Black All Year - Tea with the Thompsons

Culinary Reinvention from Nissan to TikTok

Who says life's second acts can't be as flavorful as the first? Nige Thompson, the culinary maestro behind "Tea with the Thompsons," graces our podcast with stories of his journey from Nissan supervisor to TikTok sensation. In discussion with Steph Edusei, discover how his Jamaican roots and the cherished memories of his family's kitchen have deeply influenced his approach to cooking and life.

From engineering to artistry in the kitchen, Nige brings a unique technical precision to his mouthwatering dishes. His knack for culinary experimentation and his passion for sharing his skills have led to a devoted following, eager for his next delicious creation. We chat about the role of improvisation in cooking, his personal anecdotes from "Come Dine With Me," and how a suggestion from his daughter propelled him into social media fame.

This episode isn't just about tantalising your taste buds; it's about the power of embracing change and the importance of not rushing to judgment. Listen as Nige shares his foray into TikTok, the misconceptions unraveled through his TV experience, and the heartfelt lessons learned along the way. Plus, get a sneak peek into the motivations behind writing his book, a testament to a life rich with experiences worth savouring. Join us for a conversation that's as satisfying as a home-cooked meal with the ones you love.

Nige Thompson Tik Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@teawiththethompsons

Steph Edusei LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/steph-edusei/
Steph Edusei Instagram https://www.instagram.com/stephedusei/

Original music by Wayne C McDonald, #ActorSlashDJ
www.facebook.com/waynecmcdonald
www.mixcloud.com/waynecmcdonald
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Chapters

• 0:09 Cooking Journey and Family Memories
• 10:28 Cooking and Dining Journey
• 13:06 The Come Dine With Me experience
• 17:58 From TikTok to Tesco
• 28:48 Planning and Writing a Book

Transcript

Steph Edusei Host00:09

Hi everyone and welcome Black All Year. This week, we have the fantastic Nige Thompson with us. Nige started cooking for family and friends, but he actually took part in Come Dine With Me in 2014 and won, and he's been cooking ever since. He is now a TikTok star. You can find him by searching at Tea with the Thompsons and he really enjoys putting his own spin on a huge array of foods, including curries, American delights, British classics and West Indian/Caribbean dishes. He formats the videos in a really easy, educational way to say that you don't need to be a chef in order to make amazing tasting food. Hi, Nige, it's really great to have you here on the podcast and I've been stalking you secretly on TikTok for a little while, watching your videos and keep promising myself that I will actually cook something from them, and I will, I promise you but welcome and

01:08

I thought, it might be good, we'll talk about TikTok and other things in a minute, but I thought it'd be really good just to start off talking a little bit about you, who you are and kind of your early days, if that's okay

Nige Thompson Guest01:22

I was born in Darlington in 1964, so I'm six..., I've just gone 60 this year. I grew up in Darlington all my life. Uh, when I was 23 I moved up to Washington in Sunderland because because I started working for Nissan motor company and I was there for 33 years, started as a manufacturing staff and ended up as a supervisor, just before I left, which was something I'd wanted from day one really. It took me a lot of years to get there, but I was determined to get there and I got there in the end. So I was pleased to leave when I did, I took early retirement just before lockdown. 

02:01

So I spent the year in lockdown, luckily I'm saying luckily, because after lockdown everybody went back to normal again. I got a little bit of um, I don't want to say depression, but I was in a very, very low mood, low. I had no purpose in life. Basically I was just. I was just wandering, getting through the days. My wife was at work, so I just couldn't, we couldn't zip off on holiday or things like that. So I just I just went in a bit of a downward spiral. So I was staying in bed all day, getting up, running the hoover around the floor so my wife knew I'd done something, and then I'd make, and then I'd make tea, you know so. And then I started working as a tutor at private Educator College in Washington, and I've been there up until when the place went into liquidation. 

Steph Edusei Host02:51

Oh. 

