Chef, writer and broadcaster Valentine Warner is gearing up to appear at the Great Wight Bite Festival this weekend (September 6), where he will be cooking a range of sea bass dishes in his demonstration. 

No stranger to the Isle of Wight, Valentine knows what the Island has to offer in terms of produce. 

"I believe two things stop me from getting a cold, one of them is to wear some sort of scarf all through the year, the other is garlic, which I eat in industrial amounts, and I know you've got the Garlic Farm.

"The Isle of Wight has got lots of delicious fish, amazing garlic and wonderful tomatoes, so I'm very much going to be snooping around in those areas."

His demonstration at the Great Wight Bite is not to be missed. "I'm going to be cooking sea bass with some sea buckthorn, which is an extremely sour coastal berry we get in some parts of the UK, which is tangy and sharp to the point where it will turn your head inside out.

"I tend not to cook one thing over a whole demo in case people fall asleep and lose the will to live. 

"I'll do two or three bass recipes with the idea that because I've shown you one, there's plenty of others."

He also has a plan to go fishing if he gets spare time the following day. "There'll be a rod in the back of my car."

Valentine's visit to the Island comes after a busy period, and a period of rest. "I did my last event up in Norway in March with Lennox Hastie, and I've been to Africa to research projects that will be starting next year.

He recounts his holiday period sailing around Galicia eating mussels, on the proviso he didn't have to pull any ropes, and spending time in Douarnenez in Brittany gorging on delicious food.

"I sat there like the walrus and the carpenter combined and ate my bodyweight in shellfish."

Valentine will also take part in the Little Chef's Den at the Great Wight Bite, encouraging children to cook. 

"My children, sooner rather than later, are going to tell me they're grown ups, and frankly, if they can't cook, they're not. 

"I feel what we seem to forget is food is given to us or made for us, but food is nature.

"You're bringing the outdoors indoors, and the minute you start telling stories about how the sea bass lives, or where the hazelnuts grow, then you're telling them stories rather than just instructions.

"Too often, I've walked in to kind of kids with their hoods up on their phones, and then you start to tip crayfish on the table or give them a rabbit to skin and then, you know, they're yours in a second.

"They're lively little minds but they get told what they shouldn't do rather than the excitement of the natural world."