Quotes from Monica Galetti

I don't like to watch myself on 'Masterchef: The Professionals.' I cringe; it makes me feel sick, and I have to turn the TV off. I like doing television, and bringing what I do to a wide audience, but I don't have to watch myself, do I?

There are mums in the kitchen at amazing pubs and that can work - it's just as tough but the pressure is different, the hours are different. Anais was nine months old when she started in nursery so I could go back to the kitchen full-time.

Sharing good food with your children is the purest form of love.

Michel Roux Jr is like an older brother to me and he constantly pushed me to learn - even when I was young and I probably didn't appreciate what he was doing for me.

I'll always have fond memories of Guernsey. I lived there for three months in 1999 and loved walking all over the island.

Being a mum and keeping a foot in the top end of the industry has not been easy.

Buying scallops in their shells is the best way to ensure their freshness.

On Sundays I love to get to a morning spin session at the gym. That's my time - it's great for stress release and helping me think things through, but I also do it so I can eat everything because I have no willpower.

The place I most missed my husband and family was when I stayed at Giraffe Manor, which is a crazy hotel in Kenya where giraffes wander around sticking their necks in through the top-floor windows for snacks.

I have a little garden, and I quite enjoy fiddling about in it.

Growing up as a young chef, the cookbooks I had, and I remember, were the Roux brothers. The Roux brothers for me back then - and now! - you know, it's like gods of cooking.

I always buy organic and love farm shops. Some people think that organic is more expensive, but if you plan wisely, you can make ingredients go further. For example, use the whole chicken - bones for stock, things like that.

The older you get, the wiser you get, and you realise there's no need to blow a top over things.

Work takes me to some very interesting places, mostly around the U.K.; it's a great thing to be able to do.

I grew up in Samoa and, looking back, I don't think I realised how wonderful life was back then. The chickens used to run wild on the family plantation and we'd collect their eggs. We'd pick guavas, pineapples, papayas. It was such a normal thing to do.

We had a family beach house in Savai'i in western Samoa. When the tide used to come in it would come under the house and you could watch the fish from sitting in the lounge. It was so beautiful.

Trussing a chicken is something we consider a very basic skill. From your college years to any kitchen, you should learn it. I mean if you buy a chicken from Tesco it is all tied up, so you should know what it looks like. If you don't it is a bit of a worry.

There are shows that I would like to be able to watch, but don't really have time to, like 'Hannibal.'

Some people put Marmite on all sorts of dishes - I don't mind dropping a teaspoon into a pot of stew - but it's something I like to eat at home, on the sofa. I have to stick the jar right at the back of the cupboard or I'll eat six slices of toast in one go.

I have a huge collection of cookery books, like most chefs. do I regularly revisit Michel Roux Snr's 'The Collection,' particularly for the precise recipes and because the food photography is simply beautiful.

I never had holidays when I was a kid, because my parents couldn't afford them.

Culturally, you know, I come from a Samoan background where the food is very humble, it's very simple.

I grew up in Samoa, where food is an important part of our culture. I remember this sea worm, called the palolo, that would lay its larvae once every full moon. You'd go and scoop it up, serve it on a banana leaf with coconut cream and seaweed. Delicious, a real assault on the senses.

Extracting the meat from a whole crab is a time-consuming job - picking all the meat out of the legs, claws and body, double-checking for bits of shells, etc. But the flavour makes it worth it, and you get the additional bonus of the crab shells to make a flavourful bisque or stock as a base for other dishes.