EP257: Tasty chat with Amy Sheppard

Natalie Cassidy 0:02:05 Hello everybody and welcome to Life with Nat. I hope you're all good. Today I'm very, very excited because I've got an amazing woman on called Amy Shepherd. She is a Sunday Times bestseller with her book Easy 10. She's a fantastic cook. You may have seen her on Insta. She's got over a million followers and is just amazing, and I can't wait to get stuck in. Lovely to see you, Amy.

Amy Sheppard 0:02:46 I am so excited to be here. Aw. I'm so excited.

Natalie Cassidy 0:02:50 I'm so pleased we made it work, and I think—

Amy Sheppard 0:02:52 Yeah, definitely.

Natalie Cassidy 0:02:52 So, so busy at the moment because you've got your new book coming out. I know. Speedy 10.

Amy Sheppard 0:02:59 I cannot believe how quickly it's come round. I feel like I've been talking about it for about 4 months now, and it's finally, like, a couple of weeks away.

Natalie Cassidy 0:03:05 It's fantastic. I, I really wanna get back to the beginning is what I wanna do. 'Cause what, what I like to do is get, get through to the person before we go into the bump of, of the book. I read that you got into this because you had your son.

Amy Sheppard 0:03:20 Yeah.

Natalie Cassidy 0:03:21 And you were, you know, stretched on time, stretched on money, and you started cooking these things and then posting them up and it, you know, it started there. Tell, tell me how it all began.

Amy Sheppard 0:03:32 It was really, really accidental. I've got no background in food at all.

Natalie Cassidy 0:03:36 Right.

Amy Sheppard 0:03:37 No, I've always loved cooking, but I've never, like, I haven't been trained, haven't done anything like that. And I was working for the council, and I had my eldest son, who's nearly 19 now, and, um, I decided to be a stay-at-home mum, decided to give up work, be at home, had another little boy. He's now 16. And money was really tight. Mm-hmm.

Amy Sheppard 0:04:00 Money was really tight. We were living in this little flat in London with like 2 bedrooms. I was cooking all these budget meals, just trying to, you know, chickpeas and lentils and anything that I could make work. 'Cause we'd had this massive drop in income. And then when we moved out of London, I made lots of mum friends.

Amy Sheppard 0:04:16 And you have like the boys' kids coming over for dinner. Found lots of people just asking me for recipes and kind of, tips on, on kind of what I was cooking. I was very much kind of leaning into like how my mum had taught me to cook when we were kids.

Natalie Cassidy 0:04:30 Yeah.

Amy Sheppard 0:04:30 Lots of budget frugal things.

Amy Sheppard 0:04:33 And I thought, I'm gonna write them down, I'm gonna write them down, and I'm gonna put them in a cookbook. And I didn't tell anyone. I told my husband, that was it. Didn't tell anyone about it and just kind of squirrelled away writing these recipes down and taking pretty rubbish photos, to be honest. But took some photos of it all and I thought, I'm gonna put it up on Amazon.

Amy Sheppard 0:04:52 I'm gonna do like an ebook. Yeah. 'Cause ebooks were all the rage at the time.

Amy Sheppard 0:04:56 This was like 10 years ago. And, um, and I put it up and nothing really happened, and it was all— it was a little bit awkward. I spoke to— I just contacted an agent in, in London, like a food literary agent.

Natalie Cassidy 0:05:09 Yeah.

Amy Sheppard 0:05:09 And she said, if you can get it in the press, I reckon people are going to really love this, because, you know, budget cooking is a very, like, now thing. So I wrote this kind of really sort of homemade press release, and I sent it out. And it was honestly, it was one morning, every paper in the country picked up the story.

Natalie Cassidy 0:05:28 Wow.

Amy Sheppard 0:05:28 And ran with it. And my phone, I'd literally just set up social media for the book, and my phone just started pinging, like, constantly, incessantly, new followers. And it was everywhere. It was in the Daily Mail, and the Sun, and the Express, and the Guardian wrote about it. And my book went to number 1 in all books, which was just, honestly, I can't even tell you how homemade this book was. But yeah, I think it just kind of, the whole budget cooking and budget shopping just really resonated at the time. And that's how I got my first publishing deal.

Natalie Cassidy 0:06:00 It's absolutely amazing. And, you know, the thing is, it's to be able to do that, Amy, you know, we all have thoughts. We all say, oh, I'd like to do a book, or, you know, whatever it is, I'd like to start a business. But to have the impetus to do that with 2 children, you know.

Amy Sheppard 0:06:17 Yeah.

Natalie Cassidy 0:06:18 Under stress, you know, financial stress and where you were living and everything, to do that, it's very, very impressive. And I think people— Oh, do you know what? No, it really is.

Amy Sheppard 0:06:27 That's really, that's really kind.

Natalie Cassidy 0:06:29 You know, you need to pat yourself on the back because it's easy to think of those things, but to actually get off your ass and do it is, is another story.

Amy Sheppard 0:06:35 Do you know what? I think sometimes it's not always the, the doing it, the finding the time. I think so often it's people find it a bit cringe or a bit embarrassing, like putting themselves out there. Because it was, because I remember putting the book out there and seeing all the school mums like the next day at the gate. And obviously like they'd seen it because I put it out on like my Facebook and had lots of kind mum, follower, friends.

Amy Sheppard 0:06:57 Yeah, I just remember thinking, oh man, this is so— but this is really embarrassing that I've done this kind of really homemade thing, and almost like, who does she think she is that she could write a cookbook type of thing? Everyone was so lovely though.

Natalie Cassidy 0:07:11 I was just about to say, did you feel that at the gates, or were they just really supportive?

Amy Sheppard 0:07:15 Not at all. Everyone was just like, that is amazing that you've done that, that you've— exactly what you've just said. Everyone was just really kind and really supportive. And, um, but I think that holds us back so much just thinking. It still does sometimes with me. Like, I still regularly think, oh no, I can't do that.

Natalie Cassidy 0:07:31 Sometimes I go up to the school.

Amy Sheppard 0:07:32 Yeah.

Natalie Cassidy 0:07:33 I kind of forget you're just mum, you're mum mode, aren't you, when you go up to school? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then sometimes I think, oh, that was a, I had that really embarrassing post with Imperial Leather out yesterday while I was running around in a shower cap. And I forget that everybody sees what I do. I completely forget it sometimes. Yeah, yeah.

Amy Sheppard 0:07:50 I do as well. I still conduct myself on social media like I've got 200 followers.

Natalie Cassidy 0:07:55 Yeah.

Amy Sheppard 0:07:56 I still, like, put stuff out and think, yeah, no, I probably shouldn't have said that out loud.

Natalie Cassidy 0:08:00 But I think, I think that's why people like you.

Amy Sheppard 0:08:04 Oh, thank you.

Natalie Cassidy 0:08:05 People really, I think, and me as well, I think, you know, my followers as well, I'm not half of what you've got, but they just like real people. Yeah, I think so. They find it really refreshing. Do you know what I mean?

Amy Sheppard 0:08:17 Because I feel exactly, whenever I watch your stuff, so much stuff resonates with me. I see you say stuff on the pod clips and just in your social media, and I think, yeah, that's exactly what I feel. Yeah. That's what I do. And it really, you know, when you can really relate to someone.

Natalie Cassidy 0:08:32 Yeah, absolutely. So what was your first cookbook called, the homemade book?

Amy Sheppard 0:08:37 So the first cookbook, so the, the sort of the homemade cookbook then got properly published and turned into a proper book with proper pictures, and that was called The Savvy Shopper's Cookbook.

Natalie Cassidy 0:08:46 Okay.

Amy Sheppard 0:08:47 Which was so long ago now, it's virtually out of print, I think. Right, okay. There's like, I don't know, there might be some copies floating around, but it was a really long time ago.

