In-depth cookery book reviews.
I was excited by the thud on my doormat of a review copy of Take One Fish by Josh Niland. Josh is an Australian chef and restaurant owner renowned for his nose-to-tail (fin-to-flipper?) approach to fish cooking, first published to universal acclaim in his previous book, The Whole Fish. He wants to inspire us with ... Read more »
A gluten-free cookbook for rubes like me wanting to create a perfect bake – could Baked to Perfection by Katarina Cermelj be The One? Please don’t be put off by Cermelj’s credentials as a PhD in Inorganic Chemistry. If anything, lean into it. The beauty of Cermelj’s background is that she has, as she says ... Read more »
I’ve enjoyed many a delicious ice cream and sorbet from Gelupo Gelato’s popular gelateria over the years. Located on Archer Street in Soho – just across the road from its big sister Bocca di Lupo Italian restaurant – Gelupo Gelato has been one of London’s most lauded ice cream shops since 2010. I like to ... Read more »
Ghillie Başan is a food anthropologist, and food and travel writer with a large back catalogue of cookbooks (one of which – Mezze – I already own, and The Lebanese Cookbook which we reviewed on Kavey Eats earlier in the year). Başan’s books are primarily focussed around the Middle East and Turkey though Indonesia, Cambodia, ... Read more »
Sicily is high up on my ‘must visit’ list. I’ve watched many travelogues and cookery programmes covering the opulent geography, the history crafted by the positioning of Sicily between Europe and North Africa, and the cuisine blending Italian and Arab influences in its own unique way. In Sicilia Ben Tish does a fine job in ... Read more »
As soon as I read Elizabeth Haigh’s introduction in her debut cookbook Makan: Recipes from the Heart of Singapore by Elizabeth Haigh I was hooked, not least because her story resonated so strongly with me. In a tale that is deeply familiar to me as a fellow child of Asian immigrants, it was only when ... Read more »
Vanessa Bolosier’s Sunshine Kitchen: Delicious Creole recipes from the heart of the Caribbean is a cookbook whose photos lift your soul every time you open it. Sea turquoises, sky blues and sunshine yellows predominate, punctuated with scotch bonnet reds and vivid jewel greens. Just flip through the book and you feel Vitamin D3-ed. Never has ... Read more »
Vietnamese: Simple Vietnamese Food to Cook at Home is the second book from food writer Uyen Luu, following on from her debut book, My Vietnamese Kitchen. In that first book Uyen related her personal story – including memories of younger years in Vietnam before her family moved to London, introduced readers to the culture and ... Read more »
Are you one of those people who skips straight to the last page of a whodunnit? Do you read a cookbook review in frustration and haste, skimming the background blurb to find out whether the book was any good or not? Did I love it, did I kinda like it, is it already in the ... Read more »
It’s interesting how one book can expose a huge gap in my food knowledge that I didn’t know I had. Amber & Rye is subtitled “A Baltic Food Journey – Estonia · Latvia · Lithuania”, and to my chagrin, I opened it with no idea at all what to expect. Zuza Zak helpfully prefaces the ... Read more »
The Place of Onions, in old Lille. After last night’s rainstorm the intense sticky heat has broken and today is cool, breezy, fresh… I love it! A drop of… [more]
We went to Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire at The Void this morning, an amazing VR experience where we got to be Rebel Alliance members going undercover as… [more]