Alice Taylor has changed the way thousands of Kiwis think about cooking at home.

You may know her for her time as a contestant on Masterchef or from her social media presence at Alice Taylor Eats.

She favours no-frills recipes and honest conversations around food accessibility and it’s seen her following skyrocket to half a million across her profiles.

The ethos behind her accounts is pretty simplistic, Taylor told Jack Tame.

“We want to help people save money cooking at home, give them tips and tricks, and ultimately also just make them feel proud about what they’re putting on the table,” she said.

“I think a lot of social media is a bit unrealistic, so we also want to be a platform where people can y’know, watch, have a bit of fun, cook some good food, and feel good about themselves.”

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More and more people seem to be opting for alcohol-free drinks.

The success of Lisa King’s AF Drinks really brought it home to Kevin Milne just how much alcohol consumption habits are changing.

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At some point, everyone has been left disappointed when a musician or artist leaves New Zealand off their tour schedule. But our neighbours across the ditch rarely have the same issue. Chris Schulz is having a mammoth week over in Australia – going to the Good Things music festival, two Kendrick Lamar shows, and is seeing Lady Gaga tonight.

He joined Jack Tame for a chat about his jam packed musical week.

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Shattered Lands by Sam Dalrymple

A history of modern South Asia told through five partitions that reshaped it.

As recently as 1928, a vast swathe of Asia – India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Nepal, Bhutan, Yemen, Oman, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait – were bound together under a single imperial banner, an entity known officially as the ‘Indian Empire’, or more simply as the Raj.

It was the British Empire’s crown jewel, a vast dominion stretching from the Red Sea to the jungles of Southeast Asia, home to a quarter of the world’s population and encompassing the largest Hindu, Muslim, Sikh and Zoroastrian communities on the planet. Its people used the Indian rupee, were issued passports stamped ‘Indian Empire’, and were guarded by armies garrisoned in forts from the Bab el-Mandeb to the Himalayas

And then, in the space of just fifty years, the Indian Empire shattered. Five partitions tore it apart, carving out new nations, redrawing maps, and leaving behind a legacy of war, exile and division.

Shattered Lands, for the first time, presents the whole story of how the Indian Empire was unmade. How a single, sprawling dominion became twelve modern nations. How maps were redrawn in boardrooms and on battlefields, by politicians in London and revolutionaries in Delhi, by kings in remote palaces and soldiers in trenches.

Its legacies include civil war in Burma and ongoing insurgencies in Kashmir, Baluchistan and Northeast India, and the Rohingya genocide. It is a history of ambition and betrayal, of forgotten wars and unlikely alliances, of borders carved with ink and fire. And, above all, it is the story of how the map of modern Asia was made.

The Heir Apparent by Rebecca Armitage

They would always choose the Crown over their family. It was the pact they made for the honour of wearing it.

Lexi Villiers is a 29-year-old Englishwoman doing her medical residency in Hobart, working too hard, worried about her bank balance, and living with friends. It's an ordinary, happy kind of life, and getting even better, because as the dawn is breaking on New Year's Day, Lexi is about to kiss the man she loves for the very first time.

But by midnight, everything will change. Because Lexi is in fact not an ordinary young woman. She is Princess Alexandrina, third in line to the British throne—albeit estranged from the rest of her family and living in voluntary exile on the other side of the world. But following a terrible accident which has claimed the life of her father and her twin brother, Lexi—the black sheep of her family and, until this moment, always destined to be the spare—is now the heir apparent, first in line to the throne once her grandmother, the elderly Queen, dies. Called back to do her duty, she arrives in London to a Palace riven with power plays and media leaks, all the while guarding painful secrets of her own, not knowing who she can trust.

Palace waters are treacherous, rumours are rife, and selling each other's secrets is a family tradition. And with the Crown just within her grasp, Lexi must choose what bonds she will keep ... and what she is willing to leave behind.

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"It’s been eleven years since I last filled my heart with Ireland – a shamefully long break in transmission. On my latest visit to this most enchanting of destinations, my road trip began with a jaunt through Ireland’s “Hidden Heartlands.” Far beyond the heavily trafficked haunts like Dublin, Galway, or Killarney, this interior patchwork of counties beats to a slower pace across Ireland’s central plains. Steeped in nature, resolute village life, and bucket loads of history, it is quite the revelation to get off the beaten track and dabble with the authentic charm, artisanal verve, pastoral beauty and homely hospitality that underpins this lesser-known realm."

Read Mike's full article here.

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Why do we remember the “good old days” as being so good?

In past weeks we’ve touched on events that are blasts from the past, or the good old days. Most people have fond memories of these good old days. Politicians refer to this too to pull on our heartstrings (and votes) e.g., “Make America Great Again” – the inference being that we can make it good like the past.

