Latest news with #CordonBleuCookerySchool
Wales Online
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Wales Online
Prue Leith admits ‘I can't imagine I have that long' as she makes decision for her future
Prue Leith admits 'I can't imagine I have that long' as she makes decision for her future Dame Prue Leith has shared a candid insight into her plans for the rest of her life with husband John Playfair, as The Great British Bake Off judge admits "I can't imagine I have all that long" Dame Prue Leith admitted 'I can't imagine I have all that long' as she shared her plans for the future (Image: PA ) Dame Prue Leith has opened up about wanting to make the most of life, as she is more aware of her own mortality after entering her eighth decade. Over the years, Dame Prue has become one of the most respected names in the culinary world, having begun her journey in the industry at the world-famous Cordon Bleu Cookery School back when she was just 20-years-old. After honing her skills at the renowned cookery school, Dame Prue took her first steps in the industry as she opened her debut restaurant, Leith's, in Notting Hill, London. While her career in cooking has gone from strength to strength since then, the 85-year-old has become a prominent name in broadcasting. Dame Prue began her cookery career at the Cordon Bleu Cookery School (Image: Getty Images ) She landed what is possibly her most notable TV role back in 2017 when she took over from Dame Mary Berry on The Great British Bake, judging on the show alongside Paul Hollywood. Article continues below Meanwhile, during a new interview with Candis magazine, the Great British Bake Off star admitted "I can't imagine I have all that long" as she plans to go on holiday and make the most of this summer with her husband, John Playfair, while they're still in good health. Sharing her most recent life update, she said: "The great thing is to plan to have a future, I can't imagine I have all that long because I'm 85, but I just intend to have a good time. My resolution these days is to just have fun." She has previously said how she is hoping to spend more time with her husband (Image: Getty Images ) Keen to have as much "fun" as possible in the time that she has left, Great British Bake Off fans will have noticed Prue's absence from the latest instalment of the celebrity version of the show earlier this year. And, at the time, the star explained her decision, hinting at the tightly packed schedule possibly being one of her main reasons for stepping back, sharing: "It's mainly because these things are filmed back to back." She added: "The whole way through the summer, so you start in April and you end at the end of August. Honestly, you get no time off. And, I'm getting a bit old and there's places I want to go." Article continues below She tied the knot with John Playfair eight years ago (Image:) Away from speaking of her desire to start spending more time on things she enjoys now she's getting older, Dame Prue also shared a touching tribute to the role that her husband, John Playfair, has had on her life since tying the knot eight years ago. She said: "I think I've been so blessed because I have had really happy marriages. John and I have been together for 13 years and married for eight. He's good fun and makes me laugh."
Daily Mirror
10-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
GBBO's Prue Leith issues blunt response to husband's fear of being outlived
Great British Bake Off judge Dame Prue Leith has been married to John Playfair since 2016, following the death of her first husband Rayne Kruger Dame Prue Leith, the culinary legend from Great British Bake Off, has shared her husband's fears of adopting a new dog that might outlive him. The restaurateur and baking sensation has become a familiar face on our screens through her various TV stints. The 85-year-old is perhaps best known for her stint as a judge on Channel 4's Great British Bake Off, where she joins Paul Hollywood at the judging table. In her personal life, Dame Prue is married to John Playfair, whom she met at a dinner party in Yorkshire, following the death of her first husband Rayne Kruger. The couple tied the knot in 2016, and while they share a loving home with their two Cavalier King Charles spaniels, they're in discussions about whether or not they should add another furry friend to the mix. John voiced his concern that any new pet might outlive him, but Dame Prue has been having none of it, reportedly dismissing his apprehension with a firm: "What nonsense", when she spoke to the Times. In addition to this, the expert baker has been frank about her own age, expressing on the Travel Diaries podcast: "I haven't got much longer, I'm 85, I want to spend as much time as I can with him." The Bake Off judge has also discussed the dynamics of her relationship, praising her husband's down-to-earth nature. She said: "One of the wonderful things about him is that he is totally without ego, he doesn't feel threatened by the fact that I have a higher profile than he does, when I introduce him (to people) he always just says, 'I'm the handbag carrier, I'm her chauffeur'." Her journey in the culinary world began at the age of just 20 when she trained at the Cordon Bleu Cookery School. This led to an impressive career that includes launching her own restaurant. Dame Prue later joined The Great British Bake Off in 2017, when she replaced Dame Mary Berry. Eight years on, and she's started to talk about life after the popular baking programme. Speaking to the Mail On Sunday earlier this year, she admitted that she would take part in the 2025 edition, but didn't know if she would be around in future seasons. She explained: "I'm doing this year's Bake Off, and I don't know if this will be my last. I've got to stop some time, so I might stop next year. I thought I'd just see how I go this year, because I definitely feel a bit older this year than I did last year. "Things like getting out of a chair takes me longer than it used to. I don't like big steps without a handrail. None of these things worried me two years ago – I could run upstairs – and so I'm very keen to leave Bake Off before I'm asked to leave." Dame Prue has also graced screens on some of the nation's most cherished shows, including The Great British Menu and Prue's Cotswold Kitchen.
