Delia Smith

I found in my whole career the best thing that can happen to you is that you hear what people want.

There are three reasons why this book came into being. First, throughout the 33 years I've been writing recipes - although I'm not vegetarian myself - I have greatly enjoyed creating vegetarian recipes, and cooking and serving them at home.

But quite honestly I can't help being a passionate football supporter. If that's my sin, I'm guilty.

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

Food is for eating, and good food is to be enjoyed... I think food is, actually, very beautiful in itself.

A cake is a very good test of an oven: if it browns too much on one side and not on the other, it's not your fault - you need to have your oven checked.

Although a food processor is not an absolutely essential piece of equipment, because you can certainly chop, grate, slice, knead and mix everything by hand, it does do all these things very quickly and efficiently and saves you time and energy.

In 35 years of being in the media, I've had all this mud flung at me many, many times. It's not the first time. It's nothing unusual. I've been through it all before and the best way to deal with it is not to read them.

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

Memories are fallible and a timer can save a lot of hard work from going out of the window.