Beginner's Pluck

Lisa Faulkner

Lisa left school at 16 and became a model. At 19 she made her first film. She still acts, and is a TV presenter. When, in 2010, she appeared on Celebrity MasterChef, she rediscovered her joy in cooking — something she loved to do with her mother, who, sadly, died when Lisa was 16. She won the series, and now has cooking slots on various TV shows.

The idea for her book came in the wake of MasterChef. “I wanted to put my mother’s recipes into a book. They were so evocative to me, and were tied in with my memories of her, and of my childhood. I started with just recipes, but ended up writing lots of stories too.”