Rachel de Thample: We are at Wild IS Earth I'm with Livia I met you a few weeks ago, about a month ago. Yeah. We're collaborating. Supper clubs, your first supper club series. Yeah. And what took me when I first actually I was blown away by everything, and that's why I'm here back. What's that? So I can share the the experience I had with you with a broader audience. But what really I loved when you first started your introduction to the group that you know we that were around the table at the t the night we met is that you talked about your childhood. In this very spot. So can you just allude to that? Sure. So we bought this place in 1988. I was around five, six years old. Wow. And we actually were down the road. We were a patissary down the road at Fortis Road, but we are Tolly Italian Patisserie is how we started off. My My parents were making cakes and delivering them to Italian restaurants primarily. And then eventually we made our own patisserie down the road. So then we branched out and instead of continuing to rent that space, we ended up buying this space from Kentish-Town, you know, prime location opposite the station. So there's a lot of history in this space. We started out as a patisserie. I you know, was making croissants, making cakes in the kitchen with my parents. You know, a bit of a neglectful childhood, but you know, nevertheless, I can definitely value where it has brought me today and the skills it's taught me, the tenacity, the resilience, that kind of stuff, the mindset as well. I really remember my dad just putting me on a stool, apron tied round, said, Right, look at the clock on the left, look look up. Your utensils and all right, we need to, you know, execute this task, make this cake or whatever in this time. Let's get on with it, kind of thing. Yeah. So I really always remember that moment because I think that taught me a life skill there. It's like, what have I got in front of me? What do I need to do and then like go for it kind of thing. Just getting stuck in and yeah Maximizing the time you have. Yeah, exactly. We come from a little village in the valleys of Naples, province of Venerento fraction of a fraction of the province of Benevento. And, you know, there were very much farmers, bricklayers, stonemasoner type people, you know, humble little village. Hands on, sort of. Absolutely hands on. You know, I remember running in and going non na nonna And she had a chicken on her lap And she just cracks its neck And I'm like, my gosh, you know. But yeah, you know, from the land essentially. So and it was a very kind of a zero waste concept. As most things in the past was, you know, there was no such thing as a dustbin. It was only for dust, you know, not for everything else. So and that's I think that stuck with me. I mean, that's another thing that really blew my mind coming here. It's everywhere. I've taken pictures of all your sort of this is what we're about, closed loop. So tell me a bit more about that. Everything you do is is thought about the whole cycle and any end product gets reused and recycled from the laps starting like the combuchoscoby the culture. Yeah. You're using it to make laps and I mean that that's something now, but I can definitely say from even the Patissary days when my parents were making the chicken escalop for instance and you needed the bread crumbs to make the the chicken, the Milanese, we would use our bread our bread left over So before doing kombucha, yes, I had all these kind of added skills through catering, through art, through you know psychotherapy, That was something I was really passionate about. You know, do I return to be an artist after being a mum? Or you know, do I want to be stuck in a room? Do I like the capitalist model? So then I went into gardening and I was very interested in soil health. And I was thinking about compost and I was thinking about how I love the idea of giving back to the earth rather than just stripping away from it. So I was actually starting off. More passionately about the closed loop system. So for me it was like what product would actually define me. And then when I came across the light bulb moment of going, actually let's do kombucha because that's another story, but you know, I won't elongate the story. So I was like, yeah, this definitely, you know, is at the heart of all my values because it's so circulatory in the fact that my first post on Instagram for example was about the mother culture and the mother culture doesn't need to be thrown away. It can be put back into the soil and enriches the soil health. So I was like, this is amazing. You know, for once as human beings, we're elongating the life, the reciprocity of taking and giving. Exactly. So which we don't do a lot of. I mean we're labelled as consumers rather than you know, participants or community I do very much think that's the patriarchal model, you know, which men and women are suffering from and the world is, and that's why