Natalie Cassidy 0:08:55 Was the second one then Easy 10? Was that the next one?

Amy Sheppard 0:08:58 The second one. I did one in between, which was, which I wrote during lockdown, which was called Hob. So that was with Bloomsbury, and that was all about cooking on the hob. Yeah. Just, yeah, lots of dinners on the hob. But that was, that was mad because I signed a publishing deal, I think it was in, did we go into lockdown in 2020?

Natalie Cassidy 0:09:18 Can't remember, don't want to. Yes. No, I think—

Amy Sheppard 0:09:20 Don't wanna, sorry, I'm gonna, I'm gonna momentarily bring you back there. I think it was like the January 2020, and I was like, yeah, that's no problem. I can write a book in 6 weeks. I mean, I don't know what I was thinking anyway, that I could write a cookbook in 6 weeks. And how old were the boys then? So the boys were, like, oh, I could just do the maths of when it is, 2020, like 2007, like 13 and 11.

Natalie Cassidy 0:09:46 It's a lot, isn't it, at home? Yeah, it was a lot with the kids.

Amy Sheppard 0:09:48 I think a bit younger than that, like 12 and 10, so coming, like, just starting secondary school, coming to the end of primary school. A bit easier than when they were toddlers. But I was like, yeah, I can do it in 6 weeks. That's no problem, 'cause I've got boys at school now. I haven't got toddlers. And then we went into lockdown, into lockdown, I think in the February, March time. And so then it was homeschooling. Yeah. And everyone was at home, and my husband was off work, and everyone was here. And it was just—

Natalie Cassidy 0:10:11 How did you do it?

Amy Sheppard 0:10:12 I, I look— I don't know. I don't know. I would, I would— some mornings I would get up at 5 o'clock in the morning.

Natalie Cassidy 0:10:18 Yeah.

Amy Sheppard 0:10:19 And I would cook like 3 recipes, like 3 dinners before the kids got up. And then my eldest was obviously doing his own thing on, you know, on the computer at school. Yeah. Yeah. But my youngest, I was doing like full, like homeschooling, sitting down doing maths and, and then I'd have to go back to it in the evening when they were done.

Natalie Cassidy 0:10:37 Wow.

Amy Sheppard 0:10:37 Crazy times.

Natalie Cassidy 0:10:38 But you got it done.

Amy Sheppard 0:10:40 Got it done.

Natalie Cassidy 0:10:41 In terms of your ideas and thoughts, so Hob for me is so brilliant. It's such a simple idea and I think people really love that. I mean, I think we're all obsessed by food. You can tell by all of the food programmes that we watch and the travelogues and, you know, I don't think you can I don't think you can ever be bored of food. No. I love it. I did Cooking with the Stars last year and I won that.

Amy Sheppard 0:11:05 Yeah.

Natalie Cassidy 0:11:05 And I got to know some chefs and I just love that world. And somebody who I really love, and I'm sure you know and maybe resonate with, is Poppy O'Toole.

Amy Sheppard 0:11:15 Yes, love, just love her.

Natalie Cassidy 0:11:17 Again, Poppy came from TikTok and has done so well. And I actually, do you feel there is a snobbery with the, You, do you ever get negativity? Because I know Poppy does at times, but she's very successful.

Amy Sheppard 0:11:31 Oh yes, so much. So, so much. Particularly men. I'm not gonna knock men, but some—

Natalie Cassidy 0:11:37 Nah, knock 'em.

Amy Sheppard 0:11:38 But, but some, honestly, some of the comments from men are brutal.

Natalie Cassidy 0:11:44 Right.

Amy Sheppard 0:11:45 On social media, especially if I do anything they consider, um, like a little bit— this, this is a really old-fashioned phrase, but they would consider like a little bit common. Like if I use, I use things like sage and onion stuffing, pudding in my, in my food. I'll use potato waffles. And I love, I love cooking with fun stuff and just making really basic, easy ingredients, but I get hammered when I do that.

Natalie Cassidy 0:12:08 Can you think of a comment, like, what sort of things?

Amy Sheppard 0:12:11 Just like, I mean, one of the ones I got the other day was that my food is like school dinners, and it's just like the, the word common is used quite a lot because people talk about like how I talk and how I pronounce words and things. I honestly, it's one of the worst things I do on social media, that I will go full, full-fledged, do a voiceover and mispronounce something that I've always said wrong for lots of years.

Natalie Cassidy 0:12:38 Right.

Amy Sheppard 0:12:39 I can't think of an example now.

Natalie Cassidy 0:12:40 Oh, don't worry. Where are you from in London anyway?

Amy Sheppard 0:12:43 I'm from Essex.

Natalie Cassidy 0:12:44 Oh, are you? Essex?

Amy Sheppard 0:12:45 Yes, I'm from Brentwood.

Natalie Cassidy 0:12:46 Oh, Brentwood. Ah, yeah, yeah. I love this. I mean, I love the way we talk. I'm from Islington. Yeah, I do. I'm from Islington, but, you know, again, why are we gonna change? What are we changing for? Who are we changing for?

Amy Sheppard 0:13:00 Yeah, I don't know. I think I probably did at the beginning. I don't know if you've had moments of this, just during your career, where you felt like, oh, I should probably talk a bit different, or I should—

Natalie Cassidy 0:13:11 I've definitely done that, especially going on interviews when I was younger. I look back at some and I'm trying to put on my telephone voice. But I think with age comes ease.

Amy Sheppard 0:13:21 Yeah, it does.

Natalie Cassidy 0:13:23 I'm very happy to be myself, and I'm very proud of where I'm from, and—

Amy Sheppard 0:13:27 Yeah, same.

Natalie Cassidy 0:13:28 My parents, and, you know, my working-class background, so.

Amy Sheppard 0:13:30 Yeah, exactly the same. And I just, you know, I like having an accent. I like kind of leaning into where I've come from, and it's still there from, like, when I was a kid. I love all that, and I've got the same accent as my mum and dad have got, 'cause they grew up in Ilford, and it's like, yeah.

Natalie Cassidy 0:13:46 Do you still have your— are your mum and dad still with you?

Amy Sheppard 0:13:48 Yes, they are. Oh, they are? Yeah.

Natalie Cassidy 0:13:50 Oh, brilliant. I bet your mum is super, super proud of what you've done. It's just, they're just so proud.

Amy Sheppard 0:13:55 They're so lovely, my mum and dad, and they're just incredibly supportive. I mean, they think it's quite mad that, like, that it's just turned into this massive thing. But yeah, they're so supportive. My mum and dad love— they're just the most amazing couple. They were married when they were, like, kids. They were married when they were 18. And so they've been together forever, and they just cook together every night and make all these amazing things. And they're just, yeah, they're just so lovely.

Natalie Cassidy 0:14:22 So you were brought up in a family where food was loved?

Amy Sheppard 0:14:27 Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Natalie Cassidy 0:14:28 Food was a big thing for you on the table with the family?

Amy Sheppard 0:14:31 Yeah, it's a massive thing, 'cause we moved, we moved from Essex when I was like, like 8 or 9. Yeah. So we moved, we moved to Cornwall. So I live in Cornwall now. And—

Natalie Cassidy 0:14:42 Where are you in Cornwall?

Amy Sheppard 0:14:43 I'm on the south coast. I'm on a little village in the south coast. So I've got the beach at the end of the lane, which is just so, it's my favourite. Lovely.

Natalie Cassidy 0:14:52 It's gorgeous.

Amy Sheppard 0:14:53 It's really lovely. I mean, it's packed at the moment, which actually, I really love it when it gets busy, 'cause it feels like I'm on holiday as well.