Telegraph
28-03-2025
- Health
- Telegraph
Prue Leith: ‘There's no reason for ultra-processed foods'
When Dame Prue Leith moved from South Africa to the UK in the 1960s to study at the Cordon Bleu Cookery School there was a dearth of good food available. It is fair to say that in the 50 years since British food has become much more exciting and inspiring. 'For the rich,' asserts the 85-year-old chef and broadcaster. That is in no small part due to her influence; generations of professional chefs and amateur cooks have passed through the doors of Leith's School of Food and Wine. But she has also worked tirelessly through her various charitable positions to improve the food lives of the very poorest in society. It is fair to say it has been a slog. Her many successes have sadly been greatly outweighed by the overall state of the nation's dietary health today. A shocking 67 per cent of daily energy intake for 14-year-olds in the UK is made up of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) – industrially processed foods full of additives, sugar, salt and fat while lacking whole ingredients and dietary fibre. 'You just look at the statistics and the gap between rich and poor has grown steadily,' says Leith. We are talking ahead of a celebration event at the City Hall for the 15th anniversary of Food For Life Served Here. Currently, more than 6,500 caterers hold the Soil Association's Food for Life Served Here certification, across a variety of sectors from hospitals and schools, to private workplaces and visitor attractions. With an emphasis on fresh and unprocessed ingredients, caterers must regularly assess their menu to see that 75 per cent or more of the food they serve is cooked from scratch. As chair of the School Food Trust Leith has long advocated that Food for Life Served Here should be a model for how school food is done. Twenty years ago she laid the groundwork for the initiative during a lunch with the late Lord Peter Melchett, Policy Director at the Soil Association. While chairman of the Royal Society of Arts, Leith had founded Focus on Food, a charity that taught children to cook at school. The Soil Association meanwhile had Food for Life, which was teaching children to grow food: 'We just thought, you know, we should put these two things together,' recalls Leith. 'At first, we both thought that the two organisations wouldn't get on together. My lot thought, 'Oh my God, the Soil Association! They are a lot of green sandal wearing guys.' Anyway, of course they got on like a house on fire. And it has been running brilliantly ever since.' While its achievements are admirable – more than a million Food for Life Served Here certified meals are served in the UK every day and its schools programme currently reaches 250,000 children across the UK – they remain modest in the face of the bigger picture. Yet the solution is obvious to Leith. 'I feel so strongly that the most important thing we should be doing is getting a whole generation of children in school to love good food. To actually want to eat it. 'They would then go on wanting to eat it all their lives and then they'd teach their children how to do it. And we would solve the bloody obesity problem. We'd save the NHS. That would all happen.' This is not some new revelation: 'I've been saying the same thing for 50 years.' During that time she has also witnessed a lot of apathy from government. She recalls one encounter with a health minister years ago where she attempted to persuade him to invest in feeding children healthy food in schools. 'I told him how there's a lot of evidence that they learn better. If they're eating healthily then exam results go up. And he said, 'Why would I do that? If I put kitchens into schools, that would cost a lot of money and the benefit would not be for my department, it would be to the NHS.'' Repeatedly she has found that if it is not in the immediate financial interests of the person in charge, be it at government, council, or school head, then it is a low priority. It is an attitude that contrasts sharply with that of countries like Japan where nutrition is taken seriously in schools and each has a resident nutritionist. There are strict laws about not allowing processed foods to be used. 'The statistic that's stuck in my head is that 43 per cent of Americans are clearly obese, compared with 4 per cent of Japanese and falling. In Britain it's something like 38 per cent.' It is 20 years since Jamie's School Dinners aired on television, where Jamie Oliver worked in partnership with Food For Life to show how terrible they were. Back then the nation was horrified by Turkey Twizzlers, and equally the attitude of some parents who pushed fish and chips through the fences to their 'starving' children. Have things improved since then? 