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A gentle introduction to Italian cooking, Catherine's Italian Kitchen is the companion book to Catherine Fulvio's well-received television series, which was nominated for a World Food Media Award earlier this year. Fulvio, who runs the well regarded Ballyknocken Cookery School at her family home in Wicklow, is married to Sicilian native Claudio. With this connection and her teaching experience, she is well placed to translate Italian recipes to an Irish audience.

While Catherine's Italian Kitchen covers all of Italy, the most interesting recipes in the book are those from Sicily, dishes like Arancini di Riso, little balls of rice stuffed with meat, Pistachio and Asparagus Penne (with a sprinkle of the "poor man's Parmesan" or dried breadcrumbs) and an elaborate sponge-ricotta-candied fruit concoction called Cassata. Arab influences on Sicilian cooking - like the addition of pine nuts and raisins to dishes like Pasta with Sardines and Wild Fennel or Panelle, a chickpea fritter eaten as a snack - feature throughout the book. Other Arab imports - aubergines, lemons and the oranges that Sicily is associated with - all make frequent appearances in dishes like Spaghetti with Aubergine Balls, Lemon and Pine Nut Biscotti or Roasted Pumpkin with Shallots and Orange.

A bread, pizza and calzone chapter includes tempting Sicilian breads such as Stromboli (Mozarella and Pancetta Filled Bread) and Sfincione (Sicilian Pizza Bread), alongside recipes for focaccia, breadsticks and pizza. Meat highlights include a Lemon Chicken with Fennel and Lemon Risotto Stuffing, Pork Belly with Lemon, Honey and Thyme and a braised beef dish, sprinkled with a lively mix of chopped garlic, lemon and chilli before serving.

The focus is on simple dishes using seasonal ingredients and nothing is too complicated. Fulvio may not be reinventing the Italian wheel but Catherine's Italian Kitchen is the book to encourage people into the kitchen and try out recipes that are a few steps removed from old reliables like bolognese and lasagna.

Watch out for Fulvio's new series, Catherine's Roman Holiday, starting this Friday, 3 September, on RTÉ One at 8.30pm.

Must Try: the cheese and tomato Aubergine Parmigiana, an easy Oven-Baked Fennel Sausage and Tomato Risotto

Catherine's Italian Kitchen by Catherine Fulvio is published by Gill and Macmillian.

Not having a television, I had never heard of Gregg Wallace before Gregg's Favourite Puddings landed on the doorstep. A co-presenter of BBC show Masterchef, apparently he is well known for his sweet tooth, and this book is like a greatest hits of the pudding world.

On the lighter side of things, there is a focus on fruit puddings (Wallace is a big fan of the crumble) and a great selection of ices and mousses, including an exceptionally tempting Coffee Hazelnut Ice. The chocolate chapter, however, tips the balance way, way in the other direction. Chocolate Gateau with Rum and Walnuts, Triple Chocolate Brûlée and Hot Chocolate Liqueur Soufflé are just some of the riches on offer. The Chocoholic's Alaska is the kind of pudding that might incite you to invite people round and serve only this.

The classics also feature in their own chapter, with recipes for Brown Betty, Strawberry Shortcake and an almondy Tiramisù with amaretti biscuits. In fact there is rather an almond theme throughout the book: an Apple Pie comes complete with almond pastry, almonds and figs make it into some Baked Apples and the Vanilla Biscotti are flecked with toasted, unblanched almonds.

Although Wallace's presence in the book is limited to short introductions, the recipes stand strongly by themselves. Open any page and dip into pure indulgence of a very, very tasty kind.

Must try: the chilli-spiked Spiced Mango Sorbet with Pineapple, the decadence of a Chocolate Fudge Cake, a Linzer Torten made with, yes, more almonds

Gregg's Favourite Puddings by Gregg Wallace is published by Octopus Publishing Group.

I am a big fan of Michael Pollan's writing. I was first grabbed by 2008's In Defence of Food, which led me to The Omnivore's Dilemma from 2006. These books - absorbing, fascinating, infuriating and entertaining - are great reading. Pollan may be writing about weighty things but he wears his learning and research lightly.

The Omnivore's Dilemma is a realistic but discouraging account of American food and eating, from industrial to organic, locally produced to self-foraged. It's the kind of book that makes you wonder just what you should eat. In Defence of Food, subtitled An Eater's Manifesto, is Pollan's answer to just that question which he boils down to just seven words: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." He also argues against what he calls 'nutritionism', the idea that food is all about scientifically determined nutrients - for example, we are told to eat mackerel because it contains omega-3 fats rather than because it just tastes good.

Food Rules is the condensed, quick read version of these books. Taking his seven word summation as a guide, this slim volume gives you 64 rules to help you enjoy a healthy diet. Some of them are entertaining but thought provoking (it's not food if it arrived through the window of your car; don't ingest foods made in places where everyone is required to wear a surgical cap), others deadly serious: eat well-grown food from healthy soil; pay more, eat less.

Unrealistic? Perhaps, if you try to stick rigidly to all Pollan's rules, but you will probably be surprised by how many of them you already implement. If you're trying to make humane and environmentally sustainable choices about how you eat, then you're probably more than half way to following his guidelines. That, and your meals just taste really good.

If you're interested in cooking, eating or feeding your family this is the book that you really need to read. 

Read more about Michael Pollan's books, articles and thoughts on MichaelPollan.com
Michael Pollan is on Twitter at MichaelPollan.

Food Rules by Michael Pollan is published by Penguin.

There are times when a book arrives at exactly the right time. Elizabeth Carty's Shrewd Food, with its focus on - as the subtitle says - a new way of shopping, cooking and eating, is that book. As Carthy points out in her introduction, food does not have to be expensive to be good and recipes in the following pages prove this.

She may not be reinventing the wheel but many of the commonsense tips that are scattered throughout the book have been forgotten in recent years. With grab-it-and-go in the supermarket having been replaced by careful shopping around, advice like making a list (and sticking to it!), checking product price per kilo and menu planning is always worth repeating. Carty encourages readers to use their freezers to maximise the value of supermarket special offers, to buy food that is in season for better value and to buy local produce which will be fresher. She also emphasises the importance of enjoying cooking as well as eating and there is no recipe included that won't be enjoyed by all the family.

Before moving back to Ireland in 2000, Carty lived in London, Cyprus and Dubai and her experiences abroad have informed the recipes that she includes. Middle Eastern Salad, Greek Roast Lamb and Kibbe sit alongside more familiar Irish-style recipes like Mushroom and Leek Soup, Apple Crumble and Cauliflower Cheese. Each recipe include a shopping lists, along with information on adapting the dish to appeal to children, or to make it low fat or gluten-free.

With a wealth of interesting recipes, Shewd Food is a book that shows how eating on a budget can be much more of a pleasure than a hair shirt penance.

Must Try: Courgette Pasta (to use up the current garden glut), Gigot à la Cuillère, Clementine Clafoutis

Shrewd Food by Elizabeth Carty (£12.99) is published by Hachette Ireland. Elizabeth Carty's website is ShrewdFood.ie and she is also on Facebook and Twitter.

Simple, accessible recipes are Tana Ramsay's hallmark and that hasn't changed in her latest book, Tana's Kitchen Secrets. Unlike her superchef husband, Ramsay's family-orientated recipes - she has four children to cater for - are all of the easily achievable, what-will-I-make-tonight kind. Dishes like Indian Lamb Chops, Moroccan Fish Tagine or Raspberry & Lemon Torta will appeal to everyone and there's no need for complicated equipment or difficult-to-find ingredients.

Each of the recipes is accompanied with a "kitchen secret" or tip - how to make perfect roasted vegetables, cooking with honey, skinning a fish - which will be invaluable for new cooks as well as a great refresher for the more experienced. The chapter on Slow and Easy Meat is perfect for anyone who likes to get the prep (and the washing!) out of the way early and Ramsay also has great chapters on vegetables, bread making and sauces/dressings.

Sweet treats aren't forgotten about with a tempting selection of puddings, cakes and biscuits that includes the traditional - Victoria Sponge, Cherry & Almond Loaf - alongside recipes that are just a little bit different, such as Caramelised Peaches with Hazelnut Crème Fraîche, Pineapple with a Lime Twist, Lemon and Thyme Shortbread.

Packed with plenty of colourful, tasty ideas, Tana's Kitchen Secrets is a cookbook designed for lots of kitchen use.

Must Try: Roast Beetroot with Crème Fraîche & Chives, Chocolate Cheesecake, Pineapple Tart Tatin, Tomato and Tarragon Mayonnaise

Tana's Kitchen Secrets by Tana Ramsay is published by Mitchell Beazley

How do you make seaweed sexy? Take a passionate woman who happens to be an expert forager and cook, add a strong sense of place - the Sligo coast - scatter with a selection of recipes from well known (Domini Kemp, Hugo Arnold) and local Irish chefs (Brid Torrades of Sligo's Tobergal Lane Cafe) and you have Prannie Rhatigan's fabulous Irish Seaweed Kitchen.

An erudite cookbook that makes seaweed accessible to those who never had the opportunity to harvest duileasc, kelp or sleabhac, Rhatigan combines tempting recipes with tips on how to make the most of a large variety of sea vegetables. Seaweed plays a major part in some recipes - Filo Pie with Sea Spaghetti, Mushrooms and Apples, Duileasc Champ, Nori Pancakes with St Tola Cheese - but Rhatigan also has a wide range of recipes with unexpected additions: a seed cake with sugar kelp, cookies with sea spaghetti or alaria, duileasc in cheese scones. The Teddy Bears' Picnic chapter gives a great selection of recipes that will appeal to kids and directions on how to set up your own clambake, a method of steaming foods - Ratigan includes lobsters, chickens, clams and mussels - in a pit with seaweed, had me salivating.

Alongside information on how to gently introduce seaweed to your diet and a glossary of edible seaweeds, there is also a well-photographed chapter on picking your own, with tips on where the different varieties grow. Just in case you don't get a chance to splash around by the sea side, Rhatigan also includes the contact details for Irish and Northern Irish seaweed suppliers, including Bibliocook favourite and Foodtalk: Wild Food interviewee Seamus Moran of LoTide Fine Foods. That list - and a useful bookmark printed with a simple guide to preparing seaweed for culinary use - will give impetus to many people interested in embarking on their own seaweed adventure. A fascinating, delicious and inspiring read.

Irish Seaweed Kitchen by Prannie Rhatigan is published by Booklink. More information on her own website at www.prannie.com. After being inspired by her cookbook, keep an eye on The Organic Centre website for her popular seaweed cookery demonstrations and walks.

The ninth edition of the Bridgestone Irish Food Guide has arrived and it's overflowing with smokehouses and bakeries, markets and farmshops, gastropubs and country houses.

Packed with, as they say, "all the good stuff and only the good stuff", John and Sally McKenna, together with their contributing editors, have roamed the highways and byways of the country to put this chunky, opinionated food directory together. Whether it is revisiting old favourites - Glebe Gardens, The Old Convent, McCarthy Butchers - or discovering new pleasures (Gourmet Gadgets, Kate's Farm Shop, the Blue Geranium Café, Organico), there's lots to read here and even more to seek out.

But it's not all sweetness (check out Bridgestone newbie Pandora Bell) and light (Valentia's Lighthouse Café gets a great write up). In his introduction John McKenna takes the supermarkets, which he describes as amoral, destructive harlots, to task for their role in destroying Irish farming.

He calls for the shoppers of Ireland to take a stand, focusing on Fair Trade for our own by "buying local food from local farmers". And then, with the hundreds of entries that follow, he hands you the tools to facilitate this, whether it is by market, by website or by phone.

My copy has now gone to live in the car, fitting neatly into its usual spot - the side pocket of the passenger's seat - where I can peruse it regularly, helpfully pointing out good stopping spots to the Husband. Any book that can help me identify decent stopping places on the road from Cork to Dublin (Café Odhrán and The Gallic Kitchen, both Abbeyleix) is more than worth €15. Bring on the next road trip!

The Bridgestone Irish Food Guide 2009 is published by Estragon Press. Buy it online here.

9 July 2007: A trip to Carlow with the Bridgestone Food Guide

If Failte Ireland want to use just one thing to promote Ireland overseas, The Country Cooking of Ireland is the book that they need to thrust into the hands of potential tourists. 

Writer Colman Andrews has impeccable pedigree - one of the founders of Saveur, the author of books on Catalan, Italian and French cuisine, and freelance contributer to any number of esteemed American food magazines including the last lamented Gourmet, Bon Appétit and Food & Wine - and he ate his way through the high- and byways of this country to put this book together. He credits a meeting with Peter Ward of Nenagh's Country Choice in a Kinsale bar for starting him off on the journey that led to this book - and for pointing him in the direction of the best food available, something that he might not have stumbled on by accident.  

As it happens, Country Cooking of Ireland is like a roll call of the best eating available with Andrews singling out people like butcher Jack McCarthy in Kanturk, Esther Barron of Cappoquin's Barron's Bakery, chef Ian Orr of Rathmullan House in Donegal and the Shinnick's of the Fermoy Natural Cheese Company. He is like a culinary magpie, his eye always cocked for an artisan producer, local speciality, or place featuring good food. 

The usual chapters on soups, fish, poultry, meats and baking are supplemented by sections on savoury pies, salmon ("The Magical Fish"), potatoes ("The Definitive Food") and a soda bread-focused bread chapter. There are little essays scattered throughout the book on a historical and factual topics, from how to serve Irish smoked salmon, the recent Polish influence on Ireland and explanations of Irish ingredients and old cooking techniques.   

He quotes widely from Irish cookbooks, over 100 of which are mentioned in the extensive bibliography, and recipes from all eras are included - Miss Jane Bury's Potato Pancakes, Maura Laverty's Yalla Male Bread, Gerry Galvin's Tipsy Pudding with Mulled Wine, Shepherd's Pie from Regina Sexton and Clodagh McKenna.  

There is enough Irish myth and legend to please the Yanks but, while Andrews gazes at the stars, his wellies are still down in the mud - generations of Irish mammies will nod their heads approvingly as Bisto makes an appearance in a recipe for Savoury Mince, Dublin Coddle is to be served with YR Sauce and there's even a recipe for Broccoli in Butter (Andrews justifies its inclusion by writing that it is a "common offering" with main dishes in many restaurants, "even in the most sophisticated ones"). 

While some of his information is already dated - a couple of the micro breweries that he mentions have disappeared - in the main, this is the kind of book that will have you wondering how on earth you have managed to miss out on such food riches in your own back yard. But, as Andrews pointed out at the Good Food Ireland launch of the book in Dublin's Merrion Hotel, Ireland is not a great food destination - yet. But the potential, much of it enclosed between the covers of this fantastic book, is here. 

Must Try: Bernadette O'Shea's Leek and Black Pudding Pizza, Pot Roasted Pork with Root Vegetables and Apples from Martin Dwyer, Peter Ward's Christmas Pudding (the recipe for which alone is worth the price of the book)

The Country Cooking of Ireland by Colman Andrews is published by Chronicle Books and is available online from Good Food Ireland.

Related Link: Choice in the Country: where are we now?

Flood risk assessment: WRE

With St Patrick's Day being tomorrow, one's thoughts turn to food. Specifically food of an Irish sort, which includes, naturally enough, all things potato. So when I was reading through my recently acquired copy of Margaret Bates' Talking about Cakes with an Irish and Scottish Accent, her recipe for Potato Apple Cake caught my eye. She said it was a delicacy from the orchard districts of Co Armagh but didn't give an actual recipe, describing it as two rounds of potato cake sandwiching an apple filling and cooked on the griddle.

Sounded like a challenge to me so here is my recipe for what I think is more like a tart than a cake. This is best served hot out of the oven and, surprisingly enough, the flavour of the potatoes and apples go really well together, especially with a jug of custard on the side!

Incidentally, this is a cookbook well worth searching out. According to the notes at the front, Margaret Bates was the Vice-Principal of the City of Belfast College of Domestic Science and she also wrote The Belfast Cookery Book and Talking about Puddings. Talking about Cakes was first published in 1964 and, while I'm not a fan of her over-enthusiastic use of margarine (give me Monica Sheridan and her devotion to butter any day!), there are lots of unusual recipes in this book to (re)discover.

Happy Patrick's Day - hope I'm not too late for the Daily Spud's Paddy's Day Food Parade!

If ever your grandmother knew how slow cooking turned beef cheeks meltingly tender, could tell her Rhode Island Reds from Marans or was able to grow, harvest, preserve and cook her own runner beans, you'll nod knowingly at Forgotten Skills of Cooking and enjoy leafing through the pages. If you weren't lucky enough to have that kind of paragon of virtue in your life, think of Darina Allen's latest book as a kind of virtual granny in book form.

Alongside reams of information on the kind of old fashioned kitchen and housekeeping techniques that were in danger of being lost, Allen has crammed more than 700 recipes into 600 pages of close-packed text. If you've ever had a yearning to take up chicken rearing, cider making, fish smoking or foraging for seaweed, you'll find all that here, and more. Much, much more.

From foraging to poultry, dairy to preserving, this is the kind of book that you pick up for one recipe and get lost for days. It's particularly strong on baking with plenty of recipes for puddings (Summer Fruit Jelly, Figgy Toffee Pudding), cakes (Lemon Cornmeal Cake, Barmbrack) and biscuits (Gingernuts, Shortbread Biscuits) and a whole bread chapter that is no less than a call to arms in defence of our daily bread.

Forgotten Skills of Cooking is a book that just might change your life. And, even if it doesn't go that far, it certainly will enhance it.

Forgotten Skills of Cooking by Darina Allen is published by Kyle Cathie

SilverCircle.ie: Interview: Darina Allen - Reclaiming forgotten skills plus a recipe for Emer Fitzgerald's Braised Lamb Neck Moussaka.

Nicola Galloway may be based in Nelson, New Zealand, but this no-nonsense, practical cookbook will appeal to parents in any hemisphere. From first tastes and flavors to school lunches and dinnertimes, there are plenty of ideas here for feeding children of every age group as well as recipes you can adapt for the entire family.

A trained chef and nutritionist, Galloway focuses on healthy eating but not at the expense of taste and ease of preparation. This book is packed with simple recipes - rather than spending money on the big brand versions, why not make your own rusks, muesli or Chocolate Hazelnut Spread? - along with ideas for adding iron (dried fruit) to baby porridge, protein (ground oats) to pancakes and vitamin and mineral-rich spirulina to smoothies.

Plenty of tips on using ingredients like spices, ground nuts and kelp are scattered in bite-sized chunks throughout the text. The recipes are sandwiched between a chapter on nutrition and a collection of useful appendices, including a meal planner and food introduction table.

While this book will be of most interest to parents, there are few people that won't learn a little about eating well from reading it.

Cooking for Your Child by Nicola Galloway is published by Craig Potton Publishing and is available online - more details from www.nicolagalloway.com

Must Try: Cashew Banana Chew, Pinwheel Scones, Grilled Chicken with Yellow Rice Pilaf

Without television, radio or mobile reception, heading off to the Husband's family bach, or holiday home, at Lake Rotoiti always entails packing lots of books. The use of the Husband's Mother's library card is always very much appreciated and gives me a chance to pick up a few cookbooks from the great selection available (did I ever mention that I love NZ libraries?). Between occasional walks and trips down to the small village of St Arnaud for coffee at the Alpine Lodge café - fresh baked muffins (favourite: raspberry, pecan and chocolate) and scones every morning, great looking brunches and lunches, with long blacks worth walking miles for - there is plenty of time for reading.

I like to dig out one of the old fashioned lean-back deck chairs (it comes complete with a woggly sunshade which can either keep the sun out of your eyes or alternatively decide to land down on top of your sunglasses), pile up my bounty at the side and just indulge, sand flies and Little Missy willing. This is what is on the pile at the moment.

Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood by Taras Grescoe - fascinating, but chilling reading. This is full of gloomy stories about pollution, collapsing fish stocks and global warming. Apparently there's some hopeful pointers on what fish we should be eating to come but I haven't got there yet. Educational but depressing. www.tarasgrescoe.com

Cooking for Your Child by Nicola Galloway - this book by Nelson-based Nicola was introduced to me by the Husband's Mother a few years ago. I immediately loved her no-nonsense attitude to feeding kids and bought a copy for the Writer, which - after the arrival of LM - I have had on extended loan. After borrowing it from the library this trip I decided it was definitely time to buy my own copy. LM enjoys her (Nana-made) banana teething rusks, banana scrambled eggs are up for dinner tonight and I'm liking recipes that can be used for grown ups as well as smallies. www.nicolagalloway.com

Frugal Food by Delia Smith - For me, Delia's star has been forever tarnished by her appalling How to Cheat at Cooking but I did want to take a look at Frugal Food as it is an updated version of her 1970s book. I have to say that it is a little underwhelming, nothing very new or interesting to find here. www.deliaonline.com

Taste Favourites - Taste is a great food magazine that I always pick up when I visit NZ. An intelligent blend of the aspirational and achievable, every copy I look at has me reaching for my notebook to scribble down ideas and ingredient combinations. Having said that, this cookbook, with 70 recipes from the magazine, just isn't as much fun as the monthly publication. Now that my Cuisine subscription has lapsed, maybe it's time to change magazines for a while.www.taste.co.nz

Nigel, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love your appetite-stimulating writing, your easy recipes, your ability to always show me something interesting to do with kitchen constants like cauliflower, onions or lentils. I love your weekly column in the Observer and I love the Observer Food Monthly magazine (which, while living in NZ, I had sent out to me by my long-suffering mother!). I love your books, right from the copy of Real Fast Food that I got when in college, through entertaining from Real Food and Appetite while in my first job, The Kitchen Diaries that I recommended to many of my customers in Urru, bookclub choice Toast and, now, to Tender.

Ah, Tender. Not only am a fan of Nigel's but I'm a sucker for ingredient-categorised books like this. Tender, as the title says, is a tale of a cook and his vegetable patch, of growing food in the city and what happens to the produce when it makes it into the kitchen. Nigel has a long, thin, London terrace garden that, with a lot of love and some help from friends (Monty Don being an especially good friend to have in this kind of situation), has been transformed into "a romantic mingling of vegetables, fruit, herbs and flowers." It's also productive, with vegetables like chard, courgettes and tomatoes all playing starring roles both inside and outside the house.

Each section has information on growing a particular vegetable, different varieties to try in the garden, a selection of recipes and - this is what Nigel is particularly good at doing - lots of ideas, both for ingredients that go well with it and different ways to cook/serve it. This will join Jane Grigson's Vegetable Book and the Garden Cookbook by Sarah Raven in the line of well-thumbed books that live on the kitchen mantelpiece for dealing with vegetable gluts. And it's not over yet. Volume II, his guide to the fruit garden, is due in May 2010. Another one to watch for.

Must Try: A Soup of Cauliflower and Cheese, Chocolate Beetroot Cake with Crème Fraîche and Poppy Seeds, Chickpeas with Pumpkin, Lemongrass and Coriander

Tender: v. 1: A Cook and His Vegetable Patch by Nigel Slater is published by Fourth Estate.

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Cook ahead, shop ahead, think ahead - those are the main points of Carmel Somers' first cookbook. Somers is the chef/owner of the Good Things Café, an acclaimed restaurant and popular cookery school in Durrus, West Cork. Eat Good Things Every Day, however, is not in the least bit cheffy. It is all about simple family dishes, often lifted with an unexpected ingredient: an apple in a cabbage stir fry with pork belly, bananas fried to accompany a Cuban rice dish, raw rhubarb tossed in a salad with cucumber and mint.

Eat Good Things Every Day is a book with a plan for eight weeks' worth of uncomplicated dinner recipes. Each week begins with a shopping list and Somers sets down a few cook ahead recipes (rice, tomato sauce, stocks) that can be made without too much fuss at the weekend. These are the building blocks of the weeks' dinners, getting transformed into Kedgeree or Moroccan Lamb (rice), Moussaka or Fish Stew (tomato sauce) and Topside of Beef or Braised Fennel (stocks). At the end of the book there are also chapters on soups, sweet things and a few extra special recipes that people have requested. Somers' Spinach and Durrus Cheese Pizza from the Good Things Café turns up here, as does her Roasted Turnips with Ginger and a very good all-in-one Chocolate and Banana Cake.

Planning aside, these are just very good recipes, all of which have been tested on her own family of three daughters. Imaginative leftovers form an important part of the book (Coconut Chicken with Spices and Herbs, Noodles with Peanut Dressing and Pork ) and Somers supplies plenty of dishes to use up those odd bits of vegetables that often hang around the fridge. There are lots of great fish dishes, crunchy winter salads and I love the idea of substituting chopped dulse for anchovies with lamb.

This is a cookbook which deserves to become splattered with food from kitchen use.

Must Try: Red Lentils Stewed with Tomatoes and Spices, served with Spinach, Baked Potato and Natural Yoghurt

Eat Good Things Every Day by Carmel Somers is published by Atrium.

Listen to Carmel Somers talk about Spices on Foodtalk with Newstalk from here.

When the weather gets tough, it's time to get baking. Just made Carmel Somers' Banana and Chocolate Cake from her Eat Good Things Every Day cookbook and it's a winner.

With Little Missy loving her banana lunches when we're out and about, the fruit bowl is kept stocked up. Sometimes, I have to admit, overstocked, so it's always good to have a selection of banana cake recipes for using up the strays.

Carmel's recipe, available in Eat Good Things Everyday, makes one x 2lb loaf or you can easily divide it between two 1lb loaf tins - one to eat and one to pass on!

In the last few years, the Cliff House Hotel has really put Ardmore on the map. A small seaside village in Co Waterford, Ardmore was one of those places we visited as children during our summer holidays along the coast in Youghal. We always loved the cliff walk and I remember the old hotel that we used to pass on our way there, remarkable only for the large garden alongside.

Now, in its place, there is a spanking new hotel, far bigger than the original, and making the most of its scenic position on the cliff side. My Twin Cousins and I visited last year - we had a delicious light lunch in the bar - but I have never (yet!) had the opportunity to eat dinner there. After reading chef Martijn Kajuiter's cookbook that may soon be remedied.

Being Dutch, Kajuiter brings a new eye to local ingredients. He takes something simple - and very Irish - such as Potato Soup and transforms it by including apples, eggs and almonds. Spelt Bread is given a Cork slant with the inclusion of Beamish and Ardmore shrimp get turned into Dutch Shrimp Balls. Some of the recipes come from local sources, such as Granny McGrath's Brown Soda Bread, and Kajuiter has his own take on Irish Stew, using meaty lamb shanks. He talks with affection of his local suppliers and producers - gooseberries from Mrs Nugent, sampire and seakale from Liam Kelly, while St Raphael's residential and daycare centre grow salads for the hotel.

All the dishes are beautifully plated but this is not just a coffee table brochure for the hotel: it is a genuinely interesting cookbook with many usable ideas. That's not to say that a restaurant sensibility doesn't creep in sometimes. Kajuiter's solution to the problem of producing a still tender, yet well done steak is to cook it sous vide with a dash of whiskey, a great response to the Irish refusal to eat meat with any hint of blood, but hardly feasible for home cooking! Leaving that aside, there are lots of inventive ideas for the home cook, including things like bread dough wrapped around sausage rolls, Bread and Butter Pudding with Wild Mushrooms, peas cooked with oregano and lemon juice, olive oil used to make Chocolate Mousse. The chapter on jams and preserves is particularly good, with recipes for Pumpkin Chutney, Elderflower Barley Water and a variety of fruit cubes (Strawberry and Black Pepper, Lemon and Mint Fruit Tea).

Plenty to try in your own kitchen - and even more to whet the appetite for a visit to the Cliff House Hotel.

Must Try: Irish Spelt Bread with Beamish, Honey and Thyme

Cliff House Hotel: The Cookbook by Martijn Kajuiter is published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

I might have missed Donal Skehan in last year's Eurosong Finals but I have been following and enjoying his food blog for the last couple of years. Skehan, who juggles his music career (he's a member of pop group Industry) with food writing, has just produced his first cookbook, Good Mood Food. With a few basic rules - eat a variety of colourful fresh foods and drink plenty of water - this is good, solid, sensible eating presented in a bright, accessible format.

Healthy food doesn't have to be tasteless or boring is the stand out message as Skehan produces a series of simple, quick dishes ranging from breakfasts (Nutty Breakfast Bars, Oat Pancakes), to lunches (Sesame Pasta Salad, Tahini Noodle Toss), dinners (Mojito Chicken, Sweet Potato and Parsnip Mash) and even some sweet treats (Baked Pears with Spiced Honey). If you're feeling under the weather, Skehan points out that food is the best way of fighting back with a selection of cleansing and healing juices, teas (I particularly liked the Orange, Mint and Lemon Balm Tea) and soups.

All tousled hair and cheeky grin, Skehan's youth and pop connections should appeal to a younger audience than most cookbooks reach. A perfect gift for the student in your life.

Must try: Swedish Cinnamon Buns, Real Baked Beans with Ciabatta, Oven Roasted Sausage and Sweet Potato

Good Mood Food by Donal Skehan is published by Mercier Press.

I'm loving the new RTÉ player. We don't have a television at the cottage but at least I can check out the latest food series, normally at the same time as feeding Little Missy! While she chews and hums her happy way through dinners of mashed avocado and beetroot or potato and courgette, I've watched Corrigan's City Farm, most of Fresh from the Sea (note to self: remember to check player before programme is deleted) and am working my way through Trish's French Country Kitchen.

The latest programme to pop up is Rachel Allen's new series, Home Cooking. Her books are the ones that I return to again and again, especially Bake, which is right up my street. That particular one is up on my kitchen cookbook shelf (as opposed to the living room cookbook shelves, the piles of cookbooks on the stairs and the cookbook shelf in the spare room!) right next to Nigella Lawson's Domestic Goddess. Her latest book, also called Home Cooking (HarperCollins), is due out next month. Hopefully lots of new cooking opportunities - just as long as Little Missy gives me a chance to get the bowls and cooking spoons out!

Home Cooking is showing on RTÉ One on Thursday nights at 8.30pm

For generations, perhaps scarred by the shared memory of starvation, Irish eating habits were simply about having enough. Food was plain, but plentiful: steaming piles of potatoes, well-boiled vegetables (often home-grown) and meat from the local butcher.

But in the last 20 years Ireland has become a different country.

With a population shifting from country to urban living, people side-stepped the back-breaking, uncertain, 24-7 world of farming for life in the suburbs, a 9-5 job and knowing exactly how much they would earn at the end of the month. Home cooked foods became unfashionable: who had time to slave over a hot stove when you could just zap a ready-made lasagne in the microwave? The further we got from the dirt and sweat of food production, the less we cared about how it was done, with price being the main issue. Until, of course, that food turned out to be tainted.

For anyone who is at all interested in what we eat, Basket Case is unmissable. The authors - RTÉ journalists Philip Boucher-Hayes and Suzanne Campbell - paint an alarming picture of how we have handed over control of our nation's food to profit-hungry supermarkets. It is a comprehensive, if depressing, assessment of Irish eating habits, from farmers' markets to German discount supermarkets, convenience foods to dioxin scares.

Well written, entertaining and educational (although I could have done without the David McWilliams-style Flash Paddy and inner culchie tags) this is the kind of book that will act as a wake up call for anyone who thinks that the farmers have it easy. The low price you pay today in the supermarket for your food may not be the price you end up paying in the long run when the race to the bottom drives farmers out of business and the food supply chain lengthens.

The authors do offer a tiny glimmer of hope. For consumers, their advice is to shop around the outer edges of the supermarket for real food - vegetables, fruit, dairy, meat and fish. For the industry as a whole, they argue that a food industry crisis could be prevented by state involvement and more support for quality Irish food production. It remains to be seen if anyone is listening.

Basket Case will appeal to any fans of Felicity Lawrence, Michael Pollan and Joanna Blythman. An essential read.

Basket Case: What's Happening to Ireland's Food? by Philip Boucher-Hayes and Suzanne Campbell is published by Gill & Macmillan.

I've only managed to go to the cinema twice since Little Missy arrived on the scene, an enormous drop off when compared with the four or five films a week I might go to see when I reviewed films for the RTÉ entertainment website. I used to go see those films during the day, and for free. That was a Very Good Thing - even if the films were bad, and some were really, truly horrendous.

A couple of months ago I went to see the latest Harry Potter with the Little Sister in Mallow. LM decided to throw a colicky/hissy fit at home, almost driving the Husband to distraction while I sat on oblivious in the cinema. Once I went to the Big Scream, a parent and baby screening at Cork Omniplex in Mahon Point but the film on offer that day was Angels and Demons. About two-thirds of the long, inexplicably convoluted way through, I decided - as I wasn't being paid to review films anymore - that I was well within my rights to leave.

When I heard that Julie & Julia was being released in Ireland in September, I was determined to see it and had the Husband lined up to do another night of Little Missy-sitting. Then I got an email from the Cork Omniplex - this month's Big Scream film is, ta da!, Julie & Julia.

For any other similarly film-deprived parents, this month's screening is taking place next Wednesday, 16 September, at 10am and, despite all the babies around the place, I've definitely been in films when there's been more noise from a more, ahem, mature audience. The Big Scream films are just €7.00 for one adult and one child under four years.

Growing up in a household where Punjabi rotia and English casseroles each had their own places, Vicky Bhogal revels in placing ingredients from different cultures side by side. In the introduction to Flavour, she talks about making the most of imported as well as local foods, explaining her own democratic approach to ingredients. She revels in comforting risotto as much the tartness of tamarind, the garam masala of her Indian childhood used as much as Italian peccorino.

Some of the combinations may seem, on first glance, to be a little outlandish but Vicky explains the reasons behind each dish in a brief recipe introduction and there are many inspiring ideas: rainbow trout are crusted in oatmeal and served with a poppy seed and ginger butter sauce; spiced plums and star anise combined with duck risotto; steak rubbed with piri piri and cocoa. She keeps her recipes balanced and in proportion, concentrating on just three flavours and noting where you can substitute ingredients with similar flavour profiles.

Flavour is a bright, well-illustrated book, full of colourful sketches and jam-packed full of ideas. When Vicky is not expanding her simple and unusual recipes, giving a selection of alternatives or substitutions, she's exploring the lineage of the ingredients with references to Sanskrit literature, Jewish custom and ancient Greek texts.

Punchy and exciting, Flavour is the kind of cookbook that will really inspire you in the kitchen.

Must try: Crumbled Lincolnshire Sausage, Cranberry and Lemon Pasta; Grilled Sardines with Beetroot, Pink Grapefruit and Parsley; and, especially yummy, a fantastic recipe for Foil-Baked Feta

Flavour by Vicky Bhogal is published by Hodder & Stoughton.

From Burdass-Reared Wold's lamb to Ampleforth Abbey Apple Tart Tatin, Andrew Pern's Black Pudding and Foie Gras is as firmly rooted in the food of Yorkshire as his Michelin-stared establishment is embedded in the village of Harome. Andrew's Star Inn is a 14th century country pub in North Yorkshire which opened 13 years ago. He laughs as he recalls that it all started with just three people - himself in the kitchen, his wife Jacquie working front of house and her mother behind the bar. Now they run a total of seven interlinked businesses in Harome, including self catering cottages, a deli and a butcher's shop, employing some 120 people.

Andrew is not one to do things by halves and he brought the same level of dedication to Black Pudding and Foie Gras, his first cookbook. He describes the handsome chocolate-coloured velvet-bound book as a "labour of love", adding that it is self-published because "we decided to do the whole thing ourselves." That included having someone decipher his scrawl: he wrote the original draft in longhand with a HB pencil. The book was named after his signature dish, which he started cooking 12 years ago at the Star, a well-judged combination of North Country staple with French luxury. It is this rich man/poor man juxtaposition that has made the place stand out - and Michelin come calling. The Star Inn is one of the few pubs in the UK to be awarded a star, and this despite a Michelin inspector telling Andrew that the Star had to choose between being a pub or a restaurant.

Black Pudding and Foie Gras picked up its own gong in July when Andrew took the silver medal for best chef book at the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards. The book is a culinary memoir, a love letter to Yorkshire producers and a showcase for many of the dishes that he cooks at The Star Inn. Andrew writes of the childhood influences that made cooking a way of life for him: new foods eaten on trips abroad; rabbit shooting and wild mushroom hunting on his dad's farm; the combination of flaccid Fray Bentos meat pies and Robert Carrier cookbooks that started him off on a career in kitchens. His real passion, however, is reserved for the ranks of suppliers that he relies on. Andrew's local network includes Sand Hutton Asparagus, fish from Alan Hodgson of Hartlepool, Ampleforth College Orchard and their own butchers, Pern's of Helmsley - a loving litany of names and places that reveals his deep attachment to the region. With accounts of cider-making merriment, anniversary parties which the whole village attends and the Star Inn cricket team, it is evident that the Perns are very much part of the community.

And then there are the recipes. While they read very much like an multi-faceted entry on a restaurant menu, they can each be broken down into their constituent parts for the not-quite-as-ambitious home cook. At first glance, a dish like Soused Hartlepool Halibut with Pink Peppercorns and Pickled Shallots, Crushed Pink Fir Apple Potato Salad, Dill Vodka is not something that you're likely to whip up of an evening at home but soused fish can be prepared a day in advance, the zesty potato salad is an easy addition to any meal and having a bottle of dill vodka in the freezer to accompany any fish dish sounds like a good idea.

I was particularly taken by Andrew's use of homemade liqueurs. The last chapter in the book, Drinks Cabinet, will encourage any reader to start making their own Rhubarb Schnapps, Gooseberry Gin and Damson Vodka. Other recipes which stand out include a traditional Baked Ginger Parkin with Rhubarb Ripple Ice Cream, Hot Spiced Treacle; Risotto of Felixkirk Organic Beetroot with a Deep-Fried Blue Wensleydale Beignet, Wild Garlic Pesto; and the pure theatre of Whiskey in a Jar. Lots of ideas to enjoy and plenty of dishes to try.

Andrew is to be commended for shining an affectionate light on an area that he has very definitely put on the map for anyone interested in good food. Black Pudding and Foie Gras will undoubtedly serve to whet many more appetites for his cooking at The Star Inn.

Must try: that Baked Ginger Parkin - I've never found a good recipe yet - to eat with some Rhubarb Schnapps.

Black Pudding and Foie Gras by Andrew Pern is published by Face. RRP £39.99.

Great research is the key to Mark Kurlansky's The Food of a Younger Land. The subtitle - A Portrait of American Food--Before the National Highway System, Before Chain Restaurants, and Before Frozen Food, When the Nation's Food Was Seasonal - explains the what of the latest book on food from the author of Salt, Cod and The Big Oyster.

The why stems from the 1930s. The Federal Writers' Project, part of President Roosevelt's New Deal, sent writers out across the country to write about and record the food of the land. This project, called America Eats, was shelved after America became involved in WWII and never fully completed. Although untouched for years. Kurlansky takes the bones of the research, some more fleshed out than others, and puts it in context, explaining who the writers were - some were just typists, others authors in their own right - as well as giving more information about food and customs mentioned in the text.

I grew up on classic American children's literature like the Little Women series by Louisa May Alcott, Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House on the Prairie books, and the What Katy Did books by Susan Coolidge so the descriptions of sugaring-off, baked beans, spoon bread and pop corn are richly evocative. The Food of a Younger Land fills in the fascinating back stories of many dishes that appear not only in children's books but also in American novels and films. Parts of it will also be familiar to fans of the Kitchen Sisters' Hidden Kitchens radio series.

The Food of a Younger Land is an epicurean tour of a time long disappeared. Wend your way, in Kurlansky's friendly company, along the backroads of a different America, a land where squirrels were regarded as game, the mint julep causes controversy and hush puppies come from Florida. A book well worth savouring.

The Food of a Younger Land by Mark Kurlansky is published by Riverhead Books.

I've just been enjoying the trailer for Julie & Julia, a film based on two books: My Life in France by American chef Julia Child and Julie Powell's laugh-out-loud memoir. Meryl Streep plays a suitably patrician Julia in post-WWII Paris, while the lovely Amy Adams takes on the role of modern day Julie. Check out the trailer below, read my review of Julie Powell's book here and watch out for the film, which should be out in Ireland on 11 September. I just might have to smuggle Little Missy in to the cinema!

