Cookbooks Galore

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We’re now two months into lockdown, the supermarket shelves are generally full once more, and we’ve all been doing a lot of home cooking. I thought this would be a good time to share some of my favourite cookbooks.

Nosh For Students by Joy May

I picked up this book over a decade ago before heading off to University and fending for myself for the first time. It’s a great book designed for cooks with limited equipment and money in mind. The spicy risotto and chocolate pudding were firm favourites but there’s so much more on offer. All recipes are rated on difficulty so you can choose your food according to how ambitious you’re feeling.

River Cottage Veg Everyday by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

I feel like almost everyone I know has a copy of this book on their shelves, and it’s a good’un. Full of great ideas for getting more veg into your diet. Personal favourites are the beetroot hummus and a newly discovered peanut noodle salad (even after years of use it’s got some great treasures to discover).

The Meat Free Monday Cookbook

A great book for anyone wanting to take a tentative step into the world of vegetarianism (or those already firmly committed). It offers suggestions for every meal of the day, seasonal ingredients, and even some yummy desserts to round off the day. My most made recipes are the giant wholeweat cousous and sweet potato, and the porcini risotto. The blueberry pancakes are also great as a treat to start the day.

The Vegetarian Athlete’s Cookbook by Anita Bean

A brilliant book for any health conscious cook, this book is packed full of healthy meal ideas (and healthier desserts), with details about what nutrients each recipe supplies and more general advice about making sure you get enough of what you need. The walnut burgers are great, as are many of the salads and the smoothies. This is probably the book I’ve made the most variety of recipes from, they generally don’t take more than about half an hour to make so it’s perfect for mid-week meals.

Love Real Food by Kathryne Taylor

A wonderful book full of wholesome, nutritious meal ideas. There’s rarely a week that passes where I don’t make one of her recipes. She has a great website so you can try out some of her recipes before buying the book. They’re often fairly lengthy recipes so make great weekend meals, and the leftovers are perfect for packed lunches during the week.

A Passion for Baking by Jo Wheatley

I’ve had this book on my shelves since it first came out and it’s probably my most used baking book. Lots of tasty, homely recipes, both savoury and sweet, it will inspire you to bake more often. A few of my favourites are the custard creams, chocolate chip cookies, and the blueberry muffin loaf.

Paris Boulangerie Patisserie: Recipes from Thirteen Outstanding French Bakeries by Linda Dannenberg

The first time I went to Paris I fell completely in love with the delicious treats on offer in its boulangeries. It completely ruined the British equivalents for me and I came back determined to learn how to make them myself. This book is a wonderful way to do so. It gives details about some of the author’s most loved Paris boulangeries and offers some recipes from each. The recipes are generally very labour intensive but absolutely worth the effort.

My Little Chocolate Book

This is a fairly new addition to my baking bookshelf but every recipe looks delicious. There’s a great range of bakes and so far they’ve turned out just as tasty as they promised. Currently munching my way through the white chocolate and coconut semifreddo.

The Bookshops of Hay-on-Wye

The Hay Castle Bookshop

It’s that time of year again, when book lovers would usually be descending on the small town of Hay-on-Wye for its famous literary festival. Unfortunately, the physical festival has had to be cancelled this year, but they’re still offering an impressive array of virtual events for us all to enjoy. The local bookshops will be suffering the financial hit of losing out on their biggest period of sales for the year and so I thought I’d do a run-down of some of my favourite bookshops there and how to support them during this time. I’d also highly recommend visiting when things are open again as it’s a wonderful place to visit at any time of year. The surrounding areas are stunning and Shepherds Ice Cream parlour is the perfect place to refuel in between all that book shopping.

Murder and Mayhem

Addyman Books own three bookish spots across the town – Murder and Mayhem, devoted to detective fiction, Addyman Books, and the Addyman Annexe. Their shops are full of quirky nooks and a great selection of books. You can support them online here.

The Hay Cinema Bookshop is a large converted cinema which is now filled with seemingly endless rows of books. They keep some of their stock outside so you can browse in the sunshine before heading in to lose a few hours browsing. They can be found online here.

