Series: My space

My space

The greengrocer and Masterchef judge Gregg Wallace is most at home here in the living room of his Whitstable house
Gregg Wallace's living room
Gregg Wallace's living room. Photograph: Katherine Rose

I have a very spartan flat in London, and when they see it people say: "Why don't you make it more homely?" The reason is that it's just a place to sleep when I'm working. This is my real home, where I live with my children Tom, who's 15, and Libby, who's 12, and now I've fallen in love with my girlfriend Heidi, she's spending quite a bit of time here as well. I met her a few months ago, we went for dinner and have been together every weekend since. I'm a single dad, so when I got custody of my kids I chose to live here in Whitstable because my mum lives a 15-minute walk away and provides serious back-up.

This is probably my favourite room. There's no prominent television because it's set up to chill out. It's a modern house, and I tend to find they don't have much soul, so you end up chucking your knick-knacks everywhere to make it feel lived in. I've got lots of personal things in this room, but I'm glad there's still a real sense of order. I'm a very organised person: I keep lists on everything - so much so that Heidi suggested that I might have OCD. As soon as my clothes come back from the laundry I hang them up on the left-hand side of the wardrobe and take clothes to wear from the right, so they're constantly rotating.

One drawback about judging on MasterChef is that, as the series gets busier and busier and the food gets better, you take bigger and bigger mouthfuls of all that rich, sweet, fatty food, and we really put on weight. People ask why we take such big mouthfuls - well we've got one chance to give a balanced view of the flavour of the whole dish. It's a craft! If you notice, I've got this technique where I put my head down to the fork so as not to drop anything. John's braver - he stands erect and lifts the fork to his mouth. Now that's impressive.

• Gregg Wallace supports the Eat Seasonably campaign. The Celebrity MasterChef final is on 10 July on BBC1

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