Then when I was asked by Penguin... they asked me would I do a Middle Eastern Book to choose just a few recipes that I did from my own book. So that they put photographs and make it like a new modern book for a new generation. And I thought about it. I thought, no, my old book is a thing in itself. And I don't want to sort of make it obsolete. And I would like to do a new Mediterranean. Because I felt this is what I cook now. This is what I eat now. This is what... that's what I love. I love Middle Eastern, but Mediterranean is something particular. There is a likeness in it. Because it's around the Mediterranean. And so, I told the publisher, yes, shall I do a Mediterranean. Penguins... and she went and asked the salespeople, and they said no. Afterwards they tried to bid for it, when I finished it. And they said, 'No, she's already done one and we've got her Mediterranean Book'. They didn't want that. They had wanted the Middle Eastern with photographs, with just a few recipes. And so, okay, I'm not going to do it. I'll just do what I want to do.

And I decided, because I had come to my age of 80, that I can't travel as I used to. I still travel. I did travel until December, and... because there are festivals. There are conferences, there are food fairs, there are things I want to go to. And then, I can go, and I just go to the place, and somebody usually fetches me from the airport and takes me back to the airport. So, I haven't got the hassle and the worry and the carrying of suitcases up the hill or something. And so, what can I do? And I just thought, I still want to cook. And I still want people to come around. And also, I need a challenge. Because I need the challenge that keeps my mind. And what can I do? I'm going to do a new Mediterranean. And that's how the book came about. I didn't want a publisher. My agent said, 'Do you want me to find a publisher?' I said, 'No'. When it is ready... because I wanted to do it in my own time. And I wanted to be how I wanted it to be. And I knew that publishers, as soon as you say that you're going to do a book, they say, 'Can you have it by the end of the year?' And no, I just didn't want... I wanted it also to develop out of my life. Out of who we are, I am. How I'm eating now. And also, out of pleasure. I wanted it to be a book not Mediterranean, because it's Mediterranean, I just wanted to be recipes that we choose because of the pleasure that they give. With a different way. I wasn't trying to study cuisine. To put as much as possible of the cuisine. And I didn't want history and the things. I just wanted good food that we're eating here. And so, it also took me five years. That's my usual, except for the Jewish one.