we are here today quite disconnected and you know, not in harmony with another nature. Yeah. And I think we're suffering from that. I think we're lonelier than we've ever been. Yeah, So the original question was my passion started really from the circulatory process of how waste is not waste but can be, you know, put into something else. And when I came across the idea of with my friend using kombucha at the heart of that. It was a no brainer. It's like as human beings we all want to get together, we all want to eat, we all want to drink, we all want to like play, sing, hug. So for me that that's what the space is about. It's kombucha at the heart, but it does so many other things. So many more. One thing I love about kombucha is it's often referred to in some technical forms as well as a tea fungus. It has a lot of sort of links with mushrooms, which then also have links with networks and community Yeah. And I applied for a Negroni Award, which is part of the slow food movement. They've got an international movement and that is an umbrella it's it's a project about going everything we're talking about essentially, you know, slowing things down, going back to nature, being in harmony. So like we're sitting here next to a fungi lamp, beautiful, which essentially is like the mushroom you would harvest out of the ground, fruiting spora. And it's very similar to when you look at the jars behind me and you see the scoby, the pellicle floating at the top, you know, all things are connected. Absolutely. And I think that's what I love. So you've brought me brought us a bottle of your kombucha share. This is your base kombucha, this is my base flavour. So the reason why I'm different is I use three varieties of teas from the camellia sinensis tea plant, black. So naked net naked nettles is what you're calling it. And So that's my first fermentation process, food teas, food sugars. And then my second fermentation, I infuse all of them with nettles. So the one we're drinking now is naked nettles, and that's naked kombucha with nettles only, and that's the base flavour. And then from that flavour, I take on other flavours. So fantastic. So you explained to us when you were giving the initial tour when I met you, why you use three different teas and why I used three different sugars. Do you want to explain that a bit? Yeah, so I will start by saying I'm very much not a scientist, I'm a brewer. So you know all my reasonings tend to be quite sentient and obviously it's taken me on a path of interest about microbial activity. In fact I'm similarly to you part of the fermenters guild and They have started something called the fermentation exchange. So at London Metropolitan University, the at the microbiology department, they're very much interested in the science behind you know the live activity that is happening. So Cambridge is very much a multi dynamic, variable process. So I my aim is to give as much. Nutritional characteristic as possible. So the environment for that fermentation to take place. But it the more you add in, the more may you I don't know, variable results you may get. So I can't say for sure, but I I'm curious and we know that each tea gives different characters and we know that each sugar's give different characters. So by providing a variety, I'm I'm providing that opportunity for the fermentation in the sand to take place. Now, until I'm lab testing that, I can't know for sure, but I'll be interested to see if it develops a larger microbial results in the end. It's it's kind of playing on that 30 plants in a week. Just get the more diversity you have, the more nutrient access and the more nutritional scope, isn't it? Well it's the same as our guts and the same as the soil. Again, all things are connected and it's very similar. Like if you look at something what's going on beneath our feet and what's going on up in space, I mean, I don't think we need to be too smart to realise that there are quite similar things going on and it's mind blown really. Absolutely. So the three teas you're using, you're using a green, a black and a white tea. And then the sugars, which sugars are you using then? So I'm using light cane sugar, coconut sugar and a deeper muscovado sugar. But they can be temperamental, so you need to go you kind of need to learn your ratio. For example, coconut and muscovado muscovado sugar can actually encourage mold and poor scoby growth. So it took a while to get there. But it also adds on the depth of flavour you need to my brand. So I do that also for the characteristical flavours too. I mean I quite like my flavours to be quite bold, you know, I'm a Negroni fan, I'm a red wine palette fan. So you know I mean ultimately you're going with my palette. As my customer, you're just going, all right, do I like your palette? Yeah. Interestingly enough, research has shown that we share each other's microbes, you know, with a kiss, with a with I think even just talking to one another