Nige Thompson Guest02:51

Yeah. So I don't know what I'm going to do now. I mean, I've got a book to write, I started writing a book, so hopefully I'll get that finished and out there. But yeah, that's me in a nutshell really. 

03:04

I come from Jamaican parents. My dad came to UK in in about 1956. My mother followed 18 months after and then we had family; family of seven. One of them was already born in Jamaica. My oldest brother and he came over about 70, no, about late 60s. He came over as a lot of uh, Jamaican children of immigrants did, they came over quite later once they saved up and all that, but he came over to a ready-made family, which is a bit of a shock to him. But I've never known him not being there. He's always been my big brother. You know, since I've never. You know when he went, he went away to the Navy. I really really missed him, but that's where life was in those days. You know my parents were. 

03:51

My dad was a shoemaker when he was in Jamaica. He came over and he started working on the buses, on the trains, then on the buses, and then he ended up working in Cummings Engines in Darlington where he was an engineer there, machine operator there. My mum, obviously she was busy having children all the time and she always wanted to train as a nurse. She started training as a nurse but obviously well, not obviously, but she didn't actually make it as a nurse because she was just too busy looking after her family. My father passed away and the funny thing is my mother passed away exactly 14 months after my dad did, which was, when she, when my dad arrived from Jamaica, my mam arrived 14 months. So it was quite spooky how it happened. He couldn't do without her, so he came back for her, which was, you know, which is a tough time for the family. 

04:44

But, yeah, very close together to have to lose both parents ironic that say, when he came to Jamaica it was 14 months later. Mum joined him in, 14 months after he passed away, she passed away. But they my dad was a massive inspiration in my life. He was, my dad was one of these fathers who, he was a strong, strict Jamaican man. He loved his kids. He would do anything for his children, and by that I mean my dad would, would, he would do anything. 

05:13

Nothing my dad wouldn't do for us. But my dad was quite funny as well, because we used to, if I said to my dad, "dad, I need to borrow a thousand pounds, he'd say what for? I said I've seen this really lovely car that I like and I want to get it, he would say no. And if I said, "dad, I need a thousand pounds, what for? I've got bills to pay, I've got this to pay", there you are here", or you'd only give it. Give us if we needed it. And he was so moralistic and he was such a strong character. My mum was, was was the one who, if you had any problems, you could go and talk me mum mum and she'd she'd like tell you straight she wouldn't sugarcoat anything, and it's something that I've always took with my children as well. I do exactly the same as my dad did. If they need it, they get it, and we're very, very straight with our children. It's something that I from my my mum and dad, along with with the cooking that I got. Because we obviously ate a lot of Jamaican food growing up, and that was we took it for granted because it was just something that we had. So when we go around our English friends or at school, it was just basic pie and peas and mash and things like that, nothing that we had. But there was no real divide in the food. It wasn't, it wasn't one or the other, because I preferred a bit of both. And it wasn't until like the later years. 

06:32

Um well, when I was growing up, my mum used to make this curry chicken and it was my mam's version of Jamaican curry chicken and it was so different I didn't realise it was a curry. I know that sounds strange, but I didn't realise it was a curry. It was one of those chicken dishes that your mam did and you never thought anything about it, and it wasn't until I started doing a lot of Asian and Indian cooking that I realised. You know, the basic ingredients is garlic and ginger, and they're the basic ingredients. And when I was putting them together thinking, hold on a minute, it was. 

07:07

It was a curry that me mam made. You know, it was really good. I mean, it was one of my favorite dishes and it was just something that I absolutely loved and I always, I always, tried to replicate it, but my mum was, I don't know. I don't know whether she did it on purpose or, because Jamaicans do a lot of freestyle when they're cooking. They have the basic ingredients and they'll add something else, add something else. 

07:27

So I asked my mum what was the recipe? 

