‘I plan to have a merry and expensive old age,’ says Prue Leith cheerfully, tucking into lunch at a restaurant run by her old friend and rival Sally Clarke in London’s Notting Hill. The staff are a little nervous but the grand dame of The Great British Bake Off makes sure to say nice things about the bread basket and has no airs. When she sends a crust flying with an elbow while making a point, she bends down quickly and says, ‘You won’t mind if I pick up my bread off the floor and eat it, will you?’
And who could argue? Her presence is bold and disarming, but then Prue Leith has been insisting on her own way all her life. She defied her parents in South Africa to come to London in the 60s, studied cordon bleu cookery and opened a restaurant near where we’re currently dining, winning a Michelin star at a time when very few women had one. Prue went on to become a columnist, a best-selling novelist, the owner of a successful cookery school and a household name on telly, taking over from Mary Berry on Bake Off in 2017.
Next month sees the publication of her latest cookbook, which is called Life’s Too Short To Stuff A Mushroom: Really Good Food Without The Fuss. And it turns out that while Prue is offering ‘recipes, shortcuts and hacks’ to make cooking quicker and easier (you’ll find some of her favourites at the back of this magazine), she is also applying this live-for-the-moment attitude to her own life, by scattering cash around like black pepper on a pizza.
Prue with her Cavalier King Charles Spaniels Tattie, eight, and Teazle, five
‘My idea is to have a spendthrift old age,’ says the 84-year-old. ‘So for example I am taking my whole family on holiday.’ That means her grown-up son and daughter from her first marriage to the late author and property developer Rayne Kruger, along with their children, her second husband, clothes designer John Playfair, his children and grandchildren, and ‘a couple of grannies, because both families have got widowed in-laws’. It sounds like quite the crowd. ‘We’re all going to Val-d’Isere at Christmas. We’re taking two chalets. It’s going to be eye-wateringly expensive but we’ll never do it again.’
The French ski resort is popular with the likes of Margot Robbie, Hugh Grant, Ed Sheeran and Jamie Oliver. ‘It will be lovely to have Christmas in the snow with all the kids and Santa will appear.’ Prue can afford it if the reports that she’s worth a staggering £85 million are true.
‘I’m hoping the taxman won’t get too much because I will have spent it. I think you have to stick around for seven years [in order to not be taxed on gifts]. I gave the children some money. I don’t think I’ve done the seven years yet, but I plan to.’
Not that she’s against tax, having worked with charities on a wide range of issues from school and hospital food to housing. ‘This sounds rather pious but if I haven’t given away or spent every single penny before I die I wouldn’t mind that getting taxed, because somebody has to pay it. I get very indignant when people won’t.’ One tax feels less fair to her, though. ‘Inheritance tax does seem to be double taxation because however you got that money, you’ve already paid tax.’
Dame Prudence Leith was given her title by the late Queen and has chaired the Royal Society of Arts, but there is also a racy side to her. She paraded on the catwalk during London Fashion Week recently, dressed to kill in skintight black latex. She had a 13-year secret affair with Rayne, the husband of her mother’s best friend. They eventually married in 1974, by which time Prue was 34 years old and pregnant. That child is Danny Kruger, the Conservative MP for East Wiltshire. The couple also adopted a daughter, Li-Da Kruger, who was born in Cambodia in 1975 and is now a film-maker.
Prue paraded on the catwalk at London Fashion Week, dressed to kill in skintight black latex
Rayne died in 2002 and it was nine years before Prue met John through a friend. ‘He wooed me on haggis, which comes ready made. All he had to do was put it in the microwave, heat up some frozen mashed potato, put the food together with a tomato sauce and it was perfect.’ She chuckles in a way that suggests the evening ended well. ‘I won’t go further, but it worked!’
Life’s Too Short To Stuff A Mushroom offers seemingly ambitious recipes, such as coq au vin (‘I want to see it revived!’) made simpler. It’s also scattered with QR codes that link to videos of her demonstrating hacks like how to poach an egg or chop an onion in an efficient way. Have we really forgotten this stuff? ‘Less and less people know how to cook. Young people have been brought up on takeaways and supermarket ready meals, which aren’t bad but they’re terribly boring if that’s all you eat.’
Cheating’s fine, though, she adds. ‘I am old and lazy, I often buy things I wouldn’t have done at the beginning of my career, like puff pastry.’
