Social media seems to have become a big part of your life, not least with your Instagram ‘follow of the day’ suggestions. Who chooses those?
Me, of course [she looks horrified at the suggestion she wouldn’t]. I go through a lot [of accounts] when I’m travelling and I store all the pictures I like in a special album called FOTD [she shows me as proof] so I have all the ones I like in one place.

When you serve someone food, are they allowed to take photos to post on Instagram or do you like them just to dig in?
No, no, I am not in a position to say, “Don’t take photos”, I’d drive everyone mad. But I do mind if the lighting is bad.

What’s the best light for taking food pictures?
Daylight is best but not glaring daylight. It depends what time of year and whether you are south-facing or north-facing. In winter, I’m afraid anything after 4pm doesn’t look very nice.

One of social media’s – and your – biggest obsessions in 2015 was the avocado. Can you tell with just your eyes whether an avocado is good?
[Sadly] No.

Do you get told off in the grocer’s for squeezing them?
Squeezing doesn’t necessarily tell you [it’s good], sometimes it just tells you that it is bruised on the outside and not ripe. The life of avocado reading is absolutely rife with disappointment – too hard, too soft… it’s a bit like running a bath or a boiled egg that is not right. Simplicity is often the hardest thing to achieve.

You’ve also been obsessed with bowls. In 2015, it seems to have reached full tilt with an entire section in the book dedicated to ‘Bowl Food’…
Everyone says it’s terrible that people don’t sit down to eat at the table any more, but I do have to come clean and say sometimes it’s important to be on the sofa eating out of a bowl too. So you’ll sometimes just have a bowl of cereal when you can’t be bothered to cook?

I have an equivalent, but I wouldn’t necessarily want a bowl of cereal. I don’t have an enormously sweet tooth. I like my savouries: toast and butter or toast with really good olive oil soaked on the bottom and the top. Or I might have granola and yoghurt. It goes back to the idea that I don’t think you’re morally superior because you cook. People always want some sort of hierarchy of goodness – who is better and who is not as good – and it is so disabling and draining. Why do that?

We’re now dying to know if you have a favourite bowl…
I do eat a lot from a kind of oval one that is quite shallow. Other times I want something much more capacious like a noodle bowl so it really depends on what I am eating. Then also it can be about what colour I want. The other day when I was making my spinach and parsnip soup I had to have a pink bowl; I like pink and green together. There are certain times where I want something on a dark slate and that looks lovely.

Is there a psychological reason why you are drawn to particular things?
I am very mood driven. When I have a mug of tea, I think very carefully about what mug I want from my drawer – I have a mug drawer! – and all these coloured plastic spoons. I have to think, ‘OK, which mug and which spoon?’ It has to match the mood I am in. It depends what tea I’m drinking, what kind of day it is…

So, the whole process of eating and drinking is very considered?
Everything, for me, is judged on an instinctive level. I like the feeling of materials in my hands when I cook. It’s the same with clothes – I like things that feel gorgeous or comfortable. I was reading a fascinating book over the weekend called The Thoughtful Dresser [by Linda Grant]. The author was saying how some people have ‘the eye’, which she doesn’t have because her primary sense is not visual but musical. I feel that my primary sense is feeling.

What else feels good at the moment?
Clean sheets. Sometimes I don’t sleep and I just think, ‘I am so lucky to have the feeling of this sheet.’ I operate in that sphere of senses so when people say to me, “What is your favourite this or that?” It’s tricky to answer. It depends on the mood I’m in and what I need at that time: do I want the feel of pottery that is slightly rough against my hands or do I want delicate bone china? And I cannot bear a really thin, skinny mug.

What would be your secondary sense then?
Hearing – which is why I find TV quite difficult. But I love listening to people’s conversations. Sometimes I am talking to one person and I can hear another conversation and I’ve done the ultimate thing in rudeness which is turn around and say, “No, the cost is actually…” I do have to make myself switch off the noise, but it is hard because I can hear it and some people just can’t.

Learning to switch off sounds rather like mindfulness. Has that become part of your life? Do you meditate?
I don’t think I am quite ready for meditation. I think it is a noble aim. It sounds a bit too lofty for anything I do, but it interests me. A lot of people think relaxing is doing nothing but to me that is not relaxing. What I like about simple cooking is when you are doing a task that requires a bit of concentration but not too much – that is my version of meditation.

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