MUMBAI: Hollywood actress Drew Barrymore says cooking is very important to her, ritualistic and romantically.

"Cooking is something very near and dear to my heart and important to me and ritualistic and romantic. One of the ways I self-educated myself growing up because I didn't go to school, was I became a reader, a voracious reader," Barrymore told IANS.

"After I had children I basically stopped reading, anyone who has children knows why, and the thing I transferred to was cookbooks, and I became a voracious cookbook collector. I average about 2 or 3 cookbooks a week. I fell in love with the art of sitting down on a couch with a cookbook and in about 20 minutes you can really dive in and sometimes as a working mother that is an insane task to accomplish. Life is so busy and so full that it's hard to take time for yourself," she added.

At the moment, she is busy with "The Drew Barrymore Show", which she hosts and backs as producer. The show brings forward positive stories, humour along with celebrity guest interviews.

"I have a lot of different interests. It's why I really loved directing because I could go to work and think about the music I loved or casting, production design, editing, writing, art, literature, travel, wonderment, imagination, comedy, chemistry, romance. I could put it all into this one job. And this is exactly what a talk show has the opportunity to do and we can incorporate all of them into the show like cookbook club," she said.

"The Drew Barrymore Show" airs on Zee Cafe in India.