I had not heard of Delia Smith before moving to the UK. I Arrived in November and my thoughts immediately turned to cooking my first traditional British Christmas meal. As Mr A handed to me his battered copy of Delia Smith’s Christmas he said, “if you do what Delia says, it will always work”. Now […]

Cookbook Number 11 Soup Can Make You Thin by Fiona Kirk and Jean Barr Soup Can Make You Thin is one of Mr A’s cookbooks and one that I had not read or cooked from. Two things inspired me to take this cookbook off the shelf: 1) I tend to crave soup as soon as […]

Forgotten Skills of Cooking: The time-honoured ways are the best – over 700 recipes show you why by Darina Allen This time of year, Forgotten Skills of Cooking comes off the shelf and is used a lot. It was recommended to me by my friend Bill King, an alumni of the celebrated Ballymaloe Cookery School […]

We have a wide array of cookbooks in our collection of 200 and counting. Sometimes we love to buy vintage cookbooks that give a snapshot of what type of cooking was on trend at that time. I have to admit, I walked right by The Complete Heinz Cookbook but Mark snapped it up. I didn’t […]

10 Minutes To Table: Real food in 10 minutes – no cheating by Xanthe Clay Like many of you, I am often tired when I get home from work or arrive home late and just want something simple and quick for dinner. In order to help me out, Mark purchased a copy of ‘10 Minutes […]

We always add to our cookbook collection at the Abergavenny Food Festival. We buy the cookbooks of the chefs giving demos or talks that we go to see and then have them signed. After 7 years of going to the Abergavenny Food Festival, we have a nice collection of signed cookbooks. Last year I won […]

I was a teenager when I first had Indian food. I had had Caribbean curries but not food from India. My father was visiting New York from the Bahamas and had a meeting at the UN with members of the delegation from India. My father invited me to join him and his friends for lunch. […]

Cookbook 3 – For The Love Of Food: Vegetarian Recipes from the Heart, Denis Cotter. My husband read in a review that this is one of the finest vegetarian cookbooks and so purchased a copy. At the time, my vegetarian niece and now husband were living in Cardiff and would come to our house for […]

Recently, Mark and I called into Wright’s Food Emporium in Llanarthne, Carmarthenshire for lunch. Mark had been before and had been dreaming about their Belly Pork Cubano sandwich ever since. Of course I had one when we went and have been yearning for another ever since. Tender pork belly, spicy sauce and a sharp pickle […]