SINGAPORE — If you want something badly, you have to go all out to get it. That’s the secret to success, said author, chef and food show host Rachel Khoo.

“That’s how I got my book deal — I just called them up and asked for 10 minutes of their time to pitch the idea,” she said over the phone from London, where she had just finished filming the second season of her TV series, Rachel Khoo’s Kitchen Notebook: London. “For my first TV show, Rachel Khoo’s Paris Kitchen, I approached a production company first and arranged a little tasting and that’s how it took off. I’ve always been proactive. Nothing comes from nothing.”

All this didn’t happen overnight, of course. It’s the culmination of years of hard work. Born in London to her Malaysian Chinese father and Austrian mother, Khoo graduated with a bachelors degree in Art & Design from the renowned Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London, before moving to Paris where she had to do various jobs to support herself.

“I had so many jobs at one point: I was looking after kids, I taught English, I was cooking for a family, I was one of those perfume girls in a department store accosting people with really smelly perfumes, and I’d be up at 6am, peeling vegetables at a vegetarian cafe,” she said.

Driven by her love for food and her flair in the kitchen, she graduated from Le Cordon Bleu with a pastry degree. She then started looking for work in Paris, where she quickly realised that she had to really work her entrepreneurial skills to stand out from the crowd. Some ideas were worked like a charm — although with some slightly chaotic results. “I approached this club owner and I said, ‘I do cupcakes, how about doing a cupcake workshop in your club?’ So we did a clubbing night with cupcakes. Of course, you’re making cupcakes in the dark, so the decorations were a little bit messy — but that could have been because people were drinking as well.”

But Khoo said her road to success wasn’t easy. “There were many times when I felt I couldn’t make it. Three or four years after moving to Paris, I was still living in a tiny apartment and it was really hard making the rent. My mum and dad were saying, ‘What are you doing? Come back.’ But I had a feeling it would work, and every couple of months, there’d be a light at the end of the tunnel to keep me going, like getting a job at a cookery bookshop (La Cocotte) or doing a photo shoot. I knocked on so many doors. People don’t know about all that, they only know my success.”

And don’t think Khoo is just a pretty face on TV. She’s also an author with four books to her name: Barres de cereales: Muesli et granola maison, Pates a tartiner, The Little Paris Kitchen (a No 1 bestseller in the UK); and Little French Kitchen. Paris Kitchen was turned into a TV series and received much acclaim, prompting the creation of Rachel Khoo’s Kitchen Notebook: London.

Khoo said the show isn’t just about her demonstrating her recipes. “I’ve been based in Paris for the past eight years, so it’s also about me rediscovering London. It’s me out and about, meeting new people and doing all sorts of things in London.”

But she does feature her rather creative culinary offerings, which she said was inspired by the people that she met. “I like to go out and meet people and taste food that way, because it’s so much more stimulating than being on your own thinking up ideas in your kitchen,” she said.

Some of her creations include Seafood Chilli With Tortillas, Onion Petal Spatzles and the Black Forest Gateau Bowl. “The chocolate black forest gateau is a really kitsch dessert from the ’70s, but like fashion, food is also cyclical. Instead of serving a slice though, I put it in a chocolate bowl, put the chocolate sponge in it, topped it up with cherries ... all the flavours of black forest gateau, but putting my little spin on it.”

So the black forest gateau is the new black? “Yes, that’s right! Watch out, everybody! Forget cupcakes, forget croughnuts, it’s all about the chocolate black forest gateau!”

Catch Rachel Khoo’s Kitchen Notebook: London on Tuesdays 8pm on BBC Lifestyle (StarHub Ch 432).