Heroes of Food

I love cookbooks.  I love the pictures, the recipes, the feel and even the smell of them. I especially love those which have stories of love, family, travel and experience. My favourites are those where you hear the voice of the author sharing their most special food moments with the reader.  A good cookbook can take you all over the world, to bustling cities or remote villages and from the fanciest restaurants, most vibrant street markets to the home kitchen and family table.

My own collection (which I am continually adding to) is just that. I have books from all over the world, from every type of chef from home cook, to Michelin starred, historical tomes, the classics that still endure and influence, foreign language books and pretty much every type of cuisine going from a multitude of countries, religions, disciplines and styles.  For me they are journals. As you will know, my Restaurant at Home ethos is all about cooking with love and eating together, making a meal of it regardless of how much time you have, the size of your kitchen, what you use as your “table” or the ingredients you can gather.  So my books are covered with post-it notes marking those recipes I want to try next and scribbles, notes, dates reminding me when and I cooked a recipe and why, but also what worked, what didn’t and what changes I made to either make it my own or where I had to substitute ingredients or change weights and measures.

I don’t believe there is such as thing as an “orignal” recipe.  Certain ingredients just go together and the basics don’t change.  I have designed recipes with no use of books nor internet, which I feel able to write about and publish, but I know if I searched someone else will have done something similar.  And I think that’s ok.  I have certainly have in my own collections found recipes repeated by different chefs, the magic is having your own twist, personality and story on yours.

However, when I use a recipe, my heart knows the difference between a final dish that is too close to the original (even though I will always make some changes) to call my own and one I have developed enough to be able to take credit and simply acknowledge my inspiration.  And if I’ve not used any “cheat sheets” then I’m claiming it for myself.

So, under this page you will (eventually) find a list of my favourite chefs and their recipes (be in book form or the trusty internet), my treasured books I can physically hold and my efforts at recreating their magic in my own kitchen.  I may spend a week trying out various recipes from one book, I may do a different recipe from a different chef/book a day or I might go my own way.   If I think I can claim the credit for what I ultimately produce, I will add it to the recipe page (http://wp.me/P5va7C-O) if not, because despite tweaks it’s ultimately someone else’s, I will put my story here (but, in the unlikely event any of my dear favourite chefs are reading, I promise not to produce recipes in full – I’m not a professional (or even amateur!) blogger but I’m pretty sure that’s not allowed).

So let’s see what happens…and whether I get round to building this page as a homage to the great and good of food.

A small selection of my favourites