Trudie Styler: 'It's worth venturing out just to go to the Popham Little Chef'

(JAMIE HARRIS)

My earliest food memory... Boiled eggs and soldiers. My sisters and I would make the soldiers and my mum would cook the eggs, then we'd all sit down together. I'm still a boiled egg fan – I had one this morning, in fact – but the difference now is that I'm lucky enough to have my own chickens that produce eggs with lovely golden yolks.

My store-cupboard essentials... Olive oil: we have a 20-acre olive grove in Tuscany, and we make our own. It's very piquant, as the olives have a very peppery taste in that region. Also, Jaffa Cakes: I love that orange zest as soon as you bite into one. Mum used to make a wonderful chocolate-orange drizzle cake but I don't have the recipe, so a Jaffa Cake is the next best thing.

The kitchen gadget I can't live without... My Magimix juicer. I like green juices in the morning, made from things such as kale and cucumber and peppers, then in the afternoon, when the blood sugar goes down, I'll make a carrot, apple and ginger juice. In summer, I blend berries and throw ice-cream in there.

My culinary tip...My mum used to say, "Never cook in a bad mood, and never eat in a bad mood." That's my outlook, too: if you eat in a bad mood, your stomach is going to be contracted and you're not going to digest your food as well. Also, it may sound a bit woo-woo, but try to be very present with what you're cooking – think about what you're doing, not all the other things going on in your life. My yoga background encourages me to think like that.

My favourite food shop... The Salisbury Women's Institute has a lovely market on the weekends near my house in Wiltshire. It's full of home-made cakes and great veggies, and I love the sense of a community sharing in the wealth of the countryside. Also, Zabar's in New York, which is a great Jewish deli: I don't know whether it's because I've been pregnant so many times, but I'm a pickle freak, and I love their gherkins and pickled cabbage.

My guilty pleasure... Little Chef. I live near the Popham branch and when we were renovating the house and I was going back and forth from London all the time, I'd stop in for a greasy-spoon breakfast. Now Heston's done it over, of course, and we're so proud of it: it's actually worth venturing out of the house just to go there and come back again.

My top table... For sheer nostalgia, San Lorenzo [in Knightsbridge]. I used to go there at lunchtime with the kids when they were as young as two and the owners Mara and Lorenzo gave us such a lovely welcome. To me, that's the sign of a great restaurant: when the restaurateurs are there day in and out and really get to know you, because you want a restaurant to feel like a home away from home.

My dream dining companion... Winston Churchill. He probably wouldn't have been very interested in me – he was a little dismissive of women – but he fascinates me. I made a documentary with Alan Yentob on great orators and I got to sit down with his daughter and she told me so many interesting stories about him. Another person is Bill Clinton: he's terribly attractive and brilliant and I love the humanitarian work he does.

The strangest thing i've eaten... When Sting and I went to the Amazon during the early days of the Rainforest Foundation, the indigenous groups gave us fried locusts. They looked a bit shrimp-like. How did they taste? Not thrilling.

My tipple of choice... I like a good Montrachet white wine or a vodka and tonic. I'm not discerning about the brand of vodka: I like the Grey Goose bottle, but I probably couldn't tell you if it was more refined or not. There are people who like to taste the vodka, but that's not me. Throw in the Schweppes, I say!

Trudie Styler's new range of premium ready meals, Lake House Table, is available from selected Waitrose stores and online via Ocado; lakehousetable.co.uk