Book reviews
The Fast Diet by Dr Michael Mosley and Mimi Spencer
It’s a measure of how frantic we are to lose weight that Dr Michael Mosley’s diet book The Fast Diet shot straight to number 1 on Amazon yesterday. But is it worth buying?
The Cookbook Dilemma: The Food of Spain or The Food of Morocco?
Two ‘grandes dames’ of the food writing world, Claudia Roden and Paula Wolfert, have new books out - The Food of Spain (Roden’s first book for five years) and The Food of Morocco. So which should you buy?
The Cookbook Dilemma: Let’s Eat or Good Things to Eat?
I’ve been meaning for a while to review cookbooks in pairs which makes sense unless you’re a total obsessive like me. Most people compare a couple of recently published books and decide which to buy instead of buying them both. This series may help you to make up your mind.
How to make your own sophisticated soft drinks
Despite the buzz about soft drinks over the last couple of years (they now serve them at Noma) it’s still a struggle to get one in a restaurant. But you can make delicious ones of your own as an excellent new book by winewriter Susy Atkins shows.
Flavour matching with Niki Segnit
The surprise publishing hit among food books last year was not the record selling Jamie’s 30-minute meals or even the new Nigella but an unillustrated book called The Flavour Thesaurus by an unknown author, Niki Segnit. The book catalogues nearly 1000 flavour combinations which are described in an endearingly quirky way. It’s erudite, original and funny
Ginger Pig Meat Book: good recipes for great meat
I remember going up to Lincolnshire write a piece on The Ginger Pig back in the early 90s well before artisan food producers were in vogue. It was a small farm turning out some excellent pork from the strangest pigs I’d ever seen, wiry ginger-haired Tamworths.
Kitchen - Recipes from the Heart of the Home: Nigella's latest tips the scales at 1890g
The latest orthodoxy about bookselling in these straitened times must be that a book has to be big to sell well. Hence the 492 pages devoted to Nigella’s latest opus Kitchen which weighs in at 1890g or 4lb 2 oz. (Out of curiosity I checked).
Ryn and Cordie - in search of the perfect partner (the food & wine matching formula)
Leafing through Ryn and Cordie’s new book I realised how untypical it was. You get the impression most wine books - even ones about food and wine matching - are written for middle-aged men. The few for women tend to be of the fluffy Chicklit variety with cartoons indicating that wine isn’t really a subject they need overly bother their pretty heads with.
A review of Josh Wesson's 'Wine & Food'
It’s almost 20 years ago now since Josh Wesson wrote his first book on food and wine pairing - the ground-breaking Red Wine with Fish: the new art of Matching Wine with Food which he co-authored with David Rosengarten. He then went on to set up the attractive and innovative wine store Best Cellars which groups wines by style
Which are the best books on food and wine pairing?
A few years ago you really struggled to find a book on food and wine matching (If I can modestly recall, I wrote a couple of them!). Recently though a number have been published, particularly in the States, reflecting the interest in the subject and I'm occasionally asked which I would recommend.
Matching Food & Wine by Michel Roux Jr
You’d think, wouldn’t you, that most chefs would be pretty good at food and wine matching, not least French chefs. Well, you’d be wrong! I’m constantly shocked by the number of chefs who haven’t the faintest idea what wine goes best with their recipes or indeed, who drink wine at all. (Some of them possibly because they’ve, er hem, enjoyed it a bit too much in the past . . . )
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