My earliest food memory, in London during the war, is of the shortage of canned peaches. When mum occasionally got hold of a can, we'd be allocated one slice each and I'd fight with my sister [Joan] over a second "You had two already", "No, I had one", "You cannot have two just because you're older than me!" I say this because, nowadays, in my house in California, I'll sometimes have a full can of Del Monte peaches for lunch, with a whole bunch of cream.
My father was a theatrical agent and on Friday nights held a card party at home with Lew Grade and other guys, so mum would make a trolley of drinks and nibbles for them. When I was little I would sit silently on the bottom shelf of the trolley, before it was wheeled in, and then, hidden by the trolley-cloth, I'd listen to these chauvinist guys being derogatory about women. It really coloured my impressions of men.
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