Spilling the Beans

I was conceived in a bath in Norfolk in September 1946. How do I know? Well, my mother told me. As she put it, they were all rather exhausted after the war and there weren't many opportune occasions. One of the nation's best-loved cooks, Clarissa lived her life on a grand scale. Her mother was an Australian heiress, her father a brilliant surgeon. But he was also a tyrannical and violent drunk. Clarissa was determined and clever through, and her ambition led her, at the age of 21, to be the youngest woman ever called to the bar. After her mother died suddenly, grief led to a mind-numbing decade of over-indulgence during which she drank and partied away her enormous inheritance. It was a long hard road to recovery - and in the end it was cooking that brought her success, sobriety and peace...