Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I feel like there's a dignity in silence and I think if I retaliate to negativity with negativity then we've evened out. And I don't need to even that out because if somebody's being negative, I need to be the better person.
Everything is tested in my little kitchen. The recipes are mine and that's really important to me. When I do a cookery show I know these recipes really well, because every recipe I've ever published has been tested by my kids.
As a child, I loved being outdoors. Our house had a railway track going past it. Of course, Mum told us not to go near it and, of course, we did. There were amazing blackberry bushes growing all along it, and we collected the fruit.
As a child my life felt like an adventure, because my dad is such a fun guy. I had a brother and sister who were in and out of hospital a lot – one had a congenital heart problem and the other had a cleft palate. But my parents never stopped smiling.
How my parents are in the kitchen is a good indicator of their parenting style. Mum cooks for sustenance, wants to get in and out, the job done quickly. My Dad wants to prance around in the kitchen, create a curry - and a mess - and entertain everyone.
Once a month we have 'dessert for dinner' night. I'll make four separate desserts. They'll come home from school and eat as much cake and custard and ice cream as they can physically get in their guts. Because sometimes I think, let them just be children.
If I break my finger, I go to accident and emergency. If I have a cold, I go to the pharmacy. If I'm broken inside, where do I go? So, to help myself heal, I felt the best way to do this would be to talk, to share and to better understand what it is that I have.
Islamophobia first appeared in my life on 11 September 2001. I was coming back from college and didn't know what had happened. A white van stopped and a man got out. He spat on me, yelled a profanity, and then threw a can of coke in my direction. I cried as I walked home.
I first met my husband on the day we got married, when I was 20. I moved to be with him in Leeds, 165 miles from Luton. The kitchen was absolutely tiny. But I got my first hand-held mixer and first set of scales and first blue cake tin from Tesco and that was very exciting.
My own kids are absolutely allowed to help me cook it. They of course have the added bonus of knowing how to bake. That wasn't really a concept when I was a kid - I learned it at school in home economics, then started properly when I was home with my children. They love helping me.
But Sunday is our cleaning day: we give ourselves only one and a half hours and we clean everywhere. We do that together because we made the mess together. I refuse to get a cleaner, although I'd love one, because I don't want to teach my kids that we make a mess and then we pay someone else to clean it.