The Kitchen Is On Fire

It’s James’s final sober pod this week but fortunately Sam has gone big at the French House prior to the recording so he’s nicely tipsy for the pair of them. James might be sober but he’s also rocking a severe new haircut, dropping military references all over the shop like some sort of cut-rate Custer and he’s packing an incredible thyme infused gravy technique that will blow yer gawddamn mind….potentially.
Meanwhile, Sam empties out a vast drag-net of whale related facts and makes his wife feel very sick with a grim chilli dog recipe.
Then food writer and Twitter-ruck-starter Jonathan Nunn arrives and this thrice-skulled threesome make audible noises via their three respective mouth-holes upon topics wide ranging, intense and indeed silly. There’s a lot of McDonald’s Happy Land Gang chat. There’s Giles Coren related ballyhoo. There’s the inherent conservatism of the British food media. And there’s also sexy morse code operators and some half-considered thoughts on whether medieval music is any cop whatsoever.

This weeks episode is sponsored by the Sauce Oslo Court of the world of wine, dropwine.co.uk and by the Sauce Robert of the world of vodka, ourvodka.com/ourlondon

Direct download: TKIOF-EP164-A_BIG_PURPLE_BLOB1.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:51am EDT

A Brief Q and A Regarding Major Facts Of Humanity’s History Upon Planet Earth

Who split the atom? The TickyOff Boyz
Who built the pyramids? J-Razzle and S-Hezzle
Who wrote ‘Candle In The Wind’? Ramsden and Herlihy
Who caught Al Capone? Samuel J Herlihy
Which horse has won more Grand Nationals, Kentucky Derbies and Royal Ascot Ladie’s Days than any other horse? James Clive Gavin Ramsden.

Know this.

Ghostly goings on (again) on the Tickyoff this week as Sam tells the terrifying tale of Mickey, a phone battery eating ghost..oh and he’s also seen a creepy clown in a cornfield. Meanwhile James has bought an Apple Watch and thinks Sam should go and see a therapist.
Then chef, cookbook author, new pub owner and tv star Dan ‘DanDo’ Doherty turns up and turns both barrels of his Knowledge Cannon upon the PidginBoyzzzzzzz. Said cannon fires cannonballs of true facts directly into their dumb faces. These facts concern such matters as running a marathon while dressed as a mouse, gastropubs, the difficulty in recruiting staff and Mary Berry’s (alleged, by Sam) crack habit…
There’s also charcuterie dissing, Day Of The Dead, Sir Bane and they all agree that hot air ballooning is an insanely dumb thing to do.

This weeks episode is sponsored by the Rolls Royce Silver Phantom with silk seats and mad rims of the world of wine, dropwine.co.uk and the Bugatti Veyron with a matt-cammo paintjob and an ejector seat of the world of vodka, ourvodka.com/ourlondon

Direct download: TKIOF-EP163-MICKEY_MOUSE_MARATHON.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:00pm EDT

This week on The Kitchen Is On Fire there are so many sounds. Many of them are conjured from the mouth holes of three human man beings. These ‘men’ things are named James, Sam and John Maclean.
James has holes in his shoes and is wearing dishonest socks. He cheers himself up by cooking at Magpie in an oversized headband. Sam is also back in a kitchen, his own, and he has somehow decided to start cooking like a cut-rate Escoffier despite his wife’s pleas to stop inflicting gout upon her.
Thank the lord that John Maclean, ex member of The Beta Band and the writer/director of ‘Slow West’ arrives just in time to aurally take control of the situation. He backs up a dump truck filled with knowledge, flicks a lever and upends the lot all over your ears, on your heads. There’s Beta Band origin tales, working with Michael Fassbender, lunching with an aging action hero and Cullen Skink chat.
There’s also just enough time for reminiscing about what fun it is to be in vast debt to a record company, whether or not ‘Shame’ had a big CGI budget to expand Fassbender’s…….fassbender and a deep dive into John’s favourite sausage genres.

