The first inspiration, outside of my family, was Graham Kerr as the Galloping Gourmet, via the old TV screen. That's where I first learned how to use a knife properly. I remember clearly a dish he cooked one day of squab with a sour cream and cherry sauce. To this, he added the bird's liver! I was simultaneously aghast and transfixed. My head spun with questions: Eating pigeons? Do you just go and get one from a roof? What would it taste like? Liver and cherries? From that moment on, I was hooked.

Just before I started writing this introduction, I was speaking to my wise friend Diane and bemoaning how my sources of inspiration seemed to have dwindled in the last ten years. "Well," she said, "When you were younger you absorbed things and took them inwards. Now you are the inspiration and are putting yourself outwards." Thanks, Diane. That's a source of inspiration!