Episode 4 with Ingrid Berthon-Moine and Mo Kalash

In this episode I invite multidisciplinary artist Ingrid Berthon-Moine & chef Mo Kalash to talk about our collaboration back in March 2025 as a reflection. We talk about first memories of taste, collaboration, the sensory experiences and more. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:15

Hi, my name is Marka Batter. Welcome to Freudian Bytes, a podcast that extends an invitation to the intimate world of the Freudian Bytes sub-top series. This is a space where art, food, and psychoanalysis meet, not as concepts alone, but as lived shared experiences across the table through taste, memory, and conversation. For those new to our table, Freudian Bytes began as a series of created supperclubs in my living room, bringing together artists, guests, and thinkers. Each dinner was more than a meal. It was a space for sensory exchange, intimacy, and unexpected discovery. Before we begin, I want to thank the Eden Arts Foundation for supporting the Freudian Bights podcast. Their belief in slow, thoughtful cultural production, where conversation, care, and generosity matter has made this oral extension of the project possible.

SPEAKER_03 1:30

We are now at episode 4. Before I welcome Ingrid and Mo, I'll introduce their practice for listeners who might not know their work. Ingrid Bath and One's practice spans sculpture, drawing, and video, exploring the physical and cultural dimensions of the human body. She draws on language, psychoanalysis, and feminism, weaving personal narratives into her work to challenge how we think about sexuality, illness, and death. Rooted in the experience of inhabiting a female body, her work disrupts idealized femininity and proposes a new language for female subjectivity. Her sculptures hold the strange and the familiar together, using biomorphic forms to unsettle conventional ideas of gender. At a moment when the Western idea of the human being is questioned, her hybrid shifting figures point toward new subjectivities and anatomies. Mo Kalash holds supper clubs built around traditional Syrian dishes, updated with techniques from the many kitchens he has worked in. His cooking uses old time rich methods of preserving food shaped by the rose petals and apricots that dried on the terrace of his childhood home in Aleposan. He grew up in Syria and became a chef in London. His home now for 17 years. He originally moved to study film, and a love of cinema and theatre still shapes how he works. A dinner is a kind of performance. There should be flow to the menu, dialogue with the diners, every sense engaged. He is currently working on a collection of stories and recipes. So nice to have you both. This is our fourth episode of Freudian Bite. It's been more than a year, precisely. It was last year, March, and we were just talking how hectic it was. But it was yeah, I think it was also quite a cathartic time for me to have worked with you both. We can maybe talk a little bit about it at one point. But I will so I introduced both of you, your bias, but uh I'll start with the basic questions I ask all of my guests. Maybe Ingrid, I'll start with you and then Mo you can answer the same question. What is the first meal you remember that uh stayed with you emotionally rather than gastronomically? It can be a childhood thing.

SPEAKER_00 4:27

In fact, maybe more about the meal, it's more like you know some uh some course. Because my mom used to leave the cherry stone in there, and it was really it was one of my favorite desserts. It was also my grandmom, grandmother, Babora, you know, and it was like like soaked with women. They used to put like lots of whipped cream and I loved the I love mixing those two. I remember I remember also the but I I don't think I had a very emotional uh response to that. It was more like a kind of gourmand uh reaction. I remember when Christmas my grandmother she made some chocolate truffles and I loved them and I ate so much of them that the next day I was room meeting, and I was room eating butter because I loved them so much. Otherwise, I remember the first time my parents as well they took me for a gastro restaurant. I mean they didn't have much money, but they were doing a kitty every month and they were every week and they were playing cards. So once they hadn't have cards, they took me to P in Valence. So they had also uh taken me with them, which was uh you know, I had never been to a restaurant like that.

SPEAKER_03 5:43

So it was kind of and were were you quite young or like in your 20s or no?

SPEAKER_00 5:48

I was just more like a teenager, you know, but I was quite willing to uh to have this experience because every time they were doing that, you know, like maybe once a year they used to bring back all the menus which were like very beautiful pieces, you know, and uh and everything like that. Maybe one another one, it's just like I remember I had a boyfriend who was living in Nice actually, and sometimes we used to go for lunch at a gastronomic restaurant, and I remember there was a kind of graph thing, and we used to also have like a half bottle of Chateau Gazin 1985. Oh wow, and then after we used to go home and have lots of uh good time and good sex, basically, and that that really stayed with me. That's um, it's a shame he's a bit of a tosser, but I guess we all have to go through that, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:35

And also talk about your overindulgence, like with the cho chocolate truffle and then that. Like I I do see a correlation.

SPEAKER_00 6:43

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's interesting. That's my uh my patched uh my uh don't you say patch memoirs? Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Uh what about you, Mo?

