Prue's faithful peppermill

Restaurateur Prue Leith reveals her innermost secrets

1. What was your best subject at school?

Tennis

2. What was your first job?

Judge's clerk to the Johannesburg supreme court

3. What was your first job in catering?

Self-employed freelance cook

4. What do you normally have for breakfast?

Tea

5. What do you do to relax?

Play tennis

6. Which is your favourite restaurant?

Other than Leith's, Nando's Chicken Land (a fast food restaurant in Earls Court selling barbeque Chilli chicken)

7. What is your favourite drink?

Good claret

8. What ingredient do you hate the most?

Gherkins

9. What do you always carry with you?

Corkscrew/peppermill (both in my handbag)

10. How would you best describe your desk?

A battlescene

11. Which person in catering have you most admired?

Terence Conran

12. Which person gave you the greatest inspiration?

Elizabeth David

13. Cast away on a desert island, what luxury would you take?

A peppermill

14. What daily newspapers do you read?

The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph

15. If not yourself, who would you rather had been?

Placido Domingo

16. If you hadn't gone into catering, where do would be now?

An architect?

17. Describe your ultimate nightmare?

I keep opening the oven and the ducks are still uncooked with hundreds of guests already at the table

18. Where was your last holiday?

Palace of the Lost City, Bophuthatswana

19. What irritates you most about hotels?

The bedside lights which never shine on your page when you are reading and always keep your partner awake. You have to remove the shade or put the lamp on your chest to be able to read.

20. When was the last time you had a hamburger?

Two weeks ago

21. Tell us a secret…

I'm addicted to Müller Fruit Corners