After watching all the programmes and getting my hands on the book, the Husband turned up trumps for my birthday with a selection of Willie Harcourt-Cooze's chocolate blocks and bars.

I now have a couple of his 70% Peruvian dark chocolate bars, another pair of the 72% Venezuelan dark chocolate bars and, most especially, two blocks of the 100% pure cacao for cooking with. We've only opened the Peruvian bar so far - a dinky little square box that contains two slabs of fruity, full-flavoured eating chocolate. This isn't chocolate for the fainthearted or those that prefer milk chocolate but, for me, it is heaven in a box!

We spent the weekend trying out the cacao à la Willie: grated over eggs fried in chilli oil, with a spicy tomato mince sauce, on top of scrambled eggs. He recommends that you use the cacao as if it were salt, to accentuate flavour, and the smell of chocolate over meals is getting to be a familiar one. I'll have to try some of the sweet as well as savoury recipes in his cookbook now.

Willie's chocolate isn't very widely available but, for Cork readers, the Husband managed to track it down in the English Market's Chocolate Shop and I've also seen it on sale at the Gubbeen stall which goes around to various markets, including the one in Mahon Point on Thursdays.

While I may not be able to do quite as much cooking and baking these days while tethered to the couch by Little Missy and her demands for food, I can always read about it and - as every new mum knows - online shopping is your friend. The results of a few precious uninterrupted minutes with the computer earlier this week landed on the doorstep today for my reading pleasure over the long weekend: Willie's Chocolate Factory Cookbook and Laurie Colwin's Home Cooking.

The Colwin book is one of those books that keeps cropping up in other people's must read lists and has been on my wish list for quite a while and now seemed like the perfect time to enjoy it. After eagerly following Willie Harcourt-Cooze's adventures on C4 last Easter in Willie's Wonky Chocolate Factory, as well as delighting in the follow-up programmes at Christmas and Easter, I couldn't resist his cookbook.

All this, and my Christmas Gourmet subscription - a well-chosen present from the Husband - also arrived yesterday. Little Missy will be swallowing new recipes along with mother's milk!

I miss Arbutus bread. One of the great advantages of working in URRU Mallow was having regular access to good quality bread - I used to eat the sesame seed-encrusted brown crusts for work breakfast (you can't sell them but I think they're the nicest piece of the whole loaf), regularly bringing home spelt or rye loaves or, for a particular treat, one of the tomato and basil breads or a couple of croissants, to be heated up for the following morning's breakfast.

Now, it's a trek to get my hands on some decent bread. North Cork isn't exactly known for it's selection of bakeries and I refuse to buy or eat the chemical-infused never-goes-stale stuff that goes under the name of bread that's available. If I get to the Thursday farmers' market at Mahon Point for Arbutus bread or the bi-monthly Killavullen farmers' market where Tom's Bakery often has a stall I'm sorted but otherwise it's back to making my own again.

It's not a daily activity, by any stretch of the imagination. I normally make two large loaves at a time, cutting one in half for freezing (toast would always be a big favourite in this house), and I have a few different recipes in rotation. Despite being half-abandoned at the bottom of the fridge for the last year, my sourdough starter still has enough kick in it to keep me ticking over with sourdough loaves. Not having a fridge big enough to retard the rising overnight, these are normally most successful during the cold months of the year. Then it's time to switch over to the No-Knead Loaf or even the quick and easy Artisan Bread recipes that I've used with so much success in the past.

I'm playing around with a simple brown yeast loaf that you just mix, allow to rise in the tin (if the house is warm enough!) and then cook but my favourite bread at the moment is this version of a Spelt Loaf which I originally found in the Cornucopia cookbook. It takes minutes to mix up, is fantastic when it comes out of the oven (just try to cool it before cutting!), freezes well and - best of all - tastes amazing when toasted because of all the seeds.

Despite its title, this is not the kind of book that you'll pick up if you're really wanting to learn how to cook. Cooking Lessons could as easily be titled Life Lessons, the kind of things that you learn as you experience - in journalist Daisy Garnett's case - a few years spent working in New York, a series of disastrous boyfriends and thinking time sailing across the Atlantic en route to resuming life back in England.

The time spent on the boat is the the fulcrum of the book. Although she didn't think that she could cook, she was forced into spending her time, as the only non-sailor afloat, feeding the crew. It acts as a jumping off point for musings and recollections about her experiences cooking with friends and family. Nuggets of advice and recipes come from Daisy's mother, novelist Polly Devlin, Rose Grey of the River Café and Ballymaloe teacher Rory O'Connell.

Although slight, Daisy's warts and all account of her (mostly) unfulfilling relationships as told through the prism of food is both endearing and charming. And you'll pick up more than a few useful ideas and recipes on the way. One to curl up with on a miserable night.

A Day at elBulli by Ferran Adrià, Juli Soler, and Albert Adrià

The demand for seats at Ferran Adrià's elBulli restaurant in Northern Spain is such that only a fraction of the people who want to will ever get to eat there. Its pedigree is well known - three stars from Michelin, a chef who is the king of molecular gastronomy, two million requests a season for only 8,000 places, four times named best restaurant in the world.

However, despite all this, elBulli operates at a loss. The money comes in from Adrià's lectures and books like this that fan the flames of the legend even as they purport to show how the restaurant works.

A Day at elBulli documents a day's worth of activities. Pictures, menus and a few recipes - more to instill respect than for reproduction at home - tell the story from behind the scenes. Adrià, together with restaurant manager Soler and his brother/fellow chef Albert, give you a glimpse into a kitchen where very little cooking, in the way we understand it, takes place. It is mysterious and magical and fascinating, the inserts that focus on certain parts of the restaurant's methodology being particularly engaging.

A Day at elBulli is not a cookbook but an intriguing insight into Adrià's creative processes and the inner workings of elBulli. Handsome and hefty, a coffee table book in both senses - for putting on and using as - of the phrase.

A Day at elBulli by Ferran Adrià, Juli Soler, and Albert Adrià is published by Phaidon Press (£29.95).

If you need any excuse to get into the Christmas spirit, pick up a copy of Sarah Raven's sparky and seasonal Complete Christmas. I'm already a fan of her comprehensive Garden Cookbook and this is very much in a similar vein, with a big emphasis on using the garden as a resource for creative decorations, food and homemade presents.

There are lots of great ideas for decorating with easily sourced flowers and greenery and the book even inspired me to set some hyacinth bulbs back a few months ago, which are now slowly – it's a cold cottage! – growing into something that look as if they might actually flower in the New Year. Her recipes are gorgeous, with plenty of last minute things to make for the family as well as a could-be-very-useful last minute recipe for Christmas Pudding. Lucky me: Mum's already got that well in hand! There are ideas forentertaining over Christmas as well as things to do with all the leftovers and I've already got plenty of ideas for the post-Christmas mound of food. It never seems to last too long in my family! Give this as an early gift to someone you know who loves Christmas – they're going to love it.

There is a satisfying heft about Cornucopia at Home, an approachable collection of recipes from one of Dublin's best-known vegetarian restaurants. Written, photographed and designed by former staff, this handsome volume is a labour of love – and it shows.

Eleanor Heffernan, who worked in the restaurants a waitress, manager and chef for seven years, is the beating heart of the book: she knows the recipes from all angles, having been the chef preparing squash for the savoury Butternut Squash, Pumpkin Seed and Rosemary Scones (she always used the easy-to-chop, straight end!), dealing with the customer who wanted to buy an uncooked Apple Crumble for baking at home to impress a date, and noticing which of the dishes are most demand when they arrive on the counter (Sweet Potato, Broccoli and Lentil Sambar, White Bean and Roast Mediterranean Vegetable Pie with Basil Mash and Chocolate Marble Silken Torte are just a few of the favourites). With atmospheric photography and food styling from Orla Keeshan and Orlagh Murphy's colourful graphic design/illustration, the book is both testament and tribute to the ideals behind Cornucopia.

Cornucopia was set up in 1986 by Neil and Deirdre McCafferty. This Irish couple had just returned from nine years living in Boston and, having being influenced by the vegetarian and raw food cultures in America, decided to set up a health food shop and cafe on Wicklow Street. Successful from the start, after a few years, the food side of things expanded into the entire premises and so it has remained, under Deirdre's stewardship – Neil died suddenly of pancreatic cancer in 1993.

The restaurant has remained true to their original ideals: constantly aiming to achieve a happy union between health and taste. Quality seasonal ingredients, organic when possible, cooked simply are the basis of these recipes which will appeal – as does the restaurant – to those who are on special diets, are vegetarian or vegan, or who just appreciate good food.

The cookbook contains the greatest hits of Cornucopia, recipes chosen by democratic and diplomatic means, snapshots taken of staff behind the counter, educational information on ingredients and scenes from the life of the restaurant. Divided into five chapters – Soups, Salads, Mains, Breads and Deserts – each is subdivided into sections which make it easy to find your way around. In Salads, basic information is set alongside recipes for potato salads (including my favourite Garlic Mayonnaise Potato Salad with Toasted Hazelnuts), bean salads, grains and noodles and raw salads. The Bread section has a particularly useful table of bread preparation tunes, along with the ever-fantastic and exceptionally simple Spelt Bread that is ever-present on the counter.

Recipes are clearly laid out, easy to follow and, in the main, very uncomplicated. Just a cursory flick through will give you lots of ideas for dinner – take a look at Moroccan Chickpea Tagine with Orange-Scented Bulgar Wheat, Butter Bean, Roast Fennel, Pepper and Rocket Salad or Tomato, White Bean and Savoy Cabbage with Basil Oil Soup. For anyone who is restricted to a special diet, there are plenty of ideas, with some particularly good recipes for gluten-free and sugar-free baking.

There's no doubt that this book will be snapped up by the restaurant's many long-term restaurant customers – but they're not the only ones that are going to enjoy, appreciate and cook from Cornucopia at Home.

Cornucopia at Home is published by Atrium. Read more about the cookbook here.

Working my way through Leon: Ingredients and Recipes, Allegra McEvedy's fantastic cookbook from the London-based restaurant chain at the moment. As there was a big bunch of lovely dirty parsnips sitting around from the last Mallow Farmers' Market – like carrots, they always keep better when they still have some soil on them, even in my newly warm kitchen (the Husband recently got the stove working, just in time for winter) – I couldn't resist trying out her recipe for Indian Parsnip Soup. I followed it (almost) to the letter, even down to adding a drizzle of honey, a scattering of sumac (finally getting a use for that packet hanging around in the spice box) to each serving, with a wedge of lemon on the side to accentuate the flavours and it was, without a doubt, superb. Perfect for this horrible wintery weather too. Review to follow, when I get through the rest of the book, but you can read some of her writing and recipes in this series of extracts from the book on the Guardian website.

Extract from Leon: Ingredients and Recipes - Part One
Extract from Leon: Ingredients and Recipes - Part Two
Extract from Leon: Ingredients and Recipes - Part Three
Extract from Leon: Ingredients and Recipes - Part Four

During my first couple of years in Dublin, I worked on Great Denmark Street, just off the top of O'Connell Street. At that stage, there weren't many lunch-friendly places around the northside so, if catching up with friends for lunch, the usual thing was to meet outside Trinity (cue Caroline legging it down O'Connell Street, over O'Connell Bridge and up Westmoreland Street at the rate of knots at 12.55pm) and go from there. One of my favourite places to go with the Tax Advisor – if we could grab a seat – was Cornucopia on Wicklow Street. We would fill up on warming winter soups, my favourite Spanakopita or hearty quiches, always with a big debate over which salads to choose. After a feed there, the Tax Consultant used to be terribly impressed at the fact that he didn't get hungry all afternoon long.

Then I moved jobs, out to the wilds of Donnybrook, quickly learning to bring my own lunches rather than depend on the vagaries of the RTÉ canteen, and Cornucopia lunchtimes were a thing of the past. Now, however, the very fine Atrium at Cork University Press have released Cornucopia at Home so that no one has to be deprived of their Cornucopia favourites – as a chickpea fan I'm looking forward to getting my hands on their Mediterranean Chickpea Salad recipe. I've already got several books published by Atrium on my shelves and in use, including The Creators from Dianne Curtin and Denis Cotter's first book, The Café Paradiso Cookbook. His A Paradiso Year: Autumn and Winter Cooking always gets hauled out as the days get shorter, especially when I have as many squash in the garden as I do this year. Watch out next year for the first cookbook from Carmel Somers of the Good Things Café in Durrus – from advance reports Eat Good Things sounds like something that should not be missed.

With the 2008 Olympic opening ceremony taking place today, enigmatic China is at the center of attention. Fuchsia Dunlop's Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper uses food and cooking to successfully delve beneath the surface.

Chef and cookbook author Fuchsia Dunlop's memoir of her time cooking and eating in China is an enthralling read. In 1994, at a time when China was still very closed off from the outside world, this young Englishwoman moved to Chengdu, in the Sichuan province. Ostensibly, Fuchsia was there to study the Chinese policy on ethnic minorities but food was a strong motivating factor – as she filled out her application form, it was with the Chinese sugarplums of chilli bean sauce, Sichuan pepper and frilly pig's kidneys dancing in her head. Despite Fuchsia's early disorientation, she plunged into life in Chengdu, learning the language and finding her way through the bold and interesting flavours of Sichuan food. Before long, she was taking lessons at the Sichuan Institute of Higher Cuisine and was subsequently invited to join a three-month professional chef's training course – an unprecedented invitation for a Westerner.

Shark's Fin... traces Fuchsia's passionate love affair with Chinese food, in all its tastes and textures, colours and complexity. As she recounts the details of her training, after which she wrote her award-winning Sichuan Cookery book, she also travels the country, experiencing different foods and cultures. For many in the West, China – and Chinese food – is often just an amorphous mass, all of one piece, but Fuchsia brings the different regions of China into sharp relief, although this reader could have done with a slightly more detailed map. She eats absolutely everything (poisonous snake and hairy crab, two of the “three headed” feast of Yangzhou and pig's brains), discusses the Chinese love of MSG (“the cook's cocaine”), investigates the region where Sichuan pepper comes from and also notes that Ferran Adrià gave credit to Chinese gastronomy for forging a path that is now being exploited in his El Bulli restaurant in Spain, as he plays – in a very Chinese way – with “form and mouthfeel.”

To write her second book, Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook, Fuchsia lived in Hunan during the fear and paranoia of the SARS virus, a long way from her relaxed days in Sichuan. From this point onwards, the tone of Shark's Fin... becomes similarly dark, as she struggles with her own identity – Chinese or British? – and starts to lose her omnivorous appetite, wondering if she should become vegetarian. Happily, an encounter with a stray caterpillar on a plate of vegetables at home in Oxford helped her to clarify her thinking.

With interest in China at an all-time high for the Olympics, Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper is an insight into the country and the people, as well as its food. And it certainly has inspired me – with the Husband's Sister and Brother-in-Law currently studying in Xinjiang province, a trip over there may be on the cards at some stage in the not-so-distant future.

What do you read while travelling in France? A stack of novels, a French phrase book – and Elizabeth David's French Provincial Cooking. My holidays normally involve dragging at least one cookbook of the country about with me, often with a relevant Lonely Planet World Food guide. World Food France is out of print, unfortunately, but I grabbed the last copy of the ED book at work as I ran out the door on the last day.

Although we didn't push ourselves to travel too far, there were still hours spent in the Astra, driving to and from the boat at Roscoff, various campsites and a side-trip to St-Emilion, all made much more manageable by ED's entertainingly opinionated and self-assured writing. While the Husband and the Teacher drove and navigated, I read about the cooking of various regions, perused lists of French terminology for techniques and ingredients and inspired a pre-late-lunch appetite by poring over descriptions of Oeufs sur la Plat, Blettes à la Crème and Pommes au Beurre.

Back home now, but ED's writing has lost none of its inspiration. The vegetables and eggs chapters, especially, have lots of ideas to play around with: I've cooked her Endives au Beurre since I came home and La Pipérade was especially good to feed the boys while camping. I still have to work my way through the last part of the book, the fish section is particularly appealing at the moment as I've gotten some fantastic pollard from my fishing-loving Kildorrery Cousin. If you're travelling to France at any stage – or if you just want to evoke the food of the countryside - French Provincial Cooking is the book for you.

Open any page in A Table in the Tarn and you're likely to be seduced. I got stuck in the Deserts, Petits Four and Chocolates chapter, with recipes for Blackcurrant Leaf Sorbet, Home-Made Vanilla Marshmallows and Cocoa-Nib Florentines but, once I tore myself away from the sweet things, there was much more to recommend this memoir-style cookbook.

A former editor of the BBC's Good Food and Olive Magazines, Orlando Murrin, together with his partner Peter Steggall, abandoned the hurly burly of London life to reclocate to the South-West of France. The first chunk of the book tells the tale of their buying the rundown Le Manoir de Raynaudes in the Tarn countryside and renovating it, followed by five chapters of recipes ranging from Parmesan, Nigella and Sesame Bites and Caramelised Potatoes through Tart Tatin of Chicory and Twice Baked Garlic Soufflés.

The emphasis is on food that is both seasonal and local. There are many dishes that can be prepared ahead and are easy to cook for crowds. Tips on presentation at the end of recipes are thoughtful without being too faffy, the Baking, Tea and Breakfast chapter is first class and there is a selection of particularly good potato recipes. As befits his background, Orlando is very strong on timings and temperatures, including settings for the fan ovens that many of us are inflicted with.

A Table in the Tarn is rather like an upmarket brochure for what Orlando calls “a reassuringly expensive” boutique hotel in France, with lots of gardening information – and plenty of pragmatic advice for those who may find themselves similarly tempted. However, it is also an absorbing and inspiring read, with recipes aplenty to try in your own kitchen. Maybe on our next trip to France there'll have to be a visit, Raynaudes-direction.

A Table in the Tarn by Orlando Murrin is published by HarperNonFiction.

It was only a matter of time before Kieran Murphy's entertaining Ice Cream Ireland blog made it to the printed page. The Book of Sweet Things, written by Kieran and his brother/business partner Seán, tells the story of how two Americans got into the ice cream business in Dingle. Murphys' Ice Cream is now sold from their two shops - one in Dingle and the other in Killarney - while their distinctive blue and white containers are stocked in delis and foodstores throughout Ireland.

The history of Murphys' Ice Cream - from meetings in Paris to work out a business plan, painting the first shop, expanding to Killarney and setting off nervously to Dublin, trying to break into the luxury ice cream market - would give any budding entrepreneur hope but the proof of this book is truly in the pudding.

Recipes are divided into categories covering basic ice creams, Irish and international influences, sorbets and sauces, ice cream deserts, candy and baking and topped off with a section on coffee and hot chocolate. Tales of Kerry cows, ice cream innovations and decent coffees sit side-by-side with snippets of history, kitchen tips and Seán's Favourite Pairings (think warm brownie with Irish Cream Liqueur Ice Cream and hot chocolate sauce or even Toffee Ice Cream and Pecan Pie).

The importance of using first class ingredients - quality chocolate, in-season soft fruits, free range eggs - is rightly emphasised and there are plenty of useful notes at the bottom of the recipes to keep you on track.

The traditional (Vanilla, Chocolate, Mint, Brown Bread Ice Creams) sit happily alongside the more intriguing varieties. Who could resist trying Honey Lavender, Cinnamon Latte or Chocolate Whiskey Ice Creams? What about Mulled Wine Sorbet or Gelato alla Crema? All yours for the making - if you have an ice cream machine. If you don't (and believe me, you will want one after spending time with this book), try wandering into the baking section. Toffee, Honeycomb Candy and Sachertorte are just some of the treats on offer or, if you're into ice cream toppings, recipes for Caramel Sauce and Hot Fudge Sauce will give you something to think about next time you pick up a tub of Murphys' Ice Cream.

As for me, I've heard that you can get an ice cream attachment for the KitchenAid...

The Book of Sweet Things by Seán and Kieran Murphy is published by Mercier Press.

