Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A food writer and television personality, best known for her ironic domestic goddess persona and the book How to Eat.
On the island
Eight records
I hear the beginning of that record and I smile, and I remember singing with it. I can't sing, so probably miming. ... And I also remember going shopping with my mother and she was sort of trying on maxi dresses or in bibo with lovely sort of high dusty pink suede boots and that playing in the background.
Yeke YekeFavourite
Now, I've never been one of those people who likes deep, meaningful records with intense lyrics. I think if you want to have something to think about, you should read a book. But I like music that makes you want to dance or just is uplifting.
well this is Boney M, Daddy Cool, and I've I've chosen the remix uh Daddy Cool 2001.
John and I used to dance to this at home and we had a big party when his sound's kind of down, but I don't mean it to be down, I mean it to be up, where when his cancer was found to be terminal. And I remember dancing to this ... This seems to me to be a very happy moment from a happy marriage.
I do quite like this. I love the title. My children love it and I we play, you know, musical statues, things like that, or little discos. ... But unfortunately now my children are of an age when my dancing embarrasses them. So, anyway, this is just I'm still allowed to dance to this with them.
There have been many, many remixes of this, and I've struggled to find what I think is the best one. But really again I suppose it's thinking that things are good when you're young but maybe they're better when you get older.
I think he is really such genius. I love the mixture of beautiful music and hate.
I love this because I think that probably the m sort of primitive thing about music and what it's there for is to kind of put one into an ecstatic state. ... about some sort of transcendental feeling.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:58Is there any food you don't like?
Well, you know, in an emergency I'd eat tripe, but I'd rather not. But I'm afraid I can't genuinely think of a food I don't like eating.
Presenter asks
2:44Do you regret putting [the domestic goddess image] into the public domain?
Well, you know, the thing is, when I wrote the book, it was so clearly ironic, and it was written from the point of view that if you are not a domestic goddess, this is what you do to make yourself feel like one. But then after a while, something has a life of its own, and it's rather pathetic to be bleating, you know, like, but that's not me, and I'm not a domestic goddess. So I kind of think, well, go with it.
Presenter asks
6:36You spent this time through your childhood and into your teens being rather kind of remote and silent, hadn't you?
Yes, I did. My my mother, I think, thought I was autistic for a while because I didn't ever speak. You know, it always sounds so ridiculous. I don't really think I was suited to the state of childhood. I really didn't like being a child. I was unhappy for a lot of the time. Not not in a big dramatic way. But I wasn't comfortable with it.
The keepsakes
The book
Dante Alighieri
I would miss people. I also think that I am prone to great lowness when idle. So I think that thought is the best way of beating off depression. ... Can't have the Divine Comedy, see if I can get my Italian back up to scratch.
The luxury
a lot of life is made more bearable if you feel you have some choice and some control. ... I knew if things if I really couldn't bear it, I could escape.
Presenter asks
9:26Was your mother a domestic goddess?
No, not remotely. My mother was a wonderful cook, but she often cooked, you know, with immense resentment and bad temper. She wasn't enormously fancy and she didn't do recipes. I mean, I was fifteen before I realized that people cooked from cookery books. I mean, she just cooked, which was a very good training for me.
Presenter asks
15:56I can't understand you making that decision to let [the cameras into your lives when John was ill].
I didn't really make that decision. ... John said to me the B B C wanted to make a documentary, and I said absolutely not. I mean, uh, no question. And he said, Look, I've already said yes. You know, and it's difficult'cause it's very hard to be cross with someone. I mean, he often played this card. It is very hard to be cross with someone when they've been diagnosed with cancer. ... But he said to me, look, it would really help me. And then, to be honest, there was no choice. I don't really care if it helped him. Really, I would have done anything. And it was his case. So I did it.
Presenter asks
21:13Did [the culinary come-on tag] horrify you?
Well, I think that food is sexy. When I'm talking to a camera, I feel it is quite intimate. And I feel I'm talking to a sister or to a friend. I don't I'm not trying to be alluring. On the other hand, if you're going to be tagged with anything, I mean that's better than a lot of things that could get thrown at me, so.
“I've always thought that those of us who eat a lot, it's not because we have huge appetites, it's because we have this great genius, which is that we can eat when we're not hungry.”
“I remember when I was about nineteen, lying in bed one morning thinking you know, whatever else happens in my life, nothing can be as bad ever again. And I was right.”
“I always feel slightly worried, Sonnet, if people don't take pleasure in food, if they don't allow themselves to eat, I kind of feel they're not really allowing themselves to live, or they're not taking pleasure in life.”
“One of the things that gets you through sort of serious suffering is that you never lose I didn't the trivial aspect. I used to say to John sometimes, Look, I know this is really awful, but I still feel I have the right to mind if I put on Half Stone, I still want to mind about that.”