Prue Leith

Modern cookbooks are marketing tools for chefs. They're in the bestseller lists but no one cooks from them.

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?

I am very in favour of children having a nap after lunch because then they're not whiney and grizzly by six o'clock.

I believe in good, honest food. That's always been my ethos.

I go to Michelin-starred restaurants as part of my job, but that's not how I want to eat all the time.

I prefer pub food to posh food.

I've always had an image of Mother's Pride flour, very respectable and middle-class.

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.

My grandchildren love cooking, and it doesn't have to be sweet things.

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.

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.

It's tough to eat well if you don't know how to cook.

I'm quite lazy. I don't want to learn a new subject like shipbuilding.

At barbecues, people just like to eat a lot of meat; it's extraordinary. They eat far more than they normally would at a dinner party.

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 think the BBC likes to have Mary Berry and me around to rebut the charge of ageism.

I have never managed to put my feet up, ever.

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.

I've never been much of a cake-maker.

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.

I do think it is the responsibility of parents to feed their children properly.

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.

Children aren't being taught to cook or encouraged to try things or told why food is important.

I think women write more fully and honestly than men about heart and home.

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.

I love writing fiction and can do it anywhere - I once even missed a flight because I was so engrossed.

I'm not clever. But I am level-headed, hard-working, dogged.

If I'm going to do something, I'll do it properly or not at all.

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.

I couldn't live without my faithful companion, Megs the dog.

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.

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.

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.

If I am tanned, I feel a million times better.

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.

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.

I have strong hair, so if I've had a good haircut, I can wash my hair in the bath and not worry about it.

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.

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.

I was elated when I found out my first novel, 'Leaving Patrick,' about a woman who walks out on her husband, was going to be published.

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.

Nothing beats that sloppy kiss of a six-month-old grandchild.

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 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.

I try to spend most weekends in the Cotswolds, having fun.

It's so nice to slip into the lap of luxury.

The most followed chef is Delia Smith. She is my age and doesn't try to be entertaining, she encourages people to learn the basics.

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 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.

I would have my last meal at my home in Oxfordshire.