Ashamed to Admit
Are you ashamed to admit you're not across the big issues and events affecting Jews in Australia, Israel and around the Jewish world?
In this new podcast from online publication The Jewish Independent, Your Third Cousin Tami Sussman and TJI's Dashiel Lawrence tackle the week's 'Chewiest and Jewiest' topics.
Ashamed to Admit
Ellie's Story: From Family Kitchen to Award-Winning Cookbook
Tami and Dash sit down with chef, author, influencer and newly minted award-winner Ellie Bouhadana. From the kitchen to the page, Ellie has been cooking up more than focaccia. Catch a glimpse of Ellie's table :)
Articles relevant to today's episode:
https://thejewishindependent.com.au/the-best-jewish-australian-books-of-the-past-year
https://thejewishindependent.com.au/writer-awards-celebrate-talent-in-face-of-discrimination
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Thank you so. So she loved the cookbook and she was super impressed, so I was really happy. And then she got to the biscuit recipe and she went off in a mix of Arabic and Hebrew and she was muttering. She's like no, this is not right, this is not how you're meant to cut them. Like why are they all different sizes?
Speaker 2:Are you?
Speaker 3:interested in what it's like to turn your passion for food into an award-winning book. In today's episode, we're speaking to chef writer and now prize-winning author, ellie budana, whose cookbook ellie's table has captured kitchens and a coveted spot as the winner of this year's the Jewish Independent Young Author Prize.
Speaker 2:Who knows if she'll be ashamed to admit anything. It's season three of this Jewish Independent podcast and we seem to be dropping our shame.
Speaker 3:Some of us more than others.
Speaker 2:Come along for the ride as we finally chop some seriously chewy and dewy topics.
Speaker 3:Welcome to this week's episode of A Shame to Admit. Hello everyone, I'm Dash Lawrence, Executive Director at the Jewish Independent.
Speaker 2:And I'm your third cousin, Tammy Sussman Dash. Question Yep, when you host a dinner party.
Speaker 3:Doesn't happen very often these days, but yes.
Speaker 2:What were your guests the most excited to eat Like? What was your signature dish?
Speaker 3:Fish fingers from the freezer? Seriously no, no, no, no. So I went through a bit of a aperitif phase for my dinner parties and got very deep into aperitif making. In particular, my Negronis and Americanos were quite a hit there for a while.
Speaker 2:So there'd be no food, it would just be cocktails.
Speaker 3:There would be food that would be the first serving and then pizzas. I make really good homemade pizzas with a variety of treif toppings. I think that's probably the thing that captured people's stomachs, hearts and minds.
Speaker 2:Are we talking handmade pizza? Dough pizza oven.
Speaker 3:No handmade pizza dough. Seriously Delicious, fresh ingredients from the Queen Victoria market. Yeah, really good quality mozzarella, italian, very high grade, san Daniele prosciutto delicious anchovies, fresh tomatoes.
Speaker 2:Was it a wood fire pizza oven?
Speaker 3:No, but one day I do hope to have one of those. But yeah, you know you're taking it to the next level when you've got one of those.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you are building a home right now and I know that because of the cost of living crisis, you had to rule out the Scandinavian sauna.
Speaker 3:And I've also had to cut back on the pizza oven being shipped over from Italy. Had to cancel that one.
Speaker 2:Did you really make the dough yourself?
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 2:Dash. So much for journalistic integrity. You're going to let our listeners believe that you made your own pizza dough.
Speaker 3:I can. I can do it. What about you? I want to know about how you played up when you have guests around for dinner.
Speaker 2:Okay, I moved out of home at 19, which, first of all, let me say, for our international listeners is like no big deal, but when you live in an Australian Jewish shtetl, moving out at 19 is unheard of. So it was like this novelty experience and that I was, you know, the head chef of my own hovel kitchen in Bondi Beach. That was the size of a Scandinavian sauna for two. And, yeah, my friends used to love coming over. They thought I was the most amazing cook. I was really just cooking food that I learned how to cook in like year seven design and technology like lasagna using canned tomato and cottage cheese.