Pemberton’s Bookshop is a great spot for those who prefer their books brand new. They offer a great range at good prices and also stock a range of greetings cards and similar. Find them online here.

Richard Booth’s bookshop carries the name of the man who was instrumental in giving Hay its book town status. It’s a wonderful, spacious spot that offers a huge range of both new and second hand books, and there’s even a nice café and cinema. Check them out here.

The upper floor of Richard Booth's bookshop

This is just a small taste of the bookshops in this wonderful little town. Many of the shops specialize in particular subjects whether it be children’s books, music, poetry, or natural history, there’s bound to be something for every reader. Check out the full list.

Detour de France, Michael Simkins

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Simkins takes himself on a three month jaunt around France to broaden his horizons and learn more about the reality of French life. What ensues is a series of amusing encounters that don’t always go to plan but demonstrate his commitment to trying new things and breaking old habits. This can be as simple as taking a dip in the sea, playing a game of petanque, or letting go of his inhibitions and spending a day in a naturist resort. He visits a few popular tourist sprts such as Arles but rarely for the reasons many visit, always searching for a taste of the real France. Despite his hesitation on embracing some of the experiences, he comes to appreciate the time taken over a good meal, the climate, and the importance of doing things properly.

At one point he plays cricket with a group of British immigrants, who despite their moaning about both their home country and their new, all admit to being pleased with their choice despite the sacrifices involved. By the end he is himself quite enamoured by the country but can see its flaws, especially in its infamous bureaucracy and ardent nationalism.

This is an easy to read account of a sometimes ill-fated exploration of a great country with its mystifying rituals and effortless chic. He is able to laugh at both himself and the situations he finds himself in. The humour is occasionally cringey but often genuine and self-deprecating, and you get an insight into what France has to offer the curious tourist determined to step outside his comfort zone.

Pick up a copy:

Foyles

Waterstones

Our Tragic Universe, Scarlett Thomas

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The novel gets off to a dramatic start with a car being pushed into a river in an attempt to avoid being caught in infidelity. This first section presents us with an array of unhappy relationships that will develop throughout. Meg, our protagonist, is a ghostwriter for popular genre fiction and aspiring literary author. She is stuck in a damp cottage with a partner she no longer loves, who contributes nothing financially, and causes her a lot of anxiety with his temperamental ways. She reviews books for a local paper and when an unusual non-fiction with strange ideas about the universe and the afterlife lands on her desk she finds her world beginning to shift. What follows is a gently paced tale of very ordinary lives interspersed with musings on the construction of stories, sock knitting, and the role of New Age theories.

These side topics can be frustrating or interesting depending on your taste. The gently littered references to various hobbies can feel natural whereas the longer segues in to conversations about high level theories often feel unnecessarily lengthy and halt the narrative. Thomas makes it clear how these thoughts fit into the overarching purpose of the novel but they can still present a block to enjoyment.

Meg's character is contradictory, but often in ways that tickle the reader. She has very clear ideas about what a genre novel should be and how none of the components can fit into her ‘real’ novel, revealing the pointlessness of snobbery about books. She deletes more words than she replaces and yet believes it is a lack of time that prevents her writing, finding lots of little obstacles, yet she makes use of every spare second when writing her genre fiction, admitting to writing on her phone in supermarket queues. It seems clear that she is setting herself so may tight restrictions to achieve her ‘real’ novel and therefore stunts her imagination, enjoyment of the writing, and therefore probably also that of the reader, should she ever finish it.

Her constant excuses and imagined barriers are also reflected in the inability to escape unhappy relationships in both herself and her friends. She does eventually realise that there’ll always be reasons why now is not a good time but that they’re not worth wasting your life for. This revelation is a relief to readers as the picture built up of her relationship is so claustrophobic and unhealthy that you’re desperate for her to escape.

This is a gentle read with believable characters living very ordinary lives and for the inquisitive mind there’s much beyond the narrative to get stuck in to. The relationships depicted feel real and Thomas doesn’t present us with all the answers for a happily ever after.

