My mother had no idea how to cook
I once caught her boiling a chicken. There was a claw sticking out of the pot that I thought was my grandmother’s hand. Ever since then, I’ve been terrified of going in the kitchen.
Hot dogs were all I ate as a child in America
My father ran the Edward Wax Casing Company; I still have a mug with the logo on it. It’s a miracle that I eat meat today. He once took me to his factory, which had miles and miles of sausage skins that looked like condoms, and unhappy people probably being paid slave wages, and he turned to me and said: “One day, this will all be yours.” I was in Britain by the time I was 18.
Back in the 1970s, the food here was like pornography
Everything was yellow and steaming. Do you remember the horror of toad in the hole and spotted dick? And there were pork pies that looked like my grandmother — blotted with Vaseline, pink and crusty. I went to a Wendy’s and thought it was a delicacy; my fingers smelled for two years afterwards.
Receiving an OBE made me a monarchist
Since I’m an American citizen, I couldn’t receive the award [for services to mental health] at Buckingham Palace, so I had the ceremony at the Priory, where I had been admitted a few years earlier. I’d never used a teacup before, but now I see the point of them: I get the whole English thing.
Salad dressing is the limit of my culinary terrain
I can just about put oil, vinegar, mustard and honey together. I never cook from choice; I only have so many seconds on earth. My husband, Ed, does most of the cooking. My mother was Austrian and used to teach me that the stove was dangerous by putting my hand in the flames for a few seconds. Now, if I hear the sound of kitchen appliances, I have to leave the room.
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If I were told I was dying, I would eat one chocolate hot-fudge sundae after another
But I make an effort to eat organic stuff nowadays — rice and wholegrain bread, anything that smells of feet and incense. I used to love the buzz of red wine, but the medication I take now for my mental health stops the booze from hitting you. Sometimes I have a strong martini, which cuts through a bit.
Food fads make me nuts
I tried one where you only eat grapefruit and had to go to hospital to have the pulp pulled out of me. Somebody once made me a flask of kale and turmeric juice. I drank it in one go. It was as though I had consumed the lawns of Buckingham Palace — miles and miles of field.
The paleo diet makes me hysterical
I tried not eating carbs. It works until you put a piece of bread in your mouth, then suddenly you’re a Goodyear blimp again.
The good thing is that people on fad diets will die
It will leave more room for the rest of us. We know sugar and fat are bad, so what’s the point of a book on nutrition? We have the information already: fruit and vegetables, not too much butter. Nowadays, they’re making gluten-free cushions.
I once fell in love with a digestive biscuit
I was on a silent retreat and, at one point, I broke my silence to run to the kitchen, with tears in my eyes, to ask them how they had done the potatoes. And they said: “They are boiled potatoes in oil from Tesco.” Because I wasn’t talking to anyone, I really noticed the food. I’m about to go on another silent retreat, in California, just so I can eat like that.
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I don’t think I’m ever going to be given my own cooking show
I suspect this interview has ensured that. I once ruined a cooking programme on TV when I accidentally pulled the finished pie out of the oven. Everybody was rushing around me, making a pie, and I opened the oven and said: “What are you all doing? There’s one in here.”
People once thought I was trying to kill David Cameron
Miranda Hart and I were sent to cook for him at Downing Street for Comic Relief, with the judges from MasterChef. I was making crab salad. I dropped the crab claw on the floor of the kitchen and was picking the meat out of the shell. I saw a pair of shoes next to me, looked up and it was the prime minister. I eventually covered the crab in avocado, served it to him and ran away. I still find pieces of avocado under my fingernails.
A Mindfulness Guide for the Frazzled by Ruby Wax (Penguin £9.99)
A day on Ruby’s plate
Breakfast
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I eat the same granola every day, prepared by my housekeeper, Bobby. (Her real name is Bulgarian and I find it impossible to pronounce.) I like it so crunchy that it tears the back of your throat.
Lunch
Anything with bones. A chicken carcass and some salad. I eat out of Tupperware a lot because I’m often on a train.
Dinner
We usually go out, for steak or fish, but never with any sauce. I like the Delaunay, the Ivy and J Sheekey.