Hello and welcome to Table Talk, the Spectator's Food and Drink podcast.

I'm Laura Prendergast.

And I'm Olivia Potts.

And today we're delighted to be joined by Laurie Williver.

Laurie is a writer and editor, and for nearly a decade worked as the assistant to the late author, TV host and producer Anthony Bourdain.

Her new book, World Travel, and Irreverent Guide, is a vast catalogue of Bordane's work and is out now.

Laurie, welcome to Table Talk. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.

Laurie, we're going to start where we always do at the beginning and ask you, what are your earliest memories of food?

I think my very earliest memory of food is an iced birthday cake. And I think that really imprinted on me very strongly because I cake,

iced cake is one of my absolute favorite things. I grew up in a family that was very practical

about food, but also really took pleasure in food. My parents always had a garden. My father is a hunter,

so we would have deer meat, and he's a fisherman, so we would have the perch that he would

fish from the lake. And both of my parents really enjoy making pies together.

So a homemade crust and, you know, fruit or pumpkin from a can,

whatever was sort of appropriate for the season.

These are things that are very much a part of my young food memories.

And what were male times like in your family? Early that I remember. It was always

5.30, 6 o'clock. That was the rhythm that we were on. And almost always homemade, you know,

very little takeout that wasn't part of our culture of our family. You know, we lived in the country,

so it was, there was nothing close by to go and grab. And I think it was just important to my

parents from a budget standpoint and also just from a practicality standpoint to sit down

and have some kind of a home-cooked meal almost every

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