Prue Leith, a grande dame of British cooking, has led an extraordinarily busy life. As a result, this memoir unfolds at an incredible pace  through her 13-year affair with her mother's best friend's husband (they ultimately married), opening her award-winning restaurant and cookery school, childbirth, adoption, boards, committees and television. In addition to setting up the businesses that bear her name, she kickstarted the use of the empty plinth in Trafalgar Square and forced British Rail to stop serving inedible white sandwiches.

Whether Leith is talking about business, personal tragedy or her accidental attendance at an orgy, her tone is no-nonsense  a quality that enabled her to navigate her way in and then, 25 years on, out of what is still a tough, male-dominated industry. The book also contains some hilarious vignettes, best of all how the Daily Mail office was evacuated because she thought she'd received a letter bomb. In fact, she'd muddled the quantity of treacle in a marmalade recipe; the parcel contained an orthodontic retainer welded to a lump of burnt sugar, and the bill for its replacement.