This week The Kitchen Is On Fire is sponsored by big wine winners dropwine.co.uk and huge vodka champions ourvodka.com/ourlondon

Direct download: TKIOF-EP162-THE_DORITO_WASHER.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:33am EDT

It never rains but it pours they say. Not true, let me tell you about a little wet thing I like to call, drizzle.
A watched pot never boils they say. Nonsense, I’ve watched loads and they’ve all boiled. Every single one, ever. I rarely do anything but watch pots until they boil. They call me the old pot-watcher.
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush they say. I very much doubt that. I put a chaffinch in a solid gold suit of armour encrusted with diamonds, then threw him in a hedge. Meanwhile in my left hand, I’ve had a flea ridden pigeon with one eye and a bald patch on it’s head. If you surveyed a thousand people, I think they’d all say that the fancy-ass bush-bird was worth more than the decrepit grandpa street-pheasant.
What the above clearly illustrates is the need for truth and for facts. You have come to the right place.
This week James and Sam are spreading truth all over your minds as if truth is manure and your ears are a field and their mouths are the nozzle on a giant manure cannon.
Now they have made your mind-soil fertile, they go ahead and sow fact-seeds concerning such matters as Xian Biang Biang Noodles, Thom Yorke’s new record and pushing back boundaries in gymnasiums.
Then food writer, journalist and activist Jack Monroe shows up early (fortunately) and corrals the TickyOff Dumbos into some semblance of order. Jack talks about cooking with tinned ingredients, dream Dorito flavours, and the wonders of grated Spam. Sam wonders why all the recipes have prunes in them. James wonders how he can continue to avoid answering questions in the Quickfire Game in a timely manner. Jack wonders how to be more like Hugh Grant and how many Christmas trees can fit in a single house.
All this, plus: Explaining the concept of tax via the medium of Muller Fruit Corners! The stench of tinsel! A bad Mexican bandito impersonation! and Houdini, The Killer Lovebird!

This week’s episode is sponsored by ‘Fort Boyard’ semi-finalists in 1992: dropwine.co.uk and ‘The Generation Game’ coffee-machine with built-in alarmclock winners from way back in 1988: ourvodka.com/ourlondon

Direct download: TKIOF-EP161-HOLY_WOAH.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:30am EDT

The TickyOff Boyz are well known across the globe for their searing insight, for their deep seated ability to get to the true crux of many of humanity’s greatest imponderables. Sometimes however, our heroes need to take a step back from the coalface of vast issues and giggle about a rude word for a solid half an hour like a pair of idiotic, immature, school boys. James and Sam regularly skirt close to intellectual perfection, this episode is not one of those instances. Feel free to skip the first thirty minutes if such behavior holes your hull instead of floating yer damn boat.
This week there are toilet flushing ghosts, large babies and some solid biscuit chat. James takes a huge swing, and misses, at this week’s guest and Sam says that seals are like divers with cat faces.
The aforementioned guest this week is food writer and blogger Ed Smith who spurts out information from his mouth opening concerning his two cookbooks, the history of Borough market and his origin story from lawyer to writer.
There’s also the spooky tale of Issac McHale in a bonnet haunting people, mashed potato techniques and James eats a huge number of ginger nut biscuits while in an alcohol-free induced depression.
If I was a foolish fool, I’d say this episode is proper cray cray. But I am not, so I shall not.

This week’s episode is sponsored by the wine warriors at dropwine.co.uk and the vodka gladiators at ourvodka.com/ourlondon.

Direct download: TKIOF-EP160-A_SURVEY_OF_1000_PEOPLE.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:59am EDT

'You never give me your money' sang The Beatles. That's also true of this here relationship between you, the listener, and us, The TickyOff Boyzzzz. You never give us your money despite the fact that we give you all this premium mouth-sound based content. Think on that yeah?

Anyway this week Sam and James are babbling all over the place about the Beatles, baklava, Ballymaloe and other topics that do not begin with the letter 'B'. Many of these other topics are raised by this week's guest, Tara Wigley. Tara opens the release valve on a silo full of chat and fills the room with tales of Yotam Ottolenghi's cookbooks, finding your dream job, eating as a family and tricky issues of cultural appropriation.

While surfing this torrent of yap James creates some fake nieces, Sam says a lot of things he doesn't mean, they discuss the Pidgin Cookbook, and the whole William Sitwell 'catastrophe' is flat-out covered.

Finally, there are some very mysterious rubber ducks, the wonder of a man in a nightshirt and Tara reveals all about what is quite possibly the strangest breakfast dish known to humankind. A dish that she prepares and eats, every single day........prepare thyself!

This week's TKIOF is sponsored by our wine buddies dropwine.co.uk and our vodka pals ourvodka.com/ourlondon

And finally, the TickyOff is now on Instagram: @tickyoff

Hit us up with a follow and like all our stuff and tell everyone else to like it too please. Come on. We do loads for you. Loads. And it's all brilliant. Every minute = pure solid gold. Ka-bloom!

Direct download: TKIOF-EP159-BUZZ_AND_WOODY.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:26am EDT

In a land without rules, in a world without the rule of law, on a planet overrun by robots with nothing but mankind's very downfall taking up the entirety of their robotic mental headspace, there's only two dudes with the mouths to make sounds entirely ignoring such topics. Those two 'men' are James and Sam and this week, the holes on the front of their skulls are working overtime upon the following 'subjects':

It's not Sam's birthday.

