The Quick and Easy Cookbook For Kids

About Caroline, Denny, Roz Waldegrave

As a child
I was brought up as a child of the colonies, during the '50s and '60s, before the days of cheap jet flights and mass hotels. My love of food was nourished on the exotic, like eating juicy, perfumed oranges in the bath (Dad insisted!), or sitting cross-legged at an Arab meal with the native officers of my father's unit. My mother was a good, plain cook of the British Raj era, so I got the best of both worlds! I ate everything and so did both of my daughters, with no fads or fancies.

As an adult
I am fascinated by how food is affected by cultures and surroundings. I read geography at university (fuelled, no doubt, by my background), but decided that food and cooking were my first loves. I am struck at how some cultures, thousands of miles apart, can share similar culinary methods.

As an artist
I have a very broad range of food experience. From writing for children (all home-tested by children), to co-writing five of Gordon Ramsay's cookbooks - two of which won major awards, The Glenfiddich in 1996 and Guild of Food Writers in 2002. In between, I have written diet books, several home-style books for Sainsbury's, and worked with women's magazines and a major British Asian rice company.


Things you didn't know about Roz Denny:

My favourite children's cookbook is called 36 Strange Little Animals Waiting to Eat - a book of stories and recipes.

I once had to make a BBC film about hot-air ballooning.
As a child I used to eat shark and chips sometimes.

My favourite visit is to Bodiam Castle in Sussex. Just like a fairy tale.

My mother was nicknamed "Granny Buttons" because she would give her grandchildren chocolate buttons.

I love the colours purple and lilac, even before they were fashionable. I hate bright pink.

I always tremble when I have to step onto a moving escalator.

I once had to descend the Eiffel Tower in Paris on my bottom because I was so scared. It took a long time.

I would love to learn to dive headfirst into a swimming pool.