just. Yeah, living in the same house. Absolutely. You know, dancing microbes are around all the time, right? So then you start to share similar gut in a way. Yeah, and you get that with I mean you have can't count quickly, but you have about twenty four, twenty-six different SCOBY hotels behind us. Yeah, And they'll have their own probably own microbiome, but obviously lots of shared You know, but each one will probably have a slightly different sort of balance. Yeah, I like to look at each jar being like each different plant or different human being under the same umbrella. They're all gonna have their own microbial children. The same mother. Yeah. And so I take seven to eight jars normally after first fermentation And then I bring them downstairs into the kitchen and I do A second fermentation for another four to five days, depending on the British weather. And there I will mix those characters together. Yeah, beautiful. And then infuse them with nettles. Yeah. And so where do the nettles what what's inspired that idea? Why nettles? Well, I'm in love with nettles because it's such a a hardy weed. Although I w I I wouldn't consider it a weed. I think actually the weeds are probably the strongest plants we should be eating because if they're surviving out of anything and nothing they're telling us Yeah come on exactly I'm here. So really we should move be moving away from monocrop you know growth only where it's probably actually getting thinner and thinner in what it can provide us, especially depending on our environment. But weeds are like growing out of any poor soil system as well. But anyway Green, I mean stinginettles is a great bit of green. It's got it's full of different values that are good for our health. And I also realized it was an antihistamine, and I realized that kombucha can it's not a histamine, so Dr. Robert Thomas actually worded it differently. He's a kind of gut health guru that customer that comes here. He says it's not that kombucha is a histamine as such, but it might create a reaction or something which might be a histamine. So I don't know whether it takes away any histamine properties in a kombucha, but I put it in there anyway, so it might do. again, it needs to be lab tested. Yeah. I read that the the SCOBY the microbes particular to kombucha really like nitrogen. And that's one thing tea gives it. But then I've I've done brews with nettles as well, just thinking nettles are rich in nitrogen. And so I was really I was not surprised but delighted when I I saw that that's what you were doing. Because it makes it makes sense on so many levels. Also, kombucha has vitamin C naturally. Yeah. And nettles are this amazing source of iron that also contain vitamin C, which help you absorb the iron. So you're just kind of boosting that. Yeah. Clay as well, aren't you? I mean also for plants, you know, we feed it to plants to to give it extra nitrogen because like when the seedlings are trying to boost up, they like that nitrogen level. And then later on when they flower, they go into potassium. So yeah, I again, you know, it's all connected, you know, we all need the same things. So it's nice to create that circularity. So there's a huge amount of narrative just within each of your your bottles as well. And then I mean this is just the mothership, the base, which is already quite complex. But then you have really fabulous flavours. I mean, you were saying like, you know, people are on your flavour journey, but luckily you have a wide, like amazing palette that's quite varied too. I mean, we did a tasting. So you do a tasting of five different you have five different ones, don't you? Yeah, I do have five shots. Five shot tasting tasting experience. So normally the fifth sh fifth shot, which is my fifth tap. I mean I would've probably do more, but because I can only actually extend to five taps on my bar, it's helped to limit me. So I basically decided all right, let's start with four base flavours that more or less throughout the year I I contain to. But even in that, for example, my wildflowers you know, I tend to go a little bit more lighter in palette when it gets summery. Beautiful. And I I tend to, you know, go a little bit more rooted, for example, in winter. Yeah. So like my tartar rose hip hibiscus rose hip hibiscus, I might add some star and east and cloves and make it more mold winey in the winter. Yeah. Whereas it might taste a bit more sangria style in the summer. Beautiful. And I do the similar thing with the wildflowers. That was my favourite one we tried. I I think i it actually it was just it was cloudy, rich, there was so much going on. Very complex. Very complex. I put a lot of flowers in there to be honest. Yeah, so what sort of flowers are you using? So I use calendula flowers, marigold, lavender, camomile flowers, lime leaves, elder flowers, but more towards the summer I would make it more elder flowery. And I do a touch of UK apples as well to enhance a