James has shaved his face.

They went to Lisbon to a bar with a sex shop in it.

Sam disses a beloved chicken guy.

And if all that miracle chat wasn't more than enough, King of Polpo Russell Norman shows up to hurl Venice specific knowledge around as if it is in fact no thing.

How to get recipes from locals, the Polpo origin story, tricky expansion and Russell's opinion of horses is all covered in great depth and detail. There's also time for Russell's sexy coat, saveloy chat and a truly grim sounding fish dish that RN assures the TickyOff Boyz is lush....

This week GUESS who is sponsoring our sorry backsides???

Yep, wine GODS dropwine.co.uk and vodka DEITIES ourvodka.com/ourlondon

Direct download: TKIOF-EP158-IMAGINARY_BENIHANA.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 2:47pm EDT

'Verily' they did doth say.....
except I don’t know what 'verily' means and I don’t know who they are. The only 'they' I know is James and Sam off of the Tickyoff.
They don’t say 'verily', they say all these things instead, from those holes up front on their lovely faces.
This week TickyOff HQ smells strongly of kimchi so they leave the window open and then sing ‘Man In The Mirror’ by Mickey Jackson. Fortunately, keen-bean Tess Ward turns up and they get into wellness, influencers, Mental Health Day and Fairtrade. It’s not all big big topics though. James is confused by placentas and gives a perhaps overly detailed description of a video featuring Cristiano Ronaldo. Tess hates mayo, loves bio-gas and knows a lot about biohacking. Sam has been made homeless, wrote two unpublished books and doesn’t like Chris Martin from the band some call IcyFun but others know only as Coldplay.
Who knows how much wonder one pod can hold but somehow there’s also time for Tess’s bar raising stoner food classics, a rye bread heist and the day that Pidgin nearly killed Jon Snow from a show some people call ‘Fun With Posh Chairs’ and others know only as ‘Game Of Thrones’.
Oh excuse me is that the doorbell?
Yes it is. It’s someone coming to tell me how awesome TKIOF is. I know how good it is. Do not bother my doorbell again please. Thank you.

This week's episode is sponsored by vino legends dropwine.co.uk and vodka mentalists ourvodka.com/ourlondon

Also go check out the awesome work being done by the wonderful folk at www.fairtrade.org.uk

Direct download: TKIOF-EP157-PINKING_FOR_QUINCES.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 5:25am EDT

It's a big week for James in this episode as he visits Coombeshead Farm, is assaulted by a cat and gets dosed with some high strength snus by this week's guest. In Sam news, he has become addicted to doughnuts and become stocky. James believes these two events may be linked....

Eater London editor Adam Coghlan then makes his second appearance upon the TickyOff and they get into Michelin in a big way. Brat, Ikoyi, Phil Howard, diversity, an algorithm to create the perfect inspector. It's a lot, a lot of tire themed restaurant chat.

After that there's just enough time for Chubby Checker chat, yet more borlotti bean chat and Adam to take a big swing at Sir Anthony Hopkins.

Hashtag, chat.

This week is sponsored by wine legends dropwine.co.uk and vodka legends ourvodka.com/ourlondon

Direct download: TKIOF-EP156-DEAD_RUBBER.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:19am EDT

Chef Victor Garvey is back upon the TickyOff this week. He has carried some delicious jamon through the streets of Soho and he’s also carried some noises in his mouth that he releases like Candyman from the movie ‘Candyman’ releases wasps or bees or whatever they were from his mouth. These noises coalesce into topics that you can listen to with those holes in the side of your skulls. Those holes are called ear holes and you should let these sounds enter those holes but do not let wasps or bees enter. That would hurt.
Victor is babbling on about his new venture in Soho, his love for Ironman, and the moves young chefs should, but rarely, make.
There’s also chat about glamorous beans, James looks like Don Trump Junior, Victor looks like someone awful and Sam gets Victor’s name entirely wrong.
Victor spreads some serious paella based knowledge about, James yammers out something about how you collect diamonds or rubies or something and they all get seriously into the biggest of topics, in the midst of the pretty damn big topics I’ve already mentioned: DEATH!!
Death and TKIOF. What the hell else did you expect? Food chat? Jokers.

 

This week The Tickyoff is sponsored by lords of the dance and also, far more importantly, lord of wine!: dropwine.co.uk

And those friendly neighbourhood vodka based still-jockeys at ourvodka.com/ourlondon

Direct download: TKIOF-EP155-VINCENT.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:55pm EDT