SPEAKER_03 6:53

What is what meal?

SPEAKER_05 6:55

I mean whilst Andrew talking, I remember when we used to go visit our grandma and aunt. My my aunt, they used to live together. And I remember my grandma's way of convincing me to stay. Not that I need convincing, but she would always say, Oh say stay because tomorrow your aunt will make you breakfast. Well which means that very, very large breakfast. Um normally, you know, like when you when you're a kid, you just have a couple of things, but uh similar similar to Turkish breakfast, it's a million things. It's it's the most elaborate, you know. She would boil, boil some eggs, fry some, uh, there'll be a huge plates of crudite, zata with olive oil, there would be cheese, th a f few different kinds of olives.

SPEAKER_01 7:40

Type of zambos, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 7:42

Yeah, so like a pastry thing. And then you have a bread, and then you have the uh tea kettle that is been put on top of the like a the the the diesel uh heater. Yeah. Like you know, uh you're probably familiar with a gas heater. Yeah, and on top of this is like a flat top. It's like a what you like similar to the flat tops you see in in in professional restaurants, and that way you heat up your flat bread, and then you basically you spend two hours having breakfast. And yeah, I think about that breakfast a lot. Uh my aunt still lives in Syria, and um and my when my mom visits, she still does the same breakfast for everyone, you know, for like for the for the new generations because a lot of my cousins have kids now. Um and when I visited my my family in Turkey, my sister made me like maybe 50% size of what what she used to make, but it's still very big, like it's for two people. Um I'll show you pictures later. It's quite crazy, but that that meal, you know, I would I would say like everyone has that food, you know. Uh but in terms of like more emotions or relating it to an event, it's what we have for eat. Anything that is for eat, it's it's not just about the meal, it's about the occasion, you know. We're all off school and we're all you know, happy happy to be home and just like indulging on you know food and sweets and baklava and and like your your your grandmas are gonna come visit and we're gonna go visit our uncles and you know, all of those things. But whatever that dish is, I think it's it's it's which which are very few because because the my mom always chose the the difficult dishes to make for like it's like Christmas, you know, everyone in the West Western world does one elaborate dish. We have always few of those that rotate every year, basically.

SPEAKER_03 9:28

I really identify culturally, I think yeah, there are definite some similarities even.

SPEAKER_05 9:34

Very similar, yeah. I think so. Um especially the breakfast. I mean, technically breakfast is also famous. We just have different ways of like preserving of our vegetables and olives.

SPEAKER_03 9:46

Yeah, or ferment. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 9:48

You know, but we eat you have lots of jams, we have less jams, you know, like we have a lot of jams. Yeah, so yeah, I think this is the the my my aunt's breakfast is very, very special.

SPEAKER_03 10:00

Yeah. Yeah, you reminded me every Sunday we would go to my grandma from my dad's side. Uh she's from originally from Albania. So she would make like not the Turkish barek, the puff pastry, but the Albanian one. And I used to hate like any kind of vegetable, like not hate, but like you know, when you're a a kid you like to have more like cheese and the less more and then less. Even though my mom was like always trying like so much to keep me healthy. But I remember she would make this like spinach pie. But the amount of butter. I've I don't know what how how much used, but it just made it to taste amazing. So that was the only time I had spinach. But but then like she would also serve it with a kind of a huge breakfast dish, and we would make it a thing. I I don't think my mum loved it go going there every Sunday, but yeah, it was a recurring thing. So my second question can start with you. Do you think memory lives more strongly in taste, smell, or ritual, and why?

SPEAKER_05 11:08

I think I I I personally I do believe they are like live live with me equally. Like I can I have examples on on each one. But the smell one as an example, not not necessarily in in in terms of food, but just a scent. I used to associate I used to have this person in my life that used to have this scent that like that their house smelled off it, the bathroom, they wore it. Um I can recognize it from a million smell, and like there's many incidents where I was working and someone walks in to the to the to the room, and and before I looked at them, I I always had like I smelled that that that one scent. And in my head, I didn't think that is just a coincidence. I thought the person is opposite me, and I left my head, and it was this woman, and it's a unisex scent. And and yeah, and it's reoccurred like many times over the years, and and you know, it it reminds me of a lot of things about that person. Ritual, I mean, as a Middle Eastern, we most of our food is about ritual. Everything's about ritual, is like especially with the complicated dishes, you know, where you the ritual of the of the time that you cook it in, the amount of people you need to ask to help you.

SPEAKER_03 12:24

But even the tea brewing or coffee, like anything simple can be like a or overcomplicated by by these like almost like the the the what's the what what do you call it?