bit. What else do I use? Again, there's always got nettles in there. And let me have a look at my menu. And your menu is the base of it. I love it. It's a clipboard menu and the base of it is a dried scoby, which is beautiful. It it does have a leather like Yeah look to it, but also it has this amazing fragrance. This room itself, like we're surrounded with this backdrop of the scobies and then you have the menus and it just has this really Well, you say amazing, but someone else might say it's thinks. No, I think it's floral and and yeah, floral Earthy, sweet, I really love it. Thank you, Rachel. So yeah, what are what are some of your other other flavours then? You have on on your throat five tasting. Yeah. The the wildflower one. Yeah, so naked nettles, wildflowers, fiery lemon and ginger turmeric. That's quite a bomb of a flavour really. Very anti inflammatory. So is that could made too for all of its health benefits? Yeah, I mean I as a consumer myself, I'm like, why am I only having turnwick one day or ginger another day or whatever? So I just put it all together. So I put turnwick, cayenne pepper, Sicilian lemons and ginger. And obviously there are those health hacks like, you know, activating the turnwick even more with black pepper and lemon accentuates the nutrition in your greens, for example. So kombucha makes everything more bioavailable anyway. So I'd consider that Bomb of a flavour, really. And I make it into a hot toddy as well during the winter. Well, I mean you can add one now, but it tends to be a bit more popular in the winter, of course. Yeah. So I would put like 18 degrees hot water in that's to keep the microbes. Yeah. A dash of that and the pulp, the elixir that I use to make that flavour, I keep that and I add that into the drink, and then I crack some black pepper again to activate the curcumin. And just garnish with a dehydrated blood orange. Which c can is edible. I don't know why a lot of people don't eat their garnishes. Yeah, I always eat the garnish. All of it. The skin, the yeah. Yeah, 'cause the skin is great, binds your poo as well. Exactly. If you've got any I B S issues, there you go. Eat your garnishes. And then the seasonal one during the summer was baseline watermelon. Before that was ginger de beetroot sweet. Both very much liked. But 'cause basically I don't have enough space in the fridge under the bar. So I can only I only have enough space for five kegs. And the a seasonal flavour, the base the guest flavour tends to be less keg. So that can kind of run out quickly. Yeah. What are some of your favourite seasonal guests that have made an appearance? So Camomile lime leaves was liked a lot. Very commonly. They they've all been liked to be honest. The ginger beet was very much liked and the basil watermelon was very much liked. Now I'm thinking maybe something towards either foods or plums or peaches or or black is it black? Is that when it's seasoned? Yeah, Yeah, full force. One thing I wanted to go rewind back a little bit is the all those flavours. So when we did the tasting one thing apart from the colours, the textures the taste using the same base but just adding those you know those amazing flavours is they you because you have done even though you're very intuitive in your in your brewer but you do have a a bit you do some testing too and there is some science just illustrated on your taps at the front you you show the the bricks which is the sugar levels that also can be equated sometimes to nutritional values and then you also do the alcohol per volume. Which, you know, compute is on the low level, but some things can can, you know, change it quite significantly. And I that's quite interesting just how, you know, flavour can change the evolve a product so much. I mean to be honest, if I had the money and the possibility, I would love to test every single thing I do. But there are so many variables that it's not one thing you do that determines the outcome here. But I guess the numbers on my tap is to show the mileage of fermentation essentially. So that mileage is determined by the bricks, which normally measures the sugar level and is determined by the pH, the acidity, and the ABV, the alcohol. Now I'm just being essentially transparent about it, but The only w ha a way to have an accurate reading was essentially to lab test it. I mean, those numbers downstairs took me one thousand six hundred pounds to lab test. And it's like disproportionate to expect me to do that every single batch. Absolutely. So I use that as a marker to more or less understand how my numbers are created. Yeah. So I know more or less my naked nettles, which has less to eat in a way than my wildflowers, which all those different flowers introduced, and the sugars in the flowers which are reintro being reintroduced. So I know that okay, my bricks will vary here a bit, but also again, it does depend on how long it's been fermented, how much of those sugars have actually been eaten