Pope Francis, master chef when it comes to a dish of paella

Pope Francis starts his day at 4.15am, is a dab hand at making paella and once gave a baby a dummy dipped in whisky to stop it crying, according to a new book. "He always cooked fantastic paella for us," Angel Rossi, a Jesuit priest, told the Italian-born Argentine journalist, Elisabetta Pique, whose book, Francis: Life and Revolution, is published this week.

The Pontiff has managed to teach the chefs at Casa Santa Marta, the Vatican guesthouse where he chose to live, how to prepare his favourite dessert - a sweet milk pudding called "dulce de leche". The book is based on interviews with the Pope by Pique, 46, who has known him since 2001. It includes recollections from friends and relatives of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, as he was known. His nephew and godson recalled how the future Pontiff using unconventional means to stop him crying as a baby.

"My parents told me that when I cried he dipped my dummy in wine or whisky to calm me," said the nephew, also called Jorge. An old friend, Oscar Crespo, said that he and the future Pope would go dancing at clubs in the Chacarita district of Buenos Aires "because there were a lot of girls", adding: "Jorge was going out with one of them." That changed for his friend in his mid-teens when he decided that he wanted to become a priest and had to end the relationship.