I had never met another person of Greek and Jamaican descent until last year, when my good friend in LA started going out with someone with the mix, and taste. I was like, "Wow, I thought I was the only one."
I've dreamed recently of opening a restaurant, which amalgamates the two: the Mediterranean, olive oil, lemon, zest, vinegar, salady things, with more hearty, filling West Indian ingredients. Imagine spanakopita (my favourite dish) made with callalo instead of spinach, or a lovely kebab with rice and peas.
My parents split when I was two, and my mother became a postwoman and I moved in with my grandparents around the corner and sort of never went back. My grandmother was blind – from laser eye surgery gone wrong - but still cooked and woke me up for school with tea. She prepared food – washed rice, grated carrots, peeled potatoes – without seeing anything. She had a sound-operated electric cooker and a mug with a water-level sensor.
As a twist on full English breakfast, my grandmother would do fried egg, sausages, beans and plantain. So that's the Jamaican side of the family and I loved the plantain, bread fruit, yam, pea soup and chicken curry.
When I was about five, my dad came back from Greece and moved in with us in Balham – he lived in the attic – and I was introduced to Greek food, especially when his mother moved here. She made amazing taramasalata, keftedes and skewered chicken.
At school they did jelly with ice cream every Friday, and I just didn't get it. I can't take jelly at all – the texture's too weird. And the first time I had chocolate-flavoured school custard, I immediately threw up. As a result I'm not a desserty person, unless the texture's very specific. Cake and custard has to involve no more than a little custard, and sweet pastry has to be far more solid than liquid.
When I was about 10 I was listening to a track by Brandy on the R&B chart show and I started thinking, "Can a song be hot like food?" I compare it to a recipe – how it's put together, how the ingredients need to be harmonious, how instrumentation is flavouring. Maybe the chorus is the main course, the verse the starter, and the outro dessert.
In November last year I had a nasty kidney infection. I'd been working extremely hard – forgetting to look after my body – a lot of the time just trying to stay awake, eating bananas and drinking Red Bull, but not enough water. I ended up in hospital for five days and it was all very shocking. It hurts having the needle in the arm connected to a bag of sustenance but it's interesting the way, without taste, the bag empties and you start feeling hydrated.
When I was leaving hospital, I felt really specific about what I needed to eat. I rang up the Blue Legume, my favourite cafe in Stoke Newington, and the owner said he'd personally deliver. When I got home he arrived with the Mediterranean breakfast: grilled halloumi, spicy Turkish sausage, feta cheese, fresh tomato, poached egg, marinated olives and brown toast with jam. I didn't have any cash on me, so it pays to be a loyal customer.
In [the film] Betty Blue I like the way they have breakfast each morning. I associate myself with Betty – I'm not as crazy, but I'm quite irrational sometimes – and I love how they have a bowl of coffee and dip the pain au chocolat.
I've made many a comforting vegetable soup for a boyfriend with man-flu. I love cooking for my boyfriend, and explaining how it's made. Because I'm trying to teach him what to be like, as he gets a bit freaked out in the kitchen. Both my previous boyfriends did, too. I used to have terrible arguments with one because I didn't like the way he was cutting something, or what order he was preparing things in, so it would get really stressful for me, watching. Hell is when food isn't made with love.
The album Is Your Love Big Enough? is out now on Warner Bros
