John Hind 

Jo Wood: ‘I put breast milk in my husband’s tea’

The entrepreneur and Strictly star tells John Hind about food, prison and stoves
  
  

Jo Wood
Jo Wood photographed at the River Cafe, London, on 1 August 2011. Photograph: Levon Biss for the Observer Photograph: Levon Biss/Observer

I was always helping my mum in the kitchen and by the time I was nine I could cook roast dinners. On Sunday mornings I'd boil potatoes and veg and put the roast on, while Mum and Dad stayed in bed.

Modelling at 17 or 18, I did a shoot with a fantastic photographer who got me and other girls to have a huge food fight. We had a big table of cakes and jellies to throw at each other. If anyone wants to do it again, I'm in.

I married my first husband, Peter, at 18 in Vegas and had my first son, Jamie, with him, but when I breastfed he'd complain: "That should be done upstairs, out of sight." So, to get my revenge, I'd put my breast milk in his tea. He was furious when he found out.

When I first met Ronnie [Wood] I told him, falsely, that I worked on the broken biscuit counter in Woolworths on Oxford Street and he waited outside the shop for two days.

On tour in Mexico I ate a lot of dried insects, which were really quite nice. I've eaten deep-fried crickets, ants, scorpion and croc burgers, which tasted like a combination of chicken and fish.

Ronnie and I were held separately for six days and nights in a prison on St Maarten. I was the only girl in there. The food was disgusting – leftovers from restaurants on the island – but a guard, who took a fancy to me, gave me a nice apple.

I used to carry two gas burners in my suitcase to cook baked beans on tour. Then eight years ago I thought "This is so dangerous", so I designed and had built a special flight case with electric stoves and dual voltage. I dragged it all over the world with me.

I'd been misdiagnosed with Crohn's disease and a herbalist guy called Gerald Green sent me a letter after an article appeared with the headline "Stones Wife Has Incurable Disease". He told me about how the chemicals they put in food break down your immune system. Soon afterwards I decided: "I'm an organic girl for life".

I did a pop-up restaurant, called Mrs Paisley's Lashings, for three weeks in my house with the eco-chef Arthur Potts Dawson. One Friday night I had too much to drink and woke up with the most terrible hangover and mood, and thought: "Oh God, I've got another 50 people to dinner tonight." OFM

Jo Wood will be swimming in WWF's Blue Mile event in London on Sunday 4 Sept.

 

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