If you have never tasted a braised vegetable, you'll find it is a revelation.

What comforted me? That is easy. It was a strong cold chicken jelly so very, very thick. My mother's Chinese cook would fix it. He would cook it down, condense it-this broth with all sorts of feet in it, then it would gell into sheer bliss. It kept me alive once for three weeks when I was ill as a child. And I've always craved it since.

The secret of good cooking is, first, having a love of it.

Hands are our earliest tools. Cooking starts with the hands which are so sensitive that when they touch something they transmit messages to your brain about texture and temperature.

No vegetable exists which is not better slightly undercooked.

Grilling, broiling, barbecuing - whatever you want to call it - is an art, not just a matter of building a pyre and throwing on a piece of meat as a sacrifice to the gods of the stomach.

Goodness, how much there is to learn about food!