Hello and welcome to another episode of Happy Mum Happy Baby, the podcast. Today's guest

is a bestselling author, giver of £1 recipes, an expert in food, poverty and food banks.

What, she's got two doctorates? Yes, both on me, I should answer.

I don't know anyone else but...

14 awards and she's on the National Crickulum. It's Jack Monroe. Hi. Hi. How are you? Yeah, good

thank you. It's busy at the moment, isn't it? Yes, it's mad at the moment. I'm just sort of like

catching my breath and sitting down for five minutes and it's nice. We're just going to have a nice

chat about being a parent. Oh good. Yeah, this is the easy one, Jack. Good. Absolutely.

You've also been a domestic, aren't you? Yes, I am, yeah. I actually grew up in Inge Stone and my

dad lived in the South End. Oh cool. Yes, I know you're necklowness quite well. Oh good, it's

it's all right, round by me. Yeah, what was your childhood like? Busy. My parents were foster

carers so we had a permanent revolving door of children in various degrees of distress,

turning up in various times of the day of the night so it was chaotic but fun. Yeah, I've heard

you talk about your long walks to school and how your dad used to get to work and everything

like that. It just, it seems like it was hectic and you didn't have a lot growing up. No, we didn't

have very much growing up. I think it's difficult for children to sort of ascertain where about

to their parents sit on a social scale sometimes. My dad was a firefighter, my mum was a nurse until

she was medically retired and then she was a foster carer and you know we didn't have an awful lot.

We never went on holiday apart from seeing you know like a bronze caravan at Park Resort

somewhere or occasional weekend stay with my dad over in North Ireland. But we had everything we

needed. We had black food and clothes, shelter. You know we just, the difference came when I

ended up going to a grammar school. I was the only child in about like five years from my primary

...