cookbooks | Ramblingrose

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Welcome to you all. Amazingly I still don't seem to be running out of ideas on what to write - well occasionally - but I have my writer's block strategies to turn to - see the text on the right. Check this page for the latest posts and if something interests you just click on it. It's easy to leave a comment and I love to read them. And now you can subscribe to the blog and get emailed notifications of new posts. And sorry I just don't understand Facebook.

"We are not here for long. So let's at least make ourselves something good to eat."

Nigel Slater

"I was born hungry, not a cook."

Julia Child

"One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well"

Virginia Woolf

Writer's block

Every now and then I can't think of a suitable topic and so I have devised a few strategies to get around this.

Lucky dip

The first strategy I devised is to go to one of my three cook book bookshelves, close my eyes and pick a book. Close my eyes again and pick a page. It's really quite an enlightening method of getting over writer's block.

'A word from'

My second strategy is to devote a post to the thoughts of one of my favourite cooks. Hopefully it will introduce them to you

Or

I shall choose a picture I have come across and extemporise on that.

A second kind of lucky dip

I have been thinking about first recipes in cook books - so I shall choose a book not quite randomly and then look at the first recipe for inspiration.

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enjoy

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River Cottage fruit

"If one food was designed, unambiguously, to be eaten, then surely it has to be fruit. We consume it, we spread the seed, more fruit grows, everyone's happy." Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall Bearing in mind the words above, it's perhaps appropriate that the frontispiece photograph in my next River Cottage Handbook - Fruit - is a perfect photograph of blossom. Potential. From little things big things grow and all that. It's also appropriate because the book is mostly about h

Mar 12

Rick Stein and British food

"It shouldn’t work, but, like most of his work, a bumbling anti-charm somehow wins through." John Merrick/Vittles I've never really been a follower of Rick Stein. I once watched a very short extract of the series in which he was floating down the Canal du Midi in France and I was somewhat underwhelmed. But I did buy this book recently - from Readings bargain table because I thought it was about time I discovered what all the fuss was about. Is he just good at promoting hi

Mar 11

'Yada yada' or indeed blah, blah, blah?

"I found page after page after page celebrating the passion the purveyors of ingredients have for their product … before finally finding a recipe." Lisa Hill/ANZ LitLovers Time to tackle this book which has been sitting around for me to (a) read and then (b) sort of review. I thought it was just me in not recognising how wonderful it is - and it is in a way that I shall come to - but honestly most of the food did not really appeal - but that I think is just me - as I am not

Feb 15

Self-soothing meatballs?

"any shovel-handed buffoon can roll a gob of mince into a rustic ball." Bunny Banyai So I said I would return to the meatball book and here it is - Around the World in 80 Meatballs by a lady called Bunny Banyai. A strange name - well the surname - and hard to pin down an origin, but I think somewhere in the book she mentioned Russia or Ukraine as an ancestral connection. Even stranger, however, is why this particular lady is writing a cookbook, for although she is indeed a

Jan 24

Clear borscht - a first recipe

"the pride of old Polish cooking" Maria Lemnis I'll be up front here and say I'm not inspired by this one. I'm pretty sure I did borscht as most of us know it - a complicated meat and vegetable soup founded on beetroot - long, long, ago, but here I am with a first recipe for a clear borscht, the version of which I have in front of me, with no picture or recipe online and no comments in the book. I chose this picture of The Spruce Eats recipe from Barbara Rolek for Beet so

Jan 17

Nigel's fruit

"And then there was fruit" Nigel Slater And flowers and nuts too. On the cover of this book - a Christmas present that I requested and received from my son and his ex?partner - is - I think - a blurry fig. Inside the cover is a rather beautiful red flower - also in soft romantic focus, but then all of the photographs in this companion volume to Nigel's book on the vegetables in his garden Tender Volume 1 , are taken by his friend and favourite food photographer of the Brit

Jan 8

I'm not quite sure about this book

"No matter what food I make, or where or what I eat, taste is everything." Sabrina Ghayour I was aware of Sabrina Ghayour because of her first book Persiana , references to which I come across now and again. I look out for it every now and then, but it has disappeared from the bookshops - just like NIgel Slater's earlier books. They don't stock old books unless they are huge sellers because there is always something new. So when I saw this one on a Readings bargain table

Dec 18, 2025

Guilt from browsing cookbooks

Don't be fooled by this photograph. This is not another Nigel homage, although he will get a mention or two - well more, but it's not really about him or his recipes. I also don't think I shall have much to say but I did want to say something arising from my attempt to decide what to cook for our friends coming to lunch on Sunday. And yes, I ended up with these three books and some bookmarks, but let me tell you how I came to this, and why I ended up feeling guilty. I wasn

Dec 10, 2025

Nasturtiums - a first recipe ramble

" Besides being delectable, these floral “greens” seem indulgent, whimsical, and oh-so-gourmet." Kitchen Lane The painting is by Monet. He loved them so much that one of the alleys in his garden at Giverny - the main one in fact - was lined with profuse beds of nasturtiums. Everybody says they grow like weeds - are weeds in fact - in the western world anyway - having originated in Central and South America - and then having been brought back by the conquistadores, they spr

Nov 27, 2025

Ixta Belfrage excites again

"Not seasoning food is against my religion" Ixta Belfrage Well it's time I did a kind of overview of this exciting cookbook. It's been sitting on my desk for a while, with a dozen or so yellow post-it stickers poking out of it, saying, cook me, cook me. So today is the day. I just worry that then I will find it a place on my shelves and it will never see the light of day again. Although I see I have already made one thing from it - a passion fruit and white chocolate mou

Nov 12, 2025

Tasty little things that make a difference

"all the added extras that dress up a meal, making an already good dish deliciously better." Tara Wigley?/Extra Good Things After my minor meltdown the other day I have indeed been trying to spend time doing a few other things, one of which is working on that cookbook for the grandchildren. Although I seriously do wonder whether it's worth it. After all they have the internet to help with everything via their phones. Nevertheless I persevere and this brings me to flavour

Nov 9, 2025

Indian cookbooks - then and now

"Books, even cookbooks, are written for a diversity of reasons and it is often more profitable to enquire why they have been written than analyse their contents in an uncritical manner. " Shylashri Shankar/The Peepul Tree I guess this particular post stems from one of those books on my desk - The Food of India - a large beautiful book which I picked up from the op shop for a song. Like it's companions in this series from the Murdoch stable on various world cuisines, it feat

Nov 4, 2025

Recipe problems - they still exist

"If you learn a recipe, you can cook the recipe. If you learn the technique, you can cook anything." Michael Symon That cookbook I was planning for the grandchildren - well I'm still working on it, although having been treated to dinner cooked by one of them last night - butter chicken, pumpkin masala, naan - I sometimes wonder why I'm bothering. I also wonder what is the best approach. I think I am aiming, in a less grandiose way, to do what Michael Symon says in his open

Nov 3, 2025

Food for celebrities - a book

"Staying in really is the new going out." Nisha Parmar The pile of books on my desk is not getting any smaller because I keep on adding to it. It's becoming a bit of an addiction which is a somewhat worrying thought. So today I decided to tackle yet one more - a birthday gift from my son and his ex, so it dates back to June. I did look at it pretty much straightaway, but then it ended up in the dreaded pile. So a quick summary - a beautiful cover - well done designers. Go

Oct 16, 2025