(In cooking), there is always room for careful tinkering.

Good olive oil, good butter, milk - they give food taste and depth and a richness that you cant reproduce with low-fat ingredients.

I was brought up an atheist and have always remained so. But at no time was I led to believe that morality was unimportant or that good and bad did not exist. I believe passionately in the need to distinguish between right and wrong and am somewhat confounded by being told I need God, Jesus or a clergyman to help me to do so.

In England and America people tend to graze all day long, but I think it's such a waste to be constantly picking at food because you then can't enjoy a proper full meal when the time comes.

People who have fabulous childhoods have this sense that nothing is ever going to be that good again. With me, I have the sense that nothing is going to be that bad.

I'm not someone who's endlessly patient and wonderful.

On the whole, I prefer Christmas as an adult than I did as a child.