Natalie Cassidy 0:14:59 Yeah.

Amy Sheppard 0:14:59 When you're with other people that are on holiday.

Natalie Cassidy 0:15:01 God, what a summer you've had down there.

Amy Sheppard 0:15:03 It's so lovely.

Natalie Cassidy 0:15:05 It's the first year we've not booked Cornwall for—

Amy Sheppard 0:15:07 Really? Where do you normally go in Cornwall?

Natalie Cassidy 0:15:09 We love kind of Pudstow, Watergate Bay.

Amy Sheppard 0:15:13 Oh, nice.

Natalie Cassidy 0:15:14 That sort of Morgan Porth front.

Amy Sheppard 0:15:16 Yes, yeah, yeah, beautiful.

Natalie Cassidy 0:15:17 That's where we really like. But yeah, we didn't book it this year, and keep looking out the window thinking, oh, Got it.

Amy Sheppard 0:15:24 Maybe a quick bank holiday weekend trip.

Natalie Cassidy 0:15:26 Who knows? We shall see. We shall see.

Natalie Cassidy 0:17:35 So Emily Scott's down there, isn't she? Yes, she is.

Amy Sheppard 0:17:41 I was so lucky to have— I've met her at an event Oh, last year? Yeah. November last year. And she's so lovely. And she's just, she did, she's amazing. And what she does is just incredible. She did like a cooking demo 'cause she had a fish book coming out. And it's just amazing what she does. Just amazing.

Natalie Cassidy 0:18:02 Yeah, her restaurant was down at Watergate Bay. Watergate Bay, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I went in and I had, I bought her book and she signed it for me.

Natalie Cassidy 0:18:11 Oh. And I said hello. Yeah. But yeah, I'm just such a fan and such a foodie of food.

Natalie Cassidy 0:18:16 of you chefs. That's why I just love talking to you. So you kindly sent me a very sneak peek PDF, I feel very lucky, of Speedy 10. Yes. I was reading it in bed last night and I love it.

Natalie Cassidy 0:18:29 And what I love the most, I think, is the simplicity of it and how— Oh, thank you. If I was in my kitchen, I could go to a cupboard and I can look at your chapters and think, right, okay, rice. Have I got rice? Let's look at that chapter and let's see what I can make. You know, there's staple store cupboard things that everybody should have.

Natalie Cassidy 0:18:48 And I just think that is so clever.

Amy Sheppard 0:18:49 Oh, that's so kind of you. It's one of my favourite things on social media is when I post a recipe and I have comments underneath saying, I'm making this tonight, I've got all the ingredients, and I love that. And I think, brilliant, you don't just go to the shops, it's made from stuff you've already got in the cupboard. Yeah. It's not gonna cost you loads of money. So yeah, I just love it when people say that.

Natalie Cassidy 0:19:09 This is what I really like. So you've got one here which is called Paella-ish.

Amy Sheppard 0:19:13 Yes.

Natalie Cassidy 0:19:14 So again, you know, you don't mince your words. You're not trying to dress things up. You're not dressing any recipe up. It's like, my son loves this one. You know, you can use a chorizo. Prawns would be good, but they're a bit pricey, but you can add those in. You know, it's just really easy to read, simple. I honestly, I cannot wait to start making these recipes. Oh, thank you. Because again, I don't think you ever come out of that getting up in the morning and thinking, oh, what are we having for dinner tonight?

Amy Sheppard 0:19:44 No, I know.

Natalie Cassidy 0:19:45 I dunno what to cook. I don't know what to do.

Amy Sheppard 0:19:47 Yeah.

Natalie Cassidy 0:19:48 And I'm quite, you know, I'm a good cook. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I enjoy it. But sometimes I think, oh, I'm going round again. That repetitive circle of, you know, chilli, chicken and rice.

Amy Sheppard 0:19:58 Spaghetti bolognese.

Natalie Cassidy 0:19:59 Spaghetti bolognese, lasagne, and you go round and round. Whereas here I'm thinking, oh, would Joni eat that? I think Joni would have the spiced coconut and lentil rice. I could give that a go. Yeah. And you want them to taste more things, you know. They're not— Yeah.

Amy Sheppard 0:20:12 have kind of really familiar components in it.

Natalie Cassidy 0:20:15 Yeah.

Amy Sheppard 0:20:16 God, I've had moments over the years with my boys where they've both been fussy eaters at various different times, and they get really sort of locked in on one ingredient, and that's all they want, or just one dinner.

Amy Sheppard 0:20:25 So it's just sort of— so there's a whole beef mince chapter. Yes. And I know that people, families, love a bit of beef mince. And you, like we were saying, you don't want to get stuck in that chilli, spaghetti bolognese, lasagna cycle. But also, if you're doing food for kids, you don't want it to be so, you know, completely different.

Amy Sheppard 0:20:45 They're not gonna recognise it and they're not gonna try it. 'Cause that is the worst thing when you've cooked a dinner.

Natalie Cassidy 0:20:49 Oh, when, when you've exactly that, it's heartbreaking, isn't it? When you spend a couple of hours doing something that's really tasty, really good, and actually quite difficult. Yeah. Turn their noses up. You wanna chuck it at 'em, don't you?

Amy Sheppard 0:21:00 And just go, no thanks.

Natalie Cassidy 0:21:01 It's awful.

Amy Sheppard 0:21:03 Yeah.

Natalie Cassidy 0:21:05 I love the beef pasty wraps. They look cracking. You use a lot of pastry as well, don't you?

Amy Sheppard 0:21:11 I do. There's, so Easy 10, there's a whole pastry chapter. Yeah. I went all out and did, but the pastry chapter is just ready roll pastry. So shortcrust, puff pastry. I don't know about you, but we buy that a lot.

Natalie Cassidy 0:21:24 Loads.

Amy Sheppard 0:21:24 I hardly ever cook pastry, which is really bad 'cause my mum is the best. She makes the best pastry.

Natalie Cassidy 0:21:29 My mum used to make pastry. Really? And one of my earliest memories, funnily enough, 'cause I lost my mum when I was 19. Right. I don't have loads of memories, but I remember being in the kitchen and I remember her washing her hands.

Amy Sheppard 0:21:42 Yeah.

Natalie Cassidy 0:21:42 And me standing there and saying, oh, everything's really freezing. And she, and I remember her saying, you need freezing cold hands. The bowl's been in the fridge. Everything needs to be freezing cold to make pastry. Yeah. And it's a really early memory of my mum washing her hands in ice cold water to make the pastry.

Amy Sheppard 0:21:58 Oh, that's so lovely. So that's one of your early memories with your mum doing that. What did she used to make with pastry?

Natalie Cassidy 0:22:02 Apple pies or she would do— Oh, nice. I think like a, beef mince sort of pies. Yeah. And she'd make suet, doing suet puddings and stuff like that.

Amy Sheppard 0:22:13 Oh, I love suet pudding. So pudgy.

Natalie Cassidy 0:22:15 Yeah. Yeah, I love suet. You shouldn't, should you? But fuck it.

Amy Sheppard 0:22:19 So good. So good.

Natalie Cassidy 0:22:22 So what's your favourite chapter in the new book? Or haven't you, is it all brilliant for you? Or a favourite recipe? Do you know what?

Amy Sheppard 0:22:28 I would probably say, which is quite unusual for me because I'm not, I do eat chicken, I really like chicken, but I sometimes can't always get that excited about chicken. But the chicken recipe, the recipe in Speedy 10. I just love them. I think it's my favourite chapter.

Natalie Cassidy 0:22:42 Yeah. And what's your favourite chicken recipe in there?

Amy Sheppard 0:22:46 There's a creamy lasagne, which is also like a lasagne-ish. So it's a creamy £1 lasagne. So it uses, you know, fresh lasagne we buy in sheets?

