The day before I interview Diana Henry she emails to apologise, in typical down-to-earth style, saying: ‘Don’t expect cake! There is no cooking going on! No make-up either, so I will be looking sh-t.’
‘I’ve never been ill for so long,’ she sighs when we meet at her home in north London. She has had flu for the past week, and her youngest son, Gillies, 13, is also ill in bed upstairs. Apologising for the mess in her huge open-plan kitchen, she welcomes me over to the L-shaped sofa in the corner.
Here, next to a framed menu from California restaurant Chez Panisse, and photos of her children as babies, one wall is covered, floor to ceiling, with some of her 4,000-strong cookbook collection. ‘Years...