SPEAKER_05 12:36

Like superstition, but it's not superstition, you know? It's everything associated with that. You have to do it that way, otherwise, otherwise we not the proper way. Yeah, we're not we're not we're not keeping the legacy of that thing, you know? Right. Yeah, like making jam. Like I was telling my friends the other day about the way my grandma and I still don't know why. After you after they cook it in the in the pot, they they put it under the sunlight with a muslin for like a few days, and I just I still don't understand why. It's almost like to I don't know, kill the rest of the germs or or I don't know, make it make it thicker. I I I still don't understand, but yeah, there's always rituals where um yeah, there's always rituals with those things.

SPEAKER_00 13:18

So yeah, thank you. Ingrid. I think for me it's the smell because the smell always takes you by surprise. You know when I agree, yeah, yeah. You know, sometimes, yeah, you can you can pass and you're like, oh, that reminds me of that. Maybe not sometimes necessarily the smell of food, you know, but it can be a perfume or and I think after it would be more like eating, but it's like because you know you're going to eat something, you don't eat by surprise, so you already prepare your brain and say, Oh, I'm going to take my fork and it's coming to my mouth, and you know you're going so. So that's I would say it's not a second one. And the third one, yeah, it would be the ritual. I don't know, it's like I go to my studio and I have the smell ritual because I always put an incense, uh, an incense stick, and then after it's the it's the tea, you know, and it's the tea in the morning, and like to have my mug of tea and uh yeah, I actually put the in incense stick right before you.

SPEAKER_05 14:13

That's sort of your daily ritual.

SPEAKER_00 14:15

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a start, you know, and uh and also when you cook, you're it's having a glass of wine, but not too many because before you know it, you're you're in bed, you know. Like you haven't finished the room, yeah. No.

SPEAKER_03 14:28

I know it's a while back, so you might not remember all of the things that happened, but uh was there a moment during the supper club where something unexpected emerged? A shift, a discomfort, or a revelation, or something that prompted you to maybe think in a different way?

SPEAKER_00 14:47

I think you know, when when I arrived, I didn't realize that you know your old eyes are on you. I mean I know it's a bit it's a bit naive, but I was just like, oh my god, it's it felt like a bit of a responsibility, you know, and and I don't know if I really like that, you know. And I was just like, okay, usually I don't drink at that time. You know, if it's for a private view, uh I like I don't drink, but this time I was just like boom, one one glass is two glasses because I really needed to uh to relax a bit. And I I think that's the for me that was a bit of a of a shock. Yeah. I mean it's a bit of stupidity as well to think that's it's interesting.

SPEAKER_03 15:24

Like I I I was also nervous and like that day, you both know like something unexpected happened. So I was really trying to keep calm. Yeah, and I think we can even talk about it. It was the very start of my breakup of my ex ex-fiance. If funnily enough, one of the guests, um, Vanessa Totil, who who works, who's the curator at at Sainsbury, she was also there. And Ingrid, you're you're showing in that show now with me with um you know 23 23 or 24 more artists, but and and that's the love season, so how do we find love opening up in November? But yeah, so it was very cathartic for me, and I was trying to keep it quite calm. And I wasn't drinking, on the contrary, and uh not to be drinking, to be present and to host and to not think about my personal life.

SPEAKER_05 16:19

You were doing that.

SPEAKER_03 16:21

Thank you.

SPEAKER_05 16:21

You were doing it. I was gonna say for my answer, I was gonna say that is the revelation. Okay, yeah, because for me in the kitchen it was completely under control. I was really happy with the space, with the organization that I've done, you know, and I was satisfied, and we've got help as well in the kitchen, and it's it's sort of I think it's very important that I always have one. But my emotion, my my feelings like was with you like how how is Ingrid doing, and how is Huma doing? Especially with what what what happened that day. I remember. Yeah, no, it was you were incredible, you were absolutely super shocked.

SPEAKER_03 16:57

I think both of you were as well, and I think that also gave me strength.

SPEAKER_05 17:01

Like it was uh I don't know because of that we made I'm glad that you felt like that. I don't I don't know if we we were trying to express that, but we I'm glad you did because I would have understood as well.

SPEAKER_00 17:13

So okay, we we we could have cancelled it if it had been beyond your I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 17:18

I think with all of the work, like most to workaholic, and I think both of you can relate from a different point of view. I thought like let's just go ahead. It wasn't even a a question to to do that, you know, and I think it worked out quite well, and I really cherished that moment despite you know, yeah, yeah. Um so yeah, now now everyone can hear that. So, how did the intimacy of a small table shape the way you shared spoke? In your case, Mo cooked or listened that evening because you're kind of used to more cooking for a lot of people, a lot of people, and I know you didn't like dip it in out so much, maybe just once or twice to explain dishes, yeah, at the end.