Natalie Cassidy 0:22:55 Yep.

Amy Sheppard 0:22:56 Just cutting it into strips, chucking it, literally you could tear it up, throwing it into a creamy sauce with leftover roast chicken. Not, you don't need a massive amount. Right. And it's got some veggies in there, it's got some kale, and then it's topped with cream cheese and then just finished off Under the grill with a load of cheddar cheese on top. And it's so good. It is so, so good. That's so good. It's like a proper big autumn hug of a dinner.

Natalie Cassidy 0:23:21 And all in one pan as well.

Amy Sheppard 0:23:23 All in one pan, yeah.

Natalie Cassidy 0:23:24 Which you can't beat. I've got a couple of— You can't beat. Yeah, you really can't. When you, when you've come home from work or you know you've got a busy evening ahead doing other things, the last thing you need is 8 pots out.

Amy Sheppard 0:23:35 No, you really don't. I just have, I just have no interest in that sort of cooking anymore. I think I did have once upon a time, and I was quite into, let's do big elaborate things.

Amy Sheppard 0:23:44 I just can't be arsed anymore. No. I just really can't. Especially writing Speedy 10 as well, I think, because I probably wasn't that, most of my recipes weren't necessarily that quick that I'd done in the past. So it was a bit of a sort of learning curve to go, actually, we want like proper big comfort food, but it's gotta be quick.

Amy Sheppard 0:24:02 And I was like, oh man, that's gonna be, that's gonna be a lot. But it's been quite good actually. It's got me into like a different way of cooking. And now I'm just like, I don't want any nonsense in the kitchen. I just want everything quick now.

Natalie Cassidy 0:24:14 Absolutely. Going back to your Instagram page.

Amy Sheppard 0:24:16 Yeah.

Natalie Cassidy 0:24:17 I, I'm not on TikTok. I'm sure you are huge on TikTok as well, are you?

Amy Sheppard 0:24:20 Yeah, I've got about, I think it's like 700,000 on TikTok. I was really, I was really late to TikTok, like years late to TikTok, and I was already quite established on Instagram. about 2 years after lockdown, like 2 years after everyone else joined TikTok. Yeah. I went, oh, I should probably, I should probably give that a go. But it's so different. I don't— do you go on TikTok at all?

Natalie Cassidy 0:24:43 I'm on there. I've got the Life with Nat stuff on there. I never go on it. I'm terrible. I think I've got about 25,000 followers. I just, I can't get it. I don't get it. It's just not my thing. I should post more.

Amy Sheppard 0:24:55 It really, really took me a while. Probably took me a year before I started enjoying it. I remember the first time I went on it, I was What is this? Just a lot of noise. What is this? And a lot of it's so fast, it's a lot for my brain to take in. Yeah, no, it is a lot. But then what happens is I feel like the algorithm kind of figures you out, and then you're like, then you're hooked, completely hooked. Yeah. It's probably best you don't do it, to be honest with you, because it's like, it's a slippery slope.

Natalie Cassidy 0:25:19 But I am a big Instagram user, and I just find that more soft and easy, and I, I don't really scroll for long, and that's all good. So you come up often. What have been your moments on Instagram which have just been huge hits, or are they all kind of much of a muchness? I mean, I'm interested, what do people love the most to see from your cooking?

Amy Sheppard 0:25:40 I mean, probably recently is I did a series called Cooking Like It's the '90s. 'Cause I'm 46, I was born in 1980, so during the '90s, that was kind of my, like, childhood, teenage years. Yeah. And that was where all of my kind of food memories come from. And I just felt it was just such a different time, wasn't it? I did like a homemade Findus Crispy. Do you remember the Findus Crispy pancakes?

Natalie Cassidy 0:26:04 Yes. Yeah, I do, I do.

Amy Sheppard 0:26:06 I loved them. I absolutely loved them. We always had them in the freezer at our house. And so I did like a homemade version with like mini tortillas and breadcrumbs. Actually, it wasn't breadcrumbs. I used frazzles. I used crushed frazzles. Honestly, it's not surprising people get annoyed with me on social media when I say this stuff out loud.

Natalie Cassidy 0:26:26 You can't beat a frazzle though.

Amy Sheppard 0:26:27 You can't beat a frazzle.

Natalie Cassidy 0:26:29 I'm in, I'm in. You're in, you're fully in.

Amy Sheppard 0:26:32 So I'd crush crassles and put them on the outside and then fried them up. Wow. And so I had these like cheesy, cheesy, smoky ones. And I did this, I don't know if you remember this, but, and I wasn't sure whether it was just gonna be a thing that my mum did, but she made this, and a lot of people said it was a real school dinners thing. She made this like scone-based pizza.

Natalie Cassidy 0:26:54 Right.

Amy Sheppard 0:26:55 So you kind of make a scone mix, and it was always on like a rectangle tray. You do it like quite thin, and then you do your like topping and cheese and some herbs and stuff like that. like that, right?

Amy Sheppard 0:27:05 But it seemed to bring back so many memories from it for people. Um, and it was really lovely because I went to stay with my mum and dad, uh, a few weeks ago, and it's a couple of weeks after I'd posted this, and my mum had completely forgotten that she used to make this pizza. So she made it. I normally, I take the boys or I'd go with my husband Paul, but I just went by myself to— yeah, my mum and dad. And, um, they made this pizza and I was just sat on the sofa and I was just 14 again.

Natalie Cassidy 0:27:31 Oh, that's wonderful.

Amy Sheppard 0:27:31 But being looked after by my mum and dad and just homemade pizza, and it was just so lovely.

Natalie Cassidy 0:27:36 That's so lovely. I remember my mum, I can't remember that, she didn't do that one.

Amy Sheppard 0:27:41 Yeah.

Natalie Cassidy 0:27:42 But there was a school dinner which I absolutely loved, and boy did I have an appetite. I remember always going back to the dinner ladies for seconds and thirds.

Amy Sheppard 0:27:51 Yeah.

Natalie Cassidy 0:27:51 And it was called chicken merengue.

Amy Sheppard 0:27:53 Oh, I don't know that one. I don't know if you remember it.

Natalie Cassidy 0:27:56 It was— No. Sort of chicken in a sauce with onions, and it was nothing exotic, but my mum got the recipe from the dinner ladies, and I remember I loved cooking it. Oh, I love that. Yeah, I remember I cooked it it at home because I loved it so much.

Amy Sheppard 0:28:08 Yeah.

Natalie Cassidy 0:28:09 Yeah. I had great school dinners. People talk about school dinners being crap, but mine were great.

Amy Sheppard 0:28:13 I loved my school dinners. I've got such great memories of school dinners. Me too. Like some of the cakes we had as well.

Natalie Cassidy 0:28:19 And semolina.

Amy Sheppard 0:28:21 Yeah.

Natalie Cassidy 0:28:22 With jam in and the rice pudding with the skin on the top. All of those things, you know? I love them.

Amy Sheppard 0:28:26 Have you gone back and had some of those things as an adult, and do they still land the same? Because some of them just, they're just not the same. They're just not as good.

Natalie Cassidy 0:28:35 No, I haven't. I would love a semolina though with some jam in. I should do that. Yeah. I should buy myself some. You should do it.

Amy Sheppard 0:28:42 Yeah. We used to have at school, it sounds really awful, and I just, I don't think it's in fashion at all, but what's it called? Oxtail soup. Yes. We used to have, like, they used to do homemade oxtail soup and they used to do these amazing chips. So we would get, me and my mates would get a bowl of oxtail soup and we'd get chips and we'd dip chips in our soup. Lovely. That was just like, oh, so good.