Could Portugal be the new Spain? Reading Tessa Kiros' Piri Piri Starfish and its references to petisco (tapas, Portuguese-style), chourico (substitute chorizo), port instead of sherry and salt cod (in Portugal - bacalhau, in Spain - bacalao) you could be forgiven for wondering if things are moving that direction. This, the follow up to Kiros' acclaimed parent-and-child-orientated Apples for Jam, is a more straightforward cookbook. As with Apples..., colour is very important, although the chapters are laid out in a more clear-cut way - Essential Recipes, Petisco Plates, Starters and Soups, Mains and Side Plates, Deserts and Cakes - than that book's rainbow bright colour-coded sections. Here the tone is more grown up, with lots of muted blues and greys, beautifully designed page titles and a thick white and blue ribbon for marking your way through the book.

For Piri Piri…, Kiros and her family lived in and travelled around Portugal and the book is written in the form of a travel diary, entries dated as she writes of her impressions of that country - the place and the people - as well as about the food that she encounters there: Maria Alice's Chorico Cake from Chaves in the North of Portugal; a one-pot recipe for Caldeirada a Portuguesa (Portuguese Fish Stew) from Albertina in Lisbon; Passionfruit Crème Caramel inspired by the dishes eaten in San Miguel in the Azores. Photographs of food sit alongside tourist-style images of children playing on the streets, a Portuguese girl looking down from her washing-laden window, men's hats in a shop window.

The recipes are typically Kiros, typically inviting - my list of things to try includes Peas with Eggs and Chorico, Caramel Cake, Roasted New Potatoes with Tomatoes and Red Wine and Pan Fried Fish with Vinegar. Green Peppers, port, piri piri peppers and salt cod are reoccurring ingredients - some of them a little difficult to source from North Cork but I'll know what to go looking for when - rather than if - I visit Portugal.

Also reviewed on Bibliocook: Apples for Jam by Tessa Kiros
An interview with Tessa Kiros on Who Wants Seconds?

I love experimenting with and learning different cooking techniques, especially if they involve playing with yeast. No Knead Bread? Yes please! Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. Made that. Sourdough from my own starter? Still bubbling quietly away in the fridge. But grilled or barbequed pizza? Not yet - that was until I got my hands on a copy of Craig Priebe's Grilled Pizzas & Piadinas. Craig developed his grilling technique, using a barbeque, when he ran his own pizza restaurant in Atlanta and this book explains it in detail. When we did the pizza day in Ballymaloe, Darina cooked one of her creations on the barbeque outside the demo theatre door but, more fascinated by the wood-fired oven, I didn't hang around in the rain, instead directing my attentions indoors so I never got to investigate the barbequed pizza properly.

Wanting to put this cookbook to the test (sometimes, when piles of cookbooks start stacking on the stairs, next to the bed, all over the kitchen counter and on the dining table, the Husband asks why I don't spend less time reading cookbooks and more time actually using them) I decided to make some dough on Sunday morning for a Sunday night pizza fest. It took minutes in the KitchenAid, although I had to add a lot of extra flour - perhaps something to do flour stored in American kitchens being much drier than in Irish cottages at the end of a long, damp winter. After a couple of hours on a warm window sill, the dough was landed into the fridge and sat there all afternoon, firming up enough to handle.

When we got home that evening it was raining too much to pull out the barbeque so I dragged out my big, heavy cast-iron frying pan and heated it up while the Husband mixed some of Craig's Herbed Grill Oil. The pan is not quite big enough to cook 12-inch pizzas so, instead of two 12-inch pizzas we made three 10-ish-inch rounds out of the dough - next time I'd make four thinner ones. As everything came together faster than expected - Craig did warn me, I just hadn't read that piece! - there was a bit of juggling with temperatures on the pan, topping ingredients on the counter and finishing off under the grill but, much faster than expected, we finally had a selection of decent pizzas to sit down to.

I discovered that basil pesto and marinated feta, combined with Craig's Herb Oil, makes for an overly greasy pizza but goat's cheese, roasted red pepper and Caramelised Onions are a winning combination. Hegarty's Cheddar, with thinly sliced salami (Gubbeen, for preference) and Tomato Chilli Jam also worked out well. Next time I may even be organised enough to try a few of Greg's own ideas for toppings - spinach, pesto, mushrooms and feta sounds good, as does sausage, pepperoni, artichoke hearts and peppers. The book also includes a selection of salads (I've already got my eye on Baby Lettuce with a Citrus Peppercorn Dressing) and deserts (Cinnamon Churros, grilled pizza style) to accompany the pizzas, alongside recipes for the Italian-style flatbreads called piadinas - something to try out for next Sunday, perhaps.

Grilled Pizzas & Piadinas by Craig Priebe is published by DK Publishing

Super Natural Cooking: Five Ways To Incorporate Whole and Natural Ingredients into Your Cooking by Heidi Swanson (Ten Speed Press)
Blogger, photographer, graphic designer and passionate cook Heidi Swanson demystifies unfamiliar health shop ingredients in Super Natural Cooking, a cookbook that drags the world of whole foods very firmly into the 21st century. Nothing is complicated, all is creative and original and Heidi is an encouraging teacher. This is a satisfyingly chunky book, designed with love and attention to detail. Must Cook: Giant Crusty and Creamy White Beans with Greens

Chocolate and Zucchini by Clotilde Dusoulier (Marion Boyars Publishers)
For fans of her food blog, Clotilde needs no introduction and the warm and friendly tone of her writing translates as well on to the printed page as it does online. There are lots of entertaining tips, French-style, from choosing a decent cheeseboard to thoughtful wine notes and many of the recipes come with invaluable suggestions for cooking ahead. A charming insight into 21st century French home cooking. Must Cook: Pain d'Epice

Nobody Does it Better: Why French Home Cooking Is Still the Best in the World by Trish Deseine (Kyle Cathie)
An Ulsterwoman who now lives in France, Trish Deseine is a well-known cookery writer in her adopted country, with five bestselling cookbooks under her belt. In this attractive book, her official English debut, she explains how to cook comme une femme Française. Trish places great emphasis on simple - but very high quality - ingredients, successfully demystifying French attitudes to food. Must Cook: Cream of Puy Lentil Soup with Hazelnuts

Cheat's Cuisine by Aoileann Garavaglia (Curragh Press)
Based on her Saturday column in the Irish Independent, Aoileann Garavaglia's Cheat's Cuisine is a selection of dinner menus that can be put together in just 60 minutes. Divided into seasons and occasions - North African Twist in Winter, Mother's Day Lunch for Spring - Aoileann gives a detailed and colour coded time plan (oh-so-familiar to me from school!). Some of the colours aren't the easiest to see so make sure you prop up the cookbook in a bright corner of your kitchen. Nothing is difficult, ingredients are easy to source and you will get plenty of ideas even from just looking at the index in this cookbook. Must Make: Baked Cheese in a Walnut Crust

2007 was definitely the year of food bloggers' cookbooks - next year I'm particularly looking forward to the ice cream book from Kieran Murphy of Ice Cream Ireland. A good excuse, methinks, for picking up the ice cream making attachment for my KitchenAid?! Happy Christmas to all, I'm off to make this year's batch of Cranberry Orange and Port Relish...

Although I've been immersed in study, there is (somehow!) always time for reading cookbooks. Here are a few recommendations for Christmas.

Cook Simple by Diana Henry (Mitchell Beazley)
I'm a fan of Diana's Crazy Water, Pickled Lemons and last year's Roast Figs, Sugar Snow so I was looking forward to reading Cook Simple and it's remained on top of the pile ever since. Here you'll find brilliant ideas for dinners, and plenty of them, with influences from Sweden, Sicily, Turkey and Georgia. Divided into chapters based around easily available core ingredients - pasta, fish, sausages, leg of lamb - with seasonal vegetables and fruit in their own sections, Diana gives lots of recipes and ideas to make mealtimes easier. Must Make: Roast Squash, Feta and Black Olive Salad.

Food From Friends edited by Kate Fraser for the Matthew Fraser Motor Neuron Charitable Trust
When I lived in Christchurch, NZ, I would always pick up The Press every Thursday for Zest, Kate Fraser's weekly food section. When her son was diagnosed with Motor Neuron disease, the Matthew Fraser Motor Neuron Charitable Trust was set up and this book of recipes is a fundraiser to help provide for his care needs. Charitable cookbooks are only worth picking up if they actually have decent recipes; with contributors ranging from Paris-based American food writer Patricia Wells and European Peasant Cookery author Elizabeth Luard to homegrown writers like Ray McVinnie, Fiona Smith, Peter Gordon and Lois Daish this is not a problem with Food From Friends. Great recipes - and a good cause. Food from Friends is available here. Must Make: Roasted Vegetable Flatbread Pizza

The Creators: Individuals of Irish Food by Dianne Curtin (Atrium)
Fifteen producers are featured in Dianne Curtin's The Creators, a wonderful picture of the artisan food available throughout Cork city and county. Profiles of people like organic beef farmer (and the woman behind our favourite Brown Envelope Seeds) Madeline McKeever, chocolatier Eve St Ledger and fisherman Cornie Bohane are all followed by Dianne's own recipes, chosen to make the most of that producer's ingredient. As well as the chocolate, cheese, beef, poultry, vegetables and fish featured here, Dianne includes a directory of other producers so that readers have the chance to discover even more local delicacies. Must Make: Carrot and Gin Soup (with Cork Dry Gin!)

Wild Garlic, Gooseberries… and Me by Denis Cotter (Collins)
Denis Cotter's third cookbook is an enthusiastic insight into his creative process and the symbiotic partnership he has with the growers who provide the local produce that he uses in Café Paradiso. This is a journey through stories about and recipes for vegetables both familiar - cabbages, kale, watercress - and the more unusual varieties, like oca or yams, salsify and scorzonera. Wild Garlic... is a book to whet the appetite and stimulate the brain. Must Make: Damson Membrillo

Breakfast, Lunch, Tea by Rose Carrarini (Phaidon)
A tempting role call of recipes that includes six different types of scone, five soups, four variations on pancakes and a substantial selection of sweet and savoury tarts, cakes, biscuits and tray bakes. Must Make: Brownie Cheesecake

Time to Eat by Gary Rhodes (Penguin)
I've never been a fan of Mr Rhodes but Time to Eat is great. Organised according to the amount time that you have, from No Time to Cook to Cooking for Pleasure - When Time Doesn't Matter, there are plenty of simple and tasty ideas to try out. The pictures of beautifully plated food were also surprisingly useful when I was trying to concentrate on presentation for school, could have done without all the photos of Gary in his tight white t-shirt, though! Must Make: Fiery Mushrooms on Toast

More to follow...

Watch out on television tonight for a programme called Home which features none other than finger-lickin' Monica Sheridan! I discovered Monica or, rather, one of her cookbooks, in a second hand bookshop in Athlone last year and Monica's Kitchen is a treasure indeed. As well as useful recipes it is full of entertaining opinions - my favourite is her take on boned chicken: "Frankly, I wouldn't recommend it, but, if you want to see green in the eyes of the women and hear the praise of gluttonous men ringing in your ears, well, here goes." - and ahead of her time recipes and ingredients (anyone for foie gras and risotto in 1960s Ireland?).

The website for the show is here and there is a little more information on Ireland's first - and now almost forgotten - celebrity chef in the Meath Chronicle. I wonder if her other cookbooks are as full of character? Maybe we should start a Monica Sheridan revival here!

Home is on at 7pm on RTÉ One tonight at 7pm.

The new Bridgestone Irish Food Guide didn't see the Husband and I wrong on a brief trip to Carlow this weekend. Just released, it is a compendium of food producers, delis, markets, cafés and restaurants up and down the length and breath of the country. This is Sally and John McKenna's eighth edition - the last one was published in 2004 - and it is a lovely chunky book, rammed full of great eating and an essential companion for any trip around Ireland.

Along with the favourites that I've written about in the past, including the Cake Café, Ardagh Castle Goats Cheese, Al-Khyrat, Country Choice, Glebe Gardens, Fallon & Byrne and Sowan's Organic Bread Mixes, it's great to see that there's also a lot of blogger involvement. Val of Val's Kitchen is a contributing editor and, while you're flicking through the book, watch out for Murphy's Ice Cream, La Cucina, Bubble Brothers and Ummera.

We took our copy with us on the train down to Carlow on Friday night and, after quickly dumping our bags at Barrowville Townhouse, it led us to Lennon's Café Bar for dinner, a duck liver salad for me, monkfish wrapped in Parma ham for himself. The food was tasty, definitely above average Irish pub grub standards, although finishing with an underwhelming and over-chilled cheese plate may not have been the best move. The next morning, after a very substantial breakfast, we tackled the Bridgestone-noted Farmers' Market in the town centre. Not wanting to carry loads back on the train, we limited ourselves to two types of cheese - sundried tomato and basil Carlow Farmhouse Cheese and Coolattin Cheddar - cherry jam, beetroot chutney and raspberry tonic from Malone Fruit Farm and a bag of the most divine fudge from The Truffle Fairy. Small, but very well formed, the Carlow Farmers' Market has a lot to recommend it, not least the fact that it's situated right in the town centre where no one can forget about it - unlike the now abandoned Fermoy Farmers' Market. Wandering around town, we also spotted Bosco's but unfortunately the Carlow Craft Brewery was closed - the Husband is a big fan of their O'Haras Celtic Stout.

There are far too many chancers in the food industry in Ireland. I really don't think that there can be any excuse for a muffin served, still in its packet, as happened me yesterday in Lemon Jelly on Joyce Street. Although I wouldn't necessarily agree with the McKenna's assessment of Munchies in Fermoy, for finding great food in out of the way places, it's difficult to beat the Bridgestone Irish Food Guide.

This is the book for anyone who has ever gone to Paris seeking French food and been completely waylaid from their Coq au Vin by the rich variety of ethnic restaurants in the city. With a far-flung variety of former colonies and protectorates, Paris is a melting pot for people and cuisines from all over North Africa, Asia and the Middle East. When we were there last year we spent a lot of time exploring the food available at places like the café at L'Institut du Monde Arabe, grabbing pastries from a spectacular Algerian bakery called La Bague de Kenza (subsequently written up in the New York Times, with recipes, and there's also some great photos on Lulu Loves London) and trying to find a much-recommended restaurant called l'Afghanistan in the 11th arrondissement.

Part guide for your next trip to Paris and part recipe collection, authors Charlotte Puckette and Olivia Kiang-Snaije mix stories of immigrant experiences in Paris, information about ethnic restaurants and interviews with their proprietors/chefs, with well-chosen recipes and delightful drawings - just take a look at the cheery cover to get an idea. It is illustrated by Paris-based Lebanese artist Dinah Diwan and her vivid images are full of fun and energy.

Separated by nationality - Morocco/Algeria/Tunisia, Vietnam/Cambodia/Laos/China, Japan, Cameroon/Senegal/The West Indies, Lebanon and Syria - each chapter has the makings of an entire meal, from Green Papaya and Moroccan Carrot Salads, Shrimp Rougail and Pork Colombo, to Saharan Almond Cake with Orange Coulis or Coconut and Lime Flan.

It may be a slightly rose-coloured picture of French colonial and immigrant history, but this picture of a vibrant multicultural Paris and its associated food makes for fascinating reading. Information on the more obscure ingredients - my favourite argan oil, for instance - is always useful and the recipes are encouragingly straightforward. I've already dog-eared more that a few of the Moroccan and Lebanese recipes to try. A colourful addition to your cookbook shelves.

The Ethnic Paris Cookbook has also got its own blog here, where you can read about the adventures of the authors on the book promotion trail.

It being Anzac Day this week - and no, I still haven't got around to making Anzac Biscuits, due to the local shops all selling out of desiccated coconut on the day in question - I was delighted to hear from Slow Food in Christchurch that the 1914 edition of the essential Kiwi cookbook, the Edmonds Cookery Book, is now available online.

Like the Stork margarine-sponsored McDonnell's Good Food Cook Books in Ireland, the Edmonds Cookery Book was designed to promote a product - Edmonds "Sure to Rise" Baking Powder. Although I love and use them regularly, the McDonnell's Cook Books are now very dated; the Edmonds Cookery Book has gone from strength to strength since its 50-page beginning in 1907 and is still being published. I have my own vintage copy, I think from the 1950s, courtesy of the Boyfriend's aunt who has an eye for the perfect classic cooking present (I also have a family of tin jelly moulds - two sizes of rabbit and a tortoise - and a satisfyingly heavy earthenware one courtesy of the same lady). Even though this edition is over 90 years old, the Edmonds Cookery Book has recipes for classics like Raspberry Buns, Bread and Butter Pudding and Cornish Pasties although, alas, none for Anzac Biscuits - perhaps it was too early in the First World War for them to have been invented?

Read more about it below.

I recently got a mail from a New York PR company about a Nextbook podcast featuring one of my favourite cookbook writers, Middle Eastern food enthusiast Claudia Roden. Nextbook's interviewer, Hugh Levinson, visited her kitchen in London and talks to her while she prepares Poulet aux Dattes (Chicken with Dates) and Salade de Tomates et Poivrons Grillés (Grilled Tomato and Pepper Salad), both from her last publication, The Book of Jewish Food.

It is a lovely, relaxed interview with Claudia cooking and talking about how she became involved in food writing, her own family's food history and the importance of understanding how food and culture are intertwined. A word of warning though - don't listen to this at work. It will just make you much too hungry! The interview is online here and the same page also has copies of the great-sounding recipes that she cooked while talking to Hugh.

In yet another of my infrequent series of alerts about Irish food programmes, a new RTÉ Radio 1 show called Boiled, Baked & Basted started on Saturday night. It features chefs talking about the favourite and most inspirational cookbooks in their collection (Bibliochef, perhaps?!) and the first show has Paul Flynn of the acclaimed Tannery Restaurant in Dungarvan talking about books by Marco Pierre White, "scary hero" Elizabeth David, the esteemed list-topping Roast Chicken and Other Stories by Simon Hopkinson and two books that speak directly to my love of Middle Eastern food - The Moro Cookbook by Sam and Sam Clark and Arabesque: A taste of Morocco, Turkey and Lebanon by Claudia Roden. If you, like me, are interested in cookbooks (in my house you'll find piles of cookbooks by the bed, on the dining table, in the living room, and a row to reference on the kitchen counter) you'll find this programme very interesting.

Boiled, Baked & Basted is on RTÉ Radio 1 on Saturday nights at 8.30pm and the Paul Flynn show is also available to listen to online here. Incidentally, Paul Flynn is also the author of two cookbooks himself, An Irish Adventure with Food: The Tannery Cookbook and Second Helpings: Further Irish Adventures with Food, both published by the Cork-based Collins Press.

While at last year's Savour New Zealand, Australian chef Greg Malouf was just back from a month spent travelling and eating in Lebanon and Syria and he spoke enthusiastically about the book that he was writing with his former wife, Lucy, based on the time they spent there. Saha is the gorgeous end result. A beautifully designed book which is equally comfortable on your coffee table as in your kitchen, it comes across as a pure labour of love.

While Greg explores flavours from his childhood and finds new inspiration for his cooking, Lucy documents their travels and relates stories about the craftspeople they meet, the food culture and the history of both countries. He supplies the recipes - Green Beans Slow-Cooked with Cumin and Tomatoes; Grilled Tiger Prawn Shish Kebabs with Spicy Cracked Wheat Salad and Tomato Dressing; Crunchy Sesame-Pistachio Biscuits - while she furnishes the context.

Lucy writes in a very personal and honest way of their experiences, occasional misgivings and adventures in places like the Roman remains at Baalbeck and Palmyra, the legendary desert kingdom of Queen Zenobia. Her stories and the evocative images by photographer Matt Harvey are complimented by Greg's recipes, in chapters that range from Mezze Dips and Meat Mezze to Sweet Treats and Beverages. There are new ingredients - desert truffles, mastic, barberries - and some complex recipes but many of the dishes are easily managed and, after my success with Greg's yoghurt instructions, that recipe is set to become a staple in my kitchen.

Saha depicts a Lebanon still scarred, but recovering, from the ravages of the civil war that ended in 1990. People are hopeful about the future, Beirut is nearly reconstructed, tourists are starting to investigate the beauties of the country. Sadly, after this summer's shameful Israeli invasion, it is impossible not to wonder what has happened to the people and places that Greg and Lucy met and visited.

Also reviewed on Bibliocook: Moorish by Greg and Lucy Malouf

Congratulations to New York-based blogger Julie Powell whose book, Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen, has just been nominated for two Quill Book Awards. The book - based on the online diary that Powell wrote, documenting her attempts to cook her way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking - is in competition in both the Debut Author of the Year and the Cooking categories.