07:32

And so she gave me the recipe when I tried to make it nothing like my mum's and then my other, my other siblings, um, tried to make it as well, nothing like my mam's and it was like I don't understand. And we would discuss and my mam had told everybody a different, a different recipe. I don't know why she did that intentionally, to keep us like talking and keep us together, or whether it was just her freestyle and that, you know, and it just changed it. So eventually, I just kept experimenting with all the different recipes that we know and it just changed it. So eventually I just kept experimenting with all the different recipes that we got and eventually I got something I range me brother, I've done it, I've done it, I've done it. He came up and he was like oh, I can't believe you've done it, this is it you know? So it was a really special, a special dish that we used to have, and it took me a long time to get it right, but I got it right.

Steph Edusei Host08:20

it's that because, as you were talking, all of my kind of memories of food was the children, as a child came back. It does bring back so many memories, doesn't it? When, when you taste that food so it's like um, I mean, my mam is um English, but she's learned to cook a Ghanaian dishes and I can make things corn beef beef stew, which is a dish that we make. I can make that and it'll taste nice. Doesn't taste like the way my mam makes it. And what's really interesting is when my mam makes light soup, which is one of Ghanaian dishes, Ghanaians say she makes it the best. 

08:55

And she says to me, she says you've just got to let the meat catch a little bit on the bottom of the pan. That's the. So everybody has their own little kind of um trick to to make it really nice.

Nige Thompson Guest09:08

Um, he was, he was, I would say he was just as good a cook as my mum was. He used to do a lot of stuff, but he used to make, he also used to make carrot juice drinks and the and the Guinness punch and things like that, which, again, I've tried to replicate and I can't find it. I can't do it. So I'm online looking at all the different recipes and seeing if I can make them as well. So I'm going to perfect them. I will. It's one of my life's goals. 

Steph Edusei Host09:32

And I do wonder, actually, with immigrant families, because particularly kind of like in the 50s and 60s it was quite often it would be men would come by themselves, even if they were married. So my dad came over in the early 60s from from Ghana and I think they had to be quite self-sufficient, and they, they wanted to create tastes of home. So they actually did get quite proficient at creating those, those recipes and things, didn't they? 

09:59

And I think with my dad it was, uh, he would, he would do certain elements of things, but he quite was quite happy to let my mam take over because she obviously did it right. So you, um, have you cooked kind of throughout all of that time, all that time you were at Nissan and things, has it always been something you've had a bit of a passion for. 

Nige Thompson Guest10:16

I've all. I mean to be fair, um, I've always liked to cook I've always because what I like to do is I experiment. So I will go somewhere and I'll have something to eat and I'll really enjoy it. But it wasn't quite to my taste and most people don't follow a recipe, they follow the basic recipe, and I'd think, well, I like that ingredient there so I'm going to put a bit more of that in. And people don't realise, I mean, there's all the classics out there and I just started like playing around with those and doing things like that, when you know. 

10:47

And then I got into uh, one of my friends at work got me into Indian cooking and so I started following a few indian b-i-r, British Indian Restaurant cooks, Misty Ricardo, Al's kitchen and Dan Tombs or the Curry Guy, and it was like I was doing their recipes and I was loving it. But sometimes the recipes take so long to make because you've got to make like a base gravy for an Indian food. It's like the basic of all Indian dishes, they have the base gravy and that takes so long to make. When I used to make them they were absolutely fantastic and I started taking shortcuts. Rather than making a full batch of base gravy, I would use carrot and coriander soup, which is an absolutely fantastic substitute. Or I would just use passata and extra onions to bring the acidity up, and things like that. So I always wanted to take shortcuts. And then, as I started making curry, I started making it for some of the people at work. I started making it for them. 

Steph Edusei Host11:46

And it's funny actually, as you're talking you were obviously an engineer before. 

Nige Thompson Guest11:50

I was a supervisor within Nissan. 

Steph Edusei Host11:53

Yeah, because I can hear that kind of technical thing, you can sort this out for that and that brings up the acidity, that's coming through even in your cooking and I think people don't understand or appreciate just how um technical and chemical based cooking is. It's very much based on that. So, yeah, you were. You were cooking for your, your mates at work?

