To celebrate Mother’s Day, Jessie and Lennie Ware, of chart-topping podcast Table Manners, tell Emma Higginbotham about bickering, their new cookbook, and why they love each other really.

When singer-songwriter Jessie Ware decided to start a podcast, she knew that it should involve two things: excellent guests and excellent food.

What she didn’t know was that asking her vivacious mother, Lennie, to help her cook for the recordings would lead to an unlikely – but hugely likeable – double act.

‘I wasn’t trying to be unique, but it’s a nice ice-breaker, having a meal, and I just thought everyone should know my mum,’ says Jessie. ‘Now they do and I’ve created a monster. No, I’m joking! She’s amazing. I didn’t realise how big a role she would have, but nobody puts Lennie in the corner.’

‘I couldn’t keep my mouth shut,’ admits social worker Lennie, who turns 70 next year. ‘I can’t not give my opinion on things, and it seemed to work. I’m surprised in a way, because I’m just an ordinary person. But we’ve had brilliant people on, and chatting about food is such an interesting way of learning about them.’

Amid a barrage of gentle bickering and occasional swearing, the mother-daughter duo have fed a stellar cast of celebrities, usually in Lennie’s south London kitchen, since Table Manners began in 2017.

We’ve heard Ed Sheeran scoffing four helpings of sausage casserole, Nigella Lawson recalling her fussy-eating childhood, Yotam Ottolenghi talking about surrogacy, Stacey Dooley confessing to doing something unmentionable with a shoebox... This pair, it seems, can get anything out of anyone with their good-natured probing and mouthwatering, often Jewish, fare.

‘People now come to us because they want to do the podcast,’ says Jessie. ‘It’s a huge compliment.’

Food has always taken centre stage in the Ware household, where Jessie grew up with her older sister Hannah, now an actress, and younger brother Alex, a doctor. Their father is investigative journalist John Ware; he and Lennie split up when Jessie was 10.

‘Mum is a force of nature. She brought us up on our own, three very spirited kids, and always managed to have a home-cooked meal on the table. And now, being a mum myself [she has a three-year-old daughter and a baby son] I have such respect for her. It’s the best thing in the world but it’s bloody hard, and she made it seem so easy.’

Lennie’s own mother was an accomplished cook, and Lennie learned by standing on a stool and watching her, agog. She admits to having little patience when it came to teaching Jessie, ‘but if you like food, you can cook, and she really does. She used to twiddle her toes with excitement when food came towards her in the high chair.’

‘Mum was a bit Gordon Ramsay about it, so I picked it up by being a greedy cow and always hovering around the kitchen,’ says Jessie. ‘There was no chance she was going to be like: “Darling, why don’t you do this?” It was: “Don’t do it like that! Just give it to me, I’ll do it quicker”.’

Do they bicker in real life? ‘It’s terrible isn’t it? We do bicker in the kitchen, because she clearly doesn’t do things the way I think they should be done,’ says Lennie with a twinkle. ‘But we don’t bicker about anything else. She’s a fantastic mother, she’s a very successful singer, she’s great.’

For Jessie, Table Manners has meant coming full circle. The 35-year-old began her working life as a journalist, and was on the brink of switching to family law when her singer-songwriter friend Jack Peňate invited her to come on tour with him as a backing singer. ‘I thought I’ll just do this for a year and have some really good memories; then I got signed, and the rest is history.’

With more than a million albums sold worldwide, Jessie is currently recording her fourth: ‘but I'm really happy that I’ve managed to do this podcast because journalism was my first interest, so it’s come about in a different way. It’s a real pleasure and it doesn’t really feel like work. Most of the time.’

Meanwhile Lennie is still getting used to her unforeseen fame. ‘I was getting off a plane and someone tapped me on the shoulder and said “I just heard you talking, are you Lennie from the podcast?” So I must have the most horrible voice. Jessie says it’s my whining whinge. Nice.’

The feisty pair have now launched a recipe book filled with dishes they’ve cooked for their hungry guests. Called Table Manners: The Cookbook, it has chapter headings like ‘Jewish-ish’, ‘Effortless’ and ‘Christmukkah’, and fans of the podcast will be delighted to know it includes Lennie’s famous matzo balls, which Jamie Oliver declared to be the best in the world.

It’s also packed with glimpses of their family life, such as why Jessie made rack of lamb for her now-husband, Sam, aged 18; a vegan curry recipe she tried in desperation to bring on labour when two weeks overdue; and how Lennie dons a shower cap ‘and little else’ to make her pungent fried gefilte fish.

‘We wanted to recreate the warmth of the podcast, and I hope that’s what it feels like,’ says Lennie. ‘They’re not big long complicated recipes; they’re for people who’ve got lots to do, but want to create something nice.’

For Jessie, the cookbook is the culmination of a whirlwind three years of unexpectedly being in business with her mum. ‘It’s amazing working with her. I never thought this would happen, but we’ve got nine series of audio of us, well, bickering a lot of the time, and now we have this book, and it’s incredibly special,’ she says.

‘I’m not going to lie, it’s definitely tested our relationship, but it’s also so much fun. She’s the most confident, witty woman I know, and I’m so proud that other people have fallen in love with her.’

Table Manners: The Cookbook by Jessie and Lennie Ware, Ebury Press, £22

Recipes from the book include:

Turkey Meatballs in Tomato Sauce

'These are light as a feather and seem to invite a confession, like when my dear friend the singer-songwriter Sam Smith explained he thought Mexico was in Spain while we fed these beauties to him.'

Thai Fish Cakes

‘We served these to the Mayor of London back in 2018. I don’t think the neighbours will ever forget the knock at their door when Sadiq Khan arrived at the wrong house with a bunch of flowers.’

Aubergine and Puy Lentil Bolognaise

'My mother, who rolls her eyes every time I offer a vegetarian alternative, had to text me after the Paloma Faith podcast to admit that “the bolognese was delicious, darling".'

‘Triple Threat’ Chocolate Brownies

‘People have requested this recipe the most after hearing about it in the Ed Sheeran episode. A triple shot of chocolatey goodness, my doctor brother Alex says that it’s more like a triple threat to your cholesterol levels, but don’t let that stop you from making them.’

An edited version of this interview was published in Waitrose Weekend in March 2020 (c) Waitrose