I cannot for the life of me understand what the Minister Of Transport does every day. He goes to the office at 9am and leaves at 5pm and the traffic in London is still horrendous.

There are people who claim to be instinctive cooks, who never follow recipes or weigh anything at all. All I can say is they're not very fussy about what they eat. For me, cooking is an exact art and not some casual game.

The chemicals in the dishwashing process tend not to be good for saucepans.

Remember, it's very simple to have an oven tested professionally, and it only takes about five minutes.

Getting into the habit of switching a timer on will, I promise, save you from any number of kitchen disasters.

I sometimes think the chef end of cooking is not the real end of cooking. Cooking is all about homes and gardens, it doesn't happen in restaurants

In our house, some of our favourite recipes just happen to be vegetarian, but I still enjoy meat and I believe very much in meat.