April Bloomfield quotes:

I still worry that I could be better. That's where standards come from, from not wanting to settle. The fear of not being good enough propels you.

I started in the kitchen of a Holiday Inn in Birmingham. I wanted to be a sponge, wanted to learn and progress. I knew I didn't want to work in a hotel forever, but I had some good teachers there.

I adore pigs, and I love eating them and cooking them, and I love using the whole animal.

My mom wasn't so much such a great cook. But I don't know, I think I have a very strong mother, and it's funny, because both of my sisters - I have two sisters, and I'm the baby, but they all work hard. I'm not sure where I get it from, and I'm not sure where they get it from, but they must get it from somewhere... I like to work.

Most of my food memories are of my Nan cooking Sunday dinners - roasts of meat with lots of vegetables. I suppose I cook what's comforting and dishes that make me feel good.

There is something about someone making a fantastic sandwich, taking care to spread lots of mayo all the way to the edges. Making sure every bite has a bit of everything in it. There's something special about that.

I don't think of being a woman in an industry of men. I didn't walk into the kitchen and go, 'Ooh, I'm a girl!' I didn't get into my chosen profession. I wanted to be good at something.

I think, British food, it's had a bad rap.

My two sisters were always cooking. I wanted to be in the police force, but I didn't get in because I just so happened to procrastinate a bit, and I hadn't gotten my application in at the right time.

France was always a little scary to me. I had the preconception that France was a bit hoity-toity.

I love the smell of frying liver. It kind of releases a sweetness into the air, and it kind of prickles your nose, and it kind of makes you awake... it gets me excited.

Food's delicate. You have to handle it with finesse. You can't just be a big ogre.

I love to roast vegetables - carrots, fennel, and so on. I also love to mash or puree pretty much any vegetable!

Always look for the best ingredients, treat the food you cook with respect, always read the entire recipe first, be organized, and have fun.

I'm a bit of a control freak.

I'm not the type of person to eat big hunks of meat. I think people are starting to realize that great things come in small batches.

I like cooking the biggest steaks. It cooks nice and evenly when it's that thick, and you're not eating the whole thing yourself, which is nice. You get to share that with a companion.

I'm a sucker for a packet of biscuits. I can eat a whole pack in 10 minutes.

If you work hard and you learn and you absorb and you pay attention, career in food is great. This job can take you all around the world. You can eat the most delicious food. It allows you to be creative.... [And] don't ever quit. It's going to pay off eventually. It might not be in a year. Might be 20 years or 10 years. But you have to keep pushing. Just have that fire, have the passion, and want to be successful. And don't listen to anybody else.

I wasn't the most confident of cooks, but I just persevered, and I wanted to learn, and I wanted to be a sponge, and I wanted to be better than the next person, and I wanted to learn as much as I could, so I just kept pushing, and it took me a long time actually to be confident in my technique and my ability as a cook.

I became a manager very young. My first sous chef job I was, maybe, 25. It was a bit too early for me. But it's on-the-job training. You really just get stuck in there and it's trial and error. You learn by your mistakes, and hopefully you don't keep making them. And if you do, you just keep trying to fix it.