or not eaten and the ABV also gets converted into bacteria from what I understand. So I more or less use those as a pointer, but I've actually done a hard kombucher, which is my tardy rose hip hibiscus. Okay. Yeah. And that went up to 11.7%. Wow. In my lab testing. Yeah. Now I know why more or less that that went higher because I did a third fermentation, there was a bit of a heat wave. So and I reintroduced again the teas and sugars in the third fermentation. Okay. So I kinda know more or less, right. So that will then make that higher in A B V. Yeah. The mileage is going And adding more sugar, that's because that's what creates the alcohol is the sugar. Yeah. But the heat as well, the oxygen is a big part as well. So again, yeah, this is where I'd love to spend more time doing it, but in terms of practical reality of my lifestyle, I'm spending a lot of my time trying to hold the thought together. Right. So I'm not I don't have as much time as I'd like to play in in the lab as much as I'd like to. But I'm hoping that by creating the putting the ducks in a row and building on the system I'm trying to put in place, that I will then have more money, time and you know, people to, you know, play around with this. It's always interesting when you ha when you're an intuitive sort of creator to have a l you know, get that kind of to it's like taking the veil off and seeing a bit more detail on what's happening beyond the surface. But sometimes it's quite nice the just not knowing too and just being more intuitive because it does change and numbers can't always be the definitive No, no. And I think, you know, we've got to remember that science is limited to its knowledge today. So bacteria's always been around, but we only realised it was around when we saw it, right? So And there's so much more never know, which is exactly part of the beauty. Part of the beauty, and I think what needs to be remind you know, we need to remind humanity needs to be reminded that we are dumber than we we claim to be, and we need to that's where we need to remain humble. Humble exactly. One thing cheers to one. Yeah, cheers to that. And this is delicious by the way. So it's nourishing in in many ways, not yeah, in a deep level. One thing I really another one of the many things I love about what you do is you're really principled. Like you're all organic. I've been told that many times. I think I mean it's something I gravitate towards. someone who has strong belief systems and sticks with them and doesn't compromise. So where does that come from? Yeah, Okay. I think it's taken a while. I think you know who you are as a a young person growing up and you kinda navigate through life and then you know, you might fall in that hole but then eventually you might come out of that one and go, okay, I've learned something out that. But eventually over time and then I would say post a number of experiences And you know, the work working, and eventually I realised actually there's a lot out there that's also bullshit. And why am I following bullshit when I think when you reach to a point where you think, okay, everyone, every individual's got a bundle of energy and we're like a compass, but when we reach that indicator of where we want to go. It's a no buena to just kind of like flow that energy out towards that point. And I think there was a time where I was just like, actually, this is who I am and I feel unhappy when I'm not living my principles and my values. So, you know, I'm a plant based diet, for example. And when I was working in a market selling cheeses and salami and prosciutto and whatnot, When I come from a very pig heavy background. Yeah, that's our delicacy in my religion. Yeah. You know, the pig blood draining from its, you know, upside down gravity. But so I was I just don't feel comfortable doing those things and So I I don't know. I just said I think if I'm gonna do it, I wanna do it my way. And I've been constantly told you should do this, you should do that. And it's like, but why should I do this and should I do that? It doesn't make you feel better. That's what make me feel better. And if you think about all those artists out there, like sing songwriters or you know, but they're normal they're normally artists to be honest. They don't they don't necessarily compromise too much about who they are. They go, This is the type of music I'm playing. You either like it or you don't. And then there will always be people out there that agree. And like you will gravitate. Yeah. Because we're all different and we all kinda have our own little interests. And authenticity is very attractive. And especially in the modern world where it's quite hard to find that sometimes. It's it's surprisingly hard to find. Yeah. Yeah. And I've been told that as well that I'm authentic. It's like yeah. But why is that hard? I know. Well it's strange, isn't it? So everything here is plant based and also organic. Yes. Which is, you know, not