Natalie Cassidy 0:29:03 Interestingly, my daughter had her lower brace on yesterday, bless her. Oh yeah. And it, oh, the day before. So she's in a lower brace She said, can you get me a Heinz cream of tomato soup? And then she makes white bread, thick butter, cheese sandwich. Nice. And she dips it in the tomato soup. But that's her little comfort.

Amy Sheppard 0:29:22 Yeah, I love that.

Natalie Cassidy 0:29:24 Yeah, me too. You've gotta have your comfort food that you enjoy. You do.

Amy Sheppard 0:29:27 And I love that when you see with your kids, them, them having stuff or coming up with their own little comfort rituals, that you know that when they're adults, they're gonna look back on that and they're gonna have that. You know, your daughter will have that tomato soup when she's 30, and go, oh God, remember when I had my braces on? I just love that about food. Yeah. That it kind of— Well, it's the nostalgia. It evokes these memories, yeah.

Natalie Cassidy 0:29:48 I completely agree. And I think that's another reason why we're all in love with it. It's that the nostalgia of, the nostalgia of those sorts of things that you eat that remind you of core memories throughout your life. Definitely. But then also the memories you make through food.

Amy Sheppard 0:30:02 Yeah.

Natalie Cassidy 0:30:03 And the memories where you're gathering people together, or you're on holiday and you go to a lovely restaurant, or it's someone's birthday and you go out, you know, it's all, about that gathering of people and being together.

Natalie Cassidy 0:30:14 And we're huge, you know, me and my family are very, very close. And, you know, we've just been to Tuscany together, and we were cooking in this little tiny kitchen and getting stuff from the supermarket, but being together and, you know, just having a glass of wine and cooking and who's doing what. And, you know, for me— Oh, that's so lovely. The holiday was great, but that kitchen was the best for me. That was the best part of the holiday for me, you know.

Amy Sheppard 0:30:39 You know, that's so good. Sometimes the best parts— we've been to France, like, self-catering with a couple of other families for the last 2 years and, um, absolutely loved it. And that is exactly the same, just going to, going to French supermarkets and getting all these little, little gorgeous bits and cheeses and salads. And yeah, exactly like you're saying, they're all cooking together. I just love it.

Natalie Cassidy 0:30:59 So good. It's so, so good. We should definitely cook together at some point.

Amy Sheppard 0:31:03 We should, definitely.

Natalie Cassidy 0:31:05 Oh no, that means I might have to have a trip to Cornwall.

Amy Sheppard 0:31:08 Oh no, that'd be, that'd be terrible.

Natalie Cassidy 0:31:11 It's a nightmare.

Amy Sheppard 0:31:12 Yeah, that'd be brilliant. Definitely do that. Oh, we should. Come and cook in my kitchen. We should, yeah.

Natalie Cassidy 0:31:17 We should do something for Instagram or something. Yeah, we should. And, you know, do a little another episode where we're cooking or something. It'd be great. Yeah, that'd be really, really fun. It'd be really fun.

Amy Sheppard 0:31:23 We could cook up some school dinners.

Natalie Cassidy 0:31:25 Yeah, absolutely. You can make me a chicken merengue.

Amy Sheppard 0:31:27 Yeah, yes. You could do a semolina. Yeah.

Natalie Cassidy 0:31:32 Do your kids love what you do? Are they proud of you or are they like, oh, Mum? My kids, my kids are like, oh yeah, Mum's whatever. They're not really bothered about what I'm doing, which I like.

Amy Sheppard 0:31:42 No, I think they both went through a phase where their mates were really excited about the fact that they had a mum with quite a big following. But both of them, they're just both very much, they're really proud. They're so lovely. They're just, they're really lovely about it.

Natalie Cassidy 0:31:58 Yeah.

Amy Sheppard 0:31:59 But they're just not, you know, I'm just their mum. But yeah, no, they are really lovely about it. But my eldest has just, neither of them have shown much interest in cooking. Mm-hmm. I dunno if your kids have.

Natalie Cassidy 0:32:13 Oh, I'll tell you a story in a minute.

Amy Sheppard 0:32:15 Yeah. But Elliot, my eldest, has just started cooking from Speedy Tem.

Natalie Cassidy 0:32:22 Oh, really?

Amy Sheppard 0:32:23 And they've never, my previous cookbook, I honestly, it sounds really bad, but I don't even think they've really flicked, even flicked through the other pages. No, it's not bad at all.

Natalie Cassidy 0:32:30 My kids haven't looked at my autobiography.

Amy Sheppard 0:32:31 Really? No.

Natalie Cassidy 0:32:32 I couldn't give a shit.

Amy Sheppard 0:32:38 But Elliot is just— he's like, I just, I really want— because he's working at a hotel at the moment, so he comes back at kind of, you know, random hours and late hours. He's like, I just want to cook some pretty easy stuff. And I was like, how about Speedy 10? He went, oh yeah, maybe. Anyway, he's cooked a couple of things for me. I'm just desperately trying not to be too enthusiastic and too excited about it, about kids cooking, because that Oh, he's gotta pass her out.

Natalie Cassidy 0:33:01 My— so Eliza was on Junior Bake Off.

Amy Sheppard 0:33:08 Was she?

Natalie Cassidy 0:33:09 Yeah. She got— it was really interesting at the time because she went through the process in lockdown. Yeah. And I know it's quite— How old was she? Well, I sound like a terrible mum. She was 9 when she came to me and said, I wanna fill this form in, Mum.

Amy Sheppard 0:33:24 Yeah.

Natalie Cassidy 0:33:25 I really wanna do this. do the Bake Off. And I went, oh yeah, all right. I said, that's ridiculous. I said, you can fill it in, darling. I said, there are thousands of people, hundreds of thousands of people. Don't get your hopes up.

Amy Sheppard 0:33:35 Yeah.

Natalie Cassidy 0:33:36 So, you know, but I'm always like that, you know, don't have expectations very high and then you can't be disappointed.

Amy Sheppard 0:33:40 Yeah.

Natalie Cassidy 0:33:41 Anyway, she filled it in. We got an email. She did something online where she had to talk to somebody. Then there was the next stage she got through and another stage. And it even got to a point where I spoke to a producer on the phone. Really embarrassing. And I said, look, I said, I just wanna check it's not because of who I am that she's getting through this far. No, but you worry, you know. Yeah. Do they want me to see me on it? Or I want it to be— and they let me—

Amy Sheppard 0:34:09 You want it to just be her thing.

Natalie Cassidy 0:34:10 And genuinely, they were like, absolutely not, Miss Cassidy. Your daughter's talented. It's got nothing to do with you at all. And then I felt okay about it, you know. Yeah. And I was like, brilliant. Okay. But yeah, she did it. She absolutely loved it and—

Amy Sheppard 0:34:24 That's amazing.

Natalie Cassidy 0:34:25 Yeah, she was 10. And we'd just lost my dad actually. So we lost my dad in April.

Amy Sheppard 0:34:31 Yeah.

Natalie Cassidy 0:34:31 And then she got through and we knew she was gonna be on the telly. So I always say it's granddad's gift to her, you know. And then that summer—

Amy Sheppard 0:34:38 Oh, I love that.

Natalie Cassidy 0:34:39 Yeah, and that summer she was filming that and she was away. And you know, it's young, 10, to go away. I was working. So she went away with the childminder at the time and was phoning me every day and getting through the stages. But it really helped her, and I think she really needed that. It would've been a very hard summer for her, I think, being away.

Amy Sheppard 0:34:57 Definitely. Sometimes being taken out of the, the kind of the normal. It was her gift, you know.

Natalie Cassidy 0:35:03 Yeah. That's what I was saying.

Amy Sheppard 0:35:05 And she still loves cooking. She still loves baking.