SPEAKER_05 18:02

Um I think I think I always feel that with more restraints I flourished better. So, like having a smaller kitchen, the menu has to work in a way that is I'm not using gadgets in a professional kitchen and all those things. I I felt that the menu sort became more successful for me. I was able to deliver it in the highest possible way, uh, rather than me like doing too much and not being able to deliver it because of the size of the kitchen or so it was less is more in a way. Less is more, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. You know, and I I I I that's what I realize in like my other projects where I have if I if I make rules like let's say like a five rules into into what the this menu should be, I feel those people think, oh you you're limiting me. I feel it's making me more creative. So yeah, it's uh I mean uh also maybe maybe maybe when there's loads of people, you're the eyes are not on you as well. Like when there's loads of people, when when when it's varying into number, I walked into here. Or being very complimentary, or you know, um I I I might as a f if you you're my friend, you might you you most of my friends think I'm very like you know, outspoken and stuff, but when that when the spot on you, I actually become very, very introverted. Believe it or not.

SPEAKER_01 19:23

You were blow you were blushing, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 19:26

But also also, I think it was also a room full of women. There's that there the room.

SPEAKER_01 19:30

I think there was what was there one man or no no no, I was thinking there was supposed to be one man and he didn't know, so yeah, no, that's so there's also that but there's also that uh you know and most of my friends are female, but yeah, yeah, that that that does change the dynamic, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 19:48

Yeah, what about you, and I don't know, I think I'm not a fan of dinners, you know. I always find yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I'm not sure. No, no, no, no, it's not that, but I always uh I don't know, it's I always feel a bit anxious about dinners. And for me being at the head of the table, I was facing you, you know, it was a big thing because usually I know I always sit at the same same place, I'm at the end of the table. Like it's like having a kind of escape, you know. And if I find myself like in the middle of the table, I feel like I can't escape. Yeah, you know, it's a bit weird. And also when there's a table, how many were we? Like 10, 12? I think that we were 12, yeah. 12? You know, when you have a table like that, you know, you you have lots of different little conversation happening. It's not like one big conversation, you know. When you're sat you maybe if we are here, we are free, but maybe the the other people next to the.

SPEAKER_03 20:42

I think we changed the format of where the table is after that. Actually, I made it more central on that side. Yeah. Because it was also quite like uh not jarring, but like more closed up and very like not squished, but yeah, quite quite close to one another.

SPEAKER_00 20:59

Yeah, yeah. I think for me during those dinners, there are like little cells of dialogue, and sometimes there's adjusts within those little cells, but sometimes you you break that, but uh, but yeah, I'm not the most comfortable in dinners.

SPEAKER_03 21:12

Unless I have uh I do remember you like by time you really did open up. Maybe it was alcohol as you mentioned, but I think you know Sadly. Yeah, sadly. Well, you you need to, you need to. Yeah, and and you came with you like I remember professional knives and you were quite quite uh well prepared.

SPEAKER_05 21:33

I yeah, I take it very seriously. I know it's a domestic domestic setting, but yeah, but for you it's super important. It is super important, yeah. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 21:41

Okay, so last question. Uh, do you think eating together changes the way we witness one another's work, like in terms of I guess your work, Ingrid, but also your work together, your collaboration together?

SPEAKER_00 21:56

Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. I could I don't know what. to what to what to answer that um i know because i came to another dinner and i thought it was much better for me to be you know on the audience on the in the audience but uh because it was jane haze greenwood and uh and she's a good friend of yours as well yeah and she also had invited uh joanna who was a doctor in I mean what she does some research yeah and on the psychedelics yeah psychedelics so she was also giving a talk about that which was very very interesting and different alternative therapies basically but I mean to go back with Mo I think he really got my uh he really got what I was about even if I think I was a pain at the beginning because I think I didn't really understand the brief but but I think after there's some other questions will you ask.

SPEAKER_03 22:47

Yes so I will answer it about letting go of control and in collaboration it's really difficult. Like I I know I struggle sometimes as a curator as well or like when I try and I think you know now I'm I'm learning like where to step in and be like guys just trust the processor this is what it is or just let it more loose and but it's it's a lot about like experience and intuition and just yeah like experimenting to a degree.