the norm. These days. It used to be the norm. But the world's been flipped the other way where it's the you know, it's it's not, you know, as mainstream as as it could be. Does that come from the gardening experience you had, the organic side of things? Yeah, so I think it comes from also coming from my roots, like you know, I'm Italian roots and we live off the land in a farm and we definitely want to eat good quality food and there's there's no question about it. So what does good quality food mean? It means when it's at its truest form, whole form, as close to picking as possible and made with love. So then I start to look at okay, Well then how do how does that happen? Well then there's w the soil needs to be rich, the environment needs to be healthy. And so on and so on. And so as a gardener, I was going back into that. You know, it's funny because my mum was like, Why are you doing this? You know, we moved away from this to get a better life, kind of thing. It's like But now we're all realizing that was a better life. It was just a bit hard, you know. So how do we make it easier? Where you know it's not just falling on one person, but the whole village, you know, it takes a village to raise a child, right? It's the same thing. It's Okay, let's stop fucking up the planet. Let's you know, not what's the word contaminate the soil, the air, the water we drink. I mean, it doesn't matter whether you're rich or poor, we all need those things. So I think we should all be working towards that. It's sad that organic food is more expensive, that plant milk is more expensive than a cow's udder. Yeah. You know, like a life Yeah. You know, that's it's a bit It's bit warped, isn't it, really? It is, yeah. And then for example, even when I was thinking about the sugars, you know, I wanted to get local sugar. And England is one of the largest providing of beet sugars, right? 'Cause I don't need to get light cane sugar, I could've got beet sugar. But if I wanted my beet sugar to be organic, England doesn't do it. No. Germany does it And it's more expensive to get it in Germany than it is to get cane sugar in Blooming Malaysia. Yeah. So you know all these things have to change and obvious and that's a g where maybe I might compromise because you know otherwise you make yourself ill and sick because really there are battles that you can win and not win. To answer your question, I want to die tomorrow, knowing I've done my bit and honoured the way I want to live and I believe we all kinda want to live, really. Even if some of us might be blinded from it, but deep down, absolutely children of the earth, we all want the same thing. And the words rich and poor, you can flip them upside down in in lots of ways because what is what is being rich? Is it? Which yeah is it business of life, not is it related to money? When did that become, you know, the what the definition of the the ref you know go to definition? But so going back to the holistic cycle of everything you do, you have a menu and you do a paratibo with your roots. and there's a lot of fun kombucha Guests on the food menu as well. one thing I was really excited about is your your Scoby squid. Yeah. So After every batch I have surplus scoby And I So I don't do this all the time but doing when I when I do like aperitivo evenings for instance or private events then I could offer scoby calamari on on the plant bites aperitivo option. It when I first made it It was just a curious thing and it's something I hadn't read and then I read about it later. And then I just kinda treated it like a squid And I was just blown away at how much it did taste like. Yeah. So the texture is when you think about it, Yeah, It's very similar. The only thing is when it's tougher, you know, and thicker, it's tougher to eat. But when it's younger just like a yam, it's like a fish as well. It's similar. So that's so I do that. I make it as a food. It's just as nutritional as kombucha. It's got you know, they are one of each other. And although maybe on the pellicle there's more one bacteria higher in count than maybe the liquid, for example. Again, I don't know, I can't you know, can't fully lab test that, but I have lab tested whether it's whether it harbors any pathogens. And so I dehydrated it into a scoby leather. So that's another thing I do. You can eat it like a snack almost. I do it as So you could eat your menus. Yeah. You could in theory eat your menus. I've heard of Scoby face masks being used. I haven't tried on myself though. Yeah. Yeah, But actually w when I was telling you about the Scoby leather And I got that lab tested, they said there were no pathogens. And I handled it not like a food piece, I handled it like an art piece. So very dirtily, yeah. And it still was lab tested with no pathogens. Yeah. So that's crazy because it what's the word? Antibacterial? Yeah. In a way. So you can come here, you can be part of the reusable bottle system. So every bottle you bring