home truths
HUGH FEARNLEY WHITTINGSTALL GETS UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL WITH HIS HOME
The celebrity chef and TV personality lives in Devon with wife Marie, daughter Louisa and their three dogs
WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU DO WHEN YOU GET HOME?
I drop my backpack on an old leather armchair just inside the front door where there’s also a sofa and a fireplace. I’m looking to make contact with either a human – my daughter Louisa or wife Marie – or one of our three dogs.
WHAT’S YOUR HOMEWARE ADDICTION?
I like to buy, occasionally, secondhand cookware that I think will look good in photographs because I put cookbooks together and I want them to look great. If I go into a secondhand shop, I’ll look for stuff that has got a patina about it, that’s got the feel of having been part of someone’s life. When I buy a brand new frying pan every few years, I probably get the Le Creuset nonstick.
WHAT CHORE DO YOU LOVE DOING? Making my daughter’s breakfast. I don’t really see it as a chore but it’s something I do almost every day. It could be something very simple like toast and peanut butter, but I quite often make her scrambled eggs on toast and I always cut up one or two pieces of fruit. It takes a minute or two to put together a nice breakfast, then we sit down together for a chat before she goes to school.
…AND WHAT CHORE DO YOU HATE? e hoovering. I do it occasionally, but I’m not the main hoover-er. I hope that I make up for it in other ways but I suspect it probably is a deficit in my bank balance of domestic chores.
DO YOU HAVE A BAD HOME HABIT YOU’D LIKE TO QUIT?
I could be tidier. I take off shoes in odd places around the house and, every now and again I find a small mountain of shoes at the bottom of the stairs, which is a subtle message [from my wife], saying. ‘Please put them in more sensible places’.
WHAT DO YOU MISS MOST ABOUT YOUR HOME WHEN YOU’RE AWAY?
My family. I am a homesick traveller, which is not to say I don’t enjoy the adventure of travel, but I’m always thinking of home. I call home, I send messages, I send pictures, I want pictures back of what’s going on at home. I don’t just stride out and disconnect. Coming home is always a great treat. ere’s that lovely sense of relief and calm.
■ How to Eat 30 Plants a Week by Hugh FearnleyWhittingstall is out now (£25, Bloomsbury).