Quotes from Rachel Khoo

While studying art and design at Central Saint Martins, I went round supermarkets taking photos of shoppers and their baskets: the game was to match people with their food. For an architectural project, I made a scale model of a shop out of gingerbread rather than foam and added icing and sweets very colourfully.

The Great British summer has many qualities, but unfortunately guaranteed warm weather is not one of them.

Mum and Dad grew vegetables and every day it would be beans for dinner and we'd have to go and pick them, and weed and stuff. If you wanted your pocket money you did your chores.

My mum still needs all her pots and pans, so she's not giving me any of hers yet.

My cookbooks are like a personal journey for me, they're like a chapter in my life.

I hate eating food on camera - I always cringe afterwards!

Brittany might not boast the biggest collection of Michelin stars in France, but when it comes to produce, you quickly realise that some of the key building blocks of French cuisine have their roots here.

Back in my school days, when I would scuttle off with a cheese roll, an apple, a box of Sun-Maid raisins and a Penguin bar, my packed lunches were reassuringly predictable. And I liked it that way.

I always say I'm more of a food writer than a TV presenter, because that's what I'm trained in, that's what I spend most of my year doing. TV is about performance and I've never had any training.

Every good jam tart deserves the finest preserve.

I adore flaky croissants and buttery millefeuilles. But sometimes I like to steer the other way, opting for light, airy cakes enriched with tart red fruits.

Like its breakfast companion Marmite, jam seems to divide the crowds. In many of its mass-produced guises, it seems barely acquainted with the fruit named on the jar, tasting mostly of sugar.

Fika is a bit like afternoon tea but with coffee and pastries instead of sandwiches.

When I studied at the Parisian cookery school Le Cordon Bleu, making shortcrust pastry was one of the first techniques I learned.

I love watching the fishermen step off their boats and lay out their catch - typically sardines, monkfish and everything you'd find in bouillabaisse.

Wild garlic and crab is a revelatory pairing.

I inherited my 1960s copy of 'French Provincial Cooking' by Elizabeth David from my mother Gabrielle, who in turn inherited it from her mother Frances. It was my bible when I first moved to Paris aged 26.

There's no point just telling the French that you can cook, the proof is in the pudding; if you bake them something delicious then you'll win them over.

Wimbledon heralds the unofficial start of summer.

Even if some of us daren't admit it to ourselves, we are all a little conscious of Christmas weight gain. The trouble for foodies like myself is the best way to socialise is over a meal.

I haggle with French grannies over their old knick-knacks and walk away with some real gems.

Crumpets for me are the quintessence of a British afternoon tea, the ideal winter warmer that would welcome me home from school.

True to his Malay Chinese heritage, my dad would regularly whip up a revitalising spicy broth in the depths of winter. He was a firm believer that spicy food is the solution to most problems, and feeling under the weather was no exception.

I realised filming in my own apartment that it was nice to come home and have some space. It worked for 'The Little Paris Kitchen' but now I've learned a lot about TV; you need space for the camera and you want to be mentally sound after filming.