Recommendations you can check.
Chef and food writer; patron of the Ottolenghi group of London restaurants and author of Plenty, Jerusalem and Simple.
5 things
Stars DessertsBook Emily Luchetti
She also wrote another book, Four-Star Desserts; I have a very warm place in my heart for both. One of my first placements was as a pastry chef, and I loved using those books, because they were a breath of fresh air after all your French basics.
Five Books interview on his favourite cookbooks
2011-03-11·fivebooks.com ↗
The Pie and Pastry BibleBook Rose Levy Beranbaum
I used this book quite a lot, because she has a fantastic method of pastry-making for the whole range of different pastries. She has great recipes for things like Danish pastries, and basic short crust and shortbread pastry – and she has a very clear voice. She enjoys herself, and you can tell she's having fun. It's not one of these heavy books with centuries of tradition behind it, and that's exactly what I like so much about her style.
Five Books interview on his favourite cookbooks
2011-03-11·fivebooks.com ↗
The River Cottage Meat BookBook Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
What I like about this book, which is similar to my previous two choices, is that it is very serious and thorough. I like it when people go into a subject and explore it fully for me or with me. And Hugh does this in an amazing way.
Five Books interview on his favourite cookbooks
2011-03-11·fivebooks.com ↗
Vegetarian Cooking for EveryoneBook Deborah Madison
This book gives you loads of pointers about flavour combinations, and ways of putting vegetables together. It's not groundbreaking; it's not anything you haven't heard before. But it is very extensive. Deborah Madison uses everything and goes over all methods and all the ingredients. The writing is very light and simple – not at all challenging. Often, you get food writers that make things a little bit complicated, or too long-winded, but she is very simple and very clear.
Five Books interview on his favourite cookbooks
2011-03-11·fivebooks.com ↗
On Food and CookingBook Harold McGee
Yes. This is the book that I use when I need to come up with a very technical solution to what I am making. Cooking can be very intuitive, but, especially with food writing, you often need to get to grips with what it is that you are actually doing, so that you can have a deeper understanding of it. This is a very technical manual. Let's say that I need to see what happens during the process of steaming, or poaching, or frying; I always go to this book. McGee is very clear and to the point. Despite the fact that he is quite technical, it's never boring.
Five Books interview on his favourite cookbooks
2011-03-11·fivebooks.com ↗
Every entry is a verbatim quote and a link to the public post it came from. Nothing is paraphrased. If it is not on record somewhere public, it is not here.
The verdict is what they actually said: loved and liked are explicit; recommended means they told others to get it; uses means they only say they use it; read is a book on their public shelf with no verdict; mixed and disliked are kept too.
A dashed affiliate link, sponsored or their own label means the post disclosed a relationship. It is shown, never hidden.
The shading behind a date shows how dated a recommendation is for its kind of thing.
The shading behind a date shows how dated a recommendation is, for its kind of thing. Fully green is recent. It drains a quarter at a time as the post gets older, and is empty once it reads as dated.
What counts as old depends on the thing. A laptop praised four years ago has been replaced twice; a book loved twenty years ago is probably still loved. The shading is gone after about:
Stripes mean the post carries no date and the date shown is an estimate. No date at all, no shading.