So why do the good old days feel so good for most of us?

Some of this is due to what psychologists call “the reminiscence bump”. It refers to our teenage and early adult years of life when we tend to have stronger memories about our lives and major events in life.

You can almost date people’s ages by the time of their reminiscence bump – e.g., my teen and young adult years were in the late 80s, early 90s, so my favourite bands are from then (the Smiths), my favourite football team (Liverpool), favourite movie (Goodfellas), or TV shows (Seinfeld).

Reminiscence bump breaks the general rule of autobiographical memory, which is that we typically have better memory for recent events compared to events that were longer ago. Contrasts with “childhood amnesia” which refers to the fact that we have few memories of our very early years of life.

Why do we have this bump?

One theory is that it’s related to the function of autobiographical memory (memory about ourselves and our own lives). This type of memory isn’t meant to be a video recording of our life that we simply tap back into and replay, it’s more about helping shape our view of who we are as individuals – our sense of self.

In our teens and early adulthood we often are experiencing a number of first-time experiences – our first love, our first concert, going to Uni, or starting a first job.

These experiences are new and unique and therefore often stand out in our memory. We might also talk about them more with others at the time, which helps us cement them into our memory more as we repeatedly bring them to mind and go over them.

These first-time experiences help shape our view of who we are, what type of person I am – am I an Oasis fan or a Blur fan? Do I remember when Princess Di died? Do I love or loath the Royal Family?

It also tends us to give a rosy view of the past because many of our memories from the bump are about new and exciting things.

Be aware that ads and politicians will try to appeal to this. And remember that someone else’s good old days might be different to yours, but you both think of them as “good”.

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On the Saturday Morning with Jack Tame Full Show Podcast for Saturday 6 December 2025, foodie and social media phenomenon Alice Taylor joins Jack to discuss her quickfire rise, what a day in the life of a content creator looks like, and what makes conversation around food accessibility so important.

Jack discusses his pet peeve grammatical errors.

Chef Nici Wickes has many ideas for edible Christmas gifts and shares a delicious Pistachio and Cranberry Biscotti recipe.

Netflix is buying the studios of Warner Bros Discovery and tech expert Paul Stenhouse delves into the details of the deal.

Plus, master sommelier Cameron Douglas shares his final wine pick for the year.

Get the Saturday Morning with Jack Tame Full Show Podcast every Saturday on iHeartRadio, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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One of the rottenest pests gardeners get on their plants are Pseudococcus longispinus, or any of its close relatives.

Longispinus derived from the word meaning “with a long spine or tail”, so we’re talking about the Long-Tailed Mealybug. Mind you, there are other rotters that don’t look anything like these mealybugs – a variety of scale insects do the same kind of damage, which you really don’t want to see in the garden.

All these insects feed by plumbing their mouthparts into the veins of the plants where they extract honeydew, a sweet sap that contains Nitrogen, which makes the young bugs grow.

Ah! Yes, the group of sap-sucking bugs is the only invertebrate cohort that can be called “bugs” in the naming game of Entomology!

They ingest the sap and poop out honeydew. But their numbers (huge groups) and activities are debilitating for your plants, causing yellowing and ill-thrift, plus black sooty mould all over the place.

The sooty mould is a fungal cover that feasts on the sweet honeydew – you can always tell the suckers because of the sooty mould!

To identify these mealy-insects you’ll need to have a good eyesight. The way to start your identification is to look for dense, white patches of silk all over your plants, especially over the leaves and on the stems.

If you scrape off the fluffy white deposits, you’ll get to the insects hiding underneath that fluff. Big ones and smaller ones all living together out of the rain and out of the sun. 1-4 mm in size.

They eat a massive range of plants, both edibles and ornamentals.

The spines and tails give the game away – there are also droplets of honeydew in amongst the mix.

Scale insects are a different-looking critter. These pests are characterised by looking like randomly shaped and coloured pustules on the stems and leaves of the host plant.

Often the “caps” of the scale insects are pretty hard; the actual insects live under the caps, often in perfect protection.

Control of mealy bugs and scale insects is difficult. The white fluffy silky stuff makes the bugs waterproof – water-based sprays cannot penetrate through their skin, unless you use some systemic insecticide that is taken up by the plants. Groventive is such a systemic spray but read the label and you find it cannot be used on edible crops!

Conquerer Oil and Neem Oil are non-systemic treatments that will give the immature Mealybugs a run for their money (suffocation and inhabit their feeding from the plant). But it will require regular spraying (once a week) until all bugs have starved to death or suffocated. Thoroughly cover the infested plant – and don’t forget the underside of the leaves too!

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