Strangely enough, one of her fellow shortlisted authors in the Cooking section is none other than Julia Child (with Alex Prud'homme) for her memoir, My Life In France. Other nominees in that category are the much-hyped Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany by The New Yorker's Bill Buford; home cooking from the Food Network's Rachael Ray in 365: No Repeats: A Year of Deliciously Different Dinners; and last year's default Christmas present for the cook in your life, Italian cookbook bible The Silver Spoon.

These awards are chosen by the public so you can vote for your favourite nominees at www.quillsvote.com and the winners will be announced on 10 October. Go Julie!

There's no nonsense about Judith Tabron. Starting in the restaurant industry as a 16-year-old apprentice, she worked her way up to become the co-owner of Soul, an acclaimed, successful bar and bistro situated at the Viaduct Harbour in Auckland. On stage at last year's Savour New Zealand - she co-presented Greg Malouf's class on Middle Eastern Magic - her straight talking, take-no-prisoners attitude was very refreshing. She is, as she says herself, a leader rather than a follower, and her interest in new trends and different cuisines came through strongly at the symposium as it does in this, her first cookbook.

Tabron is an enthusiastic advocate of the practice of bringing other chefs into the kitchen and the book showcases the most popular dishes served at Soul alongside recipes from a selection of visiting guest chefs - Melbourne-based Bill Marchetti, Greg Malouf and Stephanie Alexander; Chicago's Charlie Trotter; Soul maitre d' and TV presenter Geeling; and Philip Johnson of e'cco in Brisbane. Beautiful photographs by Stephen Robinson illustrate recipes using a variety of unusual combinations and techniques - Caramelised Belgian Endive filled with Goat's Cheese with Crisp Almonds and Dates, Potato and Goat's Cheese Terrine with Rocket Salad and Lemon Vinaigrette, Tea Petal-Rubbed Akaora Aalmon served alongside Rhubarb and Orange Salad with Mirin and Sake Dressing. Tabron comments on each dish, whether about suppliers (Tom Bates of Akaroa Salmon), influences (trips to San Francisco, other chefs) and stories about the restaurant.

Soul is a bit more cheffy (by which I mean that many of the dishes have far too many components for my home kitchen) than I normally like but the ideas here are exciting and the recipes can easily be broken down to their constituent parts. Worth more than just a quick look, especially if you get caught - as I have - on the Greg Malouf-influenced recipe for John Dory on Parsnip Mash with Lentil, Shallot and Olive Vinaigrette. Time to dig out that Ras el Hanout again!

Soul by Judith Tabron & Friends is published by Random House New Zealand.

It's the colour that catches your eye first. The bold pink and red cover of Tessa Kiros' Apples for Jam is immediately distinctive, particularly with its eye-catching photo of a pair of red, well-worn children's shoes. And colour is hugely important in this book as Tessa and her colour-coded recipes explore the spectrum of childhood through chapters that include gold and monochrome, pink, yellow and red.

From simple, wholesome dishes like Broccoli Soup (green), Wholemeal Apricot and Apple Pie (orange) or Potato and Yoghurt Salad (white), Tessa also covers decadent-looking Brownies, sandwiched with whipped cream, strawberries and iced with a simple chocolate ganache (brown), an easy pre-made Pandoro Birthday Cake (multicolour) and Chocolate Toffee Nut Squares (stripes). Each coloured chapter comes complete with a childhood memory - a belief in toys coming awake at night, the ice cream man and his "sweet, chocolatey music", water-drinking competitions - just one of the many things that make this cookbook so sweetly evocative. The recipes are no less attractive, without being too difficult, and my copy of the book is flecked with a host of little post-its, marking the dishes that I'm intent on trying in the near future.

As she detailed in her first book, the lovely Falling Cloudberries: A World of Family Recipes, Tessa is half-Finnish and half-Greek-Cypriot. Her upbringing in South Africa and travels throughout the world, cooking in London, Sydney, Athens and Mexico, have all informed the food that she presents here. She now lives in Tuscany with her Italian husband and two daughters, hence her second seasonal book, Twelve: A Tuscan Cookbook, and the Italian influence is strongly evident, particularly in the tomato- and pasta-heavy red section.

As with all Tessa's cookbooks, Apples for Jam is a lavish production. It's a satisfyingly chunky book (400-plus pages) with mouthwatering (yet realistic) photos of food, children's drawings reproduced in full colour, bright wallpaper designs and a useful pink satin bookmark. Charming and down-to-earth, this is a book with both style and substance.

Apples for Jam by Tessa Kiros is published by Murdoch Books.

This is the perfect book for any foodie who's ever spent hours puzzling over unfamiliar ingredients in their local delicatessen or ethnic food shop. Glynn Christian, originally from New Zealand, has been a food writer and broadcaster in England for many years, and as a result, has a rare international perspective. His breadth of experience also includes setting up the legendary Mr Christian's Delicatessen in London's Notting Hill in the 1970s.

With a cover quote from Nigel Slater - "one of the only ten books you need" (I'd be interested in finding out the names of the other nine!) - Real Flavours does live up to its subtitle: The Handbook of Gourmet and Deli Ingredients. From possum to pine nut oil, goulash to grockle (an obscure sea vegetable), this book has information on all the foodstuffs you could imagine - and plenty that you haven't even come across yet. You could comfortably spend a few weeks wandering around the riches of the herbs, spices and flavourings chapter.

But be careful. You may open Real Flavours to look up a particular item but soon find yourself sucked in by this greedy gourmet's no-nonsense, opinionated and entertaining writing. An essential addition to every epicurean's kitchen.

Real Flavours: The Handbook of Gourmet and Deli Ingredients by Glynn Christian is published by Grub Street Publishing.

Not long after food blogging first cropped up on my radar, I discovered Julie Powell's blog, the Julie/Julia Project. I thought the idea was great - to document her attempts to cook the recipes in Julia Child's classic cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking in just one year - but I didn't much like Julie's blog persona and I never went back. How times change. A couple of years later, I couldn't put down the book that she wrote, much of which was taken directly from her the same blog entries that had annoyed me.

While the episodic nature of her adventures in cooking and the concomitant tears and tantrums was - to me, at least, if not to many of her numerous 'bleeders' (Julie's name for her blog readers) - more exasperating than not, her book is far more entertaining than just the sum of its parts. Through her blog, Julie developed her own, very distinctive, voice and her account of the 365 days she spent cooking 524 recipes in her small apartment kitchen has also changed her life.

When Julie started the project she was miserable, an anonymous temp in a New York government office. Twelve months later, having, along the way, learned how to split marrow bones, kill lobsters without a second thought and cooked for New York Times restaurant critic Amanda Hesser, she was an online celebrity with a book deal.

It's a Cinderella story of the kind dreamed about by anyone who has ever wanted to turn their passion into a job and, for that alone, Julie has to be applauded. She's also deserving of acclaim for writing such a funny, exasperating and enjoyable book. Julie & Julia is well worth investing both money and time in.

Julie & Julia by Julie Powell is published by Fig Tree.

Cookbook sections in secondhand bookshops can be a little hit or miss. There's always a pile of microwave cookbooks - no one, for some reason wants to hang onto these dodgy and dated texts - a scattering of horrible diet books and often lots of ancient Family Circle publications, with their "triple-tested in the test kitchens" claim, but, rarely something that you actually want to cook from, let alone buy. Still, I live in hope, so a recent trip to Athlone had to include a browse in the local secondhand bookshop (I still haven't discovered its name) which turned out to be a most amazing example of its kind.

Just a couple of shelves were devoted to cookbooks but what was on offer was enough to have me standing there, leafing through the pages, for quite a while. My eye was taken by a red hardbacked book from the 1960s, the gold letters on its spine saying "Monica's Kitchen". Opening it, I was so entertained by Monica Sheridan's humorous prose that I had to read it out loud to the Boyfriend - something that I continued to do through the weekend's café interludes, car journeys and meals in the tent.

Apart from her unfortunate love of unsweetened condensed milk in soups and the like, Monica's Kitchen is actually a breath of fresh air. Well travelled, she carelessly mentions dishes from France and the continent (she once spent months learning the foie gras business, "with the intention of setting myself up as a Goose Girl in the West of Ireland") alongside the plain, simple Irish recipes. Her roast chicken, unstuffed and dressed with the pan juices, would be appreciated by Nigel Slater and there are definite French influences to many of her vegetable recipes which are, fortunately, a long way from the traditional Irish boil-it-until-it-turns-grey method.

Some of her opinions are laugh-out-loud hilarious. I particularly liked her take the things necessary to make a cook:

"Another essential to good cooking is a husband or son with an adventurous palate. Women do not cook for other women, or for themselves. If they are cooking for other women, it is to annoy them or dazzle them..."

A few of her recipe asides veer towards the demented - ideas on dye in pea soup ("Any fool can make pea soup, but here are the refinements that give it an air. You should add a good spoon of green vegetable dye to the soup just before you serve it. That will take the anaemic look off it."), boned chicken ("Frankly, I wouldn't recommend it, but, if you want to see green in the eyes of the women and hear the praise of gluttonous men ringing in your ears, well, here goes."), brown bread ("The longevity of the men and women of rural Ireland may be directly attributed to their simple diet of porridge, wholemeal bread and stews - together with their uncompromising refusal to fraternise with Income Tax Collectors.") - but Monica's Kitchen is chock-full of useful suggestions and recipes as well as being a complete treat to read. Well worth looking out for.

Monica's Kitchen by Monica Sheridan is published by Castle Publications Ltd.

One of the big advantages of being settled back in Dublin, with book shelves once again, is having all my old cookbooks to pore over and rediscover. Although I did manage to build up a fair collection in New Zealand, it couldn't really compare to my beloved older stacks of books by Nigel Slater, Darina Allen, Tamasin Day-Lewis, Nigella Lawson and my ancient copies of the Paula Daly-written McDonnell's Good Food Cook Books. The first and second books in this series, bought from saving up the tokens on Stork Margarine packets, were two of the first cookbooks owned by my mother.

Every recipe, of course, used Stork Margarine - they were first printed in 1976, long before Darina Allen started turning the Irish nation back into butter lovers - and just leafing through them is an exercise in nostalgia. As a child I cooked my way through Drop Scones, Franzipan Flan, Steak Diane and Melba Toast, while a picture of The Runaway Train children's birthday cake furnished many hours-worth of dreaming. I subsequently made this for a cousin who probably was too young to appreciate more than the Liquorice Allsorts used for wheels and the Smartie cargo - it's not really a cake worth returning to. But many of the recipes, albeit with Stork swapped for butter, definitely are.

Every Christmas Cake in our house was, and still is, covered with Almond and Royal Icing according to the tables in the first book. I learned how to make choux pastry from the step-by-step photographs when I was about eleven and subsequently became famed for my Chocolate Éclairs. Family get-togethers were normally preceded by several days of Éclair-making when I took over the kitchen and most of the freezer (and probably my mother's nerves!) to make what I considered a sufficient supply - normally 2-3 per person. While I haven't made Éclairs in years, I have returned to several other of the recipes, with a few modern updates, to great success.

The Sausage Plait pictured on the cover was a particular favourite when I was younger. One day I cooked it on the shelf below one of my mum's Apple Tarts and, although I initially thought it was ruined when the tart's sweet, appley juices overflowed on top of it, the apple flavour actually complemented the pork so much that I now add apple to the recipe. It's a great supper dish, especially with a good accompanying salad, and it also travels very well as part of a picnic spread.

As charity cookbooks go, Real Food for Real People is a real gem. The book is part of a fundraising drive for Moneystown National School's building fund and was produced and published by the Parents' Committee in this County Wicklow village. But, even though Real Food for Real People was evidentially done on a shoestring, the design quality still shines out. Illustrated mainly with children's drawings and photos, and scattered with quotations from, amongst others, Shakespeare and Lenin, it is a simple and well laid-out book.

The recipes do not disappoint either, with Real Food for Real People gathering together a broad selection of well-loved recipes from local families, some of which have been handed down through the generations. Foreign dishes - Mrs Bittel's Waffles, Flamiche aux Poitreaux - share space with Stuffed Marrow, Nettle Soup and Mrs Doyle's Brown Bread. There's also a substantial selection of biscuits (Congolais, Gigi's Chocolate Chip Cookies), deserts (Chocolate Roulade, Ishy Gran's Trifle) and cakes (Mary Quinn's Currant Cake, Granny Tish's Christmas Cake)

Along with the food, the book also includes a history of Moneystown National School by former principle Frank McGillick, making it a lovely keepsake for anyone in or connected to the community. But - and that's what sets Real Food for Real People apart from so many other similar productions - the design and the recipes are of a high enough standard to let it stand alone, far beyond the confines of County Wicklow.

And it seems like lots of people agree. Priced at an eminently reasonable €10, the first print run sold out in about a month but the book has since been reprinted. I picked up my copy in the Alliance Française in Dublin, I've also seen it in Avoca Handweavers and it is also available online at www.moneystowncookbook.com for €10.00 + €2.50 P&P. A good cause and great cooking.

Real Food for Real People is published by Moneystown National School's Parents' Committee.

Undoubtedly creative and definitely contemporary, Kevin Dundon's Full on Irish is a book that is easy to admire yet, as a collection of recipes, it is not entirely successful. Too much fussing over presentation, as with the beautifully and immaculately layered Smoked Salmon Cake with Chive Cream Cheese, is a huge turn off for me. I want to be able to look at the pictures and think "I can do that" rather than "it's too complicated for me." Maybe it is to do with my style of cooking, which is all about landing dishes on the table and letting people help themselves, rather than delicately plating up little morsels of food, but I find it very difficult to get excited about cookbooks that devote a paragraph to telling me how to arrange the dish before presenting it.

Still, grumbles aside, Full on Irish is a beautifully put together book. Each recipe is illustrated with well arranged photographs from Alan Murphy, who also takes pictures of the chef in action - making Orange Scented Pastry Cages, harvesting spuds, picking Wexford mussels and cradling a hen from the gardens of Dunbrody House, Dundon's award-winning restaurant and luxury hotel in County Wexford. Dunbrody House is also host to a cookery school run by Dundon and he is a great champion of local produce and artisan producers. Traditional butcher Leo Halford in Wellington Bridge, specialist mushrooms from Fancy Fungi and Hook Head potatoes from Vincent and Geraldine Rowe are just some of the foodstuffs that he highlights while Atlantic salmon and Wexford strawberries also get a mention. Dundon also has to be applauded for sensibly valuing local and seasonal foods over organic imports and for growing many of his own fruit and vegetables in the gardens around Dunbrody House.

While I would prefer to admire rather than cook many of the dishes in Full on Irish, it has piqued my interest in visiting Dunbrody House and Dundon's final two chapters - Kitchen Garden and The Larder - have a particularly useful selection of recipes for Balsamic Reduction, Chilli Jam and Dunbrody Cucumber Pickle with Rocket. Eye candy, undoubtedly, but Full on Irish may not get much use in the kitchen.

Full on Irish: Creative Contemporary Cooking by Kevin Dundon is published by Epicure Press.

Although these wee cookbooks are small - just 64 pages - they are beautifully formed. The Irish Food books are from the same stable that produces the Bridgestone Top 100 guides to restaurants and places to stay, as well as the Irish Food Guide - Sally and John McKenna's Estragon Press - they are well worth investing in, and at €3 apiece, they won't break the bank.

Slow & Traditional is a celebration of what the McKennas call Irish soul food. Indeed, with a selection of simple and approachable recipes for dishes like Dublin Coddle, Champ and Colcannon, this is comfort cooking at its best.

Waterford's acclaimed Tannery Restaurant chef Paul Flynn teams up with Sally McKenna in Fast & Modern. Concentrating on the best of Irish artisan produce, Flynn and McKenna present a selection of imaginative recipes that showcase wonderful products like mature Hegarty's cheddar cheese (Risotto of Peaches and Mature Hegarty's Cheddar) and Glenilen Clotted Cream (Crab Quiche with Glenilen Clotted Cream).

A section at the back of each book contains background information on associations and individuals working with Irish food as well as a directory of producers. Small packages indeed, but very good ones. I wonder if we'll have to wait long for their big brothers?

Irish Food: Slow & Traditional by John and Sally McKenna & Irish Food: Fast & Modern by Paul Flynn and Sally McKenna are published by Estragon Press.

With a subtitle that says, "Big-time home cooking for family and friends" you can't say that you haven't been warned. Tom Douglas, with his wife Jackie Cross, is the owner of several restaurants in Seattle one of which, Etta's Seafood, I've heard about for years from a friend that worked there some time ago. As is evident from the cover photograph, he's a big man with a big appetite - the kind of chef that, in short, you'd trust to cook you dinner or to tell you how to cook your own dinner. Don't go looking for any nouvelle cuisine in this book 'cos you ain't gonna find it. What you will find, however, are plenty of recipes that will make you want to march right into that kitchen of yours and start cooking for crowds.

Douglas writes by menu and the book has a total of thirteen adaptable menus for every (American) occasion, including Puget Sound Crab Feed, Screen Door Barbeque, Kat and Clay's Merlot Release Picnic and Christmas Eve with the Dows. There are no dinners à deux here; rather this is a book to arrange events by. Plan your own adaptation of Pop Pop's Winter Solstice, get half-a-dozen people over for A Chinese Feast or figure out where your local market is so that you can organise a Pike Place Market Menu.

Each menu starts off with a creative cocktail, a most civilised way to start a meal, and Douglas also gives suggestions on appropriate wines to go with the food. There are tips in the side margins and explanations of ingredients and techniques. After years of seeing kosher salt recommended in American recipes I now know why (because it tastes less harsh taste and salty than table salt) and how to make reductions to add intensity to the dishes I cook. One of the best things about this book is Douglas' A Step Ahead section in each recipe where he details anything that you can prepare in advance - something I wish more cookbook writers would make use of.

Douglas is a proud champion of the best of local food producers and this book will be a wealth of information to anyone based in and around Seattle. The rest of us will have to settle for trying a glass of his Homemade Bianco on the Rocks with a Twist followed by - to do a little menu mixing - some Sweet and Hot Fried Almonds, Spring Chickens with Green Marinade and Sweet Pea Risotto, topped off with Bitter Orange Chocolate Mousse. What's not to like?

Tom's Big Dinners by Tom Douglas is published by Morrow Cookbooks.

Before I started reading/reviewing these books, Anne Willan was unfamiliar to me but, as soon as they arrived, her name started to crop up in my reading with increasing regularity. An American by way of Yorkshire, Willan established La Varenne, the prestigious Burgundy-based French cooking school, in 1975. For those who haven't the time or money to study with her, she has also written an impressive number of cookbooks, ranging from Dorling Kindersley's Perfect series (Perfect Chicken Dishes, Perfect Chocolate Deserts, Perfect Appetizers etc), last year's useful A Cook's Book of Quick Fixes to the more personal in From My Chateau Kitchen.

How to Cook Absolutely Everything and Best Recipes for Absolutely Everything are, however, work manuals rather cookbooks to gloat and glory over (see Roast Figs, Sugar Snow, A Paradiso Year: Autumn and Winter Cooking or Unwrapped: Green and Black's Chocolate Recipes for examples of those!). How to Cook..., in particular, is very instruction book-like, laid out with photographs of food at various stages of doneness with accompanying text that explains details of colour and texture. It originated, as Willan points out in the introduction, in her kitchen: " 'That looks done to me,' I said one day as a student lifted a roast chicken out of the oven. And then I thought - how do I know? Cooking is a skill learned by experience, and nothing is more difficult than judging when a dish is cooked just right." Although she states that smell, sight, touch, hearing and, finally, taste, are all important in determining when food is ready, Willan does a surprisingly good job of communicating this through the visual images and text in this small (well under 200 pages) book.

With chapters ranging through eggs, pasta, desserts, meat and fruit, there's a wealth of information here for both inexperienced and veteran cooks. The chapter on sauces, for instance, covers - amongst others - stocks, gravies, hollandaise, mayonnaise and vinaigrette alongside sweet sauces like pastry cream and fruit coulis. The meat chapter has useful instructions on how to use a simple thumb test for firmness - as in comparing your thumb muscle's resilience to that of the food - as a way to judge how well a piece of meat or fish is cooked. It sure beats having to cut into a piece of steak in the pan to see how bloody it is. The images which accompany grain pilaffs and risottos are similarly helpful and it is always useful to compare your mental image of how a food looks when it is cooked with actual pictures of the real thing. Each section starts with a paragraph on the method of cooking, as well as tips on appropriate seasonings and remedies for technical problems.

