• Comms from the Shed: interviewing diverse voices on our present and the future.

  • By: Sam Bleazard
  • Podcast

Comms from the Shed: interviewing diverse voices on our present and the future.

By: Sam Bleazard
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  • Summary

  • Following a 20-year career in communications, like so many friends, peers and ex-colleagues I found myself working from home 100% of the time. In this series I hear from a range of interesting and diverse voices about their response to the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic, their health and wellbeing, creativity in adverse times, and our shared hopes for the future.
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Art Economics Entertainment & Performing Arts Hygiene & Healthy Living Leadership Psychology
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Episodes
  • Head Chef at 45 Jermyn St., Sam White, joins us to talk about his early life, adventures around the world, in Africa, France and the UK, but also his career in Food & Drink and the Hospitality Industry. Essential listening for dedicated foodies.

    Head Chef at 45 Jermyn St., Sam White, joins us to talk about his early life, adventures around the world, in Africa, France and the UK, but also his career in Food & Drink and the Hospitality Industry. Essential listening for dedicated foodies.
    Jan 24 2024
    Training?“It’s started off quite informally, I left school in Taunton in Somerset not really knowing what to do…I even signed up for the Army but I missed an intake - there was a 6 month wait.My Dad was a Dairy Farmer, my Mum was a Nurse and a really good cook, and I had grown up on a farm with 3 brothers. I was used to an outdoorsy life, so perhaps I thought time in the army would be an adventure. I was also dyslexic, so in part, am sure this influenced my thinking in some way.Favourite dishes from Mum?She makes a good pasta bake! Also cooks a delicious ham in cider with a glaze, served with dauphinois potatoes and a parsley sauce. At Xmas it was a Boxing Day thing with my 3 brothers in tow! Every time I’m back it’s like the first time she’s cooked…she asks for my advice, but also has opinions on food, she takes complete credit for all of my culinary success! (Smile) my main culinary influence…College days…I enrolled in college and whilst I was there doing business studies I took a part time job washing pots and pans in a converted cow shed called Pod Shavers. A pod shaver? It’s someone who makes cricket bats. The head chef there got me involved in plating dishes, he was also a College lecturer…so he got me doing more in the kitchen. I enjoyed the environment and working weekends being part of the buzzy atmosphere.Next steps?I decided I wanted to be a chef, enrolled in the local College in Somerset, who were training Chefs to work in schools and hospitals, but I wanted to be in restaurants. So at 18 years old I got an apprenticeship at the Castle Hotel in Taunton which had a Michelin Star at the time and it’s where Gary Rhodes and Phil Vickery made their names, it’s always been known for championing British produce and British chefs.I worked for a Chef called Richard Guest who had worked in London under Jean Christophe Novelli. It didn’t phase me because I didn’t mind working hard or long hours. It was a bit of an old school kitchen, there was a standard and you had to produce to that standard.I went on to work in a restaurant called Givey Park down in Devon with Michael Caines, it had two Michelin stars…the style of food was classically French. He’d trained with Gordon Ramsey when he was young, it was amazing training, as it taught me discipline. I suppose just like being in the army…it was intense, there were 18 hour days, and you lived onsite.Being dyslexic at school made me feel that I couldn’t carry on in further education…but I knew I needed to work with great Chefs. While I was at The Castle I did a Chef swap, I went to Normandie in France. It was in the middle of nowhere, I was 20,years old and I didn’t speak any French. I was there for about 6 months. It was a smaller restaurant and it made me realise that I didn’t want my own restaurant. The chefs were the first ones in and the last ones out…I realised that it wasn’t the life for me longer term.I had a plan in my head, but it went out of the window…I was a bit burned out when I came back from France. There was no structure to my career, I was ducking and weaving at the time. I find that in Hospitality you’re promoted because you can cook…but you might then be a Head Chef responsible for 12 other chefs, put in charge of a budget, responsible for HR, but no one’s ever taught you any of that. Head Chefs react how they’ve been taught. But at Fortnum’s now there is lots of management training, which is great.Mentor?Confidence had been knocked out of me a bit early on in my career. My Mum had been a midwife in Africa, and I’d always wanted to go and visit. There was a book called the 50 best restaurants in the world, this was before Instagram, so I ended up sending them a letter asking if I could do work experience (unpaid work) in a restaurant in Cape Town. This allowed me to take in Zambia, Botswana and Namibia as a month long overland trip first (along the way). At the time 8 of the top ten best restaurants in Africa existed along this one strip in Franschhoek Valley, which is a wine region in SA.It was exciting because at the time SA Chefs could come to the UK and get a visa to work in great restaurants. There were great restaurants there too. In SA the Chefs had worked in lots of different places, and liked mashing up lots of different ideas as opposed to sticking to more formal training that we had been taught. The quality of the produce on their doorstep was tremendously exciting.I stayed for a year and met my wife Sarah in a youth hostel there, who was from Bromley in Kent! She was travelling the garden route, as I was, so we ended up travelling together. We ended up going to Kenya and also going up Mount Kilimanjaro together. Later I came back to the UK…but I never wanted to work in London, due to the reputation for the intensity those restaurants had. I did a year as Chef de Partie at Scott’s in Mayfair, which had 40 Chefs in the kitchen. Scott’s was good but I wanted ...
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    41 mins
  • In part 2 Angela Hui discusses food, culture and family, reflecting on life from behind the counter of The Lucky Star Chinese Takeaway in rural Wales. She also shares favourite restaurants and new projects. Essential for foodies and storytellers.

