Still dining with me a decade on

Iam a real foodie - in case you hadn’t noticed - so 10 years ago when I got the opportunity to appear on Channel 4’s Come Dine With Me, I was over the moon as I was a massive fan of the show.

Notice I say WAS and not AM. I think filming the show took some of the TV magic away. I didn’t realise I would be filming from 8am to 2am, I had no clue what I was doing or realise how physically exhausting it would all be.

Having said that - I met the other participants and over the week of filming we became friends. We shared the same experience of being TV virgins who had to cook, smile, talk and entertain on camera for over 60 hours.

For me personally, Come

Dine With Me started my career in television. Since then, I have launched my own Youtube channel, cook book, had live shows on shopping channels Hochanda & IDEAL World and this January, my own show on ITV. However, no matter what I have done, people still remember me as the lady who appeared on Come Dine With Me - even though it was 10 years ago.

This December it was our Come Dine With Me 10th anniversary, so we had a reunion dinner to celebrate.

Even though we hadn’t met for a while, it didn’t matter - we can still look back on our shared experience and reminisce about it all. We talked about Carol’s dogs eating at the dinner table, how Shane hated my food (and still does actually) and how Aly actually was the best cook and deserved to win.

So, in hindsight, it was a wonderful experience and even though it was a gruelling week’s schedule and we didn’t actually know what we were doing - we found each other and whilst we may not have looked like friends on TV, we are in real life.

Who knows what 2020 will bring, well no matter where I am in the world landing back at customs at Heathrow airport or at A&E with my son - someone will say, “oh, you look familiar”. Of course I smile and say “oh did you see my ITV show” and they say “aren’t you the lady from Come Dine With Me?”

CHRISTMAS TIP

If you can’t be with the ones you love - love the ones you are with.

You can watch Parveen on Youtube at Parveen The Spice Queen Or live on Ideal World Shopping channel, Sky 664, freeview 22