcast, I managed to figure that one out! Apple was confusing, and I don’t have an iPhone…so it’s not happening! [laughs]

LOTTY: [voices overlapping] Oh, that's new. Okay! So we are on Spotify, Samsung, Google Podcasts, RSS and www.flower-power-podcast.com.

HANNAH: And YouTube! [voices overlapping] where you can watch us!

LOTTY: We have been Flour Power - and YouTube! I keep forgetting, we need to make a list.

HANNAH: We do need to. We have been Flour Power! Thank you so much for tuning in and happy baking! We'll see you next month - Bye!

LOTTY: Bye!