Hello and welcome to the final episode of season 18. 18!!!!

My guest today is the cook, Thomasina Miers.

Despite being taught to cook as a child, Tommi didn’t really embrace her love of food until her late 20s when a trip to Mexico inspired a love of Mexican food that was to change her life.

In 2005, she became the first person ever to win Masterchef and two years later she co-founded the successful Mexican restaurant chain Wahaca. Tommi has also cheffed in Michelin star kitchens, set up Chefs in Schools and also works with the soil association. She was awarded an OBE in 2019 for her services to the food industry. 

She has also written nine cookbooks, the latest of which is Mexican Table which celebrates the flavour, culture and ingredients of the country she loves and has been visiting for over 30 years. 

Tommi and I talked feeling a failure in your twenties, being diagnosed with ADHD in your 40s, finding herself through cooking, how she learnt to stop using work to self medicate, recovering from the perimenopause crash, how a midlife family flit to Mexico rebuilt her and why she hopes she’ll still be in hot pants at 80.

CW alcoholism mental health and passing reference to suicide 

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Mexican Table by Thomasina Miers as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

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