Grete is the cook in the household and David loves to eat Grete's offerings.

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I love to create new and exciting dishes, trying out recipes and different ingredients. I try to make at least one new dish each week which I have not eaten before, and like to vary our food as much as possible. I try to cook at least 95% of my food from scratch, using Organic ingredients wherever possible. I endeavour to prepare my food in a healthy way, by grilling or roasting, or alternatively, have my fruit and vegetables raw. I love combinations of sweet and savoury or fruit with savoury dishes.

The dish above is Sumac-crusted lamb steaks on a bed of puréed white beens with slow-roasted tomatoes, sweet and sour red onions and minted peas.

Favourite foods include:

• Tarka Dhal
• Beans of any sort
• Lentils
• Fresh tuna steak
• Fillet steak (rare or blue)
• Baked beans and cheese on toast
• Peking duck
• King prawn salad with lime and chilli dressing
• Roast lamb with mint sauce

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In order to create all these new and exciting dishes, I need ideas. I am absolutely addicted to cookery books, and as well as the eight volume set you see in the picture, I have in excess of 100 cookery books, ranging from subjects like cakes, salads, chutneys & pickles, potatoes or onions, to all the different world cuisines - French, Chinese, Indonesian, Italin, Lebanese, Indian, Spanish, Greek, Malaysian, Cajun, Thai, Jamaican, African, Japanese, Korean, Moroccan, Mexican.......

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I also need the spices to be able to experiment with, and I am sure I have a wider selection of herbs and spices that your average supermarket! At last count, there were over 75 different herbs/spices in my cupboard, all neatly in containers and labelled.

My favourite spice is cumin, followed very closely by cinnamon. Favourite fresh herb is coriander, with basil close behind.

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I seem to have accumulated a number of different dinner services over the years. I have the red one seen below, a nice white one with a silver edge, white with gold edge, a green one to go with the garden furniture, yellow, black, metallic patterned, blue Chinese, Blue Denby, Italian pasta set and a crystal Cheese set. I also have about a dozen everyday sets that I use just for the two of us. Naturally I have matching glasses and cutlery.  

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Good food has to be accompanied by good wine, and we are both rather partial to bottle or two of the stuff. We tend to drink more red wine than white, depending on what we are eating and our mood, the weather and where we are.

Favourite wines include Chablis and Entre-deux-Mer for whites, Chateauneauf du Pape, Cote du Rhone, Cote du Beaune, Nuit St Georges, Chateau Latour, Saint Emilion or a Pinotage for reds.

We usually stock up on all our wines when we go to France - here David can be seen looking at a rosé wine in Auchan in Bolougne.

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Of course, with good food and wine, there is only one thing missing - good friends! We love to entertain, and do so most weeks.

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We also enjoy eating out, although I do object to paying extortionate prices for something I could have prepared better and cheaper at home! So we tend to go to special restaurants for special occasions, where we are more likely to be served food I would not cook at home.

Enjoying Crispy Fried Duck at my favourite Chinese restaurant.

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I love to try new foods when I am out and about, and if there is something on the menu that I have not tried before, I will order that.

Trying Durian fruit for the first time in Indonesia 2006. As they say: "it smells like hell but tastes like heaven." How true!

Other 'strange' foods that I have tried include:

• Zebu
• Whale
• Live ants
• Grasshoppers
• Snails
• Frogs legs
• Snake
• Dolphin
• Shark
• Bear
• Wild boar
• Crocodile
• Warthog
• Girafe
• Horse
• Reindeer
• Elk
• Dog
• Buffalo
• Camel
• Springbok
• Impala
• Mopani worms
• Birds' nest
• Fermented mare's milk

But the strangest of all has to be an almond that had passed though an elephant!

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When travelling, we like to eat where the locals do and the food that the locals eat in the way that they eat. To me that is one of the many pleasures of travel.

Grete eating with her right hand in India.