Speaker 2:And I think, yeah, by the time I grew up and reached the age where you're meant to be peak balabuster, I'd lost the passion. And then, of course, having kids, you end up eating, you know, the leftover beige food that they didn't want. So I am now ashamed to admit that I have lost all passion for cooking. It gives me no joy. The thought of having people over for dinner overwhelms me, stresses me out. That is why I haven't invited you. In fact, cooking for you gives me more anxiety than coming to pick you up from Sydney airport and trying to find the 15 minute pickup area.
Speaker 3:Yeah, for sure I get that.
Speaker 2:That is why, when you told me that we would be interviewing Ellie Budana, I was thrilled, because not only have I been following her for quite some time, I'm aware that she is so passionate about not just cooking but the whole experience of hosting, of watching the people she cooks for enjoy the final product.
Speaker 3:She's had quite a remarkable journey, as you'll learn in today's episode, from essentially someone just who loved cooking at home, with a very rich food heritage through her Ashkenazi and Sephardic maternal and paternal sides of her family. Ellie Boudana really, as you'll hear in today's conversation, just shocked the stratosphere during the pandemic and during lockdowns in Melbourne. She is an Australian chef and author recognised for her intuitive cooking style, her famous focaccia and her dishes inspired by her diverse family heritage.
Speaker 2:Ellie is a self-taught chef, learning primarily through experience in restaurants and from her grandmother's mother and aunties.
Speaker 3:Ellie often relies on taste and feel rather than strict measurements, a characteristic she discusses in her work and in today's conversation.
Speaker 2:Enjoy our chat with Ellie Budana.
Speaker 3:Ellie, you have carved out a name for yourself, as a chef, but also, more recently, as a cookbook author, a writer. What came first, the cooking or the writing?
Speaker 1:Definitely the cooking. But cooking has always been what I love, but I guess I've only been professionally doing it since, like my early to mid twenties. Now I'm 31,.
Speaker 3:If anyone wanted to know my age, even though you didn't ask- so I feel like to kind of get a sense of your story and how you got to where you are. Ellie, we have to talk about the pandemic and the brutal lockdowns that we lived in Melbourne. You must be one of the few young people in Melbourne then under 30, who I think their star actually really rose during this quite terrible time. It was also remarkably an opportunity for you. So talk us through how you went during that period from, if I understand correctly, essentially a hospitality casual to a head chef, an influencer and now a award-winning cookbook writer.
Speaker 1:I'm laughing because, like I never believed those, like it's a nice title, but I guess it is just a good cookbook.
Speaker 3:You got the award Ellie Muscles off. Take it, Own it yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, yeah, I was essentially like just doing kitchen work, never front of house, always just in the kitchen, like learning from other chefs. And that was actually tough to do because if you don't have like a background as like a trained chef that like went to like a kitchen school in Melbourne, I found it really hard to look for kitchen work because people would like the chefs would be like, well, what's your history with food? And I'd be like I've got a passion and I love it, but like I don't have like training. So you'd get turned away a lot. But I found a couple of really good kitchens that like did bring me in and I guess sometimes that's also just based on like right time, right place. So I got to learn from back of house, from being in kitchens and kind of like that was a whole new world to be exposed.
Speaker 3:Did you know you wanted to be a chef at that point?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'd kind of like made that choice in my head, but I never, to be honest, I don't fully plan things. So I wasn't like I'm going to be a chef. I was just like this is what I want to be doing right now. I really want to be in food and this feels like the best avenue to do it, because you get to actually learn the skills and then like be skilled at the profession. But I wasn't like I'm going to be a chef. You know Right that like eventually happened. But like I'm not. I'm firstly, not a decisive person and I'm not someone who's like this is my thing, it just kind of eventuated.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, and you didn't feel the need to go to like a cookery school or to no.
Speaker 1:I think I well. Actually at the time I'd asked a couple of friends who are chefs and they were like, don't do it. Like for them they felt like they did it because they were young, like they did it during high school or just after high school. But they were like you kind of already have a lot of those skills and it's like it's better to get the experience.
Speaker 2:Was there also a sense that maybe going to chef school kind of drains the passion a little bit?