SPEAKER_05 23:16

Yeah what about you um what do you think like eating together does it change the way definitely 100% um I mean if if if I'm gonna talk about people eating my food in a group setting or me experiencing other people's food as a group setting and I do believe especially my my when they're eating my food that um basically basically it's it's like w when I judge my food I judge if I judge it alone it's it might be just one one one tunnel vision of what I think it is and then when you you you basically you when you put your out there your work out there you open it for interpretation by everyone else and that which creates dialogue that that you did not have by yourself you know um the same thing goes to like seeing an exhibition alone or with other people you know I don't know seeing exhibition with with with with the with the plaque reading the plaques and not reading them you know all those things inform how you experience the work and I think the eating part alone and with people it's it's it's a similar similar are you talking about the exchange with others while you while you eat and yeah so so I I see it in the same way you know like and you know it's it's always fun sometimes like you're tasting something others not tasting and then you you tell them even the ingredients not in there that might influence might have a perceivable effect on them you know that it is in there there is chamomide or there is a phenol or you know so yeah 100% I mean I mean I'm I'm pretty sure there's like a quite universal um conclusion by scientists that people feel differently about eating alone and and not eating with people um yeah no definitely the way you experience it not just food like maybe you also and also the conversations that came out of it it was quite like psycho an analytical obviously like with with the cigar dessert or like you know the the the references and then there was the oysters and the sort so obviously like with shapes and texture and and talking about memory and and Ingrid you had like some little sculptures and some drawings around so like yeah I think it all kind of came together and heightened okay so Ingrid these questions are for you your work often deals with the body in very visceral ways how did it feel to see those themes translated into something as sensory and consumable as a curated menu and cooked by Mo.

SPEAKER_00 25:54

It felt really good it tasted good you want more of that no I think I really I really enjoyed it because even we talk about the collaboration I think I was the one misunderstanding the word collaboration because I had this idea that the artist was choosing the menu so that's why I was just like and after Umas he was like great this doesn't really work like that you know so but you I really I we I really wanted the oyster the the only two things I wanted it was the oyster and the cigar and then I don't know it's I think after when you came up with the flower I really I thought it was a beautiful I really like this dish so it was very beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 26:33

Yeah yeah yeah yeah I think they all all came together and the the there was a storyline yeah and the yeah the because we came with the oyster first then after we went into the Freudian bite so the first bite that everyone takes and then there's a starter main and dessert because the the bite was also with with the oyster it's at the beginning of uh the life of an oyster the first year it's uh it starts as male and then after a year yeah it go it goes into female so I thought it was a very interesting start and then the flower as well I like that because it was also uh a kind of uh a container but there's also the cheese which come out so there was a bit yeah it was very and the courgette itself yeah the courgette so there was there was and the castle fran and the pink pink ridicule as well yeah yeah yeah yeah it's very it was it's pretty it's a pretty and delicious and yeah and succulent yeah no it was nice and then after I remember the first time we met we had talked about the sausage but I think for like culinary uh reasons and also because some people are vegetarian of cooking it at home and yeah we went on to the you went to the fish and uh but you you you you said to me that also some shrimps they are like uh I didn't know that yeah yeah they are as well so so there there was that and but after the cigar but it was for the joke and you know finishing on the on the joke and uh yeah the oral the oral phase was there a particular dish or taste Mo created that felt like it spoke to your practice in a way that you hadn't expected yeah it's the it's the flower yeah because I think it's really encompassing not like your drawings yeah it was like a drawing made uh made food you know and uh and I had an uh I would have never thought about uh about that so it made complete sense that makes sense yeah maybe we should do something about that yeah a dish an artist you know yeah I have ideas but we'll we'll talk after in your art you often explore the strange and the familiar did the domestic setting of the supper club change the way you felt about your own work as it being discussed around the table because in the end like it's my living room as well obviously like I always try to give space to the artists where how how they present their work as well but in the end it's not a gallery space so no but it felt quite quite cozy and as you said there were only women around around the table so I think women they can they're a bit more open about the way they feel about their body as well I think we have less less things to high I don't know not less things to high but we are quite open I think and uh I don't know for me the most important the most important thing is that people were having a good time you know and I can even withdraw a bit it doesn't really bother me you know and uh and I think it was nice but I I have to say I felt quite tense yeah during the during the thing because it's on you and uh yeah the spotlight yeah I guess yeah you could hide in a way yeah yeah yeah in the kitchen yeah I should have no I need to go and speak to Mogis yeah so yeah how did you I mean we talked a little bit about the re relinquishing your concepts to a chef I guess yeah was there a sense of vulnerability in seeing your ideas interpreted through someone else's kitchen but I guess yeah like I think it it brought a different way of of collaborating which people are not usually used to as well.

