Lorraine Pascale is a British television TV chef and USA Food Network host and former top model, best known for selling almost one million books in the UK alone. Her TV shows are in 70 countries worldwide. She had her own cooking show on the BBC for several seasons. From 2007-2012 she owned a retail outlet in London selling baked goods called Ella’s Bakehouse named after her daughter. She is the United Kingdom Government Fostering and Adoption Ambassador and an emotional wellness advocate. She is the mother of Charlie’s Angels star Ella Balinska.
Personal life
Pascale was born to Jamaican and St Lucian parents in Hackney at The Mothers' Hospital and was fostered in Leytonstone immediately after she was born. She was adopted at 18 months old and brought up in Witney, Oxfordshire by a white couple, Roger and Audrey Woodward, who already had a son, Jason. Her adoptive father was a multilingual Spanish academic who had taught at Oxford, and her mother was a nurse. When her parents divorced when she was three years old, Pascale remained with her mother, who subsequently became ill and could no longer care for her. At this point, at age seven, she was fostered to more than one family, with differing degrees of 'fit'. After a year she returned to her mother and met up again with her father, who had remarried and had a daughter. She won a full scholarship given by the Buttle Trust and was educated at a boarding school in Devon. Pascale has an elder brother and a younger half-sister. She knows her biological parents' identity and their four other children, but she does not wish to re-establish contact: "I know my birth parents' names. I know I've got three brothers and one sister, I know that some of them are in London but I don't have any desire or need to find them. One family is enough." Pascale married Polish jazz musician Count Kazimierz Balinski-Jundzill at age 23, and they had a daughter, actress Ella Balinska. The couple separated in 2000 and subsequently divorced.
Career
At age 16, Pascale was spotted as potential model by the agent who had found Naomi Campbell. Based in New York, she achieved recognition as the first black British model to appear on the cover of American Elle. She appeared in the 1998 Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, and featured as one of the 'Bond Girls' in Robbie Williams' "Millennium" video. Pascale recognised the need to ensure her future after modelling and embarked on a series of career "try-outs", including hypnotherapy and car mechanics. She took a diploma cookery course at Leith's School of Food and Wine in 2005 and found that cookery fitted her "like a pair of old jeans". After gaining her diploma, she did a series of 'stages' in some London restaurants but, realising that restaurant hours would not suit her, Pascale established herself as a specialist cakemaker, with a contract with Selfridges. Her introduction to Selfridges was at the suggestion of chef Marco Pierre White and in 2008 and 2010 she supplied the London store with over 1000 Christmas cakes. Pascale has opened her own cupcake shop in Covent Garden. She also studied Culinary Arts at Thames Valley University and in March 2012 graduated with a first class degree. In 2015, Pascale said she practises Transcendental Meditation to relax after work.
Television and publishing work
In January 2011, Pascale presented a television bakery programme, Baking Made Easy, on BBC television and published a bakery book based upon this series. Later that year, a second series, Home Cooking Made Easy, was broadcast in September and October, with an accompanying book. A Last Minute Christmas programme aired on BBC Two on 22 December 2011. A third book was published in 2012 and a series based upon it, called Fast, Fresh & Easy Food, aired in August and September 2012 on BBC Two. Since January 2014, Pascale co-presents and judges the UK version of My Kitchen Rules with Jason Atherton on Sky Living. In early 2014, it was announced that Pascale was to host a new six-part television series called Lorraine Pascale: How to be a Better Cook that would air later in the year on BBC Two. In March 2015, she co-hosted The Nation's Favourite Food alongside the Hairy Bikers. The show aired for one episode on BBC Two. Lorraine is also a judge on Food Network's Holiday Baking Championship and Spring Baking Championship as well as a mentor on Worst Bakers in America. She was a judge in a few episodes of the first season of Bakers Vs Fakers, and became the hostess for Season 2.
Charity
Pascale is the patron of TACT, the UK's largest fostering and adoption charity, and an ambassador of both the charities and The Prince's Trust. In summer 2008, she was made the ambassador of the National Careers Service launching the service with Skills Minister John Hayes. Pascale visits schools and Women's Maximum security prisons across the country talking about confidence and emotional resilience.
