My Bookshelves

I bought 'Apples for Jam: Recipes for Life' by Tessa Kiros today, a signed copy no less! Just like her previous book, 'Falling Cloudberries: A World of Family Recipes', this is beautiful to look through and I can’t wait to lose myself in it’s pages.

My bookshelves are filled with various food books. I fear it’s becoming an addiction, I even felt a pang of guilt as I walked to the till to pay for the latest addition - a sure sign of a habit in need of curbing. I’ll be hiding them from my husband next! I just can’t help it – I love books. I love the smell of the paper, the feel of the pages as I run my hand over them, the solitary pleasure of opening a new book for the first time. And with food books combining my favourite two interests they are simply irresistible to me.

My favourite food writer is Nigella Lawson. I love the sheer unadulterated pleasure of food she conveys and I find a lot of comfort in her recipes. My favourite of her books are 'How to Eat: Pleasures and Principles of Good Food (Cookery)' and 'Nigella Bites'.

In terms of usage, Jamie Oliver’s books would have to be high up on my list. I have almost all of his books and his earlier ones, 'The Naked Chef' and 'The Return of the Naked Chef', introduced me to fresh herbs and a whole new way of cooking. His were the books I used when I first lived on my own and started cooking for myself on a daily basis.

Just a few of the other food books you’ll find on my shelves are:

• 'The Kitchen Diaries: A Year in the Kitchen' by Nigel Slater


• 'The River Cottage Meat Book' by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall


• 'Anthony Bourdain's "Les Halles" Cookbook: Classic Bistro Cooking' by Anthony Bourdain


• 'Roast Chicken and Other Stories (Ebury Paperback Cookery)
  ' by Simon Hopkinson and Lindsey Bareham


• ‘Rick Stein's French Odyssey' by Rick Stein


• ‘Soup Kitchen
  ' by various