SPEAKER_00 30:13

Yeah yeah yeah no no no I was uh as I explained a bit earlier I was I thought it was up to the artist to to to do the menu and uh I was just and I really am there's a different competition. There's a different show yeah yeah yeah it's a different show yeah yeah yeah no it's true but as as I you know I I really wanted the oyster and the cigar you know so in between you know that that was that was good but I think it took me a while to uh to get to that point. I'm sorry Mo I must have been such a pain but no but uh I at the end no I we I just really enjoyed it you know and and I think uh Mo gave me a beautiful flower in the menu so I can't complain. But it's always interesting sometimes to displace your practice into uh another domain you know it can be food. Recently I applied for some open calls one for football for example the other one for terroir okay interesting uh just to say maybe I should I should focus on my own practice because I did I didn't get chosen chosen so but it's always nice to stretch your practice within another domain and yeah I agree. Yeah and I think you challenge yourself. Yeah yeah you you challenge you see you interpret your work in a uh in a different context with different material because suddenly the food is the material. So now now you know when I look back I said yeah no it was fantastic and I would like to if I could redo it again I would I would love to you know and uh because now I know how to approach collaboration you know and uh and I think it's maybe because sometimes you don't know the people very well and we've met we only met once we only met once so sometimes it's it's very good we didn't have the time to really meet in your studio right yeah we can yeah yeah yeah you're not gonna no you she came to my circuit oh yeah it was yeah yeah yeah no it was really nice that was that was just the first time we was the introduction at after you came to my studio and I think we came here twice but you know sometimes it takes uh it takes a while but no I would love I would I would be I would do it again at the top of the house that's really nice to hear despite you being tense and not liking the like having the limelight like if you say that you'd like to do yeah but you know there's always a first time you know and uh and after you know you say yes yeah yeah yeah you know it's like when we were at La Boulangerie in Paris and we had to talk yeah and I was the last to talk and I was just like I could just hear my my heart like jumping in my chest I was just like I can't do it.

SPEAKER_03 32:47

But I think that's the beauty if you lose that jumping feeling of your heart I think that the passion is dead. The creativity is dead I think so I think so like whenever I felt that way about anything I just realized it's time to move on.

SPEAKER_05 33:04

For all my dinners no matter how prepared I am yeah I still get the same nervousness and the same you know and and especially for for someone who who recognized like success or failure or or or like errors so easily yeah but but I still do it. It hasn't stopped me from doing it. Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah because otherwise you'll be just doing you just say you don't progress and you say you in the comfort zone in your comfort zone.

SPEAKER_03 33:31

There's no fun in that there's no fun in that my last question how did you find the balance between the provocative nature of your work and the social communal atmosphere of the dinner like the discourse around it did one influence the other in a way that surprised you was there a no but as I think because they were women and I think some of them they knew my work already so they were they were familiar with it. Yeah there was one collector I think sit sitting next to you as well yeah yeah yeah so I mean no I think it was it was it was good you know and uh and after everybody left with their little uh you know their little bag and uh oh yeah we made a limited edition bag I mean Ingrid made it which was very special yeah and you added some like yeah they were all like different and uh they were yeah all different and a bit customized and either drawings or some uh some embroidery stitches so but I think we meant they were they were well prepared yeah thank you so last questions for Mo for those who don't know you as a chef can you talk a little bit more about your experience how you got into it and the supper clubs that you have been running as well and then we can tie it in with what we've done but yeah and we were introduced by a mutual friend uh Lauren Godfrey uh which I was very happy for I've been a chef for 11 years I I started as a like a street food business and then I I thought I I'm quite good at this but I don't have skills so I got myself uh a job in the restaurant and the rest is history I've basically been working in different kitchens for the last at least seven years and I used to do like pop-ups and stuff but then I paused these and then in 2023 me and my friend my housemate my friend someone who I'd met on a job we decided to do uh a pop-up and that was very successful and then I thought I should just keep doing them and uh yeah so so so I as well as my like full-time job and yeah it's a lot I I do I do regularly uh like I call them dinners because supper clubs normally normally in like a homely setting uh or like a shape. Even if it's in them because it's in palm palm too right? Yeah but it it it did give me like a nice because we can like a homely like it there is this kind of like even though it was like m more than 12 obviously like there's like 40 people. But there's something beautiful about I think maybe going up the stairs because no I'm not going up. I know it's true and there were the the candles as well yeah because everyone was like kind of guided and then yeah like the candles and I think there were certain things attention to detail that took you out of that normal like dinner or or I didn't mean like dinner as like dinner at home.

