Archive For May 2008
These Gourmet Guides are quite exceptional little books. Small in format, I should say, but full of the most useful information sufficient for any enthusiastic food lover. This series is quite eye-catching – the well-designed brown card covers are a stylish trade mark. I have enjoyed the Authentik Gourmet Guides to both London and Paris….
This is yet another Footprint guide and it’s well up to the standard of their regular travel books, but this one is rather unique. It’s a guide specifically for anyone who travels and enjoys wine. It doesn’t focus on any one wine growing region but includes ALL wine-producing areas. The book is divided by country…
This is another from that marvellous collaboration of Alison Hodge Publishing, author Carol Trewin and photographer Adam Woolfitt. This book is of the same glossy high standard that we have come to expect and makes a wonderful companion to Cornish Fishing and Seafood that I recently reviewed. I must admit that I hadn’t thought of…
Originally produced in the Val-de-Travers region in Switzerland and in Pontarlier, France, Absinthe is a distilled anise-flavoured spirit made from herbs including the flowers and leaves of the plant Artemisia Absinthium, also called Wormwood. Although it is sometimes termed a liqueur, absinthe has no added sugar and is therefore considered as a spirit. Absinthe was…
If you only have time to visit one shop on a quick trip to Carcassonne, then this must be the one. This little up-market deli/wine/coffee/tea/sweet/fine food shop looks like it’s been there for a hundred years. It’s only been twenty. Before that La Ferme was located just around the corner but away from the main…
I was expecting a pamphlet. What is there to say about beans? Well, lots and it’s much more interesting than I had supposed. The author, Ken Albala, already has a good track record for writing food-related books. His others include Eating Right in the Renaissance and The Banquet: Dining in the Great Courts of Late…
…from Oaxaca to the Windy City. Award-winning chef-restaurateur, cookbook author, and television personality Rick Bayless has done more than any other culinary figure to introduce Americans to authentic Mexican cooking and to change the image of Mexican food in America. I was first introduced to the work of Rick Bayless when we were living in…
We hear so much about the Scots’ passion for deep-fried chocolate bars and not nearly enough about the wealth of fine food that represents the true Scottish culinary heritage. Haggis is the dish that first comes to mind when thinking about traditional Scots fare. I have a favourite one that I’ll review for you over…
This is a wonderful and well-designed book on Lebanese cuisine. It has plenty of pictures in both colour and sepia. The recipes have lots of tips for saving time, for storage or final presentation, and the pages are arranged clearly with even the longer recipes being easy to follow. The author, Ina’am Atalla, introduces us…
Fishing is Britain’s most dangerous peacetime occupation. Now, there’s a thought! This is a gorgeous, full-colour volume (photographer Adam Woolfitt does fantastic work) that I hesitate to describe as a coffee table book. It’s glossy and lovely but it’s a book you should read. It’s a serious, worrying and inspiring book that I had to…
Asparagus officinalis is a flowering plant species in the genus Asparagus, a member of the lily family, from which the popular vegetable known as asparagus is obtained. It is native to most of Europe, North Africa and Asia. Asparagus has been used from very early times as a vegetable and also as a medicine due…
Annie Hawes, the bestselling author of Extra Virgin, has another cracking book. It’s A Handful of Honey and should be on the required reading list for anyone planning a trip to Morocco or, less probable, a trip to Algeria. At first sight I wondered why the nice people at Pan Macmillan would want me to…
I confess that the book was bigger than I had expected. I should know better, considering that I am half Irish by blood. Probably there aren’t many outside the Emerald Isle that know very much about that country’s cooking, apart from it involving a lot of potatoes! Traditional Irish Cooking has a wealth of recipes…
It’s a magazine about Food, Places and Faces, OK? Sometimes all of those things will come together and today is one of those days when memories flow! I am not going to tell you the story of how my friend Tony set light to his car seat (adding a whole new meaning to the word…
Or to give the book its full and poetic title: Honey – A handbook for home, health and happiness by Clova McQueen. That has got to be the most perfect name for a food writer with a health food shop. I wonder if the shop is called Bees Knees as Usual? I am surprised that…
We in the UK have a very particular view on Indian food. For most of us it’s visits to restaurants that introduce us to those vibrant spices that give such a distinct flavour to Sub-continental dishes – those which have fiery heat and those which are aromatic and mellow. The Indian Bible offers the reader…