Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I won't eat something which is high in calories and not particularly wonderful, because that's just not worth it, you feel guilty after.
It sounds boring, but anything is easy to start-starting a novel, starting a business ... it's keeping the thing going that is difficult.
The most important thing is to teach children to cook at schools. And not only to cook but to understand about where their food comes from.
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.
People say I'm a celebrity chef, and I am on telly a lot but that's because I judge contests. Perhaps I'm more of a celebrity eater than a cook.
Nobody thought a white girl should learn to cook in South Africa. I went to drama school. My mother was an actress, so I thought I'd be an actress.
I'm completely addicted to Radio 4, even 100-year-old things like 'Just a Minute.' I even arrange my weekends around the Sunday edition of 'The Archers.'
I believe passionately that the notion of having to work at a marriage is baloney. Making sacrifices and being a martyr makes one hell of a bad marriage.
I'd love to look incredibly glamorous, but I am a wholesome, comforting nanny type: I think I look like an advertisement for wholemeal flour or something.
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 vividly remember throwing a bowl of porridge at my husband Rayne once when he defended the children instead of me - the patch on the ceiling stayed for years.
We had two children, who are still adored, they adore me and we're very close. Rayne was 20 years older than me. He died when he was 80, so he had a really good life.
After opening my first restaurant in 1969, one of the regular customers suggested I write a cookbook, so I did. Then another. After my 12th one, I started to feel stale.
It was hugely helpful to me, being South African. I have never felt uncomfortable in posh society because I don't see what it is that I'm meant to be bowing the knee about.
The really nice thing about the town of Hua Hin - and Thailand generally - is that it's so safe. You can walk around the night market, for example, with complete confidence.
I don't like Johannesburg, where I grew up. Everybody lives in 'gated' buildings, is paranoid about crime and is always talking about being mugged. It's not a very joyful place.
I'm not saying I'm proud of the fact I had a long affair with a married man, but it did help my business. By the time I married and had children I had the business under my belt.
For me the best food in the world is New British. It's quite classical cooking with really simple but good-quality ingredients. I also like top-end restaurants and pub grub done well.
My husband John's and my breaks are often very culture heavy. He cannot pass a museum without venturing inside, so we tend to see a lot of architecture and so-called places of interest.
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 think that allowing the nation to become so ignorant about food has been such a backward step - and to be honest I don't think there should be a School Food Trust. It shouldn't be necessary.
Hua Hin is Thailand's royal beach resort and home to the king's summer palace. The local food is fantastic, the weather is beautiful, everything's cheap and the Thai people are so friendly and warm.
Any woman will tell you after the menopause, nobody whistle at her, well - that's just the beginning. As you get older people don't want you at their parties, we all are prejudiced about old people.
I think Paul Hollywood was quite perfectly within his rights to stay with Love Productions. They'd made him famous, he was getting a decent salary and he was enjoying it. Why shouldn't he stay with them?
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 went to the Sorbonne in Paris for two years and read all the classics by authors like Victor Hugo and Guy de Maupassant. I was supposed to read them in French but I cheated and used the English versions instead.
One summer I was made housekeeper to my own family, making menus and shopping lists. It was my mother's idea of teaching me to be a grown-up. The main thing I remember is my father being so delighted to get roast duck.
People often ask what my favourite food is, but the answer depends on what I last ate. I love sausages and mash. But if I'd already eaten them for lunch, then you asked me at tea-time, I'd probably answer 'crab salad.'
In my 40s: I had two children young enough to think their parents wonderful, my business was booming, I was happily married and living in the Cotswolds with a veg garden and ponies in the paddock. Who could not be happy?
I'm nicknamed the 'food tsar' by the press. I'm always giving my opinion on things like; 'Don't nanny children,' although children sometimes do need a nanny. Being a judge on 'Great British Menu' reinforces this image of me.
I used to always employ South Africans and Aussies and Kiwis - I can't admit this, well I can now, but I couldn't admit it at the time - but I didn't want wet English lads who didn't want to work in the catering trade anyway.
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.
I adored the celebrity 'Bake Offs.' They have a more relaxed atmosphere. They all come on thinking they're not competitive so there's a lot of larking around, then of course they get the 'Bake Off' bug and want to win and it's funny.
I opened Leith's in Notting Hill in 1969 and it eventually worked its way into being awarded a Michelin star. At the time, there were a few women running small bistros - but I was the first woman to have a 'serious,' expensive restaurant.
It's surprising how you can behave like a 16-year-old in your 60s, or a 17-year-old in your 70s. You know, it's exactly the same. You fall in love with somebody, you start worrying why the phone is not ringing and thinking, 'Can I ring him?'
What I want to do is produce really delicious food. I want it to look nice, because when you see food you should want to eat it. You shouldn't be saying, 'Oh my goodness, isn't the chef clever, he can weave the Eiffel Tower out of carrot sticks.'
I came through the Sixties so I was perfectly aware of drug-taking but I came from South Africa and we were brought up in quite an old-fashioned way. If I went to a rave or a party, I'd be behind the barbecue flipping the burgers. I wasn't out there partying.
I didn't actually know what a treasure 'The Great British Bake Off' was, so I just thought, 'oh it'll be fun to do that, I'd like to do that.' Then when I went and had to have an audition and meet Paul Hollywood, I suddenly thought, 'this is really important.'
Now the look of the book dictates the sale. In my day you could still buy a good cookbook in paperback with no pictures at all. I doubt if that would sell today. But those books were much used: they lived in the kitchen and got splattered with custard and gravy.
Aged six, I sailed from South Africa to England by steam ship with my family. It was a three-week journey. I remember crying on my birthday when I didn't get the enormous teddy bear that was for sale in the ship's shop but, aside from that, I had a wonderful time.
Before 'Bake Off,' frankly, if you'd asked most people on the bus if they'd ever heard of me, it would probably only have been those aged over 55. But if they were 15, they wouldn't have, and that's the difference with 'Bake Off' - it's loved across the generations.
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.
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.
If you eat good ingredients, and moderately, it should not be a problem. If you look at the bakers over the years, how many obese bakers have there been? There have been a few - nobody's saying you can't join 'Bake Off' if you're obese - but by and large bakers, just like cooks, are not particularly overweight.
I was asked if I would do 'Dancing On Ice.' I thought it'd be the perfect way to get fit, lose a lot of weight and learn a new skill. I was actually quite excited, but my team said, 'Absolutely not.' They told me I was far too old and if I fell over I would break something - and then I thought they were probably right.