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Hello and welcome to Table Talk, the Spectators' Food and Drink podcast. I'm Olivia Potts.

And I'm Noropendigast. And today we are delighted to be joined by Alexandra Collier.

Alexandra is a Melbourne writer who is written for theatre, screen and print.

She is a McDowell Fellow, a winner of the R.E. Ross Trust Playwrights Award,

and a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize.

Her memoir, inconceivable, heartbreak, bad dates and finding solo

motherhood about her journey to becoming a solo mum by choice is out now. Allie, welcome to Table Talk.

Thank you so much for having me.

Ali, as listening to know, we always start this podcast in the same place. What are your earliest

memories of food? It's interesting because I think

this is quite a contested subject in my family, like many things, like around the dining table

were always contested. But I was telling my mum the other day that my earliest memory of food

was that we used to have pasta with ch cheddar cheese and ketchup on it as children.

And we loved it.

I absolutely loved it.

And she looked so appalled when I mentioned this.

She would never serve it now.

But at the time, I'm sure we just devound that kind of food.

So that was that kind of lowbrow food that I guess we liked as kids.

And now that I have my own

child, I sort of understand because he's obsessed with tomato sauce or ketchup. And we also,

...