I’ve known since I was little that I was a mess. I picked my nose. I hated dresses. My father told me I was the ugly duckling of the family – that I’d grow into a beautiful swan. But I never heard that part. I was small, then suddenly tall. I thought too fast. So fast I barely spoke, and when I did, I was told to quieten down. My brain whirred constantly.
Then my father moved away. And then he died. I was 15. It was the first day of my exams. Sod that. I walked out of school. I shaved my head, wore too much makeup, pierced my face and body 22 times. I drank cider and smoked fags by the Eros fountain in Piccadilly.
My mother was inspirational, but unconventional. She raised three girls alone, with three jobs, no money, and a boyfriend we loathed. She did life her own messy way. Cooking gave me focus. It made me feel safe. Loved. I fixated on it the way I’d once fixated on cats and sharks when I was tiny. I cooked obsessively – I read a cookbook a night. I received my lost education from those pages.
The cookery writers I worshipped were steely but soft – Julia Child, Elizabeth David – women who commanded attention while working within rigid, male-dominated systems, producing food that was generous, emotional, alive. They paved the way for me. They meant that I believed — wrongly, blissfully — that I could be anything. That belief has been my greatest privilege.
Music was my other escape. I would watch my mum clean the house while dancing with my sisters to Meat Loaf and ABBA. I don’t think my mum paid much attention to the lyrics, but they turned me into a hopeless romantic. Then I saw Debbie Harry on The Muppets and stopped dead. My first girl crush. There weren’t many women singing on television, certainly not ones who looked like that.
When my older sister came home from university I was in awe of her. She was spitting stuff on politics, reading about Classics and philosophy and listening to mixtapes full of indie records. Something in me cracked open. My music taste started leaning towards metal – the heavier the better – then punk. Poly Styrene screaming about bondage and clichés; Patricia Morrison of Sisters of Mercy with her Elvira attitude; Viv Albertine from the Slits, gobby and brilliant, and Kate Pierson from the B-52s, a retro pop siren, silly, sexual, her harmonies with Cindy Wilson rewiring my brain. These women didn’t look like other girls. They understood sexuality and tomboyishness and humour. They helped me make sense of myself.
I built myself out of the musicians I loved. Tried on looks until one stuck – the beehive, a hairstyle that for a long time was my signature. But when I landed on television as a presenter of cooking shows, I wasn’t allowed to be myself. I had been wearing that look since my teens, but by the time I made it onto TV, my hair meant I was wrongly perceived as more “domestic goddess” than “punk”. Sure, I can cook, but my interest in being clean and tidy? Nonexistent. I was a chef, who cooked like the men who taught me. But everyone saw me as a pretty girl who screamed 1950s housewife.
Like many women who are too loud, I’ve spent a lifetime overcompensating. Proving my worth. Seeking permission. Even saying “I’m a chef” makes me uncomfortable – despite having spent more than two decades in kitchens. When I wear whites, men squirm. When I assert myself, the room shifts – and I know it doesn’t shift that way for them.
Food and music have always mirrored each other for me: the kitchen and the music studio are both driven by the same hunger for rhythm, improvisation and creativity. Both are visceral spaces where women are still asked to prove they belong, to soften their edges, temper their ambition and be palatable. My favourite women chefs and women musicians share an instinctive refusal to do so. They cook and play from the gut, embracing emotion and intuition as strengths rather than flaws. In both worlds, women aren’t just mastering their craft, but constantly pushing to make themselves heard.
Which brings me to my new YouTube series, Messy Lunch. A show where I get to interview the musicians I love – those with decades of experience, cultural authority and sharp minds. Just like the chefs who have influenced and inspired me – Angela Hartnett, Clare Smyth or April Bloomfield – these are the women musicians who have shaped who I am. British singer-songwriter and my soul sister Rose Dougall; Kate Clover, a firecracker in the LA Punk scene; rock duo the Nova Twins.
The women I surround myself with now are talented, beautiful, funny and complicated. We macerate together. We compare notes. We make each other feel normal again in bodies often ruled by hormones and inside systems that seem determined to drag us backwards.
In an age of wellness, relentless optimisation and performative discipline, messiness can start to feel like a personal failure. We’re surrounded by images of control: sculpted bodies, ritualised routines, women who appear to manage everything without spilling a thing. Against that backdrop, being messy can feel like falling short, when it can actually be a place to thrive, to learn about yourself and from your mistakes. Being messy? It’s honest. And I wouldn’t change it.