'Jamie Oliver is my hands-on boss and keeps us on our toes in the kitchen'

• Jamie Oliver's senior food stylist Anna started out working for the chef when she was an intern 20 years ago. Fast forward to 2024, and they are back working together on Jamie: What to Eat This Week: Autumn airing now on Channel 4.

• The senior food stylist takes Yahoo behind the scenes of what it is like to work for the famous and creative TV star in the kitchen here in her own words...

Jamie is hands-on. Some people might think having your boss be really hands-on can make your job harder but in order to stay motivated it's important to have someone who is really asking you difficult questions and motivating you to think about your work in a different way. I love that! I learn every single day from him and the fact he's really engaged and knowledgable keeps you interested in what you do.

The question everyone always asks me is Jamie like he is on TV? And he 100% is. Jamie has always just been an inspiration to me. Every time I see him, he's asking a personal question about my kids. Jamie is really good at remembering facts but he's also hysterical. He tells really funny stories, some that are appropriate for camera and others that are just for the crew. He's really good fun to work with.

What sets him apart from like all the other chefs that I worked with over the years is his passion. I am one of the senior food stylists. We do food styling as part of my team but we're also helping Jamie develop recipes. It's a close and collaborative relationship that everyone on my team has with Jamie which is really, really special. I started working with Jamie 20 years ago when I started out as an intern.

It can be high pressure (but I’ve never seen him lose his temper - he's not Gordon Ramsay!).

What's hard is also what's really magical about working with Jamie. When we're working on a TV set, we have recipes we planned ahead that we were going to make. Then maybe something in his garden wasn't quite at the stage that we needed it to be for the shoot or Jamie felt inspired by something different.

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As the food team, we work out of this food truck, and Jamie would come on the truck and we would go through what he's going to do for the recipe. And he might say, "Do you know what? I'm not really feeling this and I want to do something completely different."

We're all like, "OK let's do something different." Being able to keep up with Jamie and his energy and excitement - that can be the hard part of working for him. But also it is the most exciting part. It's a two-way thing. It definitely keeps you on your toes and it's what makes him magical. I'm always challenged and there's never a dull moment.

There are times he's throwing things in the pan and I'm thinking, is this going to taste good? You taste it and all you can think is: 'Oh my Gosh that's the most amazing curry recipe I've ever tasted, how do you do that?' He's genuinely talented and he loves what he does.

The way Jamie stays calm is he has a team that he trusts. Knowing that he trusts us is what keeps us calm. When you work on TV sets, you're working really long hours and you're often away from your families. Having that bond is absolutely vital for Jamie to be able to do what he does to the best of his ability and for us to be happy to be away from our families.

Jamie genuinely wants to make a difference in people's lives. He's always thinking about how is this useful or helpful? That comes from a place of being passionate. He's always eating at different places and always wanting to learn because he loves what he does. That trickles down to everyone who works for him which is really lovely.

The whole point of the What to Eat This Week series is making the best of the summer. We always think it is the end of the summer and food is no longer good because we don't have beautiful strawberries or tomatoes anymore. So this whole autumn season is about taking the summer bounty and making sure we can make it last as long as possible.

For me, his school food campaign is the most inspiring thing he has done. As a mum especially, I care about what's going into my kids' bodies. I'm really grateful for the work that he's done. My kids started out going to school in the United States, I wouldn't let them touch the school lunches there. Here it's such a different story, and that is because of the work he's done and we've transformed what our kids are being served in primary schools.

Anna told her story to Lily Waddell.

Jamie: What to Eat This Week: Autumn returns to Channel 4 at 8pm on Monday. The recipes from the series are also available here.