Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
2 appearances
Food writer and broadcaster with 21 million books sold and a four-decade TV career, who taught the nation to cook.
On the island
Eight records
Silence means a lot to me. It's a very important part of my life. But also just him, his beautiful voice and the acoustic guitar, I still love it.
the culmination of their whole contribution is in the Sgt. Pepper album … it's just the greatest album ever and Within You Without You was combining two continents together with different music so cleverly and the words. I think if you write the words out, which I've done, you don't need any other lessons in life.
one of the things about the desert island is you're only allowed to have a bit of something. So I've gone for this one, which is Satie, because I think it has such a lovely depth to it. It's just this wonderful piano, so gentle, but there's something really lovely and beautiful and deep.
this is incredibly special, this wonderful voice of Pavarotti. It comes across so powerfully and so beautifully, the anguish and the pain of loss. I can't really ever listen to it without feeling a few goose bumps.
Kyrie / Call to Prayer (from African Sanctus)Favourite
this particular piece of music, he went up to the top of the mosque outside Cairo, recorded the call to prayer, then went back and with the help of, I think it's the singers of St. George's Chapel at Windsor, recorded the Kyrie from the Mass. He put them on the album both together. And there's something much deeper than religion going on … [it's] revealing how people are connected … and they're connected by their communal longing for peace.
I've chosen this woman's work not because of the lyrics, but just the whole range of it.
And I have great admiration for her, for what she is, what she stood for and she's a special person and I'm sorry she's not with us anymore, but thank goodness we've got all her music.
you've reminded me of how lucky I've been and what a lovely life I've had and I've always been happy and I love Pharrell Williams. He's one of my current favourites.
In conversation
Presenter asks
3:17What was your first ambition? What do you think you wanted to be?
Oh, first of all, I should think a ballet dancer, and then later on, an air hostess.
Presenter asks
6:29How did your interest in cooking begin?
I began to be interested in cooking and thought I would go along to a little restaurant and become a washer up one night a week just to enable me to cook… I suddenly realized, for the first time in my life, that that was something I really did enjoy doing, and I had a great sort of interest in.
Presenter asks
11:46How did you get your first cookery column?
I got this feeling that, um … It was a shame that everything in cooking had to be French, and I really began to investigate English cooking… Then somebody suggested I ought to collect these recipes and put them in a book… [the literary agent] actually eventually got me a cookery column, so that's how I started.
Presenter asks
15:05The keepsakes
The book
Sister Wendy's 100 Best-Loved Paintings
Sister Wendy Beckett
If I was on a desert island, I can't think of anything nicer than reading scriptures and Shakespeare. So I'm going to read scriptures and Shakespeare because I'd love to read more. So what I'm going to choose as a book is a book of art. I've got a book at home which is Sister Wendy's 100 Best Paintings starting from the sixth century and coming right the way through. So I would be able to look at art all the way through those years.
The luxury
if I could have as much of the archive as possible of Desert Island discs, then I'll have all the people around me.
How did you start cooking on television?
A producer rang me up and said the BBC were looking for somebody new to present cooking, and would I go along and do a pilot programme? … We had to wait ages … and they rang up and said that he'd agreed that we could do a series of ten programmes … he'd said yes … the same afternoon that he'd left, so I just got it by the skin of my teeth.
Presenter asks
16:22What were the terms of reference for your first TV series?
I was told to cook simply, and to do sort of every day family dishes, really.
Presenter asks
22:54Isn't the cookery book market a bit overstocked?
I would have thought so, yes but there is this sort of insatiable thirst people have for recipes.
Presenter asks
2:12Where do you think the desire to share what you know, to teach, comes from?
I don't know, but it's an instinct and what I had in the back of my mind was to take the fear away. I think people are afraid to cook … I just wanted … to make everything really, really explicit and infallible. And why should you be able to cook if no one's ever shown you? … you need to be taught. It's like giving people the keys to a car.
Presenter asks
6:51How would you describe your relationship with your mother?
She was very strict and she was my fiercest critic … my feet were kept very firmly on the ground, and so I never had a chance to get big headed … If I could have anything I wanted, I would want her ability to sort of attract people. She attracted people like bees round a honeypot.
Presenter asks
10:35Your parents divorced when you were 15 — what kind of impact did it have?
… don't let anyone ever think that that isn't going to affect the children. People say, oh, children bounce back, they're alright. They don't. It's a terrible, terrible thing to happen to a child. And I found it terrible … you feel rejected by a parent.
Presenter asks
19:06What does your involvement with Norwich City FC mean to you?
I think first and foremost it's a beautiful game … It's irritating, it's disappointing, you have pain, you have … ecstasy, it's all those things. But I think one of the things that's so good about it now in this day and age is its community. And it's one of the few places where community really does thrive.
Presenter asks
23:47Your ambition was to teach the nation how to cook and you did it — did you enjoy making TV programmes?
They were quite challenging and quite difficult to do. I had a lot of critics, an awful lot of critics. You know, I was boring and … I was like a Volvo car, reliable but not very exciting and people only watched my programmes if they really wanted to know how to cook. And luckily for me a lot of people did.
Presenter asks
30:26What does the Companion of Honour award mean to you?
It was incredible, absolute so completely unexpected and I still can't quite believe it. The most special thing was after I'd received the award, Michael and I were invited to Windsor Castle to have dinner with the Queen and stay the night.
“I admired Simon and Garfunkel because when all the other music was becoming very aggressive, you know, they managed to still be peaceful.”
“I suddenly realized, for the first time in my life, that that was something I really did enjoy doing, and I had a great sort of interest in.”
“when I went to do it I was convinced that that's what the British people wanted… it was lovely that it did get such a good response.”
“I think I'd have to be a vegetarian, because I wouldn't want to kill anything.”
“I know I ought to have one of my husband's books because he's always ribbing me because I don't read his books from cover to cover. But uh no, I think I'll have the autobiography of Saint Therese of Lisieux. She's a great friend of mine and uh she'd be company for me.”
“I don't know, but it's an instinct and what I had in the back of my mind was to take the fear away. I think people are afraid to cook and I myself found reading cookery books there was always something that they didn't say or I wasn't sure about.”
“If I could have anything I wanted, I would want her ability [my mother's] to sort of attract people. She attracted people like bees round a honeypot.”
“People say, oh, children bounce back, they're alright. They don't. It's a terrible, terrible thing to happen to a child. And I found it terrible.”
“I forgot, Lauren, I just forgot. That sky were there 'cause you don't know they're there. … And that's what happened.”
“I know that one thing's for sure, that souls don't have ages, so I'm still 19, but the body does.”
“I feel very privileged, incredibly privileged, and nothing I've done I've done alone. I've had my husband, I've had my wonderful agent and a whole team of people and all the people who worked with me and supported me. I couldn't have done anything without all of them.”