    In part 2 Angela Hui discusses food, culture and family, reflecting on life from behind the counter of The Lucky Star Chinese Takeaway in rural Wales. She also shares favourite restaurants and new projects. Essential for foodies and storytellers.
    Oct 27 2023

    Angela Hui PART 2 

    INTRO

    2mins - The awkwardness of the teenage years, trying to fit in and coming from a place 'where I didn't know who I was...'

    6mins30s - We didn't really appreciate where we grew up...'but it was mine and I wouldn't change it for the world...it made me who I am'

    8mins30s - Starting to be accepted into the community, keeping a balanced perspective on racism and the sadness of the decline of the Chinese Takeaway.

    10mins - Reflecting on the great characters in Wales, and Angela's perspective and reflections on racism.

    11mins - Losing the human connection and the fabric of community during Covid-19...and how the Chinese takeaway brought various walks of life together - being 'the after-party for the pub'.

    12mins30s - What's so special about Chinese Takeaways...

    14mins - Sam's memories of eating Chinese food in Morar and Mallaig in Western Scotland...

    15mins30s - Angela's thoughts on Hospitality traditions and memories of eating family meals.

    16mins - 'I'm a sucker for steamed Sea Bass...', Angela's thoughts on how to make it.

    17mins - Not eating meat, and trying to be a pescatarian..."my parents didn't understand..."

    19mins - Chefs and Food authors admired by Angela...different types of food writing, and creating news channels for Hospitality workers who found themselves unemployed.

    22mins30s - Angela talks about new projects that she's working on at the moment, including looking at Chinatowns all over the world.

    25mins - Being 'unhinged' on social media and sharing updates with a sense of humour...and no filter!

    26mins - The last paragraph in the book, 'burying grief...and serving behind the counter one last time...'

    27mins - Mapping the remaining UK Chinese Takeaways and Angela's personal favourites.

    30mins - Final thoughts and memories of Mum & Dad...
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    32 mins
  • Love letter to Hospitality businesses? Teenage diary? Recipe book? Journalist Angela Hui talks to Sam Bleazard about the writing of Takeaway and what it was like growing up in rural Wales as a Chinese girl.

    Love letter to Hospitality businesses? Teenage diary? Recipe book? Journalist Angela Hui talks to Sam Bleazard about the writing of Takeaway and what it was like growing up in rural Wales as a Chinese girl.
    Aug 30 2023

    INTRO

    1mins30s - Paperback coming out, being shortlisted for Awards...and writing as the solitary profession.

    2mins30s - Delighted by the response 'from such a wide demographic'

    4mins - what was the original idea for the book? Multi dimensional approach...from extensive notes and memories taken during the Covid lockdown.

    6mins30s - ...feeling very torn on identity growing up in rural South Wales, but also proud of being Welsh.

    7mins30s - Helping out in the Takeaway as a teenager, reflecting on childhood and testing recipes with Mum...'an incredibly obsessive cook'.

    11mins - 'Wanting to celebrate Hospitality businesses'...memories of a Scottish childhood from Sam.

    13mins - Angela's Parents' reactions to her book? "Incredibly proud...but they'll never say the 'P' word."

    14mins - Book launch in Hackney Community Centre, why it meant so much to host it there.

    16mins - Extract one from the book: quotes from readers, and steamed seabass with ginger and spring onion.

    18mins45s - How the book helped Angela understand her own identity with the passing of time.

    19mins30s - Regrets over the language barrier, and wishing to know her parents at a deeper level.

    22mins - Speaking to her brothers many years on, about how she felt, their responsibilities, and the challenges of working in the takeaway as a young, vulnerable girl...

    26mins - Growing Shark Fin Melons...Angela's Mum and her make-shift garden in Wales - why it was so poignant.

    28mins54s - 'she grew up in the cultural revolution...she didn't have an education...'

    30mins - The health benefits of Chinese soups - 'this soup will cure your asthma!'

    32mins - How Chinese families 'soldiered on...not really kicking up a fuss...' - and the cultural dynamic of not wanting to draw attention to themselves.
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    36 mins

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