SPEAKER_05 36:54

I call them dinners because it's up it's it is open for interpretation. Because when you go to a restaurant it's a dinner you know that's true. I'm I'm saying dinner is like it's actually it's actually I'm trying to say it opens it up to more than a supper yeah it is more than a supper sorry so yeah so I've been doing them for for now three years. I only I've done one so far this year and there'll be a couple coming up and yeah I'm looking forward to coming to the next one. Yeah last time well next one what was the sorry the second half of the question how long I've been doing it.

SPEAKER_03 37:29

Yeah and like how you yeah you you mentioned how you got into it. So like yeah and you mentioned how long you've been doing it so you've you've answered it. When you first looked at Ingrid's work which is so much about the body and its metamorphosis and uh where did you begin your culinary response? I guess this was also a conversation between us but uh was it like the texture or did you want to first explore the color or a specific feeling or the br the presentation it might be the yeah.

SPEAKER_05 38:03

I mean I I I think I think when I looked at Ingrid's work I you basically you break it into into all of those things you mentioned you know the colour the texture the layers and and then you think in a practical terms what is uh in culinary terms what what ingredients do we have that that reminds me of the work like a match like you know if it's a flower or if it's like a ball shape thing or like the sausage you know the sausage was we we discussed it for a long time and we were very close to using it but if but if we have found the the one ingredient that I I I didn't find. By the way I I did bring some from Turkey. Yeah yeah we need to redo it then I am I'm not redoing it I'm doing a dinner that you'll be invited to but go back to what to your question is basically I just looked in practical terms mainly and then obviously you have to it's a collaboration is not I'm not I'm not having been given a picture saying make this again in food you know I'm not I'm not is it cake or is it not you know I'm not that's not what I do yeah I'm more like what do you want the person eating it to feel what was your thinking behind this or you know and then I think this is how this is how we started I think yeah and yeah I you just break it into very very uh practical terms yeah that's you know like color texture yeah letter I think you see if and I remember you uh this is in our handwriting yeah like you were taking notes all the time you had a notebook and yeah I think the first thing you mentioned was sausage so I was just like yeah yeah it's for me this one all for Fala Copter because that was your last show I think uh at the time why didn't we have aubergines I've done I've done loads of aubergines okay you were you were so tired of aubergines my work so but like the boulangerie was the boulangerie where the yeah yeah which had the the the the sausage in the window yeah yeah yeah yeah so that was the most striking image that I've seen and then I go to your studio and you have all these very delicate very soft uh soft coloured uh drawings uh which I think what most of the menu was about yeah um so my next question is how do you balance your own culinary heritage those time rich Syrian traditions or other influences that might have came into your life over time with the very contemporary often disquieting themes of an artist like Ingrid but like maybe you just yeah worked with them altogether but I mean I don't I don't think my my like my heritage came into into the the culinary response to Ingrid's work but although if I if we went with a sausage that would have been an absolute Syrian dish like it's you know Syrian maybe Lebanese but but it's very Syrian it's time consuming it's it's it's one of those difficult dishes but we ended up going with probably western style cooking but with some some some like the fit the main course had like eastern Mediterranean flavours like a some of the southern Europe flavour uh southern flavours of like Italy and France very light very very fresh so because because it's a collaboration I I did not I wasn't very strict about keeping my not I always have my serum heritage but applying it on my on my yeah depending on yeah it depends on on the dialogue of it and I think I think I think I I I sneaked many things with from from that I think into that that that that that many whether it's spices or the spices there's this there's this the the the uh sort of the sazza verde that was like very similar like it's got compared to pule I remember by by Yasmin so yeah it's it's I'm I'm not I'm not very strict to be honest.

SPEAKER_00 42:01

Even when I do my Syrian uh dinners my Syrian supper clubs I take a lot from from what I've learned and what like this kind I live in this country this is home and uh you know I'm I am influenced by it so and if for example you we say okay it's about my work and you have complete carte blanche with all the what what would you have done or what would you have made uh it's just to it's just to imagine you're asking me.

SPEAKER_05 42:27

Yeah you I I think I would have uh I would have definitely kept the oyster I think I think I think I would have liked f four of those oysters per person. I mean it was like so good I think it was such a good like especially with the idea the metamorph metamorphosis of and yeah and because you know it changes gender in its lifetime and I think the the main the main I would have loved to go with what with the with the first idea we had it just because it's very challenging it's open a lot of conversation and also like I think there were three or four like either vegetarians or pescatarians had to do two menus it was really not but you remember you had this amazing idea like we should make a very long sausage and people would have to cut their portion well I would have loved that yeah but because that reminds me of your work in which which coming out and like it's on you you also like portioned portioned when it's coming out fabric filled with uh cotton or something like that yeah yeah yeah yeah okay so I saw it right uh yeah I think but I think the cigar is really fun it's it's yeah it's it's and and the presentation was amazing like you had these coffee grains coffee beans coffee beans that I I made I made chocol chocolate coffee beans in a mold.

