Talented TV chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall proffers a magic solution to everyone’s culinary challenges in his new best-selling recipe book Three Good Things ... On A Plate!

Speaking to a an increasingly hungry King’s Hall audience last Thursday, with tummies audibly gurgling as he cruelly chatted about pork chops and roast chicken as the hour fast approached lunchtime, he revealed: “It all stems from the simple observation ... that so many of the recipes I was creating at home ... had something in common. They were little more, and little less, than three good things on a plate.

“Ham, egg and chips; rhubarb, crumble and custard, even the humble jacket potato, baked beans and grated Cheddar.”

With this concept firmly established, Hugh went on to also reveal his motivations behind his first steps towards what has proved to be an immensely successful career in cuisine. In his own words, he “graduated to being his mum’s pastry chef by the age of eight”! And he never looked back from there.

A rollercoaster ride of an introduction to the rigors of restaurant life at the renowned River Cafe in London saw him axed after just six months, but the seeds were sown for a journey that took him onto our TV screens via robustly rubbished roadkill recipes in Cook On The Wild Side through to his River Cottage capers to his current ethical campaigns regarding the fishing industry, chicken processing plants and landshare projects.

But the affable Hugh is adamant his life’s triumphs have come about more by accident than design. He said: “There was never a vision or a grand plan, and there still isn’t.”

Given his incredible commercial and campai-gning achievements, that is the sort of plan we could all do with!

Richard Parker