'Oh yes, certainly. Most schools at least feel badly about if they haven't got it right. But it will all depend on the head. If the headteacher thinks food is good for education and will help his or her League Tables, then they will put some effort and energy into it. And once you see a teacher who cares it's remarkable what they can do on the same budget.' She recalls a boys' Academy in Sheffield where the headteacher ruled that every student would have a school lunch every day. 'The chef said the only way he could afford to do it was to go vegetarian. I went in and I couldn't believe it, it looked like Ottolenghi! There were all these wonderful salads, lentils, guacamole. The children were filling their own tacos. It was delicious. I asked how can you afford pomegranate and paw paw. And he said 'I can buy all of that for less than I can buy even the cheapest meat'. On Fridays they would have fish, for their brains. They only got chips once a month. And all the kids loved it because they were hungry, and there was no other option so they would try stuff. And once they tried it they got to like it. 'That's the lovely thing about good food. Once you like a flavour, you like it for life. You don't unlike things, you just add more.' Pupils in Food for Life schools are twice as likely to eat their five-a-day than pupils in comparison schools. Even parents with the resources will attest that the greatest battle is getting children to try healthy food. Leith herself knows only too well. Her own son – now a Conservative MP in his 50s – spent his entire youth refusing to eat vegetables. 'I didn't worry too much because he ate a lot of fruit and he ate frozen peas.' He changed very rapidly when he got to the age of going to other friends' houses. 'He said: 'Mum, I have to learn to eat veg because it's embarrassing. I'm hiding things under things or having to put them in my turn ups,'' laughs Leith. Experience has shown her that school dinners work best when everyone has them. It takes the pressure off of parents to make packed lunches, and when the child gets to lunch time they are hungry. 'One school I know ended up giving sliced apples or carrot sticks at break. When kids are hungry they'll try stuff.' A 2016 study by Cornell University's Food and Brand Lab found that fruit consumption jumped by more than 60 per cent when apples were served sliced. Leith jokes: 'If I want my husband to eat oranges I have to cut them up for him. But all of that in schools costs money.' The shift to seeing food as medicine worth investing in is already happening she says in hospitals. 'Matt Hancock was a very good health minister. He commissioned a report to know what was wrong with hospital food and why it couldn't be fixed. And we came up with eight recommendations, all of which the government accepted,' explains Leith. 'The Treasury coughed up some money and all of it is happening slowly. More and more Hospital Trusts are taking it seriously.' When it comes to schools, she is against rolling out a one-size fits all schools solution, because: 'It's boring when you're cooking what you're told to cook.' Instead what is needed is to get talent into schools. 'Lots of chefs in schools are absolutely terrific,' she says. Her judgement on what constitutes processed and how strictly meals should be produced to be considered healthy, has relaxed. While she would personally never eat in a pub with a food distribution company Brakes – formerly Brakes Brothers – van outside, she admits to having had 'a lot of prejudice' about how food should be produced in institutions such as hospitals. 'I felt strongly that it has to be done on site, but I've changed my mind about that. As long as it's cooked from scratch it doesn't matter if it was done in a factory or a central hub. As long as they start with real ingredients and don't put any processed rubbish like emulsifiers in, it can still be packed, frozen and sent.' Leith is a huge fan of frozen food, both home-made and bought. The distinction should be about how many ingredients are in there that shouldn't be. Or ingredients that are not real ingredients. 'I am a big fan of asking whether your Granny would recognise the ingredient,' she says. There's no real reason for UPFs. Most food doesn't need that longevity.' In spite of all her years watching worthy initiatives take seed only to slowly wither due to lack of funding and government support, she remains optimistic that change is possible. 'So many charities are doing such a good job,' she says. However, she adds: 'I still think it's criminal that the government sits back and does nothing except patting charities on the head and saying, 'Aren't you good, we do support you.' No, they don't. They never give them any money.' It is time for government to realise how important good quality food and healthy eating is. 'But f--- it. Japan's done it and Finland's done it, why can't we?'
