Jessie Ware - Table Manners: The Cookbook

JESSIE WARE LENNIE WARE

Jessie Ware (Author)
Jessie Ware is an award-winning English singer-songwriter, podcaster and author. With over 1 million albums sold worldwide and BRIT/Mercury nominations under her belt, Jessie is gearing up to the release of her highly anticipated fourth record. Jessie lives in south London with her husband and two children.

Jessie won Best New Voice at the 2018 Audio Production Awards for her hugely successful podcast Table Manners, which she hosts alongside her mum, Lennie. Hilarious and hugely lovable Table Manners has hit over 8 million listens since launching in 2017 and continues to top the iTunes podcast chart series after series. @jessieware @tablemannerspodcast

Lennie Ware (Author)
Lennie Ware has worked as a social worker in family law for over 40 years. She is mother to Jessie, Hannah and Dr Alex and lives in south London. She hosts award winning podcast Table Manners with Jessie Ware alongside her daugher, Jessie. Hilarious and hugely lovable Table Manners has hit over 8 million listens since launching in 2017 and continues to top the iTunes podcast chart series after series. @tablemannerspodcast

Jessie

A podcast fanatic, he said I was the nosiest person he knew and that I always managed to extract confessions out of people without having to work for it. I tried to think of the subjects that mattered most to me and combine them into a conversation. It took over a year to shape and start the podcast but in November 2017, my mum Lennie and I aired our first episode of Table Manners, our podcast about food, family and much like all good dinner parties wherever the conversation takes us. As a chronic oversharer and self-confessed nosy person, it seemed natural for me to start a podcast. What set it apart was roping my mum in, who had no idea what a podcast even was, asking that she host and cook dinner for each guest. Inspired by the raucous dinners of my Jewish upbringing, I wanted to a create a cosy, intimate environment where unfiltered chat could flourish, recorded over a home-cooked meal at my own or my mums kitchen table.

My first love has always been food. I came out of the womb demanding milk, causing my mums nipples to bleed from devouring her within minutes of being on this earth. My poor proud grandfather had to go into a pharmacy and ask for nipple guards to protect my mothers tired breasts and I dont think Mum has ever forgiven me for it. When I was nine months old, at a Spanish doctors surgery with a chest infection, the doctor exclaimed: Muy gorda (really fat). Things havent changed. Mum says that my party trick was remembering which meal we had on the first night of every holiday. To be fair, it was almost always spaghetti bolognese, but it was unusual to have an adults nostalgia for food at such an early age.

We grew up in south London, predominantly as a team of four: Mum, my elder sister Hannah, my little brother Alex and I. My father, John, is an investigative journalist and wafted in and out from whichever stakeout or current affairs investigation was dominating that month. But that was OK, even if most mealtimes were accompanied by a sibling slanging match or the chiming of But its not fair!. Mum would always have home-cooked meals for us after school, something she must have learnt from my Grandma, Gaga, who was one of the best cooks I knew. Dad would fill the downstairs with fried courgettes and the BBCs main current affairs programme Newsnight , a sound and smell that still feels melancholic yet reassuring.

Ive never had any restraint when it comes to eating and my family still resent sharing a meal because it invariably ends up with me beating everyone to everything. I dont know why Ive always been in such a hurry to eat my food, but its never stopped the enjoyment. Ironically, we were the family that had a cupboard full of Wagon Wheels, Iced Gems and Monster Munch that were freely offered, but neither my siblings nor I were fussed about it. But when playmates would come over, that cupboard of sweet treasure would glow and drum like a heartbeat until they had demolished the lot.

I was so impressed by how she would manage an evening meal for friends or acquaintances while still having what appeared to be all the time in the world to raise three children and work. Our house was a place of conversation and socialising, even with the frantic dashes to lay the table or finish a recipe with the clock running down. Although the guests would never see this, there would be clattering, theatrical shouts and groans about misplacing a pan or forgetting a key ingredient, but as the front door opened no one would have suspected any culinary jeopardy just moments before. She would have a dinner party nearly every week, with different strands of her and my dads contrasting worlds, even adding a Sunday lunch into the equation for old family friends. There were always new dishes and old favourites, effortlessly executed but always with huge consideration; from the array of nibbles and dips and music that filled you up before the main event, to the unbuttoning of your trousers to make room for the multiple desserts, our friends left in the early hours with bursting bellies and hearts. Even though I was never allowed to help with cooking the dishes, I was like a dog in a kitchen waiting for scraps, making sure I was on duty for serving up so that I could sneak a quick bite at the stove before our guests got to sample Mums always exquisite cooking.

Rather than rebel and run away in my teens, I would confidently invite my friends over for a Friday-night dinner, along with their parents. My mum was brought up far more traditionally than me, so my Jewish heritage felt rather exotic, something to celebrate with others. With few Jewish friends, I was a rare breed in south London, so it made sense to welcome others into our incredibly relaxed yet ritualistic Friday-night world, full of chicken soup, chicken liver and an unruly kitchen. My sixteenth birthday was an innocent Sunday afternoon tea party. No stealthy shots of alcohol in tea cups, just tea, some cava, sandwiches and my brothers amazing cookies, which were the size and texture of all our teenage faces. My eighteenth was a marquee in the garden with Mum on canaps and vats of chilli (and some heavy kissing by the bins).