Nige Thompson Guest12:15

Yeah, yeah. It was one of those things. Because one of them saw me on on, Come Dine with Me and I'd made my mum's curry on there. One of them kept saying when you're going to bring it in, when you're going to bring it in, I was like I'll do it one day, I'll do it one day. And then one day I'd made a big batch of it and and I thought, oh, I'll take some in for her. So I took a just like a little takeaway box of the curry and the rice and I took it in and I went oh, there you go, Ange, there you go. And and as soon as she opened it, all the girls in the HR came, "oh, what have you got there? What have you got there? Let me have a taste. So it became like that oh, will you make me some? Will you make me some? So I just started like taking them in. 

12:49

Every month, two months or so I'd take them all, a little curry and all that when I was experimenting, with the habit of doing it. And when I retired I felt really bad because they weren't going to get any more meals. I'd feed them on a regular basis by this time and I felt a little bit bad about it. So I said to my daughter I want to make a video so I can explain to the girls how I make these dishes. And that's how I got into TikTok. She says why don't you make a TikTok? I said what's a TikTok? And she just got the app up and made it and that was it. I just took off from there. 

Steph Edusei Host13:27

And I'm going to come on to TikTok in a second, but you just slipped in there. Come Dine With Me. Tell me about Come Dine With Me. How on earth did you end up on Come Dine With Me? 

Nige Thompson Guest13:42

It was again, it was another thing. Where I was, I was enjoying me cooking. I was doing a lot for friends dinner parties and things like that and I really enjoyed it. And then I saw an advert online somewhere about Come Dine with Me. So I applied. 

13:51

Then I got this phone call saying oh, you know, we've got your application and all that. Have you got time to do like a little chat about it. Oh, yeah, yeah. So they were on the phone but but, unbeknownst to me, it was like a conference call. So they started asking me questions and all that and I was like talking away and my daughters were coming up and shouting things in the room and the people from Come Dine with Me absolutely loved it, you know, they loved the way it sounded and everything. So they came up and they did a video of me in the house, just like around, like another video interview. So I did that with them and then they went off. 

14:27

And then I got this phone call from one of the one of the girls that I had come up to do the filming and she goes I'm not supposed to tell you this, but you're going to be in on the program. You know, you're gonna, you're gonna, you're gonna be I said, what you mean? You know we've just had the review there of all the contestants and you're definitely going to be in. But don't tell anybody I told you, act surprised and all this. I'm thinking, oh wow, unbeknownst to me. It's just like a ploy to make you feel a lot better. 

14:50

Anyway, then the director came up. I sat down and had a conversation with him. He asked me what the menu was going to be. So I told them what menu I want. And then next thing I knew I was getting picked up, driven up to a hotel just outside of Durham where I stayed for, you know, about three or four hours, and then I got driven into Newcastle to one of the contestants' house. They ask you what would be your best dinner party guest or your worst dinner, what worst people would you ask? Well, I wouldn't like somebody that was arrogant. I hate people that absolutely love themselves and look down the nose at others and look people up and down, and I said I hate people with stupid laughs. 

15:31

So you pull up in a taxi outside the person's house and all the other contestants are there. Then, one by one, they walk into the house, do the filming and then they go upstairs. So first gets out, it's this girl. She's about six foot, long, blonde hair. I thought, oh god, there's the girl that loves herself. And this other girl came out on uh, bushy hair and stilettos, wobbling in and I thought, oh god, there's her with a stupid laugh. So it's got to be the arrogant one inside. So when I was the last person to go, knocked on the door and Rob answered the door and he was like oh, how are you doing? Oh, he's really, really confident. And I just thought he's not that bad. 

