Throughout the show, Katona shares stories from her own family, from her dad’s love of spreading dahl on toast, to getting her Hungarian mother-in-law into the kitchen with her.“I was very nervous about that because, being on telly, it’s one thing for me who voluntarily does it, but my family being caught on telly, you just don’t know how they’re going to feel about themselves,” says Katona. “Everyone who sees themselves on telly hates themselves.You hate your voice, you hate the way you look. It’s awful! And that’s all right, me punishing myself like that, but I don’t want that for my family. I was really worried about it. But I’ve watched some of the clips of us together, and I can just see that I am my happiest self.” Aside from wanting to join the Katona clan, you may find yourself Rightmove-ing ‘the Wirral’ after seeing the sweeping drone shots of the area’s countryside, farmland and vast beaches. “I am really pathologically passionate about heralding how brilliant it is beyond the M25,” says Katona, who built her first 23 restaurants outside of London (she now has one in the capital, with another opening soon), in places like Preston, Sheffield, Leicester, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester and Glasgow. “Cities that I think need social capital. Programmes like this just enhance that mission of mine, which is to show people that there is a great life to be had at a non-punishing rent outside of London,” she buzzes. “London is the best city in the whole world for food, for me,” she adds,“but in terms of quality of life, of space where you might want to raise a family, or even if you don’t want a family, where you might raise a smallholding and get a nice plot of land and you’ve got your own patch of stars, that’s an amazing thing.” In November, Katona stepped down from the Great British Menu on BBC, and if you’re upset, you aren’t half as upset as she is.“I’m so sad! I was FaceTiming with [co-judge] Tom [Kerridge] last night!” she says.“It makes me want to cry to know I’m not working with them. I love them so much.” But she explains she’s got to “pick my battles.” “This year, I’m building another five or six restaurants, and I wasn’t seeing my family. I wasn’t living life – what’s the point working that hard when you’re sitting and eating on your own in a hotel in the evenings? That’s not life. So I had to step off that stage. It’s got to be one of the hardest decisions I’ve made, because I love them and the show. Forget the show.Those humans make my mouth water!” Katona lost a close friend, who was only 56, in November to a heart attack.“It made me think, you’ve got one life.You’ve got to be with the people that matter and do the things that matter. It sounds so stupid and trite to talk about a TV show mattering, but it does matter to me to teach people to be able to cook, and to be able to do that, combined with me actually living a life and feeding my goats, that is a gift I cannot be more grateful for.” She adds:“We don’t need soaring achievements.We don’t need massive prowess in life.What we need is contentment.” And ideally, an alpaca to look at the stars with.
Nisha Katona’s Home Kitchen launches on ITV, ITVX, STV and STV Player at 11:40am on Saturday, February 8.
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