Quotes from Prue Leith

I think Paul Hollywood was quite perfectly within his rights to stay with Love Productions. They'd made him famous, he was getting a decent salary and he was enjoying it. Why shouldn't he stay with them?

I couldn't live without my faithful companion, Megs the dog.

People say I'm a celebrity chef, and I am on telly a lot but that's because I judge contests. Perhaps I'm more of a celebrity eater than a cook.

I was intending not do any more telly and then I got talked into 'My Kitchen Rules,' which I did with Michael Caines.

People don't always behave the same way on different programmes. If you go to church you don't behave the same way you do at a party in the middle of the night.

I do think it is the responsibility of parents to feed their children properly.

If I'm going to do something, I'll do it properly or not at all.

I'd love to look incredibly glamorous, but I am a wholesome, comforting nanny type: I think I look like an advertisement for wholemeal flour or something.

I can't resist temptation of any kind.

You can serve good food on a budget provided you don't waste it.

I prefer pub food to posh food.

I've always had an image of Mother's Pride flour, very respectable and middle-class.

The really nice thing about the town of Hua Hin - and Thailand generally - is that it's so safe. You can walk around the night market, for example, with complete confidence.

Before 'Bake Off,' frankly, if you'd asked most people on the bus if they'd ever heard of me, it would probably only have been those aged over 55. But if they were 15, they wouldn't have, and that's the difference with 'Bake Off' - it's loved across the generations.

I'm a good cook, I am not a great cook. I'm an absolute fraud.

The way to get to like good food is by learning to cook, which is why I'm for ever banging on about children learning to cook.

I went to drama school but soon realised I was terrible at acting, so I ditched drama school for art school.

My grandchildren love cooking, and it doesn't have to be sweet things.

Aged six, I sailed from South Africa to England by steam ship with my family. It was a three-week journey. I remember crying on my birthday when I didn't get the enormous teddy bear that was for sale in the ship's shop but, aside from that, I had a wonderful time.

In my 40s: I had two children young enough to think their parents wonderful, my business was booming, I was happily married and living in the Cotswolds with a veg garden and ponies in the paddock. Who could not be happy?

I'm not clever. But I am level-headed, hard-working, dogged.

I opened Leith's in Notting Hill in 1969 and it eventually worked its way into being awarded a Michelin star. At the time, there were a few women running small bistros - but I was the first woman to have a 'serious,' expensive restaurant.

I think that allowing the nation to become so ignorant about food has been such a backward step - and to be honest I don't think there should be a School Food Trust. It shouldn't be necessary.

I adored the celebrity 'Bake Offs.' They have a more relaxed atmosphere. They all come on thinking they're not competitive so there's a lot of larking around, then of course they get the 'Bake Off' bug and want to win and it's funny.