16:13

We got in the house and as the week went on, you know, obviously you change opinions of people. Now Becky was a girl who I thought loved herself when we were in the house. Originally she was not as warm as the other two were and I just thought oh, I'm not sure whether I like you or not because you're not warm and open like everybody else. But that was the first night. I was just naive at the time because all the television staff were trying to push you to say things or push your opinions. So they got me in the room afterwards, interviewed, so what do you think of your, the fellow diners? And I went, oh well, one of them, Rob, he sounds like a really nice lad. He's very, very driven. Do you not find him arrogant? No, no, no, no, he's not arrogant at all. I think he's just very, very driven. He's very. What do you think about Becky? I'm not sure about Becky like. I said, I think she might be a little bit of a snake. Why do you think that? I said I don't know. She was just not as warm as as Rob was and not as warm as Corrina. What do you think of Corrina? I Corrina's just just an absolute laugh. She's lovely, dead, warmly, you know, down-to-earth person, and all this. 

17:22

So the next day it was Becky's night and so the first interview was so what did you end up thinking about Becky then? And they were really like trying to manipulate me into dissing her and I said, well, some of the things she said, I just thought because she was ashamed of where she grew up from and all this. And they just asked questions and they were like diving deeper into her and that's the only person they focused on. So the next night, as I say, was Becky's night and she did a round-the-world theme. So she was dressed up as an air host, air stewardess or flight attendant, should I say now, and her food was lovely. 

17:58

But anyway, then the next was Corrina's night night and Becky had changed 100%. She was relaxed, she was talking, she was funny, she was everything you know, the perfect, one of the perfect guests. And I did, I did realize that obviously a lot of that was down to her nerves; her night next and she was worried about things, but I didn't put, I didn't even think about that you know, because I was I would say I'm a fairly confident person and everybody else came across that way. 

18:26

But Becky was extremely nervous about it, which, which you know, I didn't, I didn't even consider and I was a bit upset with myself because I judged her that way. So gets to my night and I just filled them up with their Wray and Nephews so that we had a really good night. Well, we had, we had a fantastic night and during that they say to you what do you think of your fellow They always ask that question, but I was. I got...

18:51

I get really emotional when I'm talking about something I feel strongly about. So I started telling her how much I judged her wrong and how much I really, really liked her. But she came across wrong in the beginning and I apologized for judging her and when I looked at her I was emotional any way. And then I looked at her and she was absolutely crying her eyes out and I just thought I can't take this, I'm going to have to stop. So I just got up and walked out and I thought I've got to keep myself straight, I'm not going to like bubble on television. So I washed my face, went back in and I sat back down again and I was like still wiping water off my face as I went in. Everybody has a go at me because they said I was crying. I did not cry, I got emotional. 

Steph Edusei Host19:34

There's nothing wrong with crying. 

Nige Thompson Guest19:36

No, no, I'm not ashamed of crying. That's what I would say it was the way they manipulated it, the way they edited it that made it look that way, and I was a bit annoyed about that when I when it came out. But, um, yeah, it was, it was a, it was a good experience, I won and it was a good experience. But it taught me another valuable lesson is to, I don't, I don't judge people on first impressions I never have. But when you ask for, when you say you don't want a specific type of guest, my mind was made up. This was that person and the way she acted, you know. But I've learned a lesson now where you know you give people enough time to know them before making an informed decision on that person. So it did teach me a lot. It taught me a lot about television as well. 

Steph Edusei Host20:23

So you, your daughter, yeah, um, you've got two daughters, haven't? You, Jasmine and Georgia and and was it Jasmine that suggested that you do the TikTok. 

Nige Thompson Guest20:33

Just do a TikTok, dad, what's a TikTok? So she showed me. So all right, okay then. So she said, right, I'll film it. So we just filmed it with music in the background. Well, we did that and I did a chicken, I think it was jalfrezi chicken, and I was just like demonstrating how I did it, Anyway, so I put on Facebook to um, to the girls in the office, and I said, right, I've done a demonstration of showing you how to make the dish. And I put it on, well everybody else cottoned onto it on on Facebook, all my friends, and they're all loving this video. So obviously it went up on TikTok as well. So then I did another one. 

