Food, Wine & Friends [antikvár]

Food Wine FriendsHow it all Began Ihave a confession to make. I am as gregarious as I am greedy. Or should I put it the other way around? In any case, it is irrefutable: I love the good things of life - good food, fine wine and lovely people. Of course, I alsó like reading and gardening, listening to music and lazing on hot, sunny beaches. And of course I'm a workaholic, always planning three more projects when I should be finishing two that were promised for yesterday. But I still find time for my very special pleasures: food, wine and friends. What more can anyone ask ? Particularly when all three can be brought together in an exciting new project: a series of 24 half-hour cooking shows on the 'box' called, of all things,' Food, Wine & Friends'. When I first planned my work-in/live-in kitchen at Hintlesham, I never dreamed that one day it would be the setting for a new series of television programmes. All I really wanted was one big workroom where I could express my own brand of comfortable non-conformity. I wanted it to be a studio, a dining room, a place where I could paint if I wanted to, and a place to cook in all the time where my friends could be with me while I was at it. A really comfortable common room, in fact. But as uncommon a room as I could make it, for my twentieth-century version is at one and the same time a living room, a dining room and a kitchen. And I've added one important new element: the door opens directly on to a large terrace and vegetable garden which becomes a sort of annex to the house, a place to prepare vegetables as well as pick them. I've been on television many times in America and Australia, and invariably they have asked me to cook on the show. I don't mind cooking in public. I actually enjoy it. But I always found at the last minute that there was no proper knife or large frying pan available, and I was stuck with transporting huge quantities of kitchen equipment across these very large continents to make sure I had everything I required. Here at last was the opportunity to do it all in the comfort of my own home. No carrying half-cooked dishes miles to cold, draughty stúdiós where the ovens don't work; no last-minute shopping for fresh foodstuffs (the restaurant kitchen and vegetable garden are right next door) and no frantic search for 'props' (the entire house is full of bowls, platters and dishes of every description). I jumped at the chance to talk about food and wine in my own home, cook in my own kitchen, use vegetables and herbs from my own garden and share the fun with