My fascination in food took hold at an early age for a number of reasons. My mother did not cook, at all. My godmother, however, was a well known cookery writer, who invited me for weekends in London, treating me to the delights of the Soho delicatessens, the cuisine of the top London Chefs. Then in the late fifties I went to Paris with my Bristol dancing school, performed at the Grand Palais, tasted French food, coffee, croissants and cognac. I was barely ten.