Cookbooks I Love

And go back to time and time again

So this is potentially a long list. For context, the photo here is of part of (I feel I must specify: not all of) my wall of cookbooks, which is in my study. The wall itself (the whole of the wall it, that is) isn’t even all my cookbooks though; it doesn’t include the ones in my kitchen, or stacked on my desk, or my bedside table, or the many dotted here and there around the house... It doesn’t show the collection of largely vintage cookbooks I have on the other wall on the other side of the study. It’s not a start on the cookbooks I have at home in Venice (that’s a whole separate story); and we’re not even talking about the cookbooks I still have languishing at my (long-suffering) mother’s house, which I will move over to mine at some point, one day when I have room. All of this to illustrate the point that were we to go with all the cookbooks I love, we could be here for a while. So am narrowing the field a little to the old favourites that I keep going back to, the ones that shaped the way I cook but more importantly also taught me to love to cook. So, in no particular order, here are a few cookbooks I love and think you will too:

How I Cook by Skye Gyngell

This is one of the first cookbooks I fell in love with: the recipes are elegant and delicate; the sort of food that feels chic and sophisticated but also welcoming and joyful and all-round exactly what you want to eat. Think syllabubs and jellies, roasted bitter greens, racks of lamb, towers of meringues and pannacottas infused with lemon verbena: all of it makes me long to cook how Skye Gyngell cooks. It’s a dreamy world of long tables, garden suppers, and the kind of elegant hosting that also feels nonchalantly casual, warm and friendly. The book is divided by season and the recipes are arranged as menus, which you can then pick and choose from as you like.

The Flavour Thesaurus by Niki Segnit

Of all the cookbooks I own, this I think is the one I turn to most frequently. It’s a cookbook but not really a cookbook: a genius index of key flavours which are then cross-referenced with all the flavours they match nicely with, as well as loose suggestions for how you might turn that flavour pairing into a clever twist on chocolate mousse say, or a pie or a salad, or the ingredients for the most delicious dinner. It’s such a clever little book, exquisitely researched and written, and opens up a world of flavours and creativity in the kitchen which is nothing short of sheer joy. More recently, Segnit has written a second volume in the same character: The Flavour Thesaurus: More Flavours, which is plant-led and has more of a fruit and vegetable focus. It’s every bit as brilliant as the original Flavour Thesaurus, and both - frankly - are a must.

How To Feed Your Friends with Relish by Joanna Weinberg

This is the cookbook I taught myself to cook from: my mother gave me a copy for Christmas one year, when I was still at university; and I just devoured it. In every sense of the word: I read it back to back and cooked pretty much every single recipe from it. The premise of the book is the joy of bringing together friends with food, which is - basically - everything I love most about food. It’s prettily and engagingly written, with charming hand-drawn illustrations and recipes organised by menu for all sorts of occasions from carpet picnics to birthday parties, to cosy suppers at home: think shepherd’s pie, dauphinoise potatoes, tarte tatin and many more of those sorts of good things.