Singer and her mum release new cookbook

Forget Michelin-starred restaurants and the latest, hottest street-food pop-up. If you like food, dinner at home with singer Jessie Ware and her mum Lennie might just be the most covetable invite going.

The mother-daughter duo launched their wildly successful podcast, Table Manners, back in 2017. They swiftly combined their inherent nosiness, brilliant garrulousness and spectacular appetite for food and feeding people with roping in Jessie's suitably famous friends, including Sam Smith, Annie Mac and Loyle Carner.

Three years on, those unlikely to get corralled into Lennie's kitchen to be battered with chat, enthusiasm and platters of grub, can now recreate some of the dishes we've listened to everyone from chef Yotam Ottolenghi and pop star Carly Rae Jepsen, to London mayor Sadiq Khan, tuck into.

You'd think Lennie, a counsellor and social worker, who was initially brought in to just act as host and chef - Jessie would handle the interviews - might find cooking for such big names at least a little intimidating. But no. "It's not so hard to cook for the stars, because people love to have a home-cooked meal," she explains. "It's quite rare with our guests' diaries that they would get a home cooked meal, as they're either eating out at restaurants or hotels.

"I think it's definitely harder to cook for chefs, that makes me incredibly nervous sometimes."

And they've entertained some of the best - including Nigella Lawson. "For Nigella we talked about the menu for months!" says Lennie. "We made her a rack of lamb with pistachio and mint crust, along with coco beans and rainbow chard. For pudding we did her a blackberry custard tart - which was divine."

Nerves aside, Raymond Blanc actually said to her: "I can tell you're a really good cook." ("That was a big highlight," Lennie shares.)

Not that the pair haven't encountered a few problems, like "when I set myself on fire!" Food-wise though, "I've never served anything that was a complete disaster, I would throw it away if I did," she admits. "When George Ezra came on the podcast, Jessie cooked ribs and they were actually inedible. We had to throw them out and order a takeaway; there was nothing that could have saved those."

She also remembers making a "chocolate mousse and there was no room in the fridge - it fell off the window ledge and I had to scoop it up into another bowl, hoping there was no glass in there!"

The blueprint for Table Manners is the Ware family's Jewish Friday-night dinners, evenings where Jessie would bring too many friends home and Lennie would happily over-cater, with the uproarious lot of them over-sharing, over-eating, and having a grand old time.

"We don't do them so much now, but the Friday-night dinners were pretty much as they are on the podcast; maybe sometimes more people and more raucous," remembers Lennie. "Usually more alcohol and definitely singing at the end. However, when we had Yannis [Philippakis] from Foals round, that was very similar as we did drink a lot - we didn't sing, but we almost did! Also, when [American band] Haim came, we sung a LOT!"

And for proper belly-aching laughter, comedian Alan Carr is your man: "When he came round, we laughed and laughed for the full two hours!"

The podcast just wouldn't work without Lennie and Jessie's mother-daughter tension though - the squabbling and wrangling, the affectionate despair and cries of, "Oh darling!", and, "Muuum!" being standard refrains. That and Jessie's brother Alex, the golden child and doctor, who pops up occasionally to supply guests with his feted puddings and lemon ice cream.

"Jessie and I were always very close anyway," says Lennie, noting that cooking, hosting and recording together has meant "we've learnt to be tolerant and not out-boss each other. We're both incredibly bossy and I find it hard to delegate, so we've both had to learn to find a middle ground. We have to, otherwise we couldn't get through making the meals and sitting down being relaxed and happy afterwards."

The food itself spans the recipes they've whipped up for their celebrity guests, firm Ware family favourites (like chopped liver, monkfish and rosemary skewers, raspberry trifle) and summery dishes the Wares have collected on holidays to their beloved Skopelos in Greece (griddled peaches, bouyiourdi eggs, spanakopita).

"The Matzo ball soup is really important to me, as it's taken me so long to get them right," says Lennie with pride. "Jamie Oliver said my Matzo balls were the best he's ever tasted in the world!"

The Gefilte fish, is also particular meaningful for her. "It's something my mum used to make for me, and I rarely make now. Making that again for the cookbook was really lovely, and everyone loved the smell of it when it was cooking. It reminded me of my mum."

And that's what it's all about - memories, family, and huge amounts of food. Cooking, says Lennie, "doesn't have to be complicated. It's to be enjoyed and to share."

Table Manners: The Cookbook by Jessie and Lennie Ware, photography by Ola O Smit, is published by Ebury Press, priced £22. Available now