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.

The way to get to like good food is by learning to cook, which is why I'm for ever banging on about children learning to cook.

My first taste memory is of our nanny in South Africa making white bread sandwiches with salad cream, which was potato mashed with a cheap mayonnaise thing with bits in it of - I suppose - pickled cucumber. I absolutely loved them.

With great difficulty, I persuaded my dentist to saw one of my teeth level with the others. He thought it might kill the tooth, but it didn't. I wanted it done because I was doing a lot of television with food and I saw myself eating with these horrible crooked teeth.

Really, I just want to help my family, my friends and people in general.

When you watch the sitcoms that were the big hits when I was growing up, TV was still just TV. It was allowed to just be TV. There were three channels that were competing for the whole family and you couldn't take your business elsewhere.

Basically, when I hear the words 'family drama,' I run in the opposite direction.

I tried to go to college in the U.K. a couple of times, but at that point, I think I was a little disillusioned with education. It wasn't giving me what I wanted it to. I needed freedom to create and do the things that I wanted to explore, and it wasn't really doing that: it was still very prescriptive.