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My favorite pudding is good old English apple pie.

I love the smell of a real Christmas tree - also, my mum's Christmas pudding with brandy sauce.

On Christmas Eve, we have a duck or roast pork with caramelised potatoes, braised red cabbage and gravy. For dessert, we have ris a l'amande, a rice pudding, and whoever gets the whole almond in it wins an extra present. Then we dance around the tree and sing carols.

I've got such a sweet tooth. I do miss the U.K. where you get sticky toffee pudding or custard, all that.

Sticky toffee pudding is my favorite dessert in the U.K.

We never really had any kind of a Christmas. This is one part where my memory fails me completely.

The most classic French dessert around the holidays is the Christmas log, with butter cream. Two flavors. Chocolate and coconut. My first job in the kitchen when I was a boy was to make these Christmas logs.

All families had their special Christmas food. Ours was called Dutch Bread, made from a dough halfway between bread and cake, stuffed with citron and every sort of nut from the farm - hazel, black walnut, hickory, butternut.

We go to Italy every winter, and my husband's mother has a bingo party on Christmas. Every woman brings a dish: lentils, cavolo nero, tons of beans, polenta, every type of cheese, bruschetta, fresh vegetables, and local olive oil and wine.

I've never had a cold Christmas, as I always spend it back home in Australia.