Category: Cookery Books

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Irish Seaweed Kitchen by Prannie Rhatigan

Irish Seaweed Kitchen by Prannie Rhatigan

How to make seaweed sexy? Take a passionate woman who happens to be an expert forager and cook, add a strong sense of place – the Sligo coast – scatter with a selection of recipes from well known (Domini Kemp, Hugo Arnold) and local Irish chefs (Brid Torrades of Sligo’s Tobergal Lane Cafe) and you have Prannie Rhatigan’s fabulous Irish Seaweed Kitchen.

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Forgotten Skills of Cooking: The Lost Art of Creating Delicious Home Produce by Darina Allen 

Forgotten Skills of Cooking: The Lost Art of Creating Delicious Home Produce by Darina Allen

If ever your grandmother knew how slow cooking turned beef cheeks meltingly tender, could tell her Rhode Island Reds from Marans or was able to grow, harvest, preserve and cook her own runner beans, you’ll nod knowingly at Forgotten Skills of Cooking and enjoy leafing through the pages. If you weren’t lucky enough to have that kind of paragon of virtue in your life, think of Darina Allen’s latest book as a kind of virtual granny in book form.

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Cooking for Your Child by Nicola Galloway

Cooking for Your Child by Nicola Galloway

Nicola Galloway may be based in Nelson, New Zealand, but this no-nonsense, practical cookbook will appeal to parents in any hemisphere. From first tastes and flavors to school lunches and dinnertimes, there are plenty of ideas here for feeding children of every age group as well as recipes you can adapt for the entire family.

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Summer reading at the bach

bach reading

Without television, radio or mobile reception, heading off to the Husband’s family bach, or holiday home, at Lake Rotoiti always entails packing lots of books. The use of the Husband’s Mother’s library card is always very much appreciated and gives me a chance to pick up a few cookbooks from the great selection available (did I ever mention that I love NZ libraries?). Between occasional walks and trips down to the small village of St Arnaud for coffee at the Alpine Lodge café – fresh baked muffins (favourite: raspberry, pecan and chocolate) and scones every morning, great looking brunches and lunches, with long blacks worth walking miles for – there is plenty of time for reading.

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Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child, Simone Beck, and Louisette Bertholle

Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child, Simone Beck, and Louisette Bertholle

Since the release of Julie and Julia, both the book and the film,Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking has taken on a new lease of life. Now when readers look at this classic cookbook – first published in 1961 – they do so with the memory of Julie Powell’s consternation while tackling recipes like Boeuf Bourguignonne and Homard a l’Americaine. And they hear Julia Child’s idiosyncratic voice (and Meryl Streep’s take on that voice) in every line of this opinionated, entertaining and educational book.

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Tender: A Cook and His Vegetable Patch by Nigel Slater

Tender by Nigel Slater

Nigel, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love your appetite-stimulating writing, your easy recipes, your ability to always show me something interesting to do with kitchen constants like cauliflower, onions or lentils. I love your weekly column in the Observer and I love the Observer Food Monthly magazine (which, while living in NZ, I had sent out to me by my long-suffering mother!). I love your books, right from the copy of Real Fast Food that I got when in college, through entertaining from Real Food and Appetite while in my first job, The Kitchen Diaries that I recommended to many Urru customers, bookclub choice Toast and, now, to Tender.

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Eat Good Things Every Day by Carmel Somers

Eat Good Things Every Day by Carmel Somers

Cook ahead, shop ahead, think ahead – those are the main points of Carmel Somers’ first cookbook. Somers is the chef/owner of the Good Things Café, an acclaimed restaurant and popular cookery school in Durrus, West Cork. Eat Good Things Every Day, however, is not in the least bit cheffy. It is all about simple family dishes, often lifted with an unexpected ingredient: an apple in a cabbage stir fry with pork belly, bananas fried to accompany a Cuban rice dish, raw rhubarb tossed in a salad with cucumber and mint.