Natalie Cassidy 0:35:07 No. She, then she went into teenage years, couldn't care less.

Amy Sheppard 0:35:10 Yeah.

Natalie Cassidy 0:35:11 But now she's, She's, you know, she's with her friends or her boyfriend, and they'll be, they'll get some steaks, and they're in the kitchen, and they're seasoning their stuff, and she'll make pasta. And she's very good, you know, she can chuck stuff together, and she's a good baker. So I've got no worries with her. No worries. She just did her work experience, actually, down at 45 Park Lane.

Amy Sheppard 0:35:31 Oh, really?

Natalie Cassidy 0:35:33 And she worked in, for one of the days, she was in the kitchen. And she messaged me, and she said, Mum, I love this so much. I love it so much. That's amazing. So I said, it's really hard, hard graft. But if you've got a passion for that, you know, AI can't take over kitchens or food.

Amy Sheppard 0:35:51 No, that's so true. That's so true. That's right.

Natalie Cassidy 0:35:53 AI can't take that over. So I said, I will support you all the way if you decide that is a route you'd like to go down. Hard work, really crap hours. But if you've got a passion, you will love doing it.

Amy Sheppard 0:36:03 Incredible. If you, if you, if you find that and you love doing it, it's just, yeah, it's just amazing.

Natalie Cassidy 0:36:08 Yeah. So, you know, we'll see. Anything could happen. She's got a year. to do her mocks and GCSEs and pick A-levels. So we don't know yet, but she's definitely got a passion. And the other one, Joni.

Amy Sheppard 0:36:20 Yeah.

Natalie Cassidy 0:36:20 So she'll be 10 in a few days' time. Well, in a minute I will go down to the kitchen and she has left such a mess, but she made some cracking brownies.

Amy Sheppard 0:36:31 That's amazing.

Natalie Cassidy 0:36:32 So she's another one. So yeah, we, you know, cooking is, is in the house and they do love it. They do.

Amy Sheppard 0:36:37 It's so lovely as foodies, isn't it? When you see your kids starting to love food and starting to start My youngest, Sammy, is 16. Yeah. And so he's just started cooking for his girlfriend. Yeah. Yeah. And so they come over and they cook together in the kitchen. Yeah. And I just, I love it.

Natalie Cassidy 0:36:54 It's great, isn't it? So nice. So nice to see. And Joni, because she's, you know, 9, we bought some chick— she said, no, what I wanna do is I wanna get some chicken fillets. And I buy the little mini chicken fillet thing. Yeah. And she, she come, she said, no, I'd like to season them. So, like, she's there and she'll get out the oregano or the Italian herbs and the bits, and she's rubbing it all in and leaving it for a bit and then popping it in the air fryer. You know, she's hilarious. She'll get out a fillet steak.

Amy Sheppard 0:37:20 That's amazing at 9 though.

Natalie Cassidy 0:37:22 Honestly, she'll get out a fillet steak. Don't mind me, she loves a steak. She'll get out a steak and her chips and she'll do it all in the air fryer. She does her steak in the air fryer, it comes out perfect.

Amy Sheppard 0:37:31 Really? I feel like I just, I fully haven't embraced the air fryer like my kids have.

Natalie Cassidy 0:37:38 I agree. I think it's brilliant.

Amy Sheppard 0:37:39 I do, I do use it for stuff, but it just, it, even though we've had it for years now, it just, it just still doesn't really occur to me to cook in it. Whereas my boys, just like anything that can be cooked in the air fryer, it's just easy for them though.

Natalie Cassidy 0:37:52 It's brilliant for them. For me, I mean, I know people put a roast chicken in it and all that. I wanna use my oven. I want, I want the oven to be on. I like the hob to be on. I just, That sort of kick.

Amy Sheppard 0:38:05 It feels like, I know, I know. Do you know what though? I would say chicken in the air fryer, it's the best chicken I've ever had. It's so good. Mm-hmm. But yet I still cook it in the oven.

Natalie Cassidy 0:38:16 Yeah.

Amy Sheppard 0:38:16 It makes no sense. It's just, I, I dunno, I guess it's just like what we grew up with, isn't it?

Natalie Cassidy 0:38:20 I think so. I think so. But yeah, our kids, and you know, you can buy the frozen croissants now and, yeah, I think, you know, it's just easy. It's nice for them to be able to make their breakfast and have a hot croissant or whatever. Yeah. Yes, they can chuck it in the oven, but also they're very impatient. They've been brought up, they're not like us. They didn't, they don't have to wait for, I don't know, Mork and Mindy to be on, on Tuesday night.

Amy Sheppard 0:38:43 I loved Mork and Mindy.

Natalie Cassidy 0:38:44 It was great, wasn't it?

Amy Sheppard 0:38:45 It was so good.

Natalie Cassidy 0:38:46 But do you remember that kind of— Yeah. That stage on Channel 4, every night there'd be a programme on at 6:30 or whatever.

Amy Sheppard 0:38:53 Yeah.

Natalie Cassidy 0:38:53 So you'd have your Mork and Mindy, you would have your, The Fonz, Happy Days.

Amy Sheppard 0:39:00 Happy Days, yes.

Natalie Cassidy 0:39:01 Oh, what was the other one? Blossom?

Amy Sheppard 0:39:04 Oh, I loved Blossom, was my favourite. Blossom was great. I was in love with her brother Joey. Do you remember Joey? Yeah, I do. Just loved Blossom so much. But yeah, it was, we had, we had like 4 channels, didn't we?

Natalie Cassidy 0:39:14 And we, but we had to wait, and each week I couldn't wait for that evening. They haven't got that now. No. So for them putting on the oven for 25 minutes, they're never gonna do that if they can chuck something in for 12 in the air fryer.

Amy Sheppard 0:39:24 Yeah, no, it's true.

Natalie Cassidy 0:39:26 Which is a shame, but that's, that's where we are. I don't wanna be grumpy and old.

Amy Sheppard 0:39:30 I honestly, I think when they're older, like, are people gonna own ovens? Are they just gonna have like an air fryer in the corner of their room?

Natalie Cassidy 0:39:37 I would imagine it'll be kind of a larger scale air fryer perhaps in the wall of, you know, it'll all be smart, won't it? Everything's smart. You'll just be, you'll just be chatting to it and shouting at stuff, won't you? You will, won't you? Oh, you're little, and your fridge will know what it's got and what it hasn't, and the orders will just turn up. You won't have to worry.

Amy Sheppard 0:39:54 Have you seen some of these digital fridges? Yeah. With like TV screens on the front. They're mental.

Natalie Cassidy 0:40:00 Yeah, it's crazy.

Amy Sheppard 0:40:02 I got contacted by, I probably shouldn't say this, I'm not gonna, I won't say the brand, but I got contacted by a brand. This was a couple of years ago. Yeah. And they said, oh, we really wanna do a collaboration with a fridge freezer.

Natalie Cassidy 0:40:11 Yeah.

Amy Sheppard 0:40:12 Could you like fit it in your house and can you do it? And I was like, whenever I'm doing stuff, we obviously wanna try stuff out and you wanna see the price point. It was £4,000.

Natalie Cassidy 0:40:21 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Amy Sheppard 0:40:23 For like a fridge freezer. I was like, what it would have to do to warrant being £4,000. Anyway, I probably shouldn't say that, but—

Natalie Cassidy 0:40:31 No, no, that's how you feel.

Amy Sheppard 0:40:33 But I was really shocked and it was like a whole world of, a whole world of fridges and appliances that I had known nothing about.

Natalie Cassidy 0:40:40 Yeah, yeah. No, I know they can be pricey. I have to say some of them are mad. Some of them are like 12 grand.

