John Hind 

Christine Bleakley: ‘I love getting a burger at the football’

The TV presenter tells John Hind about her formative food experiences – and fiance Frank Lampard's cooking
  
  

Christine Bleakley
Christine Bleakley photographed at Sushinho, London, SW3. Photograph: Lee Strickland Photograph: Lee Strickland

I was two years old and mother went off to hospital to give birth to my sister, and I remember very vividly my grandmother giving me a bottle of hot milk – and me despising it. I haven't been able to go near hot or warm milk since.

My mum's a wonderful cook and we were spoiled as kids, having proper old-fashioned dinners – Sunday roasts, Irish stews – with everything freshly bought each day in Newtownards. When I was on Strictly Come Dancing, the walls of Mawhinney's butchers were covered with photos of me. There were signs saying, "Vote for Christine" among the carcasses.

When I moved to present ITV's Daybreak, I'd wake ravenous at 3am and get into work just after 4am and have a big bacon sandwich, then be nibbling pastries and sugary things – out of camera view – until the end of the show. Come 8.30am I felt I'd eaten two or three meals already. As Eamonn Holmes told me on the first day: "It's so easy to put on weight."

I often go back to Northern Ireland and stay in my old bedroom at my parents'. It's the only place I can completely switch off. My mother's homemade vegetable soup is comfort in a big bowl for me. And everything's got a big dollop of butter on it.

My fiancé Frank [Lampard] cooks quite a lot. He made a massive chilli recently for our guests. Unfortunately the glass lid he put on the saucepan cracked and a million pieces shattered into the chilli, so we ordered a takeaway.

The little kitchen in my place in Barnes is my kitchen, and Frank's little kitchen in Chelsea is mine, too – so I have two kitchens at the moment. And we're having a house renovated for us, which is doing our heads in. The other day we spent with kitchen brochures. I'd like the most modern one where things are hidden away. I don't like clutter and I love the smell of bleach.

For my parents, food will be the crucial part of our wedding this year. They won't care where it is, or who's there, as long as people are properly fed.

If I brought my parents to somewhere favourite like Sushinho [the Brazilian-Japanese restaurant in Chelsea] they'd say, "It's nonsense food, just nonsense." If there aren't potatoes and meat involved it's "a wasted meal" for them. But I love going out to restaurants. If I have a hobby, I'd say it's eating out.

I go to every Chelsea home game, when not working. I love getting a burger from a stand on the way, adding ketchup from a dirty bottle.

Christine Bleakley - the Workout DVD is out now

 

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