Speaker 1:I didn't think about that at the time. I also do blame it a little bit on my schooling. Like I went to public school as well as Jewish school but I finished at private Jewish school and I think they did not give me the push or like an excitement to do something like chef school or like a TAFE kind of thing. Like this is my opinion and my experience. But there was never an option to like do a creative or a job or training in a job that is physical and Vocational, vocational, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:My dad is in like a trade profession. He's a cabinet maker, so like carpenter and makes kitchens and tables and like all our kitchens in that we've had in the house my dad has built or like any furniture he's built. So I grew up with like everyone around me and all my dad's friends and my dad's brothers and stuff. They were always like building and making stuff. So I was always around that but it was never something that was like um told was like a good thing at my school. So, yeah, it never occurred to me to be like, oh, maybe I should channel my love of food through going to learn as a vocation. And then by the time I did want to do that, it felt like too late in a way, even though it probably wasn't too late because I was still in like early twenties. But it's part of that whole maybe cycle in the Jewish community of like what you should be doing and what stage you're meant to be at in life.
Speaker 3:So you managed to get some experience with some great kitchens in Melbourne.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then part of like traveling around, I've got to learn from other chefs by doing residencies and, just yeah, pop-ups with other chefs.
Speaker 3:What happened during the pandemic and during lockdowns.
Speaker 1:I wanted to keep cooking and I think for me it felt like a good moment because I wasn't really doing anything.
Speaker 1:The restaurant closed, shut down for a bit, but then I was just making stuff at home and it kind of it was super like small at first, like I was just making stuff at home and then like put it out to friends on my Instagram and then it kind of grew from there. So it kind of the fact that people were interested in it and that's obviously because people were not doing much and they were like ready to eat something yum, because all the restaurants were closed that kind of gave me this insight into like people are keen and it kind of grew from that. And then I just got to play with recipes and the first focaccia I ever made was like not good, and then I got to keep exploring and playing with my recipe and then it got like much better and then people were really into it. So I got to like give it to people and then people wanted to pay for it. So it kind of like, and then I got to even turn my kitchen like properly.
Speaker 1:Um, like council approved like with okay, yeah health and safety, because it did like I was actually feeding people. So I was like, okay, I need to make this real. And then, like even got like professional fridges put into the house and the shed like big ones, because, like I was making for so many people these this food, that like it had to be. I couldn't just like do it in my house kitchen style anymore. Like I had to turn things a little bit more professional and yeah, and then from there, like that, that was already a couple of years and then I started being able to do pop-ups when, like, the lockdowns ended, so people got to eat in person and that's what I love.
Speaker 3:Can we briefly talk about Focaccia, because it seems like that's like a key element of your brand and one of the main reasons why your star really really rose in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, at a certain time it was very like a time.
Speaker 2:A time and place. I mean it was even mentioned in your IMDB bio.
Speaker 3:So Ellie's focaccia, like what was it that you were doing to that damn focaccia in the years of 2020, 2021 and 2022. That seems to have captured the zeitgeist in Melbourne.
Speaker 1:Well, also around that time people were really experimenting with bread a lot, so maybe people were just like excited to eat bread, but it could be part of that. So yeah, but I wasn't doing sourdough. I did get really OCD about how I did it because I felt like exactly the way that I was. People loved it. So I was like, okay, so the way I'm making it, I have to stick exactly to this like routine.
Speaker 1:So I had these like round little like plastic containers that I and I wanted to make it completely airtight. So I had to get like the proper sealed containers and I was like super adamant on how I did it. So I got like 25 of those because I had to make so much of it. I was making like 40 portions worth or like eight kilos worth of focaccia out of these bowls and I was like it has to be exactly like this. And my partner was like why can't you just get like bigger tubs and make the focaccia and like big tubs and quantities and put it in the fridge and it will rise as it should? And I'm like, no, it has to be exactly like how I did it the first time, because that's what makes it good. Like I was so rigid and now I realise it's not because of those bowls.
Speaker 2:Artists think that in order to reproduce something, they have to stick to the ritual, and they get superstitious.
