One of the wonderful things I got for Christmas (thank-you Jenny!) was Nigel Slater’s new book, The Kitchen Diaries. I am a big fan of Mr Slater’s, and have several of his books. I look out for his columns each week in the Observer and I particularly like the way he writes with greed and hunger about the food he cooks.
In case you have not seen this book yet, it is a record of a year of Mr Slater’s cooking and eating, arranged chronologically, so you always have a recipe to hand that is appropriate for the season. What could be better for re-adjusting to English seasons than this?
So far I have made two of January’s recipes: Dal and Pumpkin Soup and Marmalade Cake – both were wonderful (and both orange – I do have a bias for orange foods: pumpkin, carrot soup, mangoes, orange juice – you get the idea) .
Partly as a result of this inspiration, and partly as a result of the good advice of my cooking teacher at Tante Marie’s, I have bought myself a thick notebook to keep my own cooking diary. In it I am recording where I make a recipe from a book, and when I make something up, as well as changes and adjustments I made as I went along and tasting notes on how it turned out. I let you know how it goes…
Using Mainly Spoons 