When I was at university my stock meal was a pasta dish made with smoked sausage and tomatoes. That’s before I moved back to my parent’s and had fine dining every night. Tiffany Goodall’s years at Newcastle University were slightly more sophisticated and have led to her new book: From Pasta to Pancakes, The Ultimate Student Cookbook (Quadrille Publishing, out on 7^th August 2009).

I met up with Tiffany at my dad’s shop and having drag her half way down the Fulham Road we chatted over a couple of cold drinks. At only 23, bubbly cookery girl Tiff started collecting recipes at the age of 10. Pushed on by her mum, she spent the first half of her gap year at the Ballymaloe Cookery School with Darina and Rachelle Allen. “I trained there for four months and just fell in love with the ethos of the place. I remember our first lesson was Darina showing us the soil. What you nuture and grow is what you eat. There is no waste, everything either went to the pigs, the chickens, the compost heap or the vegetable patch. It was so different from my busy London life of pollution and riding the tube. I just loved it.”

Coming top of her exams at Ballymaloe, Tiffany had already started thinking about her book whilst counselling her friends who were already at Univeristy and finding the food to be dire. She spend the rest of her gap year working as a runner on a film shoot and put the long hours spent travelling by train to good use. “So I decided to write a book. Not knowing anything about it or having anyone to publish it. And when I got to uni myself I saw that there was such an interest from people wanted to cook.”

Between studying for a business degree and running her popular Tiff’s Tuesday dinners (fiver each and a great spread), she would be accosted in the supermarket by fellow students wanting cookery advice. “They’d ask me ‘Tiff I’m making a leek gratin, what do I need?’ or ‘What can I do with only £3 to spend’ So that spurred me on even more.”

In her last year she helped out a friend’s mum by stepping in to do a demonstration at Marks & Spencers and ended up up-staging Ross Burden and bagging herself a new agent and subsequently a book deal. Asked about being flung into the celebrity chef limelight she says, “I don’t really think about it like that. It’s been quite gradual. Just one step at a time. I’d ideally like to get back in the kitchen and do proper cooking. I don’t really think celebrity.”

Tiffany has retained her passion for responsibly sourcing she picked up at Ballymaloe and explained to me how she would drag her tired and hungover housemates to the fish market in Newcastle to get the good deals. She is convinced that, with a little effort, even students can make use of local produce.

She’s certainly a busy girl. As well as catering for private events and publicising her new book, Tiffany teaches cookery as part of a programme for 5-10 year old in Chelmsford, Essex. “It’s not good for my broody side, they’re so cute. We do homemade pizza, breads and fruit buns, that sort of thing.” She is already planning her next book which will be for what she describes as “the in-betweeners. Young professionals who have a bit more money and time and a bit more knowledge, can’t get much out of current cookbooks which are aimed at families and people with children.”

She has been offered a stage with James Atherton at Maze and also has her eye on The Petersham Nurseries. But despite being “still 23 with lots of ideas” her dream is to open a restaurant or a deli.

From Pasta to Pancakes, The Ultimate Student Cookbook is a colourful, vivacious book – just like its author. The cartoon layout is ideal with the student target market and walks the reader through each step of the recipe. This is a very personal book “Reading back feels a bit nostalgic. For every recipe I can say ‘That’s when we did that’ a but like a short memoir.”

“Cooking and food is such an ice breaker and social event. We’d be up all night chatting.”

Perfect for those who need a hand with basic techniques and cooking on a budget, with great ideas on how to use leftovers. At just under a tenner, this is a great little leaving present for the fresher in the family.