Sweet Baby James

FANS of James Martin can enjoy weekly helpings of the North Yorkshire celebrity chef in his latest TV show, Sweet Baby James.

But one piece of film they won't see is cine-footage of the seven-year-old James skateboarding around the dining room of his family home after Sunday lunch and being quizzed by his granddad about what he wanted to be when he grew up.

"I said I wanted to be head chef at 25, own my own restaurant by 30 and have a Ferrari by 35," said James. "I had the whole lot by 22."

This story of success is well documented. Raised on the Castle Howard estate, where dad Ian was catering manager, the young James earned pocket money helping in the kitchens at Castle Howard, and cooked for the Queen Mother at the age of 12.

At catering college in Scarborough, he won the student of the year award three years running. He was spotted by Antony Worral Thompson, who brought him to London to work at his restaurants. At 22, James opened his own restaurant at the Hotel and Bistro du Vin in Winchester, which quickly led to him appearing as a regular on the TV cook-against-the clock show, Ready, Steady, Cook.

This colourful personal history forms the backbone to the new TV series, which focuses on James's first culinary passion: puddings. A new cookbook, Desserts, has been launched too, to tie in with the TV show.

"I've been a pastry chef for most of my life and I always wanted to do a dessert cook book," says James, when during a whistle-stop tour to promote the show and book.

Puddings are an important part of our culinary heritage and, asserts James, one in need of preserving.

"We have such a great history of baking and cake making in this country, but are in danger of losing it. I wanted to look at all the things that grandma used to make, like shortbread, parkin and sticky toffee pudding."

James credits his grandma with instilling in him the cookery bug. He recalls seeing her with a pastry bowl rubbing butter into flour as she watched Coronation Street.

Inspiring figures from James's life loom large in Sweet Baby James. In the first episode, screened last Wednesday, James returned to the kitchens at Castle Howard and reminisced about his first cooking experiences, then went to the family home in Ryedale to make syllabub for his dad Ian and other family members.

Next Wednesday, viewers can watch him return to his secondary school in Malton, where he meets up with his former cookery teacher, Mrs Baxter.

James has dyslexia and struggled at school. "If I failed at spelling or maths, I just told myself I didn't need to know it, I just wanted to do cooking. I even failed cookery at school. But it was crap; I had to write the genetic components of eggs."

In episode three, James goes head to head in a cooking challenge with another leading North Yorkshire chef, Andrew Pern, of the Star Inn at Harome.

James said: "Andrew was in the year above me at catering school. We go back to Scarborough and make a lemon tart. The judge is our old catering tutor Ken Allinson. He was an inspiration to both of us - a defining guy in both of our careers. One of the greatest moments for me in the series is walking along the Scarborough seafront with Ken, talking to him after a 14-year gap."

The penultimate episode focuses on James's life in Winchester, the nerve centre of his culinary empire which includes running restaurants on four cruise ships. The final show sees him reflecting on the state of food today. James doesn't mince his words when it comes to talking about the obesity crisis gripping Britain.

"The reason for obesity isn't because we eat desserts," he says. "It's purely the effect of eating convenience food, packet food, junk food. If you bake your own cake, there will be four ingredients in it. If you buy one from the supermarket it will have 34 ingredients.

"If you have got health problems, you only have yourself to blame. You can buy proper food or line the pockets of the big fat chief in London who owns supermarkets. You pays your money, you takes your choice."

James is a long-standing supporter of local produce and is a regular contributor to the Ryedale Festival of Food And Drink. He will be heading for the show again this year, when the two-day event comes to Castle Howard over the May Bank Holiday weekend.

"I'm a big fan of local produce. All my meat comes from Colin Robinson, a butcher from Skipton who I met at the Ryedale festival. I did a dinner recently at Blenheim Palace for 500 and he produced all the lamb."

Although based in Winchester, James says he would like to settle back in Yorkshire. Ideally, he would like to buy a country pub - but one thing's for sure, it wouldn't be a gastro pub.

"Yuck, gastric pubs," says James, with typical Yorkshire bluntness, almost spitting out the words in distaste. "You have to get dressed up to eat there and then there are all those linen table cloths. I just want a traditional British pub where you might have a beer and then have something to eat afterwards."

Perhaps this passion for good old pub grub might be the fodder for another TV project. At the moment, James is a rising star at the Beeb. Sweet Baby James is his first prime-time slot, while his weekend morning show, Saturday Kitchen, is pulling in two million viewers a week.

Next up is a series with Alan Titchmarsh, the Great British Village Show, which will go out on Sundays from May.

"More has happened for me in the past six months than in the past ten years," says James. Reviews and ratings for Sweet Baby James have been good, and he is clearly relieved. He's even impressed his mum, Susan, who works in a clothes shop in Malton.

"She called me to say it was the best show yet," said James. "That means a lot because she normally calls to tell me my hair needs cutting or the shirt I was wearing didn't match my jacket.

"That's what's great about Yorkshire folk. They don't give much away. It helps keep your feet on the ground."

Sweet Baby James, Wednesdays, BBC2 at 8.30pm. Desserts, by James Martin, is published by Quadrille, price £20.