back you get fifty pence off your next purchase. Or you can just have kombucha on tap. Served in a wine glass with or without ice, or you can have a kombucha cocktail, kombucha mocktail. Yeah. Tell me just to entice some of the listeners with some of your amazing So we've got a l my wise classic cocktails are a blood root nigr negroni. I'm a Negroni fan as I started saying. Me too. But this one is a bit deeper and smoother. It's got some beetroot juice in it. It's got my tarty, rose hip hibiscus kombucha in it, and you know, it's got a nice vermith and all the rest. The kampari is the one thing that's not vegan. I am working towards what in it is not vegan? So apparently the way they colour it, I think they use I think they they sieve it for a gelatin process of some sort. Don't quote me, but along those lines. Okay. So in f in essentially that should be the only one thing that's not vegan in this place. But I am a compatible fan, so up to now I'm like, yeah, whatever. And I am looking at the Luxardo bitter bitter bitters, reds, I think it's called. But I'd love to make my own, so maybe in the future I could make my own. But in the meantime we've got the Campari. And then we got a lovely fungotto espresso martini. And the way I made that was well, I'm into fungo. And so we use the seven fungi mushroom mix. Wow. Which is normally good for your neurology and gut health. I can't help claim that, but there you go. And I use those. And hopefully one day I'd like to be growing those downstairs. So those are the mushrooms I want to aim to grow. And I make a quinotto syrup. So quinotto is this Italian drink. Yeah. I mean it doesn't necessarily taste like Coca Cola, but It's along the lines of being some sort of natural taste. Like a dandelion burdock meets Coca Cola. But yeah, I get that all the time when I'm in Italy. I love it. Yeah. So my dad actually loves that drink. I forgot about that. So I was doing trying to make a homemade Coca Cola for my son's birthday, but it he said to me this tastes like cunofton coke. And then I decided let me make a cocktail out of it. So it it went into the espresso martini. Beautiful. And it's a lovely rich complex alluring cocktail that even my mum likes. Yeah. But it's the one cocktail that doesn't have kombucha in it, but it's got those neurology gut mushrooms. Then I've got a witch's daquri. So I said I'm from this province in Italy. It's called Benevento, which means good events, good wind. And we are from the Samnite people and we combated against the Romans and so it was Maleventum because of that, but then became Beneventum when they seized us and there was this kind of background mythology around our province about women dancing around a walnut tree and they were obviously then called the witches. So another lovely thing 'cause I feel like I especially women today are being allowed to practice like witches again, but not being burnt to the stakes. So it's all cool. You know, we're getting to, you know, honour what we're interested in, you know, be part of the land again. And I think we've been torn away from that for a while. So I think it's an exciting time for women in that way. Absolutely. And it excites me too 'cause it it kind of brings it back again to what I'm doing here in in a way which is my gosh, everything's all connected again, you know, so I I could be called the witch of Yeah, where you're you're brewing up lots of magic. Yeah. So then the witch's Daquri's got that liquer in it. It's called Saffron Luqueo, called Strega, which means witch in Italian. And then we've got a what else let me see. You also have the hummus with kombucha or do you have I've d You definitely have kombucha and few other items I yeah, So I like to bring the kombucha forward into the food. So for example, I do I did I have done a slovely cake with a frosting using a tarty rose hip hibiscus kombucha as a frosting. Stunning and the colour must be yeah, colour's lovely, it's got a bit of beetroot in there as well. Nice and red And it normally would go with maybe a blood orange sponge or something like this. We've done it with twirls. a woman used to work for me in the early days called Noor, and she very much did these first experiments with me. She's now in Canada but fantastic girl. And we we did a lot of these kombucha infusion things and when we did a supper club wild and fermented in the past. We even poached our pears in the kombucha overnight, which became part of the salad. And then, you know, you can use kombucha in your vinaigrette, just like you with apple cider vinegar, so we all met about a month ago. so you did a call out. I've been following you on Instagram for ages thinking where and I was thinking, it's so far north, but I'm gonna get there one day And then you did a call out No, I didn't know that. Yeah, well you're not you're actually really easy to get to. So anyone who's thinking you're way far north London, you're like it's just a hop skip away from central