SPEAKER_03 43:50

Yeah and we used my cigar uh box to present one of them that and to bring it and there was like um smoke coming out. It was Yeah, it's it's a whole experience.

SPEAKER_04 44:02

Thank you more.

SPEAKER_03 44:03

Um, last question. Does cooking for and we did talk a little bit about this, but does cooking for such an intimate focused group change your own relationship to the dishes you you create? Um does it feel more like an authorship or an interpretation? How did it make you feel basically like compared to your other usual work?

SPEAKER_05 44:24

I so so b because it's it's like because the menu is very concise, it's uh it's a four dishes that's gonna be eaten by 12 people. Also, I know that I'm never gonna repeat that menu, like in its entirety. Maybe I would take bits.

SPEAKER_03 44:39

Bits and bots.

SPEAKER_05 44:40

I feel it's sort of like documented itself as as as my dinner with Ingrid, and and with that in itself, that like the authorship on it, it's so there. Like if anyone attempts to use one of the dishes or does it again, you can you can recognize it, you know. I yeah, I I I think I think it's it's it's it's very unique for for for what that one night. And I think it's and that's the beauty of yeah, that's the beauty of it, and and it's it's you know, it will always be there. That I don't know, whatever pictures or like if the printed menus that we did, or uh our memories of it, you know. It's it's all those lovely things. But the one thing that I I I still remember, like not remember, I thought about it after we'd done it. It's because we talked about like changing and metamorphisms and like things becoming something else. If you look at the order of men, like food menus generally, like you normally have a light, I don't know, sometimes not like a sometimes not a light starter, sometimes a light starter, then you have the main, and then you have very delicate, like a normally more feminine dessert. Um and then I think we flipped it.

SPEAKER_01 45:46

Yeah, uh, I think we we had yeah, we had the feminine more delicate, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 45:50

Yeah, we had the feminine, and then we had the the the and we didn't talk, we didn't we didn't mention that the the cigar was filled with uh Lafroy uh Lafroy uh creme, which is very smoky, it's very masculine. If I I hate using that word to describe whiskey because a lot of females love love whiskey, and but it's very very quite you know mature in a way. Yeah, and and we had it at the end, and it was in a box where the beginning was very delicate.

SPEAKER_03 46:16

But whiskey is also uh accompaniment to uh cigars, so it's yeah, yeah, yeah. It's very much one.

SPEAKER_05 46:23

Well that was the idea, like the smoke and the smokiness, you know. And I feel we we we sort of flipped that and and made made it made made another ang made made the idea of the menu like adds to the to to to to my understanding of your work, you know, like the changing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:40

Would you do it again? Yeah with another yeah, do are you have you planned to do some other dinner like that?

SPEAKER_05 46:45

Well, I do I do want to do uh one with Lauren.

SPEAKER_03 46:49

Yeah, I always want because we well now actually we we can in a way if because for those who are listening, Freud Invites has now been turned into a service product. Yeah. So we want to actually cater it to other people's homes or galleries or different spaces and institutions, and I want it to be the same feel, but you know, after doing 10 or 11 iterations in my own living room, it also gets a bit tiring.

SPEAKER_05 47:17

And you know, when you bring people over like I squat and lazy, it is like with Lauren, like my my like I I see Lauren a lot, you know, she's a really good friend. The way I want to do it, we want to do it just about pasta. Like one thing, one thing. It's not it's not about like the same discussion.

SPEAKER_03 47:34

Because I I have and she has the pasta slab works, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 47:38

I mean I have what so much pasta.

SPEAKER_03 47:40

I have a drawing of her, I'll show it to you after.

SPEAKER_05 47:43

I mean, she's got yeah, she's got some, yeah. Yeah, so so we want to do something with pasta. Uh but but we we we don't know yet.

SPEAKER_00 47:51

I mean, just yeah, uh it's whoever contacts you want to know.

SPEAKER_03 47:55

Yeah, that's good to know though. Cool, that's exciting. I would love to go. Yeah, I mean maybe we love to go to Family.

SPEAKER_05 48:01

She's she's been so busy. She's I mean, the busiest person I know. I mean, it's it's it's like we can't get her to have like a drink for us, you know. It's very hard, very hard.

SPEAKER_03 48:13

Okay, well, thank you for listening, everyone. I'd like to thank Eden Arts Foundation once again for sponsoring and helping me realize this podcast. And yeah, uh, stay tuned until the next one.