Expert tips from the Berry best

Mary Berry is back with a new series and cookbook, Love To Cook. ELLA WALKER gets some top advice

- ELLA WALKER

DAME Mary Berry has worked in the food industry for more than five decades and is always keen to keep learning.

The 86-year-old’s new TV series and accompanying cookbook, Love To Cook, sees her get to grips with preserved lemons and white miso, and she’s intent on bringing home cooks along with her.

“I enjoy so much the teaching side,” says the Bath-born food writer and presenter, adding that, “Every recipe is achievable. It’s not too many ingredients, and they’re the sort of recipes that your family will go through.”

Trained at Le Cordon Bleu and with aeons of experience to back her up, when you speak to her, Mary can’t help but share tips and tricks for making the most of your food – whether you buy it or grow it yourself.

Here’s a handful of her best hacks...

Grow your own lemons – and prune that lemon tree

Mary has a lemon tree she “cherishes” – but she does have an edge: “I look round at other people who have lemon trees and they don’t prune it. I snip away at it in the summer in the growing season.

“It’s a lovely shape and very dense now, wonderful green. I feed it and it’s in a very sunny spot.” It’s going into the greenhouse wrapped up for winter, but she says “the other thing you have to do is to pick the fruit. If you leave all the fruit on it, it doesn’t bother to turn the flowers into fruit.”

Sow potatoes in big buckets

In the new series, Mary meets a celebrated allotmenter, Terry, who taught her a few things about growing potatoes. “He grew potatoes, as I do, in big plastic bins,” she explains.