21:07

I just became obsessed. It was lockdown as well and I just became obsessed with making. Every day I was making two or three meals and uploading the videos and that, and my daughters were both involved with it. Jasmine was first and she was like filming and editing and she she was just doing like no, dad, stop there, do this, do this. She was proper director, you know, she's really good at it and and then will push me to do more and more. So I just started doing more and more and more. And next thing, I know I had had 500 followers on TikTok and I was like, wow, that was good. A couple of days later I had 5 000. I was like what, what's going on here? And I started becoming obsessed with the numbers and before I knew it, I had like 10,000 followers on TikTok and I just thought, oh, this is absolutely crazy. Loads of people coming on commenting how good the videos was, how good the food was, and asking for the recipes and things like this, and I just I just started enjoying it. I started enjoying the interaction with other people. I mean, you get good comments, you get bad comments, you get people that you've got to block that sort of stuff, and it just grew and grew and grew and when I got to, I think it was about 50,000, it just sort of plateaued and stayed at 50,000. 

22:12

An agency got in touch with me and asked me if I'd be interested in filming something for Tesco Supermarkets and I was like yeah, of course, and they paid me. Quite well, it took me a day to do it, so they paid me, travelled down to London, filmed this on their YouTube, Crispy Pork, crackling Joint, and then about three or four weeks later they rang me up again and they said would I do another video for Black History Month. So I thought, because Tesco were promoting that as well in the shops and I thought, oh, that's absolutely fantastic. So we did that video. But one of the things I did find with that one was it took a long time because the agency who got in touch with me she said I'll send you the video as soon as it's done, before it goes live, spoke to a few times and in the end I found out that there was a lot, a lot, a lot of racism because we'd done a Black History Month. A lot, a lot of racism, uh, because we've done a black history month. Yeah, a lot of people didn't didn't like it. So Tesco were in two minds whether to, whether to put it out or not, and a lot of owners. Eventually they did put it out and it was a really, really good video. 

23:17

So and then TikTok's just it was still for about a year. I went from 55 000. It dropped down to 47 000 and I was like what's going on? I was putting video two or three videos out a week and the viewers got less and less and less because TikTok, TikTok's got this really fully funny algorithm that everybody talks about and just you've got to pick on certain trends. 

23:39

I was trying all sorts to to grow my platform, so I went on to Instagram. I started a Facebook group as well, just doing exactly the same as what I was doing, TikTok, you know, but just getting more and more people involved in it, and it was. It just stayed stable still for quite a long time, I would say about a year. And then I did. Somebody asked me to do brown stew chicken, a Jamaican dish, and I thought, all right, okay then. So I had a look at all videos how it was made now and I made it and overnight I went from 50 000, 47 000 up to 68 000. 

24:12

I was like what's going on here? So I did another jamaican dish. It went up again. I did another major making dish and the views were just absolutely crazy. You know what? Just simple stuff like the Jamaican salads, coleslaw, fried dumplings and things like that, and the views were just going absolutely crazy. So then I started getting companies getting in touch with me again asking me to, you know, show their products while I'm cooking and things like that. I took up some of them which were relevant, but I wouldn't take the ones that aren't relevant to what I was doing. Just a little bit of promotion. Just, it just continued doing that ever since then. So I've basically stayed on more or less a Jamaican theme at the moment because it seems very, very popular. People want to want to eat a lot of Jamaican food. I get a lot of stick from the Jamaican community um tell me that you're making it wrong, isn't it? 

25:02

yeah, absolutely, don, absolutely Don't do that. What is? What are you doing? And it's great. banter is is absolutely fantastic, so I really enjoy it sometimes. The brown stew chicken one when I was making it, you're supposed to put gravy browning in, and what I'd done was I didn't realise how powerful the browning was, so I put a little drop in. I thought, well, that's not going to be enough, so I put a lot more in and then when I mixed it up, it was almost black. It looked like tar. Anyway, it's still got, like 600,000, 700,000 people viewed it, but the comments were that's black stew chicken, not brown stew chicken. You haven't made it with this, you haven't done it with that, you haven't done that. So I remade it with a proper, authentic one and that was well received. So, cooking Jamaican foods it's been a revelation to how much people love Jamaican food. I didn't realise, because I grew up with it and I just took it for granted all the time. So it's strange what people taste. 