Speaker 1:So exactly, and I have, weird, like I do have a bit of this superstitious like vibe from, I think it's from like my aunties and they're like it's a Jewish thing right, like a bit of this, like I throw salt behind my left shoulder.
Speaker 2:I think it's a Sephardi thing especially.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's super Sephardic, yeah, but now I'm not like that with the focaccia and I know that that's not why the focaccia is so good. I think the focaccia is really good because people weren't making like a super wet dough, whereas I started adding a lot more liquid to the dough, leaving it overnight so it could almost like ferment and the flavor got a lot stronger. And leaving it overnight and it was such a wet dough allowed a lot of aeration and bubbles to be captured in the dough. And then leaving it then in like warm weather for another four hours the next day allowed it to rise and those the bubbles kind of expanded, so it made this really like fluffy pillow, like focaccia you mentioned your aunties earlier and they and your grandmothers and mother feature heavily in your cookbook, in particular, I believe, fighting with your grandmother for recipes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, tell our listeners a little more about that dynamic with your grandmothers.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of that is based on my Ashkenazi grandmother, so my mum's mum, and maybe she just doesn't believe her stuff is that good. And she's like, why would I give you like this recipe? It's nothing like it, it's whatever. I just made it 10 times off the top of my head, like I don't have it written down and I'm like, but we love this recipe. Like you should write it down. Like she would make these rugelach that are like amazing rugelach and different to like just kind of different to the. They're more, I guess they're more like a Polish style dough and she fills it with jam and sometimes poppy seeds and stuff. But they're so good and she just never had a recipe written down or like no one in my family had it, I went to her house versus tiny kitchen and we made it together and then I wrote that recipe down roughly and then for the cookbook I wanted to get it down proper, so I invited her over and we made them again and she changed the recipe like it's just like everything's off the top of her head.
Speaker 1:But then you do find that she has old cookbooks that she had handwritten things down and like, yeah, you just kind of have to fight a little bit also with my dad's sister to the Moroccan side, that auntie. I also have to like fight her on recipes or like. Just be like, can we sit down and I like actually word for word, like she'll just mouth off a recipe and I just have to like scribble it down and it's mixed with Hebrew and English, so I'm like trying to write in Hebrew as well as English and it's just kind of like a mishmash. But then I put my own take on it and it's quite special because it's like worlds coming together and also if I cook those recipes in a restaurant setting, it kind of changes in a nice way as well, because it's kind of taking like a home recipe and making it suit a more like industrial setting which I have a lot of fun doing that and kind of modernizing it a bit but like keeping it to its roots, which is, yeah, a balance but also really nice process.
Speaker 3:But it sounds like you have inherited their intuitive approach to cooking, like, yes, you are capturing down these recipes, but you're also cooking very much from instinct and intuition.
Speaker 1:No, totally, that's how I watch them cook, like my grandmother and my mum in the kitchen. They actually have cookbooks but they never brought them out to like follow recipes, if anything. I would see my mum like reading cookbooks at the end of like the night on the couch or something, and she'd like stick notes, like little post-it notes, in it. But I never saw her cooking from the cookbook. It was almost like she'd like soaked up what she'd read and then she could play with it herself in the kitchen. And yeah, watching her and my grandmother together because my grandmother, um, my mom's mom is less in the kitchen now that she is like her eyes are not as good and her hands are not as good, but watching them together in the kitchen was like a show, like weaving around each other and like bickering a little bit, but then like you know that it's all for love and like their hands together in like matzo meal. I write about that in the book and that was a real like, an actual vision that I would see is like my grandmother's hands stuffed with all her rings in the matzo ball dough and my mum together and they'd make the balls of the dumplings and they always know what they're doing and it's never like a stressful process. It's never like, um, a stressful process, it's just like, yes, there's heaps to do to get it done, but it's never like, it never seemed like stressful and so, yeah, I guess I kind of like soaked up how to just play with it and play with ingredients and spices. And that grandmother is the Ashkenazi side. But she learned a lot from her Moroccan Jewish neighbors who they would like have. When they were like raising their kids and they didn't work, her Moroccan neighbor would come over into the apartment. They'd have like cigarettes out the window and then they'd make food together. And so she learned a lot like about like vinegars and spices stuff that her own Polish mother never cooked with. It's interesting that my grandmother cooks with a lot of like Morocgars and spices stuff that her own Polish mother never cooked with. It's interesting that my grandmother cooks with a lot of like Moroccan spices and that energy and she passed it on to my mum who married my Moroccan dad, because that's not obviously in my Polish grandmother's line of in her heritage. But she learned it from her friends and I love imagining them like smoking out the window while their kids are out at school and then cooking together. It seems super romantic. Also, my Moroccan auntie, so my great auntie. She passed away just recently.