The book’s title is a quote from the late Shirley Conran, author of the feminist self-help book Superwoman (and the bonkbuster novel Lace), who was a heroine of Prue’s. ‘Shirley was such a character. She was pretty bold in the way she dressed and I admired that. She didn’t really mind whether people approved.’ Bright colours and strong opinions? That sounds familiar. ‘I didn’t think at the time, “I’m going to copy her.” But I was drawn to people who had a bit of spunk.’
Today Prue is resplendent in a burnt orange cotton dress by the designer Rae Feather. ‘John buys nearly all my clothes. He used to be in fashion and he’s very encouraging about my love of colour. He says, “Go for it. More is more.”
Prue and husband John in their Cotswolds garden
‘So many women write to me saying, “I so admire your bold colours, I used to wear red when I was young but now I think it’s not appropriate.” Old people need colour more than the young,’ she says passionately. ‘The young ones are beautiful anyway, they don’t need any help, they could go without any make-up in a bit of old khaki and look fine. People like me, unless we want to just disappear into the background, which is not in my nature, need colour.’ Does she ever feel like putting on an old beige cardie? ‘I don’t own any beige!’
Prue and John famously used to live in separate houses, but they sold both and designed their dream home in Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire, with a giant kitchen and separate bedrooms. ‘We live in my bedroom. We haven’t yet spent a night in the other. We were forward planning for when one of us snores so much we can’t bear it, so that is called the banishment room!’
She describes herself as a woolly liberal and her daughter as left wing, so I wonder if politics have to be avoided at family dinners, given that her son is seen as on the right of the Tory Party. ‘There has been a lot of interest in Danny and I not agreeing on various things, but it so bothers me that these days you can’t have proper debates on anything. Actually you can. Danny is more centrist than people think.’
They made a moving documentary together about assisted suicide, which Danny opposes and Prue supports. ‘I understood his point of view far better at the end of that. I thought he was logical and principled. I still think his conclusion was wrong, but I can see why he came to it. And he ended up agreeing that he wouldn’t stand in my way if I top myself. But he wouldn’t actually hand me the pills.’
Prue watched her brother David suffer an agonising death from bone cancer in 2012 and is patron of the campaign group Dignity In Dying. ‘Practically every day somebody will write saying, “What can I do? My mother is in agony but I can’t afford for her to go anywhere.” There’s such a crisis.’
Working as the Mail’s cookery correspondent in the 1970s
Isn’t she protected from that, being rich? ‘Of course I am, I could go to Switzerland. It’s 15 grand, for one night, on your own. Do you really want to die on an industrial estate outside Zurich?’ Any companion risks prosecution, so the person who wants to end their life has to go solo and earlier than they might want, because they have to be able to travel.
‘That’s what’s so terrible about the Swiss option. You have to die before you need to because you’ve got to be well enough to get there on your own. It’s that or suicide. I’ve spent quite a lot of time thinking, “How do I accumulate enough morphine to do this for myself?” I haven’t done it yet.’ She laughs, possibly at herself for admitting that. ‘It’s probably illegal to get morphine but it is legal to kill yourself. It’s a horrible thing to do to your family, though. They’ve got to find you. Suicide is a horrible option. Switzerland is a horrible option. Suffering is a horrible option. That’s your choice.’
She hopes the new Government will go ahead with plans to change the law – a move that was recently revealed by the Mail on Sunday – so people who need to can take their own lives in their own time without incriminating their loved ones. But for now she’s loving life and working hard, judging the Great British Bake Off and its US version. ‘Some day I’ve got to stop. I’m 84. It’s ridiculous and I want to stop before they say, “That decrepit old woman, we’ve got to get rid of her.”’
There were rumours of retirement when Prue withdrew from Celebrity Bake Off this year. Is she going to quit completely? ‘No. I went to Bake Off and said, “I think I ought to stop because I want some summers. For eight years I haven’t had a summer holiday. They said, “Why don’t you drop Celebrity Bake Off and you’ll get three weeks off?” So that’s what I did, but that became Prue Leith Is Leaving Bake Off, which I wasn’t.’
