How much did you know about food before starting GFL?
Five years ago I knew nothing about food... apart from eating. I never used to watch cookery programmes, never. Then I got this telephone call and the brief for the programme was "food porn" and they wanted people to lick the screen! Well, I looked at it and thought it actually looked a bit boring. But to my astonishment, over five years, the recipes just kept coming. When I got depressed I used to say, how many things can you do with a pork chop, but the fact is that every day has been different, every chef, different, and every recipe, even if it looks the same, has been slightly different.

What have you learnt in these past five years?

1. Use the best ingredients you can afford.


2. Use seasonal ingredients.


3. I've learnt that if I could burn every supermarket in the world I would. I'd bomb them all and buy locally.


4. When you're preparing a dish, prep it. Really prepare everything - measure things out out, get it all in front of you and then follow the recipe lovingly.


5. Don't use the cookery books that are full of ego, use the ones that are actually about food! Ed Baines, Jill Dupleix, Sophie Grigson, Nigel Slater - they're all absolutely about the ingredients and about the food.


6. Love is the most important ingredient - cook with love and even beans on toast can be the most romantic dinner in the world.

You always seem to genuinely enjoy whatever you're eating on the show. Are you ever faking it?
I don't ever eat before the show, so when I go on I'm incredibly hungry! And of course I'd never lie on air, well almost.

What's the most bizarre thing you've eaten on the show?
It goes from the sublime to the bizarre. I had never eaten rabbit in my life, just because I couldn't, but then Gennaro Contaldo turned me with his beautiful rabbit stew. I thought I could never eat brains, but they are wonderful. I thought I could never eat testicles, but lamb's testicals, I'm telling you, if they're cooked right, they're amazing. I ate a chocolate covered scorpion and got stung on the tongue and I've even drunk coffee that's gone through the intestine of an animal and come out the other end.

But I could never eat squirrel because I've got squirrels in the garden that are like my pussy cat, and I couldn't eat cat!

Of all the chefs that have been on the show, which have got into your heart?
Richard Phillips, Ed Baines, and Gino D'Acampo live in my heart - oh but there's just so many of them, Frank Bordoni, Andrew Nutter - there's just so so many of them, there's millions of them!

What about the cooking, which dishes will you always remember?
Ed Baines' lamb shank - that was a mind blower. Martin Blunos makes some wonderful things, as does Richard Phillips. Atul Kochhar's fish curries are unbelievable. And not forgetting Ashbell McElveen. He used to come on the show and cook food that made big fat bums - spare ribs, sticky chicken wings, key lime pie. It's the sort of food where you have to go out and buy pink tracksuit bottoms for it, otherwise you couldn't do it justice!

Which dishes do you take home and make yourself?
It's not that I necessarily always take home the dishes, it's more the method. I cut things differently, I change the knives in my drawer, and I'm much cleaner. I've learnt that simplicity is the key- if you had a chunk of fabulous fresh bread and garlic mayonnaise, then a fish finger can taste like royalty.

It must have been great watching so many chefs rise to fame - who still came back to visit?
There's been so many of them that came on when they were unknowns, but look at James Tanner now, Gino D'Acampo, look at him! When James Martin used to come on the show, I was the only one who took the mick out of him - oh and I really did! Tell them they still all owe me money!

From Monday 9 April, catch a week of Great Food Live compilations - from the inspired to the hilarious