Speaker 1:I wrote her biscuit recipe in my cookbook and actually it's a really beautiful story because my dad made the recipe with me and we never we didn't have it like properly written down, we just got his sister to verbally tell it to me. I wrote it all down and then I came back to Australia and I got my dad to make it with me and he just did it all. He's not a cook. He actually never really learned because he went to study his trade and like make money for his family. He didn't get like the ability to cook so much in the kitchen with everyone, but he he didn't get like the ability to cook so much in the kitchen with everyone. But he made these biscuits they're called rife, that is, they're like these moroccan tea biscuits with fennel and sesame seeds and they're so good. But he made them just like intuitively. We had the ingredients written down and like a rough process, and then he kind of just like put it all together and we like you have to roll them really thin and you use this special like rolling pin to cut them up and when we tasted them they were super nostalgic, like they tasted exactly like my grandparents used to make and it kind of just all came naturally to him, probably like maybe somewhere deep down after he like he'd watched his mom make them in the past. I found it super beautiful.
Speaker 1:So the book came out in May last year and then I showed it to her after that. But she loved the cookbook and she was super impressed. So I was really happy. And then she got to the biscuit recipe and she was she like went off like in a mix of Arabic and Hebrew, and she was like muttering. She's like no, this is not right, this is not how you're meant to cut them. Like why are they all different sizes? Blah, blah. And I was just laughing because I'm like firstly, the book's printed um, and also I live in Australia, so I have to make use of what I have and I don't have the exact rolling pin thing that you're meant to cut it out with. And there's definitely always like fights of how you're meant to do things the right way and yeah, just have to make it work also if you don't live in that country.
Speaker 3:You just have to make it work, also if you don't live in that country. Ellie, your journey from being this sort of intuitive cook, working with grandmothers and aunties who know these recipes so intimately through sort of generations, of passing recipes on and learning by looking over each other's shoulders, and then your journey to making this food in your kitchen for the folks in lockdown in Melbourne it's a fascinating journey, but it then led you to working in a commercial kitchen as the head chef of a restaurant called Hope Street Radio, which became very popular, no doubt because of you and your name attached to that kitchen. I'm wondering what changes when you go from this sort of experimental environment where you're learning, you're gathering, you're cooking, from intuition to the demands of customers coming every night expecting consistency, high quality, and it's just a very different environment and the stakes feel a lot higher.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I guess I was making it all up always and like the guys that I started the restaurant with, like it was their restaurant that I was invited to head chef in and we were kind of all really young, so maybe we were super naive and there were a lot of like you get to know the industry pretty intimately and well, and there were definitely chefs that were like who are these people? Who do they think they are, that they can just come and like do something just for pure love, kind of thing. But then there were the other side of people that loved that and also that's all I really want when I go out to eat, like I, the other side of people that love that and also that's all I really want when I go out to eat, like I just I want to eat somewhere that the people that are cooking it just love it and want to have me there. Obviously also you need a sense of professionalism.
Speaker 1:So I was learning that along the way and we definitely were making mistakes and maybe that's naive to just be like I want to cook for people because I love food, but I think it really worked for us and I still that's still what I care about when I will one day have my hopefully own restaurant and like whenever I'm doing events and pop-ups or residencies, like I want the food to taste incredible and I want people to know the background of it and know the history of it. I want it to have meaning and I want it to be like people are coming to like eat because they want to eat good food and then everything else comes after.
