The 5 O' Clock Apron Podcast claire thomson

In this episode of The 5 O’ Clock Apron Podcast Claire cooks paneer curry with the author Nikesh Shukla. Nikesh has recently written the new Marvel Spider-Man India and has also written books for children and young adults. Nikesh has just moved house and has the builders in, so Claire and Nikesh meet at producer Ellen’s house to record this cookery conversation. It’s a moving one from the get-go with Nikesh instructing Claire that “we will be following an old family recipe, passed down from my dear mother”, the recording starts off with an enormous responsibility to get things exactly right, from shopping to chopping to the finished dish. Make Nikesh’s mum’s recipe for paneer curry and learn her failsafe rice cooking method. This is a moving episode that explores grief and cookery, Nikesh remembering his mum cooking and shouting from the kitchen at his teenage self up his bedroom in their house in Harrow. Listen too for the remarkable story of Nikesh’s uncle who was the first person to bring a case under the 1968 Race Relations Act and in doing so meets Malcom X in a curry house in Selly Oak.
Follow Claire @5oclockapron on Instagram to watch her cook the paneer curry and get the full recipe.
Find out more about Nikesh here: Nikesh - The Good Literary Agency
Find out more about Spiderman India here: Meet Pavitr Prabhakar, AKA Spider-Man: India | Marvel
Find out more about Nikesh's uncle here: Why diverse stories matter | Nikesh Shukla | TEDxLondon (youtube.com)


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In this first episode of Series 2 of The 5 O’ Clock Apron Podcast, Claire cooks with the brewer Alex Lawes. Dublin is a city famed for its pint and Claire wanted to record a cookery conversation with someone synonymous with the city’s brewing industry. Alex Lawes is just that, brewer and joint owner of Whiplash Beer. Their instagram profile reads “@whiplashbeer - Ballyer brewery brewing banging beers.” Join Claire and Alex as they cook in his gorgeous, dinky cottage. They drink a Whiplash Basil and Lemon table beer and set about making the most delicious ravioli this side of Italy. Learn about brewing beer, Dublin’s fish and chip shops all being run by Italian families, freezing your leftover wine, sailing round Sicily and there’s big love from Alex and Claire for the Pasta Grannies.
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In this episode of The 5 O’ Clock Apron Podcast, Claire cooks with Philippa Perry, psychotherapist, broadcaster and the Observer’s wise and witty agony aunt. Philippa is also a million-copy bestselling author of The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (and Your Children Will Be Glad That You Did), and one half of the Perry presenting duo on hit TV programme Grayson’s Art Club. I absolutely loved cooking with Philippa in her kitchen in London a couple of weeks ago. To say Philippa was confident in her kitchen is an understatement, deftly whipping up homemade tartare sauce, flatbreads and battered fish fingers with a chopped salad that combined so many different flavours and textures, my chopping skills were really put to the test, all under gentle but firm instruction from Philippa. So much so, it’s in this episode of the podcast that the tables are turned, teacher and student, I know my place and very happy I am in it too. With a wall to wall kitchen mirror, cooking alongside Philippa on the day was an insightful and illuminating experience.
This is the 6th episode in the 1st series of The 5 O’ Clock Apron Podcast, we’ll be back in a month with x6 more guests teaching me their favourite recipe to cook at home, just you wait, what a line-up!

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In this episode of The 5 O’ Clock Apron Podcast, Claire cooks with Rebecca Wilcox, journalist, broadcaster, deputy president of Childline and the daughter of Esther Rantzen. The Guardian newspaper have her down as “brilliant… both brainy and funny (a rare combination in a presenter), and a proper investigative journalist as well as a silly trigger-happy prankster." On the day of the recording, Claire drove to Rebecca’s farmhouse, which as all best farms must, comes complete with an aged Argentinian polo horse horse named Chunk. Rebecca wanted some help to make her carbonara not “gloopy, grey or scrambled”, Claire, though bemused by Rebecca’s suggestion for beans in a carbonara to begin with, is fully on board by the end of the episode. Armed with pancetta, the beans, some dried pasta and two types of cheese, Claire and Rebecca make carbonara together chatting teenage years in the 90’s, winning Ready Steady Cook, drug deals for a television series and how to feed children in a way that makes sense in the maelstrom that is family life. Chop and chatter, on repeat.
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In this episode of The 5 O’ Clock Apron Podcast, Claire cooks with comedian, writer and theatre maker Amy Mason. A Funny Woman finalist, Amy has written and performed for Radio 4 and has written for The News Quiz and Hypothetical (Dave). With 3 acclaimed autobiographical shows with Bristol Old Vic, she is a credit to the Bristol comedy scene - STOP PRESS - ‘Amy Mason is a born comic. Can’t wait to see her progress to a national treasure.’ In 2014 Amy won the Dundee International Book Prize with her novel The Other Ida. On the day of the recording Amy was wearing an enormous pair of sheep shaped slippers and waiting to hear if she had been given a slot at the Edinburgh Fringe. One month on from this recording, we now know she has, of course she has, she is a startling comic and very, very funny. Amy cooked a pasta dish with leeks and crème fraiche, it was simple and delicious in delivery, as all good food should be. 
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In this episode of The 5 O' Clock Apron Podcast, Claire cooks with champion gardener Charles Dowding. From a farming family in rural Somerset, Charles’ focus as a gardener and author has always been to grow healthy and health-giving food. Through his teaching on gardening courses around the world and also on his sizeable social media platform, Charles is keen to promote an awareness of nutrition and its links to food production. Charles has accumulated a considerable following for his No – Dig philosophy on soil management and gardening. Cooking with Charles is like visiting Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, with Charles producing delicious, homegrown ingredients to use in the borscht that we make together. With the pot bubbling away on the stove top, Charles and I take a turn around his beautiful garden, I get to meet his worms, check out the shed where he stores a bounty of fruit and veg all winter long, and all the while, as we walk along, we stop and munch on various vegetables from bed to bed. Eat More Soil (a peck in a lifetime for optimum gut health he tells us) is a maxim I take away from my day cooking with this legend of the gardening world. Thank you Charles, I’ll be back in the summer when the borlotti beans you gave me to sow have grown.
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