I was born in Southend in the late 80s and now I live back there, near to where I grew up. I remember going on adventures with my older brother and, when I was 11, being allowed to go to the corner shop alone, and filling up a bag with penny chews, Fruit Salads, Bruiser bars and Black Jacks.

My parents fostered about 100 children from when I was four onwards. Some stayed for 24 hours and some for 13 years. We were always getting folding chairs out of the garage and budging up to make space at the table or putting another jacket potato in the oven.

My parents tended to cook big batch food because there was always the possibility that other children would turn up with their carrier bag and shoes and we had to gently bring them out of their shells. One of the big catalysts for that was firstly sitting them at the table and eating with them. Only as an adult do I understand the emotional significance and security of that.

I’d been at the end of my tether as a single mother writing a political blog. Then I became a trainee reporter on the Southend Echo. I can tell you exactly what I ate then at my desk – pasta with butter and the occasional scotch egg, out of Tupperware. I had basically no money until my first pay cheque came through, but when it did I put some chicken in my pasta. And some cheese, if I was being profligate.

I remember when my mother first took me to a proper hairdresser, instead of having her friend Julie round, or my nan’s friend Lois to trim my fringe at the dining table. He was Garry at Legend in the town centre. It was the first time I had biscotti with tea and I said, embarrassingly, “These biscuits are really hard”, when they were meant to be.

Last night I ate a whole family-size macaroni cheese. I’d planned to put half back in the fridge. I have a surprisingly large appetite anyway and I don’t drive, I walk everywhere, I don’t sit down at the moment and I pace the hallway when I’m on the phone. I think that if I didn’t eat large amounts of carbs and cheese I would wither away into a husk.

I did take testosterone for six to nine months and I was very hungry and very randy all the time. A most dangerous combination. I stopped – and I’ve got to be careful how I word this – basically, I got as far down that path as I wanted to go. I never wished to transition to be a man, I just wanted to knock some of my edges off. The thing about testosterone is that when you stop taking it, you soften back up again, although I’ve still got a few extra hairs on my chin which will never go away. But what that period taught me is that I’m pretty comfortable in this skin as it is. But I think if I hadn’t done it – and my story is in no way representative of other people – it would have driven me mad.

If I’ve learned anything in the last seven or eight years it’s that my career flies by the seat of my pants and that every time I’m booked for something, I’m ill, and anything – like a TV opportunity – I treat as my last ever one because it’s maybe my swansong. It’s impossible to plan for the future and I don’t take anything for granted. I’m consistently surprised when I’m commissioned to do anything, despite appearances.

My back-up plan, if everything dries up, is going back to the supermarket, where I’ve worked before. I’ll sit on the checkout and, as food passes, I’ll say: “Do you know what you could do with that? I have a great recipe for that.”

My favourite things

Food
In my nan’s spare bedroom I found a row of Jilly Cooper novels and in one it said that the female protagonist had a body which looked like it had been raised entirely on tinned peaches. I thought, “Great, that’s a diet I can go with”, and I’ve noshed down on them ever since.

Drink
I gave up a year-and-a-half ago. I’ve fallen off the wagon, in a minor way, a couple of times since but think I’ve got a handle on it. Nowadays, in the evening, I’ll make a Thermos flask of tea and take it to bed.

Dish to make
My auntie Helen, a minuscule woman we stayed with in Plymouth during summers, would often make avgolemono soup; as would Mother, at 3pm on Sundays. It’s something that underpins really comforting moments of my childhood and, as an adult, I keep a vat of it on the stove to feed friends and loved ones when under the weather.

Restaurant
A fantastic little Umbrian restaurant in Soho called Vasco and Piero’s, where I took [my partner] Louisa early in our relationship. It’s so intimate and romantic in a crisp, white and familial way.

Good Food for Bad Days is published on 28 May (£7.99, Bluebird); Daily Kitchen Live is on BBC iPlayer