Amy Sheppard 0:40:46 Yes. What's 12 grand? Oh gosh. So this is like a, this is like an extra, like— Yeah.

Natalie Cassidy 0:40:50 But what's the brand? I can't remember. It's like, Really, can't remember. It's like a big American, everything's massive.

Amy Sheppard 0:40:57 Oh yeah, yeah.

Natalie Cassidy 0:40:58 You know, the hob's huge, it's got 10 rings on it and everything's like monstrously big. But yeah, huge. But they're more for kitchens really, but people do have them in their homes.

Amy Sheppard 0:41:08 Yeah, it's mad. I, we, we replaced our fridge the other day and I think it's like £300. I mean, I'm not gonna lie, it's really shit.

Natalie Cassidy 0:41:16 Yep.

Amy Sheppard 0:41:19 But, you know.

Natalie Cassidy 0:43:30 When you think about your career at the moment and what you're doing, so obviously your financial side of things, you've got your books and you earn through Instagram, and like you say, you have your partners and you collab with people, whatever. Sort of what I'm doing at the moment really is the pod and different collaborations with people, and yeah, documentaries and stuff, but I've come out of the acting world for a little bit. I'd love to go back there at some point. I'm doing a panto, I'm playing a wicked queen at Christmas, so that'll be great. Oh, yay. Yeah, yeah, that'll be really fun.

Amy Sheppard 0:44:01 And you've just done a voiceover, haven't you?

Natalie Cassidy 0:44:03 I have just done a voiceover for Ricky Gervais, yeah. But it's very little, very little part.

Amy Sheppard 0:44:08 Is it? I'm gonna watch it at the weekend because my mate was, um, she sent me some voice notes when I was on the dog walk this morning. She said it's absolutely brilliant, it's really good.

Natalie Cassidy 0:44:16 It actually got slated in the reviews.

Amy Sheppard 0:44:18 Did it?

Natalie Cassidy 0:44:19 Really badly slated. But I just think, I just think people don't know what to say about him anymore. Do you know what I mean?

Amy Sheppard 0:44:24 No, I think he's just doing his own thing. I've seen some clips of it and it really, really made me laugh out loud.

Natalie Cassidy 0:44:30 It's just rare that somebody sticks to their to craft what they like to do. And he does that. And it's his style, it's what he does. And it's been number 1 on Netflix around the world for 3 days, so I don't think he'll be that bothered about the reviews.

Amy Sheppard 0:44:43 No, to be honest with you, it's not about what critics think, is it? No. It's not actually, it's not about sort of people writing reviews in newspapers, it's about people actually just sitting at home watching it on the telly and enjoying it.

Natalie Cassidy 0:44:52 Absolutely, yeah. And it was such a brilliant thing to do. I play his mum, so I play Gus's mum in it, just so you know when you watch it. And I also play the mum of the 3 kittens which you'll understand when you watch, but it's very short bits. But yeah, I was thrilled, thrilled to—

Amy Sheppard 0:45:10 Have you done much voiceover stuff before?

Natalie Cassidy 0:45:12 I have done a few bits and pieces, one animation before this, and then I've done one that's actually coming out with the BBC at Christmas time. I've done a little cartoon for CBBC, which is great. But yeah, it's something that I really enjoy and could get into, really.

Amy Sheppard 0:45:29 Must be so fun.

Natalie Cassidy 0:45:30 Really fun, yeah, to encapsulate that character. But even when I'm doing voiceovers for documentary series, which I've done before. You know, there's a certain tone for everything, do you know what I mean? Rob Beckett, for instance, with the dating show he does, you know, he's the king of voiceover for that. It's so brilliant. I'd love to do that sort of thing. Come Dine With Me, you get the awkward voiceover. Brilliant, you know.

Amy Sheppard 0:45:52 Love that. You'd be so good at that.

Natalie Cassidy 0:45:54 Yeah, I'd like that.

Amy Sheppard 0:45:55 You need to pitch Channel 4. You'd be so good at that.

Natalie Cassidy 0:45:58 Yeah, we'll have to throw that out into the universe. Yeah, that's it. Chuck it out there. Chuck it out there. As I say, we're both kind of similar with all the different bits and pieces. Do you ever kind of doubt yourself, second guess, and think, well, how long is this gonna continue for?

Amy Sheppard 0:46:12 Oh God, all the time. Yeah. All the time. Because I feel like, especially with the brand stuff, especially with Instagram and social media, it definitely feels like, I'm gonna sound like someone's gran when I say this, but it definitely feels like a young person's game. Um, like, like most of the influencers are kind of in their 20s.

Natalie Cassidy 0:46:32 Yeah.

Amy Sheppard 0:46:32 And so I do definitely second-guess myself thinking, oh my God, how long am I going to be doing like influencer brand? Like, how long are they going to want to work with me for? I don't, I don't, I don't know. So it definitely feels like I'm the oldest influencer in the country sometimes. But, um, yeah, so that I definitely second-guess myself about that. Um, and it's, and it's such an unpredictable thing, isn't it? I mean, you know, because you, you know, whether you, whether you're doing brand stuff, which you do, or whether you're promoting the podcast. It's such an unpredictable thing, social media, isn't it?

Natalie Cassidy 0:47:05 Very, yeah, very.

Amy Sheppard 0:47:07 About whether you're getting engagement or whether you're in favour of what people are liking. So it's, it's really hard to not make that your main aim, um, of you're only as happy as how many likes your last post got.

Natalie Cassidy 0:47:20 That's interesting. Yeah, I mean, I'm not— I think that, that for me is very different because I think my career you know, I've been on telly for 30 years. So, you know, I've carved a career.

Amy Sheppard 0:47:32 Definitely.

Natalie Cassidy 0:47:33 And then obviously this bonus stuff is brilliant, but I don't ever—

Amy Sheppard 0:47:37 But it's not your main kind of thing.

Natalie Cassidy 0:47:39 I never, you know, I do something and I don't even look at the engagement of it.

Amy Sheppard 0:47:42 Yeah.

Natalie Cassidy 0:47:42 But I understand if that was my main game, that—

Amy Sheppard 0:47:46 You're kind of, and if something doesn't do as well as you want to, you're like, is this it? Is this it? Is this, you know?

Natalie Cassidy 0:47:51 It's kind of pressure though for you. It is.

Amy Sheppard 0:47:53 And you just kind of have to not make it your main kind of aim and just look at it I just love, I love Instagram. I know it's really naff to say, but I really like Instagram. No, it's great. I love chatting with people and I love sharing recipes and I just, I still, I feel like I'm kind of exactly the same on Instagram as I was when I had 200 followers.

Natalie Cassidy 0:48:11 Yeah.

Amy Sheppard 0:48:12 Like, I still share the same things and I still chat in the same way. Like, nothing's really changed. And I still, obviously I started it as just like fun, so it doesn't, It doesn't feel like a job to me on there. No. But you do have to remind yourself sometimes, especially when you get negative stuff happen or negative comments and things. Yeah. You just have to try and, I remember speaking, I dunno if you know, like Becky Excel, she is like a massive foodie. And I saw her a few months ago and—

Natalie Cassidy 0:48:42 I don't know her. We were just talking about the, she's gluten-free.

Amy Sheppard 0:48:45 She's got a really huge gluten-free page. Her food's incredible. She's celiac and does all of this amazing stuff. had— God, I don't know the number, but I think she's had about 9 Sunday Times bestsellers.

Natalie Cassidy 0:48:57 Wow.

Amy Sheppard 0:48:58 So she's amazing. She's been doing it for a really long time. And, um, we were just chatting about it, and I'm sure she won't mind me saying that we were kind of saying with social media, you have to— the way that it is now, you can't always enjoy the compliments because you feel like if you enjoy that too much, you can't— you can't be invested in either, basically. Absolutely. When someone says, well, something's wonderful, you can't go, Oh, that's brilliant. I feel so great about that. And then when someone says something's a bit shit, you can't go, I'm devastated. That's ruined my day. You just kind of have to treat both exactly the same.

