When I was 17 I decided to be Italian. In my gap year I worked as a chambermaid for the Principessa Doria Pamphili, who has since become an old family friend and regularly holidays at my Tuscan palazzo, and at university – Oxford, naturally, I'm not just a pretty face – I read Dante in translation. So I've always felt that Italy – sorry, I just can't stop my eyelids fluttering – was my real home, though I make no apologies for many of these recipes not being authentically Italian. Or even very original, as I've either copied and pasted many of them from my other books, or borrowed someone else's and just added lashings of vermouth and golden sultanas. And I mean lashings, big boy!

Try to think of these dishes as I do. An idealised version of Italy: a country of hot sun, sexually available older women whose brunette hair flops and teases in equal measure, and cameras set to the softest of focuses. That's not so hard, is it? Oh! You are hard ... Good. Then now we're ready to begin.

Quick Calabrian Lasagne

I do realise a dish that requires an hour to cook may not automatically qualify for the epithet "quick", but the days can drag somewhat as the staff busy themselves around you, so sometimes it's fulfilling to spend rather longer in the kitchen. Were your eyes resting on my bottom for a couple of seconds too long just then? Oh, you naughty, naughty cameraman! So here's what you do. Take 500g of finest quality beef – I always pop out to my favourite organic butcher who is just around the corner, but you could get there by taxi, I suppose – and brown with banana shallots. Then lay out on lasagne strips before stuffing down the throats of 300 of your closest friends.

Squid & Prawns with Chilli, Courgettes and Marjoram

If I didn't have a Speedy Seafood in all my other cookbooks then I'd have been able to get away with using that name for this again. Just take some marjoram from your walk-in pantry – I really would take a walk-in larder over a walk-in wardrobe any day, though luckily I don't have to choose as I've got several of both – and then allow the cameras to get close up to my voluptuous breasts for at least 30 seconds. Now shut your eyes and you could almost be an extra in La Dolce Vita. Toss, yes toss, the squid and courgettes – somehow zucchini just doesn't seem right – in one of your 40 or so pans, add two bottles of masala while helping yourself to several generous glasses of prosecco before keeling over in your flower-filled garden in this green and pleasant land.

Chocolate Salame

Christmas is absolutely my favourite time of year, a glorious excuse for the staff to dress up in their finest livery, as Charles and I play our annual game of Hide the Salami. I see that I have also done several variations of this dish in my Christmas cookbook, but I make no apologies for pouting and rolling my tongue slowly over my lips once more. For this recipe, I want you to beat six eggs very, very, hard until they stiffen into a thick white peak. Then place the chocolate and almonds on top – my preferred position ever since those halcyon days I spent with the Marchese in Siena – before rolling out the mixture into a long, thin log and placing in the oven at any old heat you fancy. Remove the salame after 30 minutes and take it in both hands while still hot. Now open your mouth wide. Wider. Wider. Mmmm. That's better. Now allow your blood-red lipstick to smear the edge as you slide as much as possible down your throat … Then swallow.

Digested read, digested: Takingthepissima.