Using His Loaf (From Oxford Mail)

Using His Loaf

6:00pm Thursday 29th July 2010 in News By Katherine MacAlister

James Martin, the housewives’ favourite, has always pushed himself to the limit. Whether it’s with cooking, dancing or car racing. But has this cheeky chappy taken on more than he can chew by daring to teach the WI to cook? Katherine MacAlister finds out.

James Martin is deceptively good-looking.

Deceptive, because his winning smile, white teeth, and boyish good looks mask a steely determination.

It’s not for nothing that he’s been chosen to front Saturday Kitchen on BBC1 and in doing so boosted ratings by 1.8 million.

Women love him and men admire him. When he’s not in the kitchen you can find him haring around the country lanes in Hampshire racing one of his six cars.

But what fuels his determination, is a passion for food that will never cool, unlike his fan base.

And what brings him to Oxfordshire is an invitation from the local WI for a canned food cookery demonstration.

So is he a better man than Tony Blair, or will they throw him to the dogs too?

“I’m definitely up for it,” the 38-year-old grins, “I’ve worked with the WI on numerous occasions and found them to be great fun, and as a chef you can learn so much from the way they cook. Most chefs have been taught by their mothers so they represent generations of knowledge of cooking.”

James is also racing at Silverstone this weekend, so which event daunts him most? “I’m really looking forward to spending the day with the ladies from the WI to help them use canned food as part of their daily diet, which fits really well into a modern, fast-paced lifestyle. But racing at Silverstone is great fun as well.”

So what came first, cooking or cars? James ponders this for a moment.

“I’ve had a love for cars and cooking for as long as I can remember and have grown up surrounded by both – at the time of having my pedal car my love of food grew in tandem and unfortunately that meant that my backside couldn’t fit in the car and my thoughts of being a racing driver diminished as quickly as the cake I was eating,” he laughs.

“I have six cars now and my favourite is an old Ferrari, but food has always been the number one priority in my life – always has and always will be. I never get bored of it, no matter how many hours I do. I think it’s important for a chef never to lose sight of what started the passion in the first place.”

And yet so many celebrity chefs find that TV work takes over to such a degree that they rarely get time in the kitchen. Is this the case for James?

“I don’t actually do a lot of TV work compared with other chefs,” he says. “Apart from Saturdays, most of the week is taken up with outside catering gigs, so cooking is always at the forefront of my mind.”

Catering business aside, James also has restaurants on several cruise ships.

And yet he did find the time to take on Strictly Come Dancing 3 and came fourth. “It was one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life, and most people who do it will tell you the same. I really, really enjoyed it though,” he remembers.

So that much we know. But James is curiously closed about his private life. Is that how he likes it? “Yes,” he answers effectively halting that line of enquiry.

And then taking pity on me he adds: “I live in Hampshire and am quite happy and content in life – I think as you get older your attitude towards stuff changes. And I’m of the opinion that if you’re still stood upright it’s the best place to be.”

* James Martin’s Oxford WI cookery events are fully booked but to look at the recipes he’ll be demonstrating go to canned food.co.uk