Speaker 3:But is it harder to achieve that when it's a fixed restaurant, where you've got greater overheads, you've got greater expectations?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, the overhead, of course, and the expectations. That's the hard thing. Like when you have to put a price on a dish, their expectations completely change. Like when I cook for people, I do want like a white tablecloth and I want it to be like still feel elegant. I want people to feel like they're eating my food in like an elegant space, even though it is ultimately like family food. But yeah, the expectations change in a restaurant and that's why I'm really nervous to have my own place because all the back work that comes with it like I had a huge insight into it for a few years when I was head chefing and it was so stressful. But ultimately I want more restaurants, especially in Melbourne. Like I want there to be more options and places to go and eat really good food.
Speaker 3:What you cook is Italian, mediterranean food that draws on your Moroccan and Jewish heritage, food that draws on your Moroccan and Jewish heritage, and some of those dishes intersect with Middle Eastern cuisines and at this time, in our culture, ellie, in the inner part of Melbourne, there are restaurants, people cooking Israeli and Jewish food that are criticised as culture appropriation, and there's even some establishments that have been subject to boycott calls because they're owned by Zionists. Right, yes, you may also have experienced that. How do you think about this relationship between food and politics, like when you choose to put tahini or za'atar on a menu or include it in a cookbook. Is that some kind of cultural or political statement, or is it neither?
Speaker 1:It's a good question About my food background like going back to like where I started and the Italian and Mediterranean influence. Even though I was always brought up around mainly Sephardic food. That's like what we would eat and what I would see my family cooking Professionally. What I was able to learn from was more the Italian side of food, especially in Melbourne, because that was like what was accessible to me and I'm so grateful for that because I think that laid like a huge foundation in my cooking, like learning the basics of sofrito and acid. Like using white wine in like the base of your food and blah, blah, blah. Like things that are very Italian leaning. Like. I got to learn all of that as my base and even when I started at Hope Street, that was definitely a lot more of the influence of the menu.
Speaker 1:And then, as I was able to be more confident in myself and cooking professionally, I was able to bring in more of my family background and then bring in my family, my heritage, like for me it's not like it never was political, it was just like cooking food that I'd always been eating because that's what my family have eaten for generations. Like chickpeas are like super present in Moroccan food. It's like in every meat dish or soup there's like my grandparents would be soaking chickpeas and then put them in, but obviously there's a huge debate around chickpeas and hummus which I would not even try and touch on. But yeah, for me it was never political. It was just about like food, being like love and like what I was brought up with. But yeah, I think Melbourne has a way of turning things into a political debate. I don't really get involved in that online or on podcast.
Speaker 1:Or on podcast and I guess some people really dislike that take from me, but it's a, it's a survival thing for me and it's like a coping mechanism and it's like I think Jews have to be smart about ways to survive like they always have had to, and I've seen that with my own family and seen that with me. I think that's sometimes where Melbourne and many communities around the world get stuck, because they see it. If they're not from that culture, they can see it as super black and white and they're like well, it's a political thing. But obviously you can say it's political if you're not from that culture and you haven't eaten that food for years and years because your grandparents made it, because their friend from their neighbor taught it to them and passed that down to them. Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 3:like little, little things like that well, the reality is that all culture is built on other cultures and that things are evolving through cultures meeting and influenced and inspired by.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and like Sephardic culture has so many overlaps, so there's a lot of like crossover of like Algerian, tunisian, moroccan spices and ways of cooking that like intercept, and I think that's beautiful. But at the same time, when I say it's not black and white, I think it's beautiful but I also get annoyed at it sometimes because I'm like I wish that I did have more like solid understanding of certain parts of my culture. But I don't get to have that because my grandparents had to like survive when they fled into Israel and so they didn't get to like keep all of their traditions and they didn't get to keep everything so like or they lost it along the way because they didn't think it was important to their way of like surviving in the culture that they were now a part of.
