Nothing beats that sloppy kiss of a six-month-old grandchild.

I don't like Johannesburg, where I grew up. Everybody lives in 'gated' buildings, is paranoid about crime and is always talking about being mugged. It's not a very joyful place.

Bake Off' has been a renaissance for me. I turn up, taste something and get paid rather well. What could be nicer?

I think the BBC likes to have Mary Berry and me around to rebut the charge of ageism.

It was hugely helpful to me, being South African. I have never felt uncomfortable in posh society because I don't see what it is that I'm meant to be bowing the knee about.

I probably eat yogurt more than anything else.

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?

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.

Why don't women say what they want, why wait to be asked? Do women intuit that it is unacceptable to appear ambitious?

I grew up in a very white, privileged, old-fashioned society in South Africa and went to a boarding school run by nuns.

I'm nicknamed the 'food tsar' by the press. I'm always giving my opinion on things like; 'Don't nanny children,' although children sometimes do need a nanny. Being a judge on 'Great British Menu' reinforces this image of me.

I think women write more fully and honestly than men about heart and home.

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.

What makes me laugh is 'Masterchef,' with that ridiculous thing they always say, 'cooking doesn't get any tougher than this!.'

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.

I was asked if I would do 'Dancing On Ice.' I thought it'd be the perfect way to get fit, lose a lot of weight and learn a new skill. I was actually quite excited, but my team said, 'Absolutely not.' They told me I was far too old and if I fell over I would break something - and then I thought they were probably right.

I'm completely addicted to Radio 4, even 100-year-old things like 'Just a Minute.' I even arrange my weekends around the Sunday edition of 'The Archers.'

I'm an optimist - very glass half-full.

Nobody thought a white girl should learn to cook in South Africa. I went to drama school. My mother was an actress, so I thought I'd be an actress.

One summer I was made housekeeper to my own family, making menus and shopping lists. It was my mother's idea of teaching me to be a grown-up. The main thing I remember is my father being so delighted to get roast duck.

We had two children, who are still adored, they adore me and we're very close. Rayne was 20 years older than me. He died when he was 80, so he had a really good life.

I get cross with foodies who think hospital food should be Michelin-star and caterers can fall into this trap.

If you eat good ingredients, and moderately, it should not be a problem. If you look at the bakers over the years, how many obese bakers have there been? There have been a few - nobody's saying you can't join 'Bake Off' if you're obese - but by and large bakers, just like cooks, are not particularly overweight.

I can't resist temptation of any kind.

The most important thing is to teach children to cook at schools. And not only to cook but to understand about where their food comes from.

I just hate television that's out to make people cry because other people like to see people cry.

If you've got children it's a hell of an everyday job. From a business point of view, children and husbands slow you down.

It's surprising how you can behave like a 16-year-old in your 60s, or a 17-year-old in your 70s. You know, it's exactly the same. You fall in love with somebody, you start worrying why the phone is not ringing and thinking, 'Can I ring him?'

An awful lot of older women do have love affairs or wish they were having love affairs.

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

My husband John's and my breaks are often very culture heavy. He cannot pass a museum without venturing inside, so we tend to see a lot of architecture and so-called places of interest.

With contemporary writers, I often buy books and then realise I've bought them before.

I fall for all those lists of 100 books you must read, and go out and buy most of them.

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 have never managed to put my feet up, ever.

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.

It takes several doses of any veg before children like it, but once they do they'll like it for life. You wouldn't give up on a child who didn't want to learn to read. Learning to eat is every bit as important.

After opening my first restaurant in 1969, one of the regular customers suggested I write a cookbook, so I did. Then another. After my 12th one, I started to feel stale.

I was elated when I found out my first novel, 'Leaving Patrick,' about a woman who walks out on her husband, was going to be published.

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.

What I want to do is produce really delicious food. I want it to look nice, because when you see food you should want to eat it. You shouldn't be saying, 'Oh my goodness, isn't the chef clever, he can weave the Eiffel Tower out of carrot sticks.'

My worst habit is opening the fridge and thinking: 'I'd like to eat something.'

Any woman will tell you after the menopause, nobody whistle at her, well - that's just the beginning. As you get older people don't want you at their parties, we all are prejudiced about old people.

With great difficulty, I persuaded my dentist to saw one of my teeth level with the others. He thought it might kill the tooth, but it didn't. I wanted it done because I was doing a lot of television with food and I saw myself eating with these horrible crooked teeth.

All I need for a perfect holiday is sun and some peace and quiet. Those make for perfect book-writing conditions.

At barbecues, people just like to eat a lot of meat; it's extraordinary. They eat far more than they normally would at a dinner party.

I am very in favour of children having a nap after lunch because then they're not whiney and grizzly by six o'clock.

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

The obesity problem among children is very serious. When advertising budgets are big and business can corrupt the way we live so that it becomes the norm to snack all day - and if you are never hungry you are never going to feel like eating a healthy meal - that can't be right.