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Neneh and Andi cooking

Interview with Andi and Neneh

We meet best friends Neneh and Andi and find out what real cooking means to them.


Why is food so important to you both?

Neneh and Andi

Andi: Food penetrates through all of your senses, it's all part of the pursuit of happiness. The feeling that you get from creating something wonderful that brings everyone together is immeasurable.

Neneh: The anticipation, the smell, the taste of good food, the conversations and the time shared is how we survive. The act of giving sustenance to those you love is a great thing.

What meal makes you think of home?

Neneh: Chicken, rice, plantain, gleaming greens accompanied by good sounds and laughter.

The ready-meal market is booming and people are eating together less frequently. How can we turn the tide to encourage families and children to come together and eat together?

I say start small and stick with what you know well and the next thing you know it'll be a good new habit in your life

Andi: Simplicity is the key. So often people think they have to make some big complex thing... I say start small and stick with what you know well and the next thing you know it'll be a good new habit in your life.

When the two of you were in a band together, did you cook together a lot?

Neneh: All the time! Within a few days of meeting we were in the kitchen together.

Do you cook the same things now as you did back then?

Andi: Some of the old favourites are still there, like honey baked chicken. Things tend to reappear and take new shapes. We remembered the other day that Neneh used to make this amazing Swedish stuffed cabbage thing. She's going to have to make it again soon...

Neneh: But maybe with less oil and butter - got to watch the figure you know!

What's your favourite kitchen gadget?

Neneh: I have this electric chopper thing that I just love - especially for big cook-ups. It chops a pile of onions in minutes - so cool when you're cooking for the five thousand.

Andi: And I've got a lovely African pestle and mortar that we found in Ridley Road market in the East End of London.

What's your all-time favourite music album to cook to?

Neneh: We can't answer that definitively as our mood swings are way too random. One hour it could be Puccini, then Billie Holiday, all topped off with a healthy dose of the Clash. Around Christmas we get all Rat Pack music.

Andi: Lately there seems to be not enough of it because we can't have music on with the cameras, so we have to listen to our own blabber.

Neneh: It's quite disturbing really.

What's your favourite spice or herb? Can you suggest a way of cooking with it that we might not have heard of?

Andi: I'm having a bit of a saffron moment right now, and just made up a dish with paneer (Indian curd cheese) saffron, wild garlic, coconut and white wine that kind of rocks!

What are your earliest childhood food memories?

Macaroni cheese

Andi: Making stuff with my mum, things like pineapple upside-down cake and macaroni cheese. And when my family lived in Cyprus, I remember big picnics at the beach with five kinds of chicken and Greek sausage. And halloumi hot dogs from the van outside my mum's office, and fresh, hot roti (a Trinidadian bread stuffed with various fillings) from my Auntie Gwen.

Neneh: My earliest memory is my Aunt Betty opening a tin of Virginia ham in a pink housedress with brown stockings rolled down over her knees. I remember candied yams, my Swedish grandmother's meatballs and Italian stewed lamb in a restaurant in Turin, aged ten with my mother. I also remember eating a steak sandwich with one of the maids in the broom cupboard in the Chelsea hotel when I lived there and I was supposed to be vegetarian!

What's your worst-ever cooking disaster?

Neneh: We made a pizza for Ian Dury once that was like a cement block.

What did you do to recover?

Ian Dury

Andi: Nothing; we just went into denial and because he's so sweet, he ate it and pretended to like it until we met up again years later and he told us he was still trying to get over it.

Where do you like to shop - can you suggest any good local markets?

Andi: I've just discovered this place called Queens Market, near West Ham (in London). It's just unbelievably brilliant and the people there are so great. They've fought off closure from big supermarkets, all with a huge smile on their faces. The produce there is wicked.

What did you learn most from the series? What were the high points?

Andi: After all these years of us just doing what we do, finding out that other people are actually interested has been quite amazing.

Neneh: What we haven't quite learned, and what we might learn if we get the chance to do more, is to not talk at the same time. Don't hold your breath though…


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