I’d love to. I’m very ill travelled. I suppose it’s because if you have children and you work, there’s really not much time left for travelling. But now that they are older, I could bring them with me.
Q. Indian food has made a great impact on British cuisine. What are your favourite Indian dishes? Also, do you have your own versions of Indian dishes?
I find Indian food remarkably sensual and beautifully fragrant, I love that. I feel it has a lot of depth. You have to use what makes sense to our larder, but I’m certainly always ready to learn.
Q. You are also called the “queen of food porn” for your flirtatious style of cooking. What do you have to say on that? How do you ward off such silly remarks?
I was very shocked when people thought that I was flirting on camera. I talk closely to people and I certainly don’t need to be coquettish. When I started as a journalist I loved writing and talking about food because it’s about finding a language to try and open the world to the language of taste, smell and texture.
Q. You haven’t undertaken any professional courses to learn cooking but developed a knack while observing your mother cook. What are some of the memorable experiences of watching your mother cook?
I come from a very food-obsessed family. And when I wrote my first book, it was about my memories of food all through my life. But I was very inspired by both my mother and one of my sisters had died young and it was, in fact, dedicated to their memories.
Q. Your growing-up years were very challenging. Did cooking provide the much-needed solace?
I do this because I love it. Sometimes when I talk to people, I say what is the point of having this privilege of doing work you love and abusing it by making it into something that isn’t pleasurable? Food is a conversation, it’s not a monologue.
Q. With people getting health conscious, what place do traditional recipes have in the world of protein diet?
I’m a great believer in real food, which is to say that I’m very happy about butter. Also, I’m very happy about olive oil and various cooking mediums. I feel, on the whole, if you stick to real food as much as possible, you can’t go far wrong. I’m actually quite opposed to a low-fat diet because I think it’s bad for your spirits and also very bad for your skin. I eat quite a lot of avocado, quite a lot of olive oil and a certain amount of other fats.
Q. How do you keep yourself motivated as you keep coming up with new and interesting recipes?
I keep experimenting. I am a complete food book junkie. I have over 4,500 food books and I love reading them. A lot of the recipes I do are simple, recipes that I cook at home. I do experiment often, but I don’t experiment laboriously. I feel that I’m like the American penal system, three strikes and you’re out. If a recipe doesn’t get right in three goes, I feel it’s not meant to be.
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