Speaker 3:And what I hope and think will be my future is like trying to like soak up that information and find ways of digging it up, and that for me that's through food, and for other creatives it's through art, but, yeah, for me that's through food and writing and like trying to discover parts of, yeah, my history I just think it's stunning that a people that have experienced essentially two great disruptions and have had to flee one country in, you know, countries in north africa and the middle east, make their way to israel and then, in some instances, experience discrimination there, that their forebearers, ie you, are targeted or criticised for culture appropriation or culture imperialism Like. Have the Sephardic people not suffered enough that their daughters and granddaughters are criticised for culture imperialism, for cooking the food that they have cooked for centuries? That somehow that's seen as a political act is? It is insane, it's disgraceful and one day, hopefully, the activists of the inner north of Melbourne will wake up to the enormous double standard that they've been meeting out over the past few years. But anyway, that's my comment, not yours.
Speaker 1:No, but it's important, and it's also just important to hear different people's voices and thoughts, because I don't want to live in an echo chamber and I have lots of friends. I have friends in Australia and all over the world and we're from different cultures and different political backgrounds. I mean, I've lost a lot of friends also in the last couple of years, but I've also made a lot more stronger connections that we just know that we have different political views or we have like because of our backgrounds, because of our cultures and our lived experiences, and that hasn't ruined our friendship. So, yeah, it's a shame when the friendships are lost.
Speaker 3:But that's good to hear that some of those friendships, even though there are differences, even though there are disagreements, they've made it through this time.
Speaker 1:I just don't think you always have to speak about the hardest things in the world. There are people that you can speak to that about and like that's really important as well to have an outlet. But like our life is like the world is crazy, like we should also just like love things and like, have you know, we should also just love things and have people over for dinner, that you don't talk about all the crazy stuff with.
Speaker 2:You just talk about focaccia.
Speaker 3:We've mentioned the award-winning cookbook Ellie's Table, which has just won the Jewish Independence Young Author Prize at the Sydney Jewish Writers Festival. Mazel tov again, ellie, on that award. You never set out to be a cookbook author, you said that at the start of the conversation, but tell us how people have responded to the book, interested in what people have made of it.
Speaker 2:And I'm interested to know if there's been any surprising reactions, especially from fellow chefs.
Speaker 1:I'm always surprised when, like a chef cooks my food. So people will like come to a pop-up or a residency that I'm doing in a random place and they often have my cookbook and they're like cooking from it at home. I met someone that came to a residency I did at Napier Quarter in Melbourne recently and she was a chef from Korea and she had my book and like loved it and was like cooking from it in her own time and like at the restaurant and stuff. I thought that was super cool and surprising. But, yeah, reactions have been really nice.
Speaker 1:And also, if people aren't from my, even if they're not Jewish, like a lot of people have the book and they because the book isn't just about being Jewish, it's just like got lots of stories about my family heritage in it.
Speaker 1:But other people relate to it from their own cultures as well because it's about like warmth and generosity and that's you know, that's just super ethnic. So like a lot of people can really relate to that. Like shared cousins and aunties swish around a table, even though mine is for like a Shabbat dinner. Theirs might be for like a different, like high holiday from their culture, but they still like feel this shared warmth. And then other people that have a and they don't at all relate to those elements but kind of love it because they weren't raised with this like overbearing ethnic family smushed together around tables but like I think they see the beauty in it and, yeah, overall it's been really nice to see like people overseas having the book and then people in Melbourne like interested in it and Australia and super ethnic might just be the name of the first restaurant that you open, so nice.
Speaker 1:That's it.
Speaker 2:Put it on the list, ellie, super ethnic.
Speaker 3:Okay, so the book's now won an award. You're no longer head chef at Hope Street Radio, but you're continuing to do pop-ups here and there. Tell us where you think you're heading. You did earlier mention the possibility of opening a restaurant, but don't know how far away. That is what's coming up.
Speaker 1:I never know At the moment, a dream would be to have my own place at some point, but I think at some point it will be really nice somewhere in my own neighbourhood and still exploring more of my heritage through food and through going back to places where my family lived and writing more and like exploring those recipes more and being able to like give them to people to make in their own homes. Like I'm really excited to do that and maybe do another piece of writing and, yeah, just find ways to cook for people, because I think ultimately, like that's what I love doing is like being able to do events around the world and in different places where I get to cook for people and find fun ways of doing it, not necessarily always just a traditional restaurant setting. That will sound super, maybe a little bit vague, but I just will wait and see how things pan out.
