How you feed people:

One enormous thing, everybody at the table, one o'clock sharp.Well, and without making the whole thing an event.Something that has been on since this morning.A lot of small things, standing up, for hours.

Your relationship with a recipe:

Followed exactly. Weighed. It exists for a reason.Followed for two years, then improved, then defended.Glanced at. You know roughly what you are doing.Whatever makes it look best when it arrives at the table.

Pick the compliment you would want about something you made:

"Everyone stayed four hours longer than they meant to.""It was even better the next day.""How on earth did you get it to do that?""That is exactly what I needed."

What you are like when you are stressed:

Efficient, low-key, and not making it anybody's problem.Out. With people. Loud.In a process. Measuring something. Controlling one thing.Doing something elaborate for somebody else.

The meal you would want on a genuinely bad day:

Somebody else's family table, with no explaining required.Something cheap and bright, outdoors, eaten on a wall.Something so good that it interrupts the mood by force.Something sweet that somebody brought round unasked.

How you want a group of friends to remember you:

As reliable, and quietly better than expected.As the one it was worth waiting for.As the one who took it seriously and got it right.As who they would ring at one in the morning.

Pick a Friday night:

Eight people round a table you had to extend.In, early, something good, no ceremony whatsoever.The place you booked six weeks ago.Making something that takes all evening, on purpose.

The thing you do that you are not proud of:

You want everything to take longer than anybody else does.You invite more people than there is actually room for.You eat standing at the counter and call that dinner.You do enormous things for people and then need them noticed.

What do you actually want from a meal out?

Enough of it, and people you like.Somewhere new. Somewhere you would never have found.To work out how they did it, and go home and try.Warmth, and to be left alone for about an hour.

Pick what you would rather be told:

"You are the one thing about today that worked.""That was worth the wait.""I have never had anything like it.""You didn't have to do all this."

The thing you are secretly proud of:

Nobody has ever left your house hungry.You can make something good out of whatever is in.Your patience. It has outlasted several impatient people.You are the reason at least four people tried something.

Somebody sums you up in one line. You want:

"They never served anything they weren't proud of.""They got extremely good at one thing, slowly.""They turned up with exactly what was needed.""Everything anybody celebrated, they were part of."