Steph Edusei Host25:59

And I think it's yeah. So I would say that kind of all Caribbean food and a lot of what we're starting to see now is things like a lot of the African dishes, Ethiopian food and West African food and things like that is starting to come through now, which I think is great, because I don't know what people think that we eat. You know, did you not think that we had our own dishes and things? And I think there's a couple of things I really like and enjoy about your videos. I love your style because I think you're just you're really relaxed, really warm. I feel like you're chatting to me. You're not necessarily performing a great deal and you've got, you know it. Just I just like I say I'm happy to just sit and watch the videos and go, I'll make that one day. 

26:45

The food looks really nice, but there's also things that I've always thought oh, how do you make that? Yeah. So it's lovely that I'm getting to see how things are made as well and I can save them and go right when I make that, that that's there, so I think that the videos themselves are just a really, you just do a really good job at it it's not complicated, it's not things flashing all over the place. You know there's stuff like that. That. I just I think yeah, well done. 

27:04

I really like the way the style that you've created in in your TikToks and and it's also nice being a little bit younger than you, but not a great deal to see somebody who's a little bit older on TikTok, because it can be very young people on there yeah I was gonna say do you have a ? 

Nige Thompson Guest27:20

No, um, I a company got in touch with me early on called Feasty and they made a video cookbook for me but they went under so my cookbook was lost. All my recipes I'd given there were lost. But there's been a lot of people asking lately for me to do cookbook. 

27:37

I started speaking to, you know I mentioned earlier on about Misty Ricardo. He joined one of my groups and he was like commenting and he said to me you know, if you ever want to move on to the next step, just give me a shout. And I spoke to him and he was telling me all about how to be careful when I'm launching a book. Be careful of going to different publishers. You know he said it's worth the punt to do it yourself, but start off small. Because he knew somebody that had wrote, who was was quite successful online, recipe book and he rushed it out and the spellings was all over the place. It was wrong. What he did was he went out and purchased 5,000 cookbooks thinking he was going to sell them all. I think he's got 4,999 still left in his garage. 

28:19

But when I looked at what my video cookbook had done, it hadn't done very well at all, I think I sold about 200 copies. When you think I've got a foll, I had following at the time about 50 000, I would have sold a lot more than that, but no. So I was very wary of that and I was frightened to put my hand in my pocket and fork out, you know, three or four thousand pounds, publishing a number of books and then them to be sat in the garage. So I've always been a bit frightened of that. But lately there's lots and lots and lots of people asking me and there's so many different ways of doing books now really, really cheaply. So I've started writing a book. I've got it all together. Just I just need to put the pieces in the right places. But it's something that people are asking me for all the time. It's something I want to do, and now I've got some free time I might as well get on and get it done. 

Steph Edusei Host29:09

So yeah, I'm going to have one out there yeah, and somebody that I know, Sophie Milliken, who runs a company called Moja, would say your book is not there to make you money, it's to get you known and I think it's that you know that actually having a book, apart from that I would quite like to have a cookbook because I'd be more likely to cook from it, but actually then it's almost like your business card and it's that credibility and things like that and it'll get you known. But I think, in terms of what lies in the future, I think you've got loads of promotional work that you can be doing. I think that you know it sounds like that's. 

29:42

definitely your forte and certainly, from what I've seen and obviously from TV experience as well, you you've got the knack and and you do come across really, really nicely. So it's been really lovely chatting with you, Nige um, and find out a bit more about you. It's interesting how many similarities they've been in some of our upbringing and and life and and um, I promise you I will find, maybe in the next couple of weeks I will find something, I'll make it and I'll message you. I'll show you a picture of the dishes I've created from one of your recipes. 

Nige ThompsonGuest30:15

Oh, thank you, Steph. It's been lovely talking to you. Great experience, thank you very much for having me. 

Steph EduseiHost30:19

Take care.