The chef and broadcaster on the horrors of rural Suffolk in the 1970s, cooking with her best friend Neneh Cherry and the only way to eat oysters I REMEMBER STANDING ON THE STOOL next to Mum and making white sauce for a cauliflower cheese for the Sunday meal when I was five or six. Around that time we moved from England to Cyprus and it was sunny and lovely there. School finished at midday in the summer and I made friends easily and it was an easy transition for me. It was much more of an eating-out culture than it had been in England and I remember an octopus being pulled out of the sea, killed on the rocks and me eating it, all charred, barbecued and with that lemony deliciousness. “Wow, _that’s_ what they do,” I thought. It was a moment of ignition in my consciousness – being transfixed by the flow of life and death and poetry and beauty. I USED TO MEET MUM from her work in an office on the air force base and on the corner there was a wagon selling loukaniko [Greek sausage] in fresh bread with melted halloumi. The texture was just perfect. Hot, salty, with loads of paprika in it. We’d picnic on the beach a lot, watching the fishermen come in. I still really love picnics on the beach, but who doesn’t? Continue reading...