Prue Leith
Food shouldn't do you any harm, obviously you don't want a bad diet, but it should be one of life's great pleasures.Collection: Diet
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.Collection: Funny
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.Collection: Birthday
All I need for a perfect holiday is sun and some peace and quiet. Those make for perfect book-writing conditions.Collection: Peace
I prefer pub food to posh food.Collection: Food
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.Collection: Architecture
You can serve good food on a budget provided you don't waste it.Collection: Food
I'm a good cook, I am not a great cook. I'm an absolute fraud.
I believe in good, honest food. That's always been my ethos.
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 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 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 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.
An awful lot of older women do have love affairs or wish they were having love affairs.
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.
My grandchildren love cooking, and it doesn't have to be sweet things.
I was an intellectual groupie. Still am.
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.'
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.
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.
I probably eat yogurt more than anything else.
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.
My worst habit is opening the fridge and thinking: 'I'd like to eat something.'
Bake Off' has been a renaissance for me. I turn up, taste something and get paid rather well. What could be nicer?
I'm an optimist - very glass half-full.
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.
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.
Nobody should eat too much cake.
I get cross with foodies who think hospital food should be Michelin-star and caterers can fall into this trap.
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'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.
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.
I can't resist temptation of any kind.
I've been an entrepreneur, a writer, a food correspondent. I might have been an architect - but I'm bad at maths.
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.'
I've baked more cakes since I've been on 'Bake Off' than I have in my life.
Very few parents give out healthy lunchboxes due to pressure from their children.
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 just hate television that's out to make people cry because other people like to see people cry.
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 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.
If you've got children it's a hell of an everyday job. From a business point of view, children and husbands slow you down.
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?'
I think the most important thing in the whole world is love and relationships, and if you don't have them it's quite bad.
I was intending not do any more telly and then I got talked into 'My Kitchen Rules,' which I did with Michael Caines.
I grew up in a very white, privileged, old-fashioned society in South Africa and went to a boarding school run by nuns.
I went to drama school but soon realised I was terrible at acting, so I ditched drama school for art school.
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.
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.
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.