Pick up a copy:

Foyles

Waterstones

Van Gogh: The Life, Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith

Vincent van Gogh is today one of the world’s most beloved artists. His distinctive style is instantly recognizable and the legend that has built up around his life and death promote the idea of him as a tortured genius. This epic biography paints a more balanced picture, focusing not just on the final few dramatic years of his life in which he painted many of his most iconic pictures. Instead, the reader is taken through a detailed account of his whole life – his struggles and failures, obsessions and hopes. At times it is difficult to read the harsh realities of a troubled life.

From his early years he longed for close familial relations, something that remained largely absent throughout his life. His strained relationship with his parents and the circumstances around his father’s death meant an icy reception for their wayward son. His brother Theo often took the role of peacemaker. His relationship with Theo was arguably the most significant of his life but was also fraught with difficulty. Theo financially supported his brother for most of his adult life and suffered social exclusion when he came to live with him in Paris. Vincent seems to have swung between a sense of entitlement and deep feelings of guilt for the burden he knew he was to his brother. The passages describing some of their interactions show behaviour that is nothing short of abusive and is incredibly hard to read. Despite their difficulties, Theo continued to champion Vincent and hope for success in his endeavours.

Vincent emerges as unlikable at times but often as childishly innocent, longing for acceptance and a family home. He travelled around a fair amount and would dream of Theo joining him. His preparations of the Yellow House for Gauguin’s arrival are endearing but the reader is left with a sense of dread knowing his hopes will once more be dashed with disappointment.

He was an outcast wherever he went, people finding his intense painting style alarming and his disheveled appearance a point of mockery. It is this rejection by society that defined his life. He enrolled in art school on a number of occasions but inevitably dropped out due to his unwillingness or inability to follow instruction. His first taste of potential success appeared mere months before his death thanks to the championing of Albert Aurier, a young art critic, but he was sadly not well enough to enjoy it.

Naifeh and Smith rarely speculate throughout, relying on documentary evidence to trace the tumultuous life of Van Gogh. They do not attempt to diagnosis his ailments but merely report on his medical record, explaining the context and medical developments that were happening at the time of his treatment. One point on which they do object however, is the myth of his untimely death. In an appendix that details the evidence that led to their conclusion and the flaws in sources for the alternative, they offer a reasoned debate. This part of the book did not go down well with many in the art world however, and they were accused of having included it purely for the publicity it inevitably created around publication.

A comprehensive, well researched biography that is easy to read thanks to its lively and smooth prose. The wider artistic and cultural conditions of the day are brought to life, situating Van Gogh very much in his time. If you want to know more about the man behind the legend then this is a great place to start.

Further resources can be found at http://vangoghbiography.com/ and scans and transcripts of Van Gogh’s letters can be viewed on http://vangoghletters.org/vg/

Novel Houses: Twenty Famous Fictional Dwellings, Christina Hardyment

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In this journey through literature from Horace Walpole to J. K. Rowling, Hardyment attempts to demonstrate the central importance of houses in literature. She explores the influences and inspiration of some of the best loved fictional dwellings and considers how these buildings sometimes become characters in their own right. The twenty chosen novels are dealt with chronologically, allowing the reader to understand the progression of ideas and how the authors could be influenced by each other. Each chapter lasts on average only ten pages but there feels a great difference in the depth of analysis between them.

The likes of Walter Scott and Horace Walpole were interested in the medieval period and this is reflected not just in their writing (in which Hardyment points out their aims and preoccupations relevant to their contemporary political and social situations) but also in their own homes. Later authors are attributed to having particular obsessions with the idea of home or of one particular house that they mentally held on to throughout their lives. These claims occasionally feel a bit loosely evidenced with only a couple of quotes thrown in to add seeming authenticity.

Some chapters offer interesting analysis of the text, explaining how buildings were personified or used to explore certain character traits, reversing expectations. Others seem to be largely padded out with a synopsis of the story, unnecessarily revealing plot points with little relevance to Hardyment’s arguments. I’d previously read about half the books discussed and this allowed for a good mix in enjoyment. If familiar with all twenty I’m not sure you’d get much from this book.

A beautiful book with moments of insight but not overall adding much to the conversation. It did, however, pique my interest in a number of the books I’ve yet to read and is a gentle, bookish read.

Pick up a copy:

Foyles

Waterstones

The Turn of the Screw, Henry James

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James’s most