Willan does includes several recipes so that readers can experiment with their new-found knowledge (in the apple section, Tarte des Demoiselles Tatin looks particularly good) but there just aren't enough, especially when you get to the chocolate mousse and ganache sections in the desserts chapter. For those associated recipes - Chocolate Mousse with Raspberries and Pecan Truffles - you have to go to the companion book, Best Recipes for Absolutely Everything. As Best Recipes... and How to Cook... are so complimentary to each other, I don't understand why Quadrille Publishing didn't publish both books in the one volume. How to Cook Absolutely Everything is both educational and interesting but it is frustrating to have to go search for recipes in Best Recipes for Absolutely Everything. Only two stars out of fivce - it could have been more.

How to Cook Absolutely Everything and Best Recipes for Absolutely Everything by Anne Willan are published by Quadrille Publishing.

My first introduction to Ursula Ferrigno was through a book called Bread (published by Dorling Kindersley) that she co-wrote with Eric Treuillé, the owner of London shop/haven Books For Cooks. It's an eminently useful publication with, as is the Dorling Kindersley way, plenty, almost too many, illustrations. This became a much-used publication in my kitchen - especially when the Boyfriend appointed himself official bagel-maker! - and so it was with great interest I turned to Ferrigno's latest book, Trattoria: Food for Family and Friends.

Fortunately publishers Mitchell Beazley don't go in for the totally step-by-step, picture-at-each-stage idea. Trattoria is more atmospheric than the dictatorial Bread but the quality of the recipes doesn't suffer from that. Ferrigno has published several other well-regarded Italian cookery books and she certainly knows her stuff. Each recipe starts with a paragraph where she talks evocatively about the ingredients used, the history of the dish and the area that the food is associated with. The emphasis throughout is on fresh, regional and seasonal food and, while Ferrigno celebrates tradition, she is not hide-bound by it.

Ferrigno includes recipes from and little histories of some of her favourite trattoria, tempting the reader to visit Italy as well as cooking its food. The book is sumptuously photographed by Francesca Yorke - the dishes, as well as the people, produce and landscape - and will appeal to anyone with even a passing interest in Italian food. All I need now is a map so I can plot my gastronomic tour of Italy!

Trattoria: Food for Family and Friends by Ursula Ferrigno is published by Mitchell Beazley.

Coming back from New Zealand, I keep getting told that "staying in is the new going out" and this would seem to be borne out by the publication of both Darina Allen's Easy Entertaining and her daughter-in-law Rachel Allen's Favourite Food For Friends within a few weeks of each other in late 2005.

While Rachel's book is a perfectly acceptable selection of recipes if you're interested in cooking for friends at home, Easy Entertaining is a far more comprehensive tome. Darina has gathered over 250 recipes that cover everything from three-course dinners to tapas and one-pot suppers and this book is full of excellent ideas with plenty of modern twists on old standards. There's nothing too complicated here for kitchen novices but entertaining experts will be definitely be pleased with the variety on offer - Spiced Chicken and Red Peppers with Orzo, Tomato and Coconut Milk Soup, Martha Rosenthal's Red Lentil Dahl are just a few of the recipes I currently have bookmarked in my copy.

While I would avoid the section that deals with party games, Tom Doorley's advice on picking wine and drinks is very useful although I was rather annoyed at his use of sterling prices instead of euros.

Easy Entertaining is, however, a book that you will return to again and again, whether you have the excuse of cooking food for friends - or you just want some innovative dishes to cook for yourself. Rachel may be flavour of the month at the moment but she has a long way to go before I'd turn to her before Darina.

Easy Entertaining by Darina Allen is published by Kyle Cathie, €25

While the internet has undoubtedly simplified the matter of finding holiday accommodation, it's never at hand (unless, of course, you've got your portable internet device nearby) when you're on the road, looking for a decent bite to eat and somewhere to stay at short notice. Situations like these that make you thankful for having a guide book into the glove-box of your car and Georgina Campbell's guides to Ireland are useful tomes for such eventualities.

Ms Campbell's latest publication, The Best of The Best is described by her publishers as being "for the more discerning traveller and diner". Like the Bridgestone Guides, the selections in Campbell's guides are based on merit alone rather than the establishments actually paying for inclusion.

With useful maps aplenty to assist your navigation, Campbell informs readers of the finest restaurants, accommodation, pubs and cafés throughout the country. It is more comprehensive and less idiosyncratic than the Bridgestone Guides but there are still enough mouth-watering accounts of dinners and breakfasts enjoyed to keep even the most rampant foodie happy.

With places to stay and eat in every price range, you can easily avoid greasy garage shops and unwelcoming B&Bs while traveling around Ireland by keeping The Best of The Best and the Bridgestone Guides in your glove-box. You know it's worth it.

Georgina Campbell's Ireland: The Best of The Best is published by Epicure Press.

Although already the author of two well-received memoirs - Kitchen Confidential and A Cook's Tour - as well as a couple of not so popular detective novels, it has taken American chef Anthony Bourdain a little while to embark on his own cookbook and he throws himself into the undertaking with commendable vigour.

An already hyperactive writing style doesn't get lost anywhere along the way as he pushes, prods and sometimes seems to want to deliberately antagonise readers. Bourdain is the executive chef at New York City restaurant Les Halles, and he has decreed that this book is a "field manual to strategy and tactics". To that end, he's determined to treat the reader as if he or she were a rookie in his kitchen. He doesn't mince his words as he coerces and advises, issuing warnings and occasionally yelling (in print).

Bourdain takes the solid, mainly carnivorous (don't miss the blood and guts chapter), French principles behind Les Halles and reworks them for a private kitchen to good effect. Behind all the bluster, there's a chef with a talent for imparting his knowledge of food to those who wish to learn. While it won't be very useful to vegetarians (fans of Ysanne Spevack's Fresh and Wild Cookbook avoid!), the Les Halles Cookbook is an undoubted education.

Les Halles Cookbook by Anthony Bourdain is published by Bloomsbury.

Derry woman and Sunday Telegraph food writer Diana Henry has again come up trumps with her latest book, Roast Figs, Sugar Snow. Her first cookbook, Crazy Water, Pickled Lemons, focused on the tastes and enchantments of the Middle East, Mediterranean and North Africa. With praise from Claudia Roden and its appearance twice on the Glenfiddich award shortlist, it became an instant classic.

Like Crazy Water, Pickled Lemons, there is a focus on travelling in Roast Figs, Sugar Snow. Henry has traversed the chilly areas of the Northern Hemisphere and collected recipes from Maine, Norway, Tuscany and Denmark, grouping them by theme under idiosyncratic chapter headings. Tales From the Hunt covers game and wild mushrooms, Earthly Pleasures focuses on pumpkin, squash, beans and lentils while Sugar Snow is devoted to maple syrup.

Henry's introductions to each chapter are evocative and personal, being as much a travel guide as information on the ingredients. Like her previous book, there are seasonal quotes scattered throughout from Laurie Lee, Marianne Moore and Robert Frost as well as the piece that inspired her - Laura Ingalls Wilder's vivid description of a sugar snow in Vermont from Little House in the Big Woods. These literary diversions make Roast Figs, Sugar Snow a book that is worth reading as well as cooking from. But don't underestimate Henry's recipes. There's the detail of Sugar-On-Snow for those Ingalls Wilder fanatics, Beef Pie with Wild Mushrooms and Claret ("you can make men fall in love with you with this pie"), the substantial-sounding Steamed Apple and Marmalade Pudding and Uncle Desmond's Sloe Gin.

Vividly luminous photographs by Jason Lowe compliment Henry's sensuous writing and make Roast Figs, Sugar Snow a book to curl up with on a dark night in front of a roaring fire. Just don't try doing it when you're hungry.

Roast Figs, Sugar Snow by Diana Henry is published by Mitchell Beazley.

British organic and Fair Trade food chain Fresh and Wild teamed up with organic expert Ysanne Spevack, editor of online organic food magazine OrganicFoodee.com, to produce this cookbook. It's both worthy and worthwhile, but sometimes Spevack's party political broadcasts on behalf of Fresh and Wild do get a little tiresome, especially when there's only a limited amount of the shops to go around.

That aside, the biggest problem with this book is the lack of a glossary. There are frequent references to ingredients that probably won't be familiar to many readers - tempeh, spelt, rapadura - and, although Spevack does explain what they are, that's only useful if you read the whole thing in sequence. Things can get confusing if you, like me, tend to dip in and out of recipe books rather than peruse it from cover to cover. An A to Z glossary would save both time and patience, further demystifying all those odd things you find in health shops.

The selection of recipes in the Fresh and Wild Cookbook are undeniably healthy and often intriguing. Worth working through if you're making the effort to move away from meat and two veg.

Fresh and Wild Cookbook by Ysanne Spevack is published by Thorsons.

With 15 years of eating and sleeping the length and breadth of the country in a tireless quest for the best of the best, John and Sally McKenna have it down to a fine art. This year's editions of The Bridgestone 100 Best Restaurants and The Bridgestone 100 Best Places to Stay are as wonderfully opinionated and idiosyncratic as ever. And also, very importantly, they are independent. The McKennas and their travelling editors pay for their own meals and accommodation, refusing - as they note at the start of each book - any offers of discounts or gifts.

In the introduction of the Best Restaurants there's a clear declaration of intent when the McKennas talk about "facsimile food, served in grand rooms where menus read well, and then eat badly because they are trapped in pretentiousness, or some crazy idea called "fine dining", a concept, which as far as we can see, is just petit-bourgeois." There's a similar air about the introduction to Best Places To Stay, with an attack on "4-star joints that sit high on the top of a hill, without a tree in sight…lavishly tarmacadamed up to the door with a brightly lit fountain that doesn't work, inappropriate decking beside the heli-pad, and PVC windows".

The most expensive places - for eating or staying - aren't necessarily the most praised. I would have to agree with the McKennas when they say that "you discover value when you discover the work of talented people who are passionate about what they do and who do it in an original way." Sometimes it's better to have one amazing, if expensive, meal in a month than eat your lunch out five days a week in one of Dublin's rubbish cafés. There are bank-breakers in both these books - a penthouse at the Clarence is €2,500, the hotel described here merely as a "work in progress", and a night out at L'Ecrivain is never going to come cheaply. But there are other price options too. Grove House in Schull is €80 per room in low season, and Donegal's wonderfully relaxing Coxtown Manor does very reasonably priced gourmet breaks while many of the venues mentioned also have early bird menus.

Now that the turkey has settled, the Cranberry Sauce eaten and the crackers pulled it's time to get round to reading through the pile of Christmas books, top of which is Nigel Slater's The Kitchen Diaries. It was difficult, but I managed to hold out till Christmas to get my hands on it. My Cuisine subscription has started too - I discovered the magazine had arrived at home and been placed underneath the tree! - although it does seem strange to read descriptions of picnic and barbeque food while we're surrounded by late December freezing fog. Not that it'll stop me from enjoying the magazine, though. Now it's time to dig out a selection box, pull the big armchair up to the fire and get stuck in to reading. Happy lazy Christmas!

New Zealand cafés do fantastic salads and whenever my tastebuds need a kick and I'm looking for an unusual salad recipe, I turn to former café owner (now cookbook writer) Julie Le Clerc or one of Mark McDonough's Zarbo books. Zarbo is a popular Auckland-based delicatessen, fresh food store and café. The name is familiar throughout New Zealand from being emblazoned on its own range of dressings, marinades, rubs and chutneys. The shop also stocks an exceptional range of imported food products, meaning - if you're in Auckand, of course - that you'll never be stuck for any of the ingredients mentioned in Zarbo Zest.

The inspirations for Mark's recipes come from both near and far - the exotic flavours of North Africa and, even closer, Asia; the fresh produce of New Zealand; more familiar food from Europe. Another thing that inspires him is the balance between work and life. His recipes are all workable for the time-poor generation with homemade smoothies and muesli for the busy weekdays and homemade jams and brunch dishes for more leisurely weekends.

Mark has some intriguing combinations of flavours and techniques - Kaffir Lime Leaf Marmalade, for instance, and Gravlax with Coriander Root and Szechwan Pepper or Pumpkin, Orange and Bay Jam. He has a section on dressings which gets full marks for a homemade version of Thai Sweet Chilli Sauce but it is a little disappointing that he doesn't clarify which dressing goes best with what.

That aside, Zarbo Zest is an inspiring and approachable cookbook with plenty of mouthwatering dishes for every occasion. Now, if only I could get back to New Zealand to see the café itself in action...

Zarbo Zest by Mark McDonough is published by Random House New Zealand.

To my sorrow I must admit that I have only once eaten in Denis Cotter's award-winning Café Paradiso restaurant in Cork. But that one time, nearly ten years ago now, was mostly memorable for my first taste of polenta. My sociologist student friend felt it was deeply ironic that I should be writing my thesis on the Irish Famine at the time and eating what was known in 1840s Ireland as "Peel's Brimstone" - the Indian meal imported by British Prime Minister Robert Peel to help the starving Irish. All irony aside, that day I fell in love with Denis Cotter's cooking and a return trip is long on the cards.

A Paradiso Year: Autumn and Winter Cooking is Cotter's latest book and it has succeeded in whetting my appetite even further. The recipes in it, as in its companion Spring and Summer Cooking, are selected from his Paradiso Seasons, which was the 2003 winner of the Best Vegetarian Book in the World Award. Cotter, however, doesn't place an emphasis on vegetarian cooking as much as he does on cooking vegetables. His is the kind of cooking where lack of meat is unnoticed and even the most determined non-vegetarian will find plenty of tempting recipes here.

My time in spent in New Zealand markets has encouraged me to think and cook in a more seasonal manner. This book is, therefore, right up my street, especially when Cotter talks about pumpkins and leeks being the bedrock of his autumn cooking. Winter he associates with hardy greens and edible roots, and the book also includes a section on the spring greens and purple sprouting broccoli of Early Spring.

Having been surrounded by pumpkins, particularly Cotter's beloved Crown variety, in New Zealand, it's heart-warming to find an Irish writer with such an imaginative take on this fantastic - and much underrated on this side of the world - vegetable. Pumpkin Gnocchi with Spinach in a Roasted Garlic Cream, Roast Pumpkin, Onion and Feta Tart in a Walnut Filo Pastry with Cucumber and Yoghurt Sauce or Baked Pumpkin, Cashew and Yoghurt Curry are all recipes which, when I manage to get my hands on the chief ingredient, I intend to try myself.

While many of the recipes may seem to be more orientated towards restaurant- rather than home-cooking, Cotter makes the point that they are reference points as much as definite instructions and his flavour combinations are inspiring. I may never get round to making the whole of the beautiful cover dish - Pistachio, Cardamom and Basmati Rice Cake with Coconut Greens and Gingered Mango Salsa - but I can definitely see myself using the constituent parts of Cotter's recipe.

Sitting these winter nights, poring over Autumn and Winter Cooking without a kitchen in which to try out Cotter's recipes, has been tantalising. I've promised myself a trip to Café Paradiso and his recipes have made me more determined than ever to track down some pumpkins!

A Paradiso Year: Autumn and Winter Cooking by Denis Cotter is published by Cork University Press.

Northern Irish cookery writer, radio and UTV television presenter Jenny Bristow has chosen to concentrate on Mediterranean food in her latest book, A Taste of Sunshine. With an emphasis on variety, simple ingredients and cooking meals from fresh raw unprocessed ingredients, Jenny comes firmly down on the side of healthy cooking. She doesn't go overboard, though, and the recipes certainly don't suffer.

Clear and concise, the food is inspired by Mediterranean influences and fresh local Northern Irish produce. There's a glossary of ingredients that Jenny considers essential - honey, vinegar, olive oil, cheeses, herbs, spices and, very importantly, wines - alongside pictures of the author, looking browned and relaxed, wandering around Mediterranean markets and talking to producers.

Stylistically, the use of @ instead of a plain 'at' for oven temperatures rapidly became annoying and too many colours on the page make cluttered what was otherwise a clean design. There will be little new here for the more experienced cook but A Taste of Sunshine is an inviting and unthreatening recipe book, offering readers a gentle introduction to the cuisine of the Mediterranean.

Jenny Bristow: A Taste of Sunshine is published by Blackstaff Press.

First there was Myrtle Allen who was responsible for raising the profile and quality of Irish food through her work abroad and in her country house hotel at Ballymaloe. Daughter-in-law Darina backed her up, beginning the Ballymaloe Cookery School and, with her Simply Delicious television series and books, started pushing the message through to the wider public in Ireland. Now it's the turn of a third generation and Rachel Allen is successfully following in the television footsteps of mother-in-law Darina.

Not having a television set for a few years (and spending the last 12 months in New Zealand!) I haven't yet managed to catch any of Rachel's programmes but I have got my hands on her second book, Rachel's Favourite Food for Friends, based on the series of the same name.

My mother hasn't been impressed with her television persona, describing her as "very milk and water" (another way of saying wishy-washy) but, based on her book, it is easy to see why she's so successful. Rachel is not inventing the wheel but she is re-introducing it to a new generation.

Darina, at first, focused on traditional Irish cooking - soda bread, raspberry jam, roasts and scones - but she also ventured into then-exotic (I'm talking early 1990s Ireland here!) Mediterranean foodstuffs like pasta and Peperonata. Rachel, who like many of us in our 30s, has travelled throughout the world, takes inspiration from a variety of further afield sources. Her recipes for dishes that we might have tasted on our own travels - Tom Yum, Moroccan Chickpea Soup and Kulfi - are all simple and manageable.

Rachel endeared herself to me by starting off many of the chapters with soups (Chunky Smoked Haddock Chowder, Cannellini Bean and Chicken Soup with Basil). When you're reading her book on the DART on a cold dark winter's night, that's exactly what you want to see. There are plenty of useful tips scattered throughout the book and I particularly loved her comment that caramelised sugar is ready when it turns the colour of whiskey. That's not a tip that you're going to forget in a hurry. Her sweet pastry technique - untouched by hand, lots of resting, rolled out between clingfilm - seems to be exciting a lot of interest too and, judging from personal experience with my aunt's apple tart, I know that it tastes delicious.

Rachel's Favourite Food for Friends is perfect for home cooks anxious to expand their repertoire and well worth a browse for everyone else. I'm sure it's going to feature in many a Christmas stocking this year.

Rachel's Favourite Food for Friends by Rachel Allen is published by Gill & Macmillan

Although cursed with an uninviting cover, Last Chance to Eat, with its investigations into the history and eating of a variety of foodstuffs, is a fascinating read for anyone with even the barest interest in food. For foodies, it should be essential.

Toronto-based Gina Mallet uses her particular memories - a post-WWII childhood in egg-less Britain, life in a Connecticut fishing village, dates at a New York steakhouse - to expand on the universal food issues. The daughter of a food-loving Englishman and his free-spirited American wife, she quotes from obscure experts and modern scientists in her quest to discover where the good food came from - and where it has disappeared to.

Using her evocatively sensual descriptions of food from the past as a counterpoint, she picks her way through the nutritional minefield of the present, exploring the issues of raw milk cheese, the importance of the egg in cooking, BSE scares, the demise of vegetable and fruit varieties, and exploring the vagaries of the fishing industry.

Erudite and entertaining, Last Chance to Eat is a thought provoking read.

Last Chance to Eat: The Fate of Taste in a Fast Food World by Gina Mallet is published by Norton

Since I first saw this book in our local Oxfam shop in Dublin I've been having lustful thoughts about it. Green & Black's produce fabulous organic Fair Trade chocolate - their spice/orange Maya Gold bar heading the list of my all time favourite chocolates - and the photos that I saw on a brief browse through the book were mouth-watering. It's taken some time but I finally bought my own copy and my first impressions did not deceive.

