Nigel Slater quotes:

Pamper a tomato, overfeed it, overwater it and you will get a Paris Hilton of a tomato.

Almost anything is edible with a dab of French mustard on it.

British food is a celebration of comfort eating. Our traditional savoury recipes are all about warmth and sustenance, our puddings a roll call of sweet jollity, our cakes are deep and cosy. We appear to be a nation in need of a big, warm hug.

It must have been the lack of nutrients that gave my father his temper. He is not a sweet man despite a very sweet tooth.

It is impossible not to love someone who makes toast for you.

Food is, for me, for everybody, a very sexual thing and I think I realised that quite early on. I still cannot exaggerate how just putting a meal in front of somebody is really more of a buzz for me than anything. And I mean anything. Maybe that goes back to trying to please my dad, I don't know. It's like parenting in a way I suppose.

It is impossible not to love someone who makes toast for you....Once the warm, salty butter has hit your tongue, you are smitten. Putty in their hands.

No matter how bad things get, it's impossible not to love someone who made you toast. Once you've been through that crusty surface to the soft underneath and tasted the warm, salty butter you'll last forever.

Well let's face it, who on earth besides antique dealers and gay couples actually still give dinner parties?"

Food has been my career, my hobby, and, it must be said, my escape.

Believe me when I tell you that there is no lie quite so obvious as the one where you try to protest that you have washed your face ready for bedtime while you are still sporting an enormous ear-to-ear purple smile of dried Ribena."

Good kitchens are not about size; they are about ergonomics and light.

I cannot go any further without mentioning my favourite biscuit of all time, now sadly, tragically, extinct. The oaty, crumbly, demerara notes of the long-forgotten Abbey Crunch will remain forever on my lips. I loved the biscuit as much as anything I have ever eaten, and often, in moments of solitude, I still think about its warm, buttery, sugary self.

It is the deep, salty stickiness of food that intrigues me more than any other quality.

Real food meas big-flavoured, unpretentious cooking. Good ingredients made into something worth eating. Just nice, uncomplicated food.

There is too much talk of cooking being an art or a science "? we are only making ourselves something to eat.

Well let's face it, who on earth besides antique dealers and gay couples actually still give dinner parties?