London and right across from the station. But we yeah, you gathered a group of people who wanted were curious about collaborating with you. And yeah, I came here and I felt like I was instantly home because you do create that community vibe. And so we had this amazing evening where you poured your love and and showed us what you do and shared your passion and said, you know, you want to host events. And we came up with a plan that evening. Earth Plate was the it evolved into that kind of taking things, like you say, that full circle and really, you know, being mindful about the sourcing and the the full narrative of the food, just like you do do here. So yeah, we have starting Up to plate. Yeah, we came up with the name that evening, didn't we? So I was quite excited that we that we came up with that name because you know things require thought, don't they? And you know, there's there's me. So I ha I feel like I have a personal responsibility, you know, in this building. If I'm gonna be here and provide this platform, I'm gonna ultimately change the face of Kentish Town Road because I'm one of the first businesses you see when you come out of the tube station. Do I wanna be yet another large corporate, you know? That's what's refreshing, is that you're so central because I I just I think it's because of the way modern communities are designed. The more independent businesses are pushed a little bit. Yeah, because I can't afford it. Then you're right there. And also right opposite you, right next to the station is the library. Yeah. Which is really beautiful. I think it's quite nice that those are the things that you you instantly engage with when you come out of the station and not necessarily a Kentucky fried chicken or th I'm sure there are someone lingering around the corner, but you know, you do get that community vibe instantly. Well Starbuc wanted to take over here and if it wasn't me it was next door and Cafe Nero was here for a while, but the road doesn't really want it. We want independent businesses. But we have a dying trope because the reality is that the the bills are disproportionate to what I'm able to do. So I still don't pay myself. I'd like to get to the position of paying myself, but there's just so many bills. And I would like to pay the rent to the landlord, i.e. my parents. What they deserve, just like Starbucks would, you know, go, here you go, here's the wage, here's here's your rent, off, you know, and then they just change the face of Central Mo. It's very tempting because obviously they can then retire. But at the same time, we as a family are going, Well let's see if we can do something else, deeper and more meaningful deeper, more meaningful and not just be another one of those on the high street. So I have I feel like I have a responsibility to do that because I have the power and because the power is this building that we put all our heart, love and soul into. This mezzanine, we built this mezzanine, it was never here. Wow. You know, and the tables and chairs are the same tables and chairs from when we were Patissui. Amazing. And the counter at the front which houses my books and plants. Was the same was the same sandwich counter that we used and we had a Romanian worker called Kurin, you know, who so many workers that I remember that became part of our family. And the tiles on the floor, the same tiles from when I ran into this place at five years old. And I was like, Wow, this is our business. And those tiles remain there. My sister don't really like them, but I think I I have a bit more of a connection with I think I think That's well they've stood the t the test of time, Well exactly. If you replace them, they're not gonna last. I know, they've lasted. They've lasted really well. It's magic. I think that it's just so rare to find, even in London. I mean, you do get little pockets, but it's it's really specific. It's it's Yeah, But it's difficult basically. That's the thing. It's really hard. So, you know, all I do is work. And again, back to your question before, if all I'm gonna do is spend most of my time working. What do I actually wanna put my energy towards? So, you know, what human being do I want to put my energy towards in terms of relationship? But we all have relationships, even with our work, right? So, okay, I am a hard worker, I know that. So where am I gonna put my hard work ethic towards? You know, just some meaningful, meaningless capitalist thing? Or yes, I know I gotta pay my bills And yes I would like to treat myself and you know, money is what is making the world go round. So how do we make it with a bit more meaning, you know? That we're not just stripping away But we're giving back. So yeah, So this is it. This is why I'm here there you go. Well, and you're creating an amazing legacy and hugely inspiring. So yeah, come to World Wiss Earth on Bucha and do the amazing tasting and support Livia. Onion crisps actually, but it sounds amazing. I