She and John are taking a holiday, though, following the Silk Road. It’s a bold trip for a woman of 84 and a man of 77. ‘John is a culture vulture who can spend all day in museums,’ she says. ‘I am interested in all sorts of things but after lunch I want zeds [a nap] by the pool – or in the pool, lying on one of those naff but wonderful plastic beds with a book holder for your book and a cup holder for your margarita.’
Life may be too short to stuff a mushroom, but Prue Leith clearly still believes in packing the days. ‘There is so much yet to do!’
- Catch up on series one of Prue Leith’s Cotswold Kitchen on ITVX, with series two coming in spring 2025 to ITV1 and ITVX.
Chicory, pear, hazelnut and goat’s cheese salad
When thinking about flavours for a salad, it is worth considering what the principal ingredient is traditionally served with. For example, cheese goes with pears, apples and grapes, all of which could supply the sweetness in this salad.
SERVES 4
■ 15g butter
■ 1tsp light brown soft sugar
■ 4 small, ripe pears, peeled, cored and quartered
■ 1 red chicory
■ 1 white chicory
■ A small handful of watercress
■ 200g goat’s cheese log
■ 20g hazelnuts, toasted and roughly chopped, to serve
For the dressing
■ 1tbsp red wine vinegar
■ 3tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
■ Salt and black pepper
Heat the grill to high.
Melt the butter and sugar in a frying pan on a medium heat until the sugar has dissolved. Add the pears and fry until lightly caramelised (about 3 minutes). Remove to a plate and cool.
In a large bowl, whisk together the dressing ingredients.
Cut the ends off the red and the white chicory and separate the leaves. Add the chicory leaves and the watercress to the dressing in the bowl, and turn gently to coat the leaves.
Cut the goat’s cheese into 4 equal slices (see hack, above right). Place the cheese slices on an oven tray and grill for 1 minute, or until the top of the cheese is golden and bubbling.
On a large serving plate, or on four individual plates, arrange the salad, caramelised pears and grilled goat’s cheese. Sprinkle with the toasted hazelnuts to serve.
Spanish pepper and chickpea salad with sherry vinaigrette
I think that, in my long life, salads have improved more than anything else in cooking. In England they used to consist of a few lettuce leaves, slices of cucumber, vinegary beetroot and tasteless tomato arranged on a plate. Today salads have become things of beauty, like this one.
Serves 4
■ 2 large red peppers, roasted and peeled (see hack, left)
■ 1 x 400g tin of chickpeas, drained
■ 3tbsp capers, rinsed and drained
■ 2 garlic cloves,
crushed
■ A handful of
flat-leaf parsley, leaves picked and chopped
■ Zest of ½ a lemon
■ Salt and black pepper
For the vinaigrette
■ 60ml extra-virgin
olive oil
■ 20ml sherry vinegar
■ 1tsp clear honey
To serve
■ 2tbsp flaked almonds, toasted
■ A pinch of paprika
Slice the peppers into about 1cm strips and combine with all the other salad ingredients in a bowl.
In a separate small bowl, whisk together the vinaigrette ingredients.
Pour the vinaigrette over the salad and toss gently.
Leave the salad to marinate for at least 30 minutes to let the flavours develop.
Before serving, give the salad a final toss and season with salt and pepper to taste.
Serve the salad on a large plate, scattered with the almonds and paprika.
Summer watermelon and halloumi salad
When I came to England, watermelon was often a disappointment – pale and tasteless – but it’s much better now (the darker the flesh, the sweeter it will be). This dish makes an interesting starter or a satisfying veggie main.
SERVES 4-6
■ 3tbsp plain flour
■ 200g halloumi, sliced
■ 1tbsp vegetable oil, for frying
■ 200g watermelon, skin removed and flesh cut into thin slices
■ 30g rocket leaves
■ 20g pomegranate seeds
■ About 10 mint leaves, torn
For the pickled shallots
■ 3tbsp white wine vinegar
■ 1tbsp caster sugar
■ ½tsp salt
■ 2 shallots (or 1 small red onion), finely diced
For the dressing
■ 2tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
■ 1tbsp white balsamic vinegar
■ 1tsp clear honey
■ Salt and black pepper
First, make the pickled shallots. Tip the vinegar, sugar and salt into a small saucepan and add 3tbsp water. Stir, then place on a medium-high heat and bring to a boil. Boil for 1 minute, then remove from the heat and add the shallots (or red onion). Set aside to cool.
