Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Think about your first kiss - if you did it and it was bloody awful, you might not do it again. It's the same with cooking - you start off gradually, you get your confidence, and you build on that. Don't be too adventurous to start with - learn how to cook one dish well.
My dad Chester was a pianist and later a well-known television entertainer so football was never really something that was on his radar. However when I was a young boy a family friend took me to see an Arsenal game and from that moment on I was totally and utterly hooked.
Cookery is the art of preparing food for the nourishment of the body. Prehistoric man may have lived on uncooked foods, but there are no savage races today who do not practice cookery in some way, however crude. Progress in civilization has been accompanied by progress in cookery.
My mum was the most wonderful cook and our house was always full of delicious food and interesting people. I remember dad entertaining the likes of Des O'Connor and Bruce Forsyth. But what really shaped my childhood were the amazing Jamaican dishes that mum produced so effortlessly.
The great thing about coming to Melbourne is that people talk about Sydney being the food capital but Melbourne is a lot more; it has that residential feel, a feeling of homeliness. When you go to restaurants, it's known as a creative, artistic city. That's what you get with the food.
I studied music at school and played the recorder. Later in life music was a great way of supplementing my income because I was paid really badly as a young chef. Luckily an old friend - we did music at school together - and I formed a duo, The Calypso Beat, which later became the Calypso Twins.
So I've got mates I've known since I was five years old. Their children know my children. There's something really lovely about it. When you're an immigrant - my parents were immigrants, their brothers and sisters lived all over the world, Florida, Jamaica, some in Europe - it's a grounding thing. That community is critical.