Hello, Esther and I are still away in sunny Wales. So instead of the usual podcast, this

week we're going to have a special edition of what we call Desert Island crisps, as many

of you already know. These interviews I do with celebrities in which I talk to them

about their life through the medium of food. They choose eight edibles that have much

charted the course of their life and we eat them and we chat in my kitchen in North London.

It's all very jolly in this episode. I am joined by the MasterChef Judge, the Guardian

Restaurant Critic and the author of Hungry Grace Dent.

We are. We're calling it so that people know in my home because you are up for coming into

the studio but social distancing is what that means we can't and I've suddenly really.

We are actually pretty socially distanced though. We are officially socially distanced.

We're two meters apart. We're in my home which is designated as a studio for the purposes of work.

So you're allowed to come around and I have realised that we are a vital service. We are.

We are. If people couldn't hear this light banter, what would the state of the nation be?

Well, it's only light banter at the start. We're going to delve deep into your deprived sad,

awful, terrible, lonely childhood in Hungary. No, you're lovely and fun and exciting childhood

in Hungary and the food you ate when you were a kid and then coming to London and all this kind of

stuff and then and being and being a restaurant critic. Do you know one of the few restaurant critics

like me who's done it to two bakers? Ah, well, yeah. Keeping you standard Guardian. Even standard

and then to the Guardian. I was at the Guardian for quite a few years and they weren't really

paying me very much money. So then I went across to work for the the evening standard under

Evgeny. Yeah. So they weirdly had more money. Yeah, and then they went out and now they

finished them of all their money and then went back to the Guardian. No, I I always wanted to go back

...