I want chef Angela on my desert island

CHEF Angela Hartnett was Kirsty Young’s guest on Desert Island Discs this week — and what an inspiration.

At the beginning of her career, Angela was the only woman working in Gordon Ramsay’s kitchen. Can you imagine? The pace was gruelling: 14 hours a day, six days a week. Nobody thought Ange would last two weeks.

She went on to become a top chef without feuding, fighting or resorting to the flamboyant machismo and histrionics so common among egocentric male celebrity chefs.

‘At the end of the day, it’s only a plate of carrots,’ is how she puts it. Now 49, she is marrying boyfriend Neil this year and is honest about not being able to have a family.

‘I never said “I am not having children”, and then when I wanted to, it was too late,’ she said. She was in her mid-40s when she had IVF. ‘But it just didn’t work. If I had realised it earlier on, it probably would have happened, but I was working, working, working.’

Modest, funny, sensible, kind, Angela accepts that, sometimes, you can’t have it all, but counts her blessings anyway. And her zabaglione, which she makes with a splash of whisky, is divine. Heroine!