Whisk all the dressing ingredients together in a small bowl and season with salt and pepper. Set aside.
Tip the flour into a shallow bowl and season with salt and pepper. Dip the halloumi slices into the flour to coat.
Heat the vegetable oil in a frying pan on a medium-high heat. Add the halloumi slices and fry on each side for a few minutes, until golden and crisp. Leave to cool.
Arrange overlapping layers of halloumi, watermelon and rocket on a large serving plate.
Drain the shallots (or onion), and sprinkle them on top of the salad, along with the pomegranate seeds and mint leaves. Drizzle the dressing over or serve it on the side.
Avocado, marinated feta and chorizo on toast
Here’s a neat trick for slicing the flesh of an avocado. Put a cooling rack over a bowl. Place a halved avocado, in its skin, flesh-side down on the rack. Press the avocado through the rack into the bowl below. Slide the skin across the rack to scrape it clean.
SERVES 4
For the marinated feta
■ 100g feta cheese, broken into chunks
■ 4tbsp olive oil
■ Grated zest of 1 lemon
■ A pinch of chilli flakes
■ ½tsp fennel seeds
■ Salt and black pepper
For the chorizo
■ 140g chorizo, sliced lengthways on the diagonal
To serve
■ 2 ripe avocados, sliced
■ 4 slices of sourdough, toasted
■ A few basil leaves (optional)
To marinate the feta, combine the ingredients in a bowl and gently toss to mix. Cover and chill.
For the chorizo, heat a dry frying pan on a medium heat. Add the chorizo and cook until crisp (about 3 minutes per side). Remove the chorizo from the pan and place it on a plate lined with kitchen paper to drain any excess oil.
Divide the avocados between the toasts and top with equal amounts of the feta and chorizo, and a few basil leaves too, if you like.
Turkish eggs
I first had this on a walking holiday in Turkey. It was served when I asked for poached eggs for breakfast, and proved a far cry from the plain egg-on-toast I was expecting. Surprising and delicious.
SERVES 2
■ 200g Greek yoghurt, at room temperature
■ 1 garlic clove, crushed
■ Salt and black pepper
■ 50g butter
■ 1tsp pul biber or red
pepper flakes
■ ½tsp cumin seeds
■ 4 very fresh eggs
■ A small handful of dill, roughly chopped
■ 2 slices of sourdough bread, toasted, to serve
Mix together the Greek yoghurt and the garlic, and season with salt and pepper. Set aside.
In a small saucepan, melt the butter on a medium heat. Add the pul biber or red pepper flakes and the cumin seeds and cook for 1-2 minutes, until fragrant. Set aside.
One by one, poach the
eggs. While the first egg is cooking, spread a board or plate with kitchen paper or a folded clean tea towel.
Use a slotted spoon to carefully lift each poached egg out of the water. Gently shake off any excess water and slip each egg on to the prepared plate.
To assemble, divide the garlic yoghurt between two serving plates and top with 2 eggs each. Drizzle with a little of the chilli butter. Finally, sprinkle with dill and serve with toasted sourdough bread.
Fluffy buttermilk pancakes
Buttermilk makes wonderfully light and fluffy pancakes, and, of course, you can buy buttermilk in cartons in the supermarket if you haven’t made your own (see my hack, above).
Serves 4
■ 240g self-raising flour
■ 2tbsp caster sugar
■ 2tsp baking powder
■ ¼tsp salt
■ 300ml buttermilk
■ 2 large eggs
■ Butter, for cooking
■ Maple syrup or clear honey, to serve In a large mixing bowl, sift together the flour, caster sugar, baking powder and salt.
In a separate bowl, whisk together the buttermilk and eggs.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry and whisk just until smoothly combined.
Heat a non-stick frying pan on a medium heat. Melt a small knob of butter and swirl it around to coat the bottom of the pan. Drop separate spoonfuls of batter into the pan (how many spoonfuls will depend on the size of pancake you would like and the size of your pan).
Cook for 2-3 minutes, or until bubbles form on the surface and the edges are set.
Flip the pancakes over with a
fish slice and cook for another
1-2 minutes, or until puffed up.
Transfer to a plate and repeat until all the remaining batter is used up.
Serve the pancakes hot with maple syrup or honey drizzled over the top.
