Nigel Slater does fantastic food writing. There's something terribly entrancing about his descriptions of simple food done well. This book is jam-packed with ideas and, well, motivation for plenty of fairly simple recipes that you're quite likely to want to cook and eat. His rallying against namby-pamby food rings a little hollow - delicate cooking can be truely excellent, but for the most part these are melas that are difficult to get wrong - perfect for beginners. He even emphasises that when he's not being exact, that's because the amounts really don't matter, and that if something's important, he'll tell you. How confidence-building is that? He worships the gooey and crunchy bits of fry-ups, and exudes a highly infectious joy of cooking and eating. The first cookery book I got was Delia's cookery course, and while it's been a steady recipe resource, there's just no comparison.
Posted 2007-01-02.