Unwrapped, subtitled From the Cacao Pod to Muffins, Mousses and Moles, is, as it says, all about chocolate and its uses, both sweet and savoury. There are several recipes for delectable gooey brownies (Chocolate and Cherry Brownies, Celebration Brownies), a couple of variations on flourless chocolate cakes - Dark Chocolate Mousse Cake, Polenta Chocolate Cake - and lots of tempting savoury dishes, including a highly intriguing recipe for Gorgonzola with Dark Chocolate. There's also a recipe for Vodka Chilli Chocolates that feeds directly into my current chocolate/chilli fixation - with the added boost of the vodka involvement.

This is a celebration of chocolate in its every shape and form but where it differs from other cookbooks, is in its attention to the detail of the cacao bean production and the merits of Fair Trade. Pictures of the cacao bean growing in its natural environment and of the people that cultivate it are dispersed throughout the book, adding another level of interest to what is already a fascinating book. I can't believe I waited so long to buy it.

Unwrapped: Green and Black's Chocolate Recipes edited by Caroline Jeremy is published by Kyle Cathie.

I was really delighted to see that a New Zealand book that I really enjoyed and have written about here - Taste: Baking with Flavour by Dean Brettschneider and
Lauraine Jacobs - took gold in its category (Soft Cover Recipe Book under US$25) at the 2005 World Food Media Awards in Adelaide last weekend. There was stiff competition in that area and I thought that Mary Contini's blend of memoir and recipes, Dear Francesca, might have taken the prize but it's great to see such an approachable book on baking getting acknowledged. The fact that it's a Kiwi book, of course, makes it even better!

Stephanie Alexander received honours on home ground for her revised and updated The Cook's Companion, tying with an American publication, The Breath of a Wok by Grace Young and Alan Richardson, for the Best Food Book award. Barbara of Auckland's Winos and Foodies had picked Plenty by Gay Bilson in this category and, as I'm immersed in it at the moment on her recommendation, I can see why.

Alastair Hendy, the British food writer and photographer, received Ladles for Best Food Photography and Best Food Journalist, both of which he also won in 2003. New Zealand magazine Home & Entertaining - I can't say I've ever noticed it but will be keeping my eyes open from now on - took the award for Best Food Section in a Magazine and the Best Food and/or Drink Website was the ever-useful Leite's Culinaria.

Among the other winners (full list here) I have only read Tessa Kiros' delightful Falling Cloudberries, a journey through the foods of her life, including those of her Greek Cypriot and Finnish forbearers, which received a gold Ladle for being the Best Hard Cover Recipe Book over US$25. Apparently there were almost 1,000 items of work to be judged. Not all were cookbooks but there were enough in there to make me feel sorry for the judges. I'm only just barely getting through the pile by my own bedside at the moment!

Why is it that recipe names look so much more evocative when written in French? Gâteau au chocolate et à l'abricot seems so much more sophisticated than just plain Chocolate apricot cake. Still, from the look of this slice of this moist dark cake pictured in Christelle Le Ru's Simply Irresistible French Desserts I don't think that anyone will complain if you set it in front of them, no matter which name you use. But Carrés à la noix de pécan and Crèmes chaudes aux myrtilles (Pecan squares and Hot blueberry creams, respectively) certainly do have much more of a ring to them en Français and that's a great deal to do with the charm of this Christchurch-based Frenchwoman's self-published cookbook.

In a world dominated by glossy over-airbrushed and Photoshop-manipulated food photographs, it is refreshing to come across a cookbook with such real illustrations. Like any normal home cook, Christelle doesn't always get perfect slices and sometimes her icing looks intent on flowing off the cake but when she says that that particular cake will "delight many" you believe her. After all, she's got the weight of experience behind her as all these recipes have been thoroughly tried and tested on her friends and family.

Simply Irresistible French Desserts showcases a tempting selection of Christelle's sweet creations, from traditional French charlottes (choose between Chocolate and banana, Pear and chocolate and Strawberry variations) to her take on a baked cheesecake (Fondant au chocolate). The recipes are divided between chapters entitled Chocolate Creations, Fruit Delights and Small Treats, each of which hold a selection of entirely mouthwatering treats. None of the recipes are difficult and there are plenty that have me edging towards the kitchen as I type. I think I'm going to enjoy experimenting with Christelle's Simply Irresistible French Desserts - and I will especially relish using the French names!

Simply Irresistible French Desserts by Christelle Le Ru is published by CLR.

It's not often that chefs can manage to simplify techniques so that they are both intelligible and useful to those of us who confine our cooking to the home kitchen but Auckland-based Genevieve McGough has managed it in Brilliant But Basic. In this slim publication she deals with a total of 19 different techniques, teaching formulas for useful cooking basics such as meringue, risotto, slow-cooked meats and cheesecake.

Each section starts with an explanation, a basic recipe and then the cream on top - substitutions and variations. Where this approach really shines is in the Classic Dressings chapter. The area devoted to Pesto and Pistou runs through appropriate herbs and nuts to use in these dressings, offering combination suggestions. Just the idea of coriander and cashew nut dressing with camembert cheese had me almost raiding the herb patch, despite the fact that we're a long way from having enough coriander to give more than just a dab of flavour! The vinaigrette and mayonnaise sections, too, offers some delightful innovations. For anyone who eats a lot of salad and is interested in expanding their dressings repertoire this chapter alone would make the book worth buying.

But that's not all Brilliant But Basic has to offer. Hot smoking and brining techniques are a few of the more off-kilter, but appealing, ideas. One evening, lacking a starch to accompany a stew, I successfully road-tested McGough's plain creamy risotto. The next time I'll get stuck into some of her ideas involving smoked paprika and roast garlic.

While the recipes included in each section are sometimes too restaurant-kitchen for this home cook, the ideas behind them are sound and McGough gives the reader the knowledge and the guidelines for success. For cooks at any level, Brilliant But Basic is a book that will repay careful study.

Brilliant But Basic by Genevieve McGough is published by Penguin Books.

Just looking up Margaret Costa's Four Seasons Cookery Book - a friend loaned it to me the other night and I was wondering how much it would cost to get my own copy! - and I came across this article by pedant in the kitchen, Julian Barnes. I thoroughly enjoyed his debate about and efforts to cull his collection. His "certain words of advice, all of it paid for in money" are worth taking a look at, especially number 5 - "Never buy a juice book if you haven't a juicer" - apropos of the book that caused the whole conundrum, Nigel Slater's Juice. Juice is the one Slater book that I haven't purchased but, by coincidence, I got it out of the library yesterday. And no, I don't have a juicer either.

As regards the Four Seasons Cookery Book, it's not as if I really NEED another cookbook but Margaret Costa has a lot to recommend her, despite Barnes' dismissal of all but one of her recipes. I've developed a love of seasonal cookery books recently (Amanda Hesser's The Cook and The Gardener, At its Best: Cooking with Fresh Seasonal Produce by Margaret Brooker, Xanthe Clay's marvelous collections of Daily Telegraph readers' recipes - In Season and It's Raining Plums) and this seems like the original and, dare I say it, perhaps the best? Well, I'm certainly not going to buy it while I'm in New Zealand - it's not even 12 months since I arrived and I already have a more than respectable and difficult to transport collection here - but maybe when I go home...along with Nigel's The Kitchen Diaries and Claudia Roden's New Book of Middle Eastern Food. This, of course, despite the fact that there is a whole library of cookbooks waiting for me in Ireland. I'm starting to feel like Heidi over on 101 Cookbooks!

Penny Oliver, the New Zealand author of Beach, Bach, Boat, Barbeque, has returned to outdoor pursuits for her latest book At Home, At Play. With fabulous photographs of rivers, cooking over outdoor fires, mountains, camping with frost on tents, kayaking and heavy snowfalls, she intersperses her recipes - divided into chapters called Eat Up, Chill Out, Warm Up and Time Out - with views of New Zealand.

This book is a nice reflection of New Zealand's relaxed indoors and active outdoors lifestyle, full of recipes that will be useful no matter where in the world you are. While Roast Tomato, Pepper and Basil Soup may be perfect for the New Zealand winter, it's not going to lack anything if made on a stormy day in Ireland, and Oliver's one-pot Apricot and Walnut Chocolate Cake looks like the perfect fit to any situation where cake is needed. Her insistence on using high quality locally grown ingredients is something that can be applied where ever you live.

At Home, At Play is a celebration of place as much as a cookbook which makes it more unfortunate that the publishers neglected to label Ian Batchelor's magnificent photographs of the New Zealand landscape.

The ubiquitous Edmonds Cookery Book - in print for almost 100 years - is still the quintessential Kiwi recipe book but, for anyone looking for a modern foodie's take on New Zealand, At Home, At Play is the place to start.

At Home, At Play by Penny Oliver is published by New Holland.

I've been taking full advantage of the Christchurch City Library and their ever-fabulous selection of cookbooks, a pile of which are currently sitting by the bed. I've always been an avid reader of cookbooks - in Ireland the Boyfriend accused me of spending more time reading them than cooking from them! - but now it sometimes gets a little out of hand.

I love to dip in and out of different cultures through food, moving from the Mexican romance of Like Water for Chocolate through celebrations of seasonal produce in both New Zealand (At its Best by Margaret Brooker) and France (Amanda Hesser's The Cook and the Gardener) as well as finding practical new ways to use my breadmaker (Pizza, Focaccia, Filled and Flat Breads from your Bread Machine by Lora Brody).

There are times when I go looking for something which I've been wanting to read for a while (Tamasin's Weekend Food by Tamasin Day-Lewis, Tessa Kiros' Falling Cloudberries), and the library ordering service is particularly good if the book turns out to be out on loan or at another branch. Sometimes I refuse to walk down the cookbook aisles for fear that I'll find a book that I just have to take and read - never mind the other dozen that are at home - a month just isn't enough to get through them all!

Currently reading:
It's Raining Plums: Seasonal Recipes by Seasoned Cooks by Xanthe Clay
Like Water for Chocolate: a Novel in Monthly Instalments, with Recipes, Romances, and Home Remedies by Laura Esquivel
Pizza, Focaccia, Filled and Flat Breads from your Bread Machine: Perfect Every Time by Lora Brody
Sydney Food by Bill Granger
At its Best: Cooking with Fresh Seasonal Produce by Margaret Brooker
The Cook and the Gardener: A Year of Recipes and Writing from the French Countryside by Amanda Hesser
Tamasin's Weekend Food: Cooking to Come Home to by Tamasin Day-Lewis
Falling Cloudberries: A World of Family Recipes by Tessa Kiros
Plenty: Digressions on Food by Gay Bilson
Feast@Home by Julie Le Clerc

Just taking a look at the World Food Media awards website and some of my favourite food writers appear on their list of nominees.

No Nigel Slater, alas, but Stephanie Alexander, Dean Brettschneider and Lauraine Jacobs, Nigella Lawson, Anthony Bourdain and Cuisine magazine are among those nominated for the biennial awards which, apparently, are known as the food and drink industry's equivalent to the Oscars.

Stephanie Alexander's The Cook's Companion has been nominated in the category of Publications: Best Food Book and I really think that she deserves to take the Golden Ladle here. From my perusal of the book, I would consider The Cook's Companion to be a near-invaluable kitchen necessity. I often, now I am without it, find myself wondering, "how would Stephanie prepare this?" and trying to remember the useful list of ingredients that, for instance, silverbeet or lamb goes well with. Another book in that category, Last Chance to Eat by Gina Mallett, is currently sitting by my bedside at the moment - the story of my life! - and I hope to get around to reading it soon.

Taste: Baking with Flavour by Dean Brettschneider and Lauraine Jacobs is in competition for the Best Soft Cover Recipe Book (Under US$25) along with Dear Francesca by Mary Contini, partner in Edinburgh's famous Italian delicatessen Valvona and Crolla. While I do love Taste, the blend of evoctive family memoir and Italian food in Dear Francesca just might see me leaning in that direction.

Ooh! I've just been on the Observer Magazine website - a great treat to browse though when you're sitting by the computer with a cup of coffee and don't have the real OM to hand on a Sunday - and I discovered that they're running a series of extracts from Nigel Slater's new cookery book, The Kitchen Diaries.

Nigel is one of my all-time food heroes. His Real Fast Food - which recently made it into Waitrose Food Illustrated Magazine's top ten most useful cookery books - was one of the first modern cookbooks to truly enrapture me. As I was a student at the time, its litany of things to do with affordable storecupboard essentials like rice and pasta, tuna and tinned tomatoes was inspirational. It was actually the only book, of my rather large cookbook collection, to make it into my rucksack and travel to New Zealand with me and I've also, to my great delight, managed to pick up a copy of his Real Fast Puddings at a library sale.

When I'm at home his books are the ones that I go back to time and time again whenever I need inspiration. I haven't yet discovered another food writer that is so in love with his ingredients and so well able to express it. I love his weekly Observer column, from which I have cut out and tried numerous recipes, and I will be forever grateful to my mother back in Ireland who faithfully sends me the Observer Food Monthly magazine, edited by the self-same Mr Slater.

I'm already salivating at the idea of this new cookbook. According to the Observer, The Kitchen Diaries is Nigel's record of the foods that he cooked, shopped for and picked over 12 months. Sounds rather like a blog to me...

Taste: Baking With Flavour is the third book from the partnership of professional baker Dean Brettschneider and contributing food editor at Cuisine magazine, Lauraine Jacobs. Their first two books - The New Zealand Baker and Baker, The Best of International Baking from Australian and New Zealand Professionals - were perhaps a little too technical for home use, although it was evident that they were fantastic resources for anyone in the baking business.

Without dumbing down in any way, the authors have redressed this issue in Taste and the book is packed with more than 50 recipes that will have even the more inexperienced cooks making a beeline for the kitchen. This time round, the authors have broken the method down to manageable steps plus, beside each recipe, are useful Keys to Success, which draw your attention to variations, substitutions and suggestions to make the recipe easier.

There are several unusual taste and texture combinations - Plum, Almond and Fennel Tart or Rosemary Rice Pudding Tart being just two of these - and plenty of gluten-free options, Lemon and Blueberry Polenta Cake and Poppy Seed Bread, for example. There are also recipes for those interested in taking bread baking a little big further and the Chardonnay Loaf, topped with a hand-moulded bunch of grapes (instructions and pictures included!), is a fine illustration of this.

The book is divided into three chapters - Pastries, Pies and Tarts; Breads; and Cakes and Cookies - each of which starts with basic techniques and recipes to enable you to get the best out of whichever recipes you decide to cook. Ending with supplementary information on ingredients and equipment, Taste: Baking With Flavour is an essential addition to anyone's baking library.

Taste by Dean Brettschneider and Lauraine Jacobs is published by Random House New Zealand.

Australian cook Bill Granger is the darling of the Sydney restaurant scene. He open his first café, Bill's, twelve years ago and hasn't looked back since. Earlier this month he opened his third Sydney restaurant and he has just visited Christchurch to launch his fourth cookbook, Simply Bill. Not bad for an untrained cook who, until he opened Bill's, had no experience in a commercial kitchen.

Bill's Open Kitchen is his third cookbook. In it, Granger veers towards fusion cookery with plenty of Asian and Mediterranean flavours but, fortunately, not in the same dish - although he has a nice take on mixing old traditions (afternoon tea) with modern flavourings (Orange and Cardamom Biscuits).

As befits a man who also does all the cooking at home (he and his partner had three small girls at the time) Granger also has plenty of ideas for fast and not inordinately difficult food. A professed fan of casual and easy dining, his Tagliatelle with Chicken and Green Beans and Spicy Omelette Sandwiches all look like tasty and quick options for the harassed and short-of-time cook.

The images and presentation are wonderful if, at times, a little bit too staged but there are good recipes and useful tips in Bill's Open Kitchen.

Now this cookbook is right up my alley. The combination of the words comfort, food, eating and pleasure - especially in winter - talk far more to me that those hated phrases low fat, slimline and reduced calories. Which isn't to say that comfort food is going to have a drastic effect on your waistline, although it might! It's just that the whole idea of comfort food which, by nature, involves things hated by the health police such as full fat milk, real butter and clotted cream, is especially evocative in the winter. With cold and rain outside (here in New Zealand), now is the perfect time to stay indoors, browse through cookery books and decide what tasty treat to cook for dinner tonight. You Northern Hemispherians will have some time to wait but there's no harm in getting ready in advance for dismal, dreary weather.

Maxine Clark being Scottish, there's an emphasis on porridge, scones and shortbread but she doesn't sell herself short and there's also plenty of foods from other cultures like Gooey Butterscotch Nut Muffins (America), Lamb Shanks and Apricots with Minted Sesame Couscous (Morocco) and Spanish spices make their way into Cod and Bean Stew with Saffron and Paprika. She also has a good way of giving a twist to a traditional recipe, adding a buttery caramel to the apples for a Deep Dish Apple Pie.

Divided into chapters such as At the Table, On The Sofa, Breakfast in Bed and On the Tray, Clark also makes the case for a more leisurely, contemplative lifestyle, one which involves your breakfast arriving on your lap as you wake up, the tinkle of the tea trolley at mid-afternoon, a unhurried dinner and curling up on the couch in the evening. If only life were so good! Comfort Food: Eating for Pleasure is more a state of mind than anything else and you may find yourself comforted by the mere reading of this book, as well as unable to resist a trip to the kitchen to put some of its recipes into action.

In a world full of cookbooks, Sybil Kapoor's Taste: A New Way to Cook is truly innovative. Kapoor writes from a far more scientific perspective than most food writers, explaining in great detail about the elementary tastes of sour, salt, umani (savoury), bitter and sweet. She helps the reader to understand basic taste combinations and how these work to enhance and compliment each other.

A chapter is given to each taste, with salt and umani combined, plus one on how chilli heightens taste awareness and another on how aromatic ingredients - spices and herbs - have an impact on each of the five tastes.

Taste: A New Way to Cook is photographed like the science book that it is closer to than a cookbook. But there are also recipes for each chapter, carefully chosen to highlight whichever taste Kapoor is focusing on.

This is not an easy read, and it can be somewhat confusing, but it is always truly intriguing. This is a book to return to again and again as Kapoor suggests experiments and combinations to try and you start making sense of her statements in your own head. This, rather than atomic particles or the table of the elements is the part of science that makes most sense to me. Informatively educational.

After just putting up my own review of Stephanie Alexander's The Cook's Companion a couple of days ago, I was delighted to see it featured in the Waitrose Food Illustrated Magazine's top ten most useful cookery books.

My other favourite from the list, by a long shot, is Nigel Slater's Real Fast Food. I asked for this for Christmas ten years ago, fell in love with the man's simple yet tasty ideas and have become a convert to Nigel Slater's sensual and mouthwatering writing ever since. His food column is the main reason that I started to buy The Observer on Sundays and, since coming out to New Zealand, my mother faithfully posts the Slater-edited Observer Food Monthly out every month. I ended up getting Real Fast Puddings later that year - in fact, I blame him and that book for my never-ending Crumble fascination - and have since collected the rest of his books including the particular well-used Appetite: So What Do You Want to Eat Today?

I don't have many dealings with Delia Smith's books, although have been known to buy them for the members of my family that wouldn't be so practiced in cooking, but I have become a fan of her website. It's a useful resource to have on hand when you're looking for a reliable recipe for Flapjacks at a moment's notice or, for those of you living in that side of the world, what fruit and vegetables are in season and what's good to do with them.

Several of the other books on the list - Claudia Roden's A New Book of Middle Eastern Food, the Chez Panisse Cafe Cookbook by Alice Waters and Elizabeth David Classics - are on my eventually get round to reading stack of books. At this stage I think I've taken Elizabeth David books out of the library about three times and never had time to read more than the first few pages before it's due back! Some day...

This distinctive book - its size and multi-coloured stripes will ensure that you won't mislay it in your kitchen - is a veritable tome but it is surprisingly readable. It sat on my coffee table for a month, chapters to be digested along with meals, and it has so many post-its hanging out of it to denote the ideas that interest me or recipes that I would like to try that it runs the risk of most of the 1075 pages (not including the index) being marked.

The book is an A-Z, by ingredient, and each chapter starts with a treatise by Stephanie Alexander on that particular ingredient plus information on varieties and season, selection, storage and preparation. A handful of well chosen recipes follow, accompanied by margin notes which point out complimentary ingredients and give ideas for other dishes.

Although I thought The Cook's Companion, being an Australian cookery book, would only have limited interest for me, its practical A-Z of ingredients and techniques looks fair set to surpass my reliance on Darina Allen's Ballymaloe Cookery Course.

