Prue Leith

“I am not saying celebrity chefs don't encourage children to cook. However, their programmes are so entertaining, you end up stuffing your face with Pot Noodles instead of learning from them.”

“I would have my last meal at my home in Oxfordshire.”

“I get more questions about my necklaces and specs than I do about food.”

“I'm quite lazy. I don't want to learn a new subject like shipbuilding.”

“It takes several doses of any veg before children like it, but once they do they'll like it for life. You wouldn't give up on a child who didn't want to learn to read. Learning to eat is every bit as important.”

“I was elated when I found out my first novel, 'Leaving Patrick,' about a woman who walks out on her husband, was going to be published.”

“It's so nice to slip into the lap of luxury.”

“Very few parents give out healthy lunchboxes due to pressure from their children.”

“People don't always behave the same way on different programmes. If you go to church you don't behave the same way you do at a party in the middle of the night.”

“I love writing fiction and can do it anywhere - I once even missed a flight because I was so engrossed.”

“The obesity problem among children is very serious. When advertising budgets are big and business can corrupt the way we live so that it becomes the norm to snack all day - and if you are never hungry you are never going to feel like eating a healthy meal - that can't be right.”

“Modern cookbooks are marketing tools for chefs. They're in the bestseller lists but no one cooks from them.”

“I'd been brought up in a society which didn't talk about sex, food, money, religion or politics. Those things were all deemed slightly rude.”

“I'm not clever. But I am level-headed, hard-working, dogged.”

“What makes me laugh is 'Masterchef,' with that ridiculous thing they always say, 'cooking doesn't get any tougher than this!.'”

“Food shouldn't do you any harm, obviously you don't want a bad diet, but it should be one of life's great pleasures.”

“I've been an entrepreneur, a writer, a food correspondent. I might have been an architect - but I'm bad at maths.”

“I do think it is the responsibility of parents to feed their children properly.”

“If you've got children it's a hell of an everyday job. From a business point of view, children and husbands slow you down.”

“An awful lot of older women do have love affairs or wish they were having love affairs.”