Speaker 3:It's the Ellie way, it's intuitive, it's not necessarily guided by a master plan.
Speaker 1:But some people probably think that's super silly or something that I don't have a huge plan, but I don't like to be too rigid, like I want to be able to explore.
Speaker 3:Except for Kasia.
Speaker 1:But I've changed that she has.
Speaker 2:She's changed.
Speaker 1:I grew yeah.
Speaker 2:Ellie, we can't let you go until we ask the standard question.
Speaker 1:What is it?
Speaker 3:What are you ashamed to admit about food?
Speaker 1:Oh, now I'm going to have to think about it for a second Like.
Speaker 2:I want you to say you know I'm ashamed to admit that sometimes all I want to do is open up a can of spaghetti and eat it on toast.
Speaker 3:Oh true true, Okay yeah, tammy.
Speaker 1:One came to mind when you just said the spaghetti on toast thing. I actually don't like spaghetti from a can, but maybe it's a bit too obvious.
Speaker 3:It's like a late night McDonald's.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's too obvious, isn't it? No? No it's not Okay. I love Maccas, I love McDonald's and a shame to admit probably more for my parents that we had McDonald's from a very young age. I know these days people are super like my kids can't have McDonald's from a very young age. I know these days people are like super like. My kids can't have McDonald's until they're like 10. I will be giving my kids McDonald's like from a very young age. It's so easy to get kids a happy meal and for them to eat it.
Speaker 2:It's got all the food groups. It's got carbs, it's got protein and it's got vegetables. It's so yum, it's yum and it's cheap.
Speaker 1:No, I would drive home from work, like after the kitchen and I was super tired and like haven't actually eaten anything the whole day from cooking, and also to keep myself awake while I'm driving home. I get a cheeseburger. But the way I get my cheeseburger is I ask for a steamed bun. So it's a good hack for listeners and for you guys. It tastes so much better if you get your cheeseburger with a steamed bun. Maybe it makes me sound super like annoying, but I'll also ask for my fries to be fresh, like freshly cooked, and they are so much better.
Speaker 1:Like I don't want to waste my McDonald's on cold chips but I don't want to say I'm ashamed to admit it because like normalize McDonald's yeah, this is a whole different topic, but like stuff about my body and like being a girl and blah, blah blah and definitely had a lot more like shame around eating unhealthy at different stages of my life, and I would even if I ate McDonald's when I was a bit younger or like in my early 20s I'd feel so pissed off at myself after, like so upset and be like, well, this is so unhealthy for me and I'm going to like put on weight, blah, blah, blah. The way I view food now is super different and it's not like that and I always, from a certain point, was saying like if you eat McDonald's, you should not shame yourself after it. You should just like be so happy that you ate it, it was so yum. So, yeah, now I don't think McDonald's should be shameful not a shame to admit.
Speaker 2:So where can people buy your book, ellie?
Speaker 1:it's everywhere like readings and all the good bookstores. There are some like retailers overseas, like niche ones as well that sell like London and other places, but also just yeah, online. You'll find it, you'll find it, and yeah.
Speaker 3:Next pop-up.
Speaker 1:I'm working on it. Actually, there will be some ideas coming soon.
Speaker 3:Perhaps a collaboration with Tammy Sussman next time you're up in Sydney?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that would be fun in your kitchen.
Speaker 2:Dash is just laughing because he knows that I can't cook, but I could provide some comedic commentary over you cooking.
Speaker 1:I kind of need that when I'm cooking, Like I also just yeah, it's fun to laugh.
Speaker 2:We'll definitely have to find a way to incorporate canned spaghetti. Ellie Budana, thank you so much for joining us today on A Shame to Admit.
Speaker 1:Thanks for having me. It was really fun. You guys were very good energy.
Speaker 2:That was Ellie Budana, and that's it for this week.
Speaker 3:You've been listening to. A Shame to Admit with Dash Lawrence and me Tammy Sussman. This episode was mixed and edited by Nick King, with theme music by Donovan Jenks.
Speaker 2:As always. Thanks for your support, thank you for your good reviews, thank you for sharing this episode with your whole community and look out for us next week. Thank you.