There is a real personality to this book with surprisingly funny comments from Alexander and, although her habit of using unnecessary parenthesis can sometimes irritate, maybe that wouldn't be quite as noticeable if you were dipping in and out of The Cook's Companion rather than swallowing it whole.

There are plenty of unusual - to Northern Hemispheric eyes - ingredients including kangaroo, wallaby and albone but the amount and quality of information on more readily available things like lemons, coconuts, spinach and rice make this book worth turning to on a regular basis. And, if I even need to cook a yabby, I'll know exactly where to find all the information. Worth investing in.

Michelin-starred Irish chef Conrad Gallagher sets out the ethos of this book in the introduction. Each recipe is to contain just six ingredients - not counting salt (Maldon Sea Salt), pepper (freshly ground) and best quality olive oil.

Gallagher always has been a curious mixture of the inspired (his cooking) and the pretentious (his behaviour) and he cannot resist adding, in the introduction, that he dives for his own, hand-picked scallops. The recipes also bear this out. The home cook's heart may sink when faced with recipes for Scrambled Eggs with Foie Gras, Truffle and Chives or Oysters with Caviar, Radish and Cucumber but, later in the book, you will also encounter recipes for relatively simple but taste-complex dishes including Lemon Soup, Smoked Chilli Buttered Sweetcorn and Caramelised Bananas with Lemongrass.

Just skip the last few lines of each recipe as Gallagher gives instructions on plating and presentation. For me, if I want something beautifully titivated on a plate, I choose to go to a restaurant. It's not an ambition of mine for the home kitchen.

For all Gallagher's presentation obsessions, there are some great recipes here. And yes, he does just use six ingredients. Well worth checking out and, if you're trying to reach restaurant standards at home, this will be the book for you.

As the perfect birthday present for a person on the other side of the world to Ireland, Clare Connery's Irish Cooking comes pretty close.

There's nothing new about this cookbook - nor does there need to be. With an introduction that brings the writings of Maura Laverty to mind, Connery talks about her grandmother's farmhouse kitchen and the dishes that came from it. She sums up the roots of the Irish kitchen when she says that there may not have been much sophistication in the cooking but the food was sustaining and delicious.

Connery's recipes, too, are both nourishing and tasty. The book is broken down into eight chapters - Soups, Starters and Snacks, Fish and Seafood, Meat, Poultry and Game, Vegetable Dishes, Puddings and Deserts, Bread, Cakes and Baking.

There's little pretentiousness attached to the food here but recipes for near-forgotten dishes of childhood are precious when you're so far from home. Ham and Pea Soup is a great cold-weather warmer and I've been having lots of nostalgic fun with the recipes for White and Brown Soda Bread. There are all the old reliables to try out at this side of the world - Beef and Guinness Stew, Tea Brack, Oxtail Stew, even the Kiwi Boyfriend's unlikely favourite - Boiled Cabbage and Bacon.

While this book is strong on the basics of the Irish kitchen but it does have one, I assume, American, fault. In her recipes for Soda Bread Connery talks about soda bread flour. It's not something I've ever come across in Ireland. She does give plain flour/cream of tartar alternatives but the measurements seem to vary a bit between recipes. Even so, I've had no problems with the end result but perhaps this is something which could be better explained in a later edition.

Irish Cooking is a book that will probably get much more use over here in New Zealand than it ever would at home. The perfect gift for Irish people who are living abroad.

Irish Cooking: Over 100 Traditional Recipes by Clare Connery is published by Hamlyn.

New Zealand cook Judith Cullen used to run her own café in Dunedin before she changed careers to become a successful teacher of cookery classes, many of which are run from her home. Judith Cullen's Cookery Classes is her first published book but she has a fresh and simple approach that many more seasoned cookbook writers would envy.

Staying with the format of her cookery classes, Cullen has opted to divide the book into monthly menus with a seasonal slant - picnic ideas for January, mid-winter slow cooking in July. An introduction to each chapter gives some background on her choices as well as plenty of useful tips and ideas. One thing that I loved about the book was the way in which Cullen made the most of seasonal fruits with her emphasis on relishes and sauces.

This is fusion cookery without fuss. Cullen uses an eclectic but judicious mixture of foods and flavours, with influences ranging from Asian, Middle Eastern, Mediterranean and North African, introducing and demystifying unfamiliar ingredients, from pomegranate molasses to tamarind and sumac.

The one fault that I found with the book is the fact that no recipe states how many people it serves. Although on further investigation I found a line in the introduction saying that most of the recipes feed four to six people, I shouldn't have to go searching for it. Nor does this better inform me of the number of biscuits/cakes that I will get from the recipes for Blue Cheese Biscuits or Ricotta Cakes.

That aside, Judith Cullen's Cookery Classes is a beautifully written and photographed introduction to modern New Zealand cooking.

Judith Cullen's Cookery Classes is published by Longacre Press

I've just heard from Greg Malouf's publishers - Hardie Grant Publishing - that his new book finally has a preliminary title.

It is apparently going to be called Saha - Food and Travels Through Lebanon and Syria. From talking to him at Savour New Zealand, it looks like this will be well worth a look.

I'm not sure if it will be published at the Irish side of the world - I don't think that his earlier books Arabesque and Moorish are available in Europe - but I'll see what I can find out from the publisher.

Any of you that look at Bibliocook regularly will know that Moorish has become one of my most used cookbooks in recent times. I am really looking forward to reading - and cooking - more of Greg's recipes.

Further update: 7 July 2005
Hardie Grant Publishing sent me this press release earlier in the week.

SAHA
Written by Greg and Lucy Malouf

Description: In Saha, Greg Malouf returns to the land of his ancestors to explore its broad and influential cuisine. Stretching from neighbouring Persia throughout the Mediterranean to North Africa, the roots of Greg's culinary history are here in the land of his forbears, and together with writing partner Lucy Malouf and photographer Matt Harvey, he embarks on a month-long culinary journey.

The cuisine in Saha is traditional and inspirational; enticingly spiced and fragrant with flower waters. From hearty peasant dishes to more subtly spiced specialties from ancient palaces, the dishes are complex in flavour yet not overly complicated to make at home.

Heartwarming stories and recipes from the people Greg and Lucy meet on their journey are teamed with evocative images and Greg's own unique take on this history-rich and exciting cuisine, capturing the spirit of the modern and the ancient; the characters, dishes, flavours and colours that make up Lebanon and Syria in this highly illustrated and lavishly designed volume.

When I was a little one, with a voracious appetite for books and cooking, one of the books that I devoured was my Nana's well-used copy of Full and Plenty by Maura Laverty. The distinctive blue and yellow covers contained a treasury of old Irish recipes but the icing on the cake for me were the stories with which Laverty started each chapter. The woman whose fine soda bread was more praised by her future daughter-in-law than her smug neighbours cake, the boiled onions that effected a marriage, looking for cuppeen and platter mushrooms in the early morning - these were all well-loved and frequently read tales of old Ireland. After a long and fruitless search through second-hand bookshops and charity shops I eventually found a copy of Full and Plenty over the internet and it now sits proudly on my cookbook shelf alongside many more recent books.

But it took a New Zealand author to let me know that Laverty had actually written more than a cookbook. I had been reading my way through my copy of Christine Dann's A Cottage Garden Cook Book - Recipes from a New Zealand Garden when I came across a stray remark about Laverty's other books. That was enough to send me looking in the library which, wonder of wonders, stocks her first novel - originally published in 1942.

Set in the Ireland of the 1920s, Never No More is the story of a young girl and her relationship with her beloved Grandmother. They live in an old farmhouse outside the village of Ballyderrig in County Kildare and the book is full of tales of and from the Irish countryside - the cutting of the turf, weddings and wakes, the solemn ritual of pig slaughter, family nicknames and stories of possession. Laverty has a wonderful grasp of the texture of country life and great powers of description. As with Full and Plenty, food plays a great part in Never No More and the book is packed full of mouth-watering images.

"White bread, brown bread, Indian meal bread and bran loaves. Short cakes, butter cakes and scones of all kinds. She made seedy cakes and Sunday cakes and prune cakes. And an enormous rich fruit cake with a whole glass of brandy in it. My arms ached from beating the dozen eggs that went into the cake, and from cleaning and preparing the pounds of currants and raisins and candied peel and nuts. She made apple cakes and Carrigeen shapes and flummery and jellies, and Mike Brophy carried over to Nolans' a big basket of Grandmother's famous preserves - haw-and-apple jelly, sloe jelly, blackberry jam and damson jam and a half-dozen bottles of spicy mushroom ketchup to add piquancy to the cold meats. "

With an original glowing introduction by Sean O'Faolain, a later one by Maeve Binchy as well as a quote from an imprisoned Brendan Behan, Never No More is an unexpected treasure. Binchy is also kind enough to fill in the biographical gaps between my much-loved Full and Plenty and Laverty's other work. As well as writing a handful of cookbooks, another three novels and a pair of children's books, she worked as a newspaper journalist, a radio agony aunt and wrote the scripts of a legendary Irish television series from the 1960s called Tolka Row.

Despite all her achievements, in post-Celtic Tiger Ireland Maura Laverty seems to have been all but forgotten. We're too busy celebrating new imported cultures and foodstuffs to appreciate the native bounty that still surrounds us. It might be difficult to get your hands on a copy of Full and Plenty but her novels are still in print, courtesy of Virago Modern Classics, and they're well worth searching for.

Moorish is the second cookbook by Greg and Lucy Malouf, restaurateur and food writer respectively. Greg, who is commonly regarded as one of Australia's most innovative chefs, has been credited with influencing and introducing a generation of chefs and diners to the flavours, tastes and textures of the Middle East through his cooking in O'Connell's restaurant and MoMo in Melbourne. But you don't have to travel so far to experience his kind of cooking as the recipes in Moorish, with a subtitle that proudly states "flavours from Mecca to Marrakech", will let you try it in the comfort of your own home. And you'll have a hard time keeping away from the kitchen after reading this book.

The first few chapters are devoted to dry and wet spice mixes, dressings and relishes and pickles and preserves - the basic building blocks of Moorish cooking. The Maloufs have covered it all, from Chermoula and Ras el Hanout, harissa and preserved lemons to lesser known blends such as Baharat and Toum. The rest of the book doesn't disappoint either. Each recipe comes with a paragraph by Lucy that talks about the flavours and origins of the dishes that take their inspiration from North Africa, France, the Eastern Mediterranean, Spain, and the Middle East.

There's nothing difficult about any of the recipes - although you will have to stock up on spices - but the Malouf's take on food is different enough to make even the most blasé of home cooks sit up and take notice.

Greg Malouf has his own website at www.gregmalouf.com.

One of the chefs that I talked to during Savour New Zealand was the innovative and influential Greg Malouf. An Australian of Lebanese descent, Greg has taken Lebanese food out of the souvlaki take-away shops and moved it into the world of fine dining with his acclaimed Melbourne restaurant MoMo. He has also been instrumental in broadcasting his take on Middle Eastern cuisine through masterclasses like Savour New Zealand and with his books - Arabesque and Moorish - written by Greg and ex-wife Lucy Malouf. Arabesque is an A-Z of Middle Eastern ingredients, an invaluable aid to the cook who has bought a bag of sumac or bottle of pomegranate juice and doesn't know what to do with it. Moorish is a more straightforward cookbook for those who already know what to do with the ingredients but are looking for new recipes.

Greg recently spent a month travelling in the Middle East for his new book which he hopes to launch in November of this year. "It's going to be a kind of travel diary, I just spent a month in the Lebanon and Syria. They are very different countries even though they border each other and occupy each other. Lebanon is very European, particularly Beirut, but the Arabic influence is also strongly felt. Lebanon is steeped in food culture so there aren't many trends but now there are a lot of high-end Japanese and French restaurants. If I was going to do a sabbatical, I would consider going over there and doing something contemporary Lebanese or Middle Eastern."

He travelled a lot as a young man, having a "ten year plan to expose myself to different cuisines." Greg worked in kitchens in France, Switzerland and Belgium before spending three years in Hong Kong: "that's where I got the interest in fusion cooking." During his travelling days he learned new techniques and about the importance of good ingredients and great produce. Despite his awareness and interest in world cuisines, Greg "always had Middle Eastern food at the back of my mind." His upbringing, as in many Lebanese households, was based around the kitchen table: "as a child I lived in the fridge."

When he returned to Melbourne in 1991, he started work at O'Connell's - the restaurant where he first made his name - during a time of great experimentation for him. "But I had to learn the importance of restraint. In the early days there was the temptation to put lots of things on the plate."

Although it may not be how we eat in the West, in the Middle East this made sense. "The way of eating in Lebanon is very different. When you sit down many little dishes are placed in the middle of the table - chickpeas, raw minced lamb, little rice birds with pomegranate dressing - then they bring the main course when they think you've had enough."

Later, watching Greg Malouf in action with restaurateur Judith Tabron of Auckland's Soul Bar and Bistro at his Middle Eastern Magic class, I observed lot of affectionate banter between the two presenters who have known - and been abusing each other - for years. As Greg cooks, Judith tells of the first time that they met and that his first, abrupt question to her was "how many pin bones has a salmon?" Despite initial impressions, Judith has had him come to Soul for several cooking classes, causing headaches for herself when she tried to source certain ingredients that he wanted. Pigeons aren't normally sold as a foodstuff in New Zealand so she ended up buying a brace of "retired" carrier pigeons. Sourcing "smack", apparently the correct pronunciation of Middle Eastern seasoning sumac, has also proved difficult in the past. Greg interjects to say that sumac was originally used when there were no lemons around to add tang and flavour to a dish.

These were typical of the tips and comments handed out freely during the class as we ate our way through the rich Farmed Rabbit Bistayeea (a Moroccan-style sweet spiced pie with eggs and fried almonds) and lighter, but no less tasty, Sautéed King Prawns with Ras el Hanout, Angel Hair Pasta and Lentil Vinaigrette.

With Greg Malouf's passion for, and evident love of, educating people about the foods and tastes of his ancestral homeland it looks like the new book will definitely be worth taking a look at. Before it is launched, however, you might like to do yourself a favour and start your learning curve on the wonderful Moorish and, particularly, Arabesque.

While I was still in Ireland when The Restaurant programme started, the lack of a television set precluded me from actually seeing the stars in action but the recently published book of the series gives a good picture of how it worked. Each week The Restaurant played host to a celebrity chef who planned the menu, chose the wine and, together with what must have been the long-suffering kitchen staff, cooked the meal. The diners - including a selection of critics - are not told who the chef is until they have given their verdict on the meal and, from some of the comments in The Restaurant book, did not mince their words.

The book seems to be structured along the lines of the programme. Each chapter comprises of the celebrity chef talking about the pros and cons of their Restaurant experience, an introduction to the guest critic, the menu and what the critics had to say about it, some notes about the wine chosen and recipes for three dishes.

As a picture of a time and a place in Irish public life it is a fascinating document. The brave participants ranged from RTÉ news reporter Charlie Bird to writer and comedian Brendan O'Carroll, horse trainer Ted Walsh, Senator Mary O'Rourke and chick fic author Cathy Kelly. Their assessment of the day is interesting and it was surprising how many of the guest chefs would re-visit the experience.

As a recipe book it works surprisingly well. While there are definitely things that I can't seen myself ever trying out - Brendan O'Carroll's Sole aux Bananes, for instance - there are plenty of recipes that I will definitely use. O'Carroll's Swiss Apple Pie looked like a winner, Charlie Bird's Slow-Boiled Ham in Spiced Cider is a must-try, Joe Duffy's Cardamon Cream sounds like a great combination and I loved Paul Costello's grouping of Black Pudding and Red Onion Marmalade. Being a confirmed non-potato eater, I was unimpressed with their reliance on spuds, but I suppose it was to be expected in a country like Ireland! The regular occurrence of rhubarb on the menu was a welcome surprise as was George Hook's inclusion of those great Cork offal dishes, tripe and drisheen. On the minus side, it seems that Tracy Piggott was the only presenter to realise the importance of ingredients, placing a lot of emphasis on the quality of the raw produce she used.

Although it is a bit of a mixed bag, The Restaurant: Food and Wine from the TV Series is an entertaining read - and you just might walk away from the experience with a new favourite recipe.

The Restaurant: Food and Wine from the TV Series is published by Poolbeg.

Earlier today I discovered that Patricia Wells, the American-born Paris and Provence dweller, has won a James Beard award, in the International category, for her Provence Cookbook. I've just finished reading two of her cookbooks - At Home in Provence and The Paris Cookbook - in preparation for her bistro class this weekend at Savour New Zealand and I'm very intrigued about the food that she's going to cook.

It's not that I've had much exposure to French bistro cookery but what I have encountered while on brief visits to France - and now through Patricia's books - has given me the inkling that this is food that I'll enjoy. Full flavoured, seasonal and of the terrior (meaning the taste of place), bistro cooking is something that very much appeals to me.

In her books Patricia is an active supporter and promoter of small producers, giving the names and addresses of many in both Paris and Provence. We may not all be able to visit and purchase from these specific people but most of us have access to something similar in our own areas of the world. Little markets, like the St Albans Market, enable you to discover the small producers in your own locality. It's worth exploring - without interested consumers they're going to have a hard time of it. And who knows what you may find!

Although we're very solidly into autumn now here in New Zealand (autumn! In April! I'm still not quite getting my head around it) with little prospect of camping ahead, Nicola Saker's Blue Sky Kitchen: Creative Cookery For Kiwi Campers still caught my eye, despite the sickly image of the nuclear family that feature on the cover. Although not a Kiwi, I certainly am a camper cooking for a Kiwi so I figure I fall into Saker's target market. Anyway, I'm always looking for good things to cook over our wee gas burner (one-pot options only need apply) and this has plenty of great workable ideas for campsite cuisine.

Saker isn't one of these super-efficient, scary women that you sometimes see in campsite kitchens, whipping up a three-course meal with nothing but a billy can and tin opener. As she says herself, "I'm not a trained cook, and I'm not a hugely experienced camper" - sounds like someone on the same end of the scale as myself, then. The start of the book concentrates on good advice to do with food storage and, most importantly, food safety - something which is often forgotten or disregarded while camping. There are also handy lists of cooking utensils and stores for those who, unlike myself, dare to go under canvas with more than one generation.

Unlike many foodie memoirs that add recipes on to the end of each chapter, Amanda Hesser - a New York Times writer - actually understands the many meanings of food. Cooking for Mr Latte, subtitled A Food Lover's Courtship, with Recipes, incorporates food as seduction and comfort, a means of binding together families at difficult times and celebrating the good occasions.

Ostensibly a diary of her relationship with a certain Mr Latte - aka New Yorker journalist Tad Friend - from first date through courtship, meeting each other's families and friends, to engagement and marriage, Hesse weaves food into the warp and weft of this book in a most intelligent way. The recipes that you end up with are not so much a collection of dishes as a journey through her life. While the story of the romance is flimsy enough, what enlivens the book and gives it substance are the recipes. It's the opposite of Nigella Lawson's Feast, not least that Cooking for Mr Latte only contains a handful of recipes while Feast is choc-full of them. While Hesser's interest in food makes this book interesting, the story of Lawson's life - and the reader's awareness of it - infuses the recipes in Feast with meanings far beyond that of a normal cookery book.

I've been a fan of Nigella's writing since Nigel Slater (my other favourite cookery writer) gave his readers a tip-off about her first cookery book How To Eat. In fact, How To Eat was so beloved in our house that both I and my housemate had a copy - just in case we parted ways and one of us would end up living without it. Together with all Nigel's books and Darina Allen's impressive Ballymaloe Cooking School Cookbook, How To Eat sits on that section of the cookbook shelf that gets plundered on a regular basis.

While How To Be A Domestic Goddess is also a worthwhile and oft-used book, especially if I'm in the mood for night-time baking, neither Nigella Bites nor Forever Summer managed to set my world alight. Perhaps there was too much emphasis on Nigella the TV star and not enough on Nigella the cook. So it's a relief to pick (or heft) Feast up and realise that, freed from programme constraints, this is Nigella doing what she does best; writing gloriously evocative and approachable recipes. It's a dense tome of a book, which clocks in at almost 500 pages and has text that looks like it was sized down to make sure it didn't take over another couple of hundred pages.