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Regrettably, people today don't watch many programs that actually teach people how to cook, so I agreed to do a competitive show that I think will provide inspiration.

Why can't we have a concert with food? Your typical cooking demonstration, there's just no enthusiasm. There's no energy behind it. I said, 'What if we take a cooking demonstration and fortify it with a lot of good music? ... Drive it to the next level?'

I love doing demonstrations. I think to be a great chef you have to be a great teacher. I love doing classes with people who love food and enjoy food, bringing them all around one table so to speak.

Standing behind a kitchen counter telling people about what ingredients to put in a pot didn't feel right.

I think cookery shows have become so sophisticated, and everyone's so marvellous at it, but there are people like me who aren't into the cooking malarkey, who still don't know how to boil an egg for three minutes.

We sat around and I fed them barbecue and whiskey. And pretty soon everyone started to compete with each other on the guitars. It seemed the more everyone drank and ate, the more everyone got into it.

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 actually struggled through teaching myself to cook because I'm completely ignorant in the kitchen. So I did really macho things like trying to make my own curry. Really hardcore stuff.

What does happen in 'Gourmet,' we had eight test kitchens, and at any given time, there were, like, ten or twelve test cooks. And whenever anybody finished something, they would yell, 'Taste!' and everyone would go running towards it, and then taste, and then brutally deconstruct the dish.

Many of my friends are chefs, and I learnt to cook watching them.