Natalie Cassidy 0:49:32 Yeah. I've always done that throughout my career. I've been very, I don't know why. Yeah. People always say it to me. I don't know why I've got such a thick skin. I don't know why things don't bother me. But even doing plays, people used to be running out to get all the reviews and reading it all. I don't read anything.

Amy Sheppard 0:49:46 No.

Natalie Cassidy 0:49:47 You know what I mean?

Amy Sheppard 0:49:48 Yeah, I don't. I get, so I get reviews for my books. Mm-hmm. my first book coming out, um, or being in like, you know, the Daily Mail or something, Daily Mail comments things.

Natalie Cassidy 0:49:59 Oh no, don't do that. I'd have—

Amy Sheppard 0:50:01 I know I, I never worked on a tab at the beginning. I'd have my mum and dad going, oh God, awful things been written. Or Paul would go, you know, you've got a 1-star review for your book. And I just think, do you know what, guys, just— I don't know, I'm not— rather not know. I just don't, I don't wanna know because I can't do anything about it.

Natalie Cassidy 0:50:17 No.

Amy Sheppard 0:50:17 And it's just so— yeah, so part of it's kind of I'm quite thick-skinned. Part of it's just, um, I sort of live in a little little bubble of ignorance.

Natalie Cassidy 0:50:25 Little Cornish bubble.

Amy Sheppard 0:50:26 Little Cornish bubble of not knowing, yeah.

Natalie Cassidy 0:50:29 So how exciting, Speedy 10 is out this week.

Amy Sheppard 0:50:33 Yeah, I can't wait. I cannot believe how quickly it's come round, like all of a sudden.

Natalie Cassidy 0:50:38 It's gonna be brilliant. Are you going anywhere? Are you signing any or doing any of that sort of stuff?

Amy Sheppard 0:50:43 So I've got a few different things that I'm doing. I've got quite a lot of radio things. I'm going on Women's Hour, which I'm so excited about because my mum and my Auntie Paul listen, still listen to it every day, and they have done for years and years. So I just feel, I just feel really chuffed Yeah. So I'm doing that, lots of radio stuff. I think TV as well. Good, good. But that's not 100% confirmed. So cooking on TV, which is something I've never done before.

Natalie Cassidy 0:51:08 I did a bit of cooking on This Morning when I did the Cooking with the Stars thing, and they asked me to go on and do some cooking. I did a tray bake, a chicken pesto, like, kind of big tray bake thing. It was really nerve-wracking, but I really enjoyed it. Did you? I really enjoyed it. And I've done Saturday Kitchen, a couple of times for promo stuff. Yeah. And I always get up there with Teba and I'm sort of chopping and helping and you'll love it. It's brilliant.

Amy Sheppard 0:51:31 How different did it feel to cooking with, doing live TV to Cooking with the Stars? Did it feel really different? Very different. Doing live cooking?

Natalie Cassidy 0:51:40 Yes, very different. Very, very different. But you have to keep it kind of simple.

Amy Sheppard 0:51:44 Yeah.

Natalie Cassidy 0:51:44 And all of those shows, everything is, you know, very simple because it is live and you haven't got a lot of time. Yeah. So you're not really doing much cooking.

Amy Sheppard 0:51:52 It's all kind of prepped and yeah, that's, that's kind of what I thought.

Natalie Cassidy 0:51:55 Yeah. Whereas Cooking with the Stars was so stressful. I found it, I loved every minute of it.

Amy Sheppard 0:52:01 Yeah.

Natalie Cassidy 0:52:02 I loved it. I'd do it all again. But that time and remembering everything and, but I loved it. I think I could have worked in a kitchen. I think if I didn't do what, people always say, what do you think you would've done?

Amy Sheppard 0:52:13 Yeah.

Natalie Cassidy 0:52:14 And now I think that's what I would've done. I think I would've gone into a kitchen.

Amy Sheppard 0:52:18 Yeah.

Natalie Cassidy 0:52:19 'Cause it lights me up inside, you know? Yeah.

Amy Sheppard 0:52:22 Do you think you'll do something like that again?

Natalie Cassidy 0:52:24 I don't know. MasterChef have asked me before.

Amy Sheppard 0:52:27 Have they? Do you fancy it?

Natalie Cassidy 0:52:29 I shouldn't really say that, should I? But yeah, no, they have. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe. I'm not sure.

Amy Sheppard 0:52:36 They're just so intense. They're just so intense.

Natalie Cassidy 0:52:40 I think it's over a lot of weeks and with the children. Yeah. I always think MasterChef is one, if, when I've got more time at home and I could cook all day.

Amy Sheppard 0:52:48 Yeah.

Natalie Cassidy 0:52:49 Then that's something. I wouldn't wanna go on there and not give it my best shot and not just make it my life. Do you know what I mean?

Amy Sheppard 0:52:53 'Cause MasterChef, MasterChef seems to be one of those things, they'll, they'll come on and they'll say, I've cooked this 10 times. Like, it's like the Bake Off, like, I've practised and practised this one. So you just, yeah, there's obviously a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff goes on as well.

Natalie Cassidy 0:53:06 A lot of stuff, yeah. I mean, I did the Christmas special Bake Off and made a fantastic gingerbread sort of statue, and it ended up looking like some sort of Stonehenge rather than Albert Square. So if you wanna look it up and have a laugh, please do.

Amy Sheppard 0:53:24 I'm gonna, I'm gonna do that as soon as we get off this live. That's what I'm gonna be doing. I love that, I love that you went and made Albert Square though.

Natalie Cassidy 0:53:31 Yeah, I tried to do kind of the Ghost of Christmas Past and sort of Peggy and Dot and, yeah, you know, friends of mine that I've lost and loved. Yeah, Christmas. No, it was absolute shit. It didn't work. But there you go. The thought was there.

Amy Sheppard 0:53:47 The thought was there.

Natalie Cassidy 0:53:48 Amy, it's been so lovely talking to you. Thank you so much for giving up your time, and I really, really wish you well with the book. I'm sure it'll be another Sunday Times bestseller.

Amy Sheppard 0:53:58 Oh, that's so kind. Thank you so much for having me.

Natalie Cassidy 0:54:01 Oh, it was brilliant, and all the pictures in the book are fantastic. I urge you, listeners, you know how much we love our food on this pod. It looks like a cracker, so get buying. Maybe we should do it for book club. That'd be a good one. Do a cookbook for book club. I'll have a little think about that. Maybe it can be a little bonus, Brucey bonus. But yeah, I hope Cornwall treats you well for the rest of the summer.

Amy Sheppard 0:54:21 Oh, that's brilliant. Thank you so much. Hope you have a lovely rest of your summer. Thank you very much. It's not too hot there.

Natalie Cassidy 0:54:26 Thank you so much.

Amy Sheppard 0:54:27 And yeah, I've just really enjoyed this, so thank you so much for having me on.

Natalie Cassidy 0:54:29 Absolute pleasure, and good luck with everything, and hopefully we'll cook together soon.

Amy Sheppard 0:54:33 Yes, definitely. All right. All right. Thanks so much.

Natalie Cassidy 0:54:36 All right. Oh, what a fantastic woman. What a lovely, lovely chat. I really mean it. The book is amazing. And as I say, for someone to start something from scratch with no help and to be as successful as she is now, I just wish her all the best. And yeah, go and follow Amy Shepherd. 07788 20 19 19. Let me know what you thought of this ep, and I'll see you really soon. Cheers.