Fran Warde has written extensively for food magazines, including BBC Good Food, the Saturday Times Magazine, Waitrose Food Illustrated, and was food editor of Red magazine, before taking on the job at Tesco’s Magazine. She is co-author, with bestselling novelist Joanne Harris, of The French Market (2002) and The French Kitchen (2005), which won a Golden Ladle at the 2005 World Food Media Awards. She is now working on a new book with Joanne Harris all about chocolate.
In 2011, much to the joy of local residents, she helped to launch the Ginger Pig on the Askew Road and also co-wrote the Ginger Pig Meat Book.
Fran lives in West London with her husband and two sons.
Where are you right now?
Sitting at my desk working on the recipes for my next book “Chocolat book of Chocolate” that am working on with Joanne Harris. I will be in the kitchen next week testing them!
What do you do for ‘me-time’?
Usually I row on the Thames, play tennis at the Hartswood Club, and I love my pilates classes at West London Osteopaths, but following a small skiing injury I am unable to do either, so have taken up the more sedentary exercise of a walk along the Thames.
Where is your favourite place to eat in West London?
Depends on the occasion and who I’m with, but I have never had a bad meal at the Anglesea Arms. I would wish to visit the River Café more frequently but the boys love a Katmandhu or Som Tam!
Career and children – top tip on how do you do it?
Deep breath, juggle, smile, chase, scream, cry, iphone, ipad, twitter, husband and a glass of wine!
If you had to make a quick escape where would you go?
To a very small village, high in the French Alps, with enormous views and surrounded by nature. Any negative thoughts just melt away.
What is on your bedside table?
Photos, a little pink sea shell gathered from a magical holiday, a beautiful box that my mother gave me filled with precious trinkets and my new reading glasses.
Three things you’d take with you to a desert island?
Sewing basket – I would have enough time to finish it all and actually see the bottom. A skipping rope – I would love to learn how to skip really fast on the spot and paper and paints so I could learn to paint again. I loved it at school but never continued….
Who would you most like to meet for a drink?
David Bowie would be pretty cool, I wonder what he would wear or drink? I collected all his albums as a child and used to play them on a portable record player that Dad brought back from Japan as a gift. I would endlessly lay on my bed singing Space Oddity. I just wish I had seen him in concert at the Shepherds Bush Empire, I did phone to see if they had any returns but they just laughed at me.
What is your greatest extravagance?
We are about to embark on builders taking over our house, so all extravagances are about to become non-existent.
What is your favourite thing to do as a family?
Time together – a sunny day starting with tennis or a bike ride, then we retreat to the garden, play table tennis, tinker with the lawn or flower beds, yet again sort out the shed, the boys cook a meal, maybe friends pop by and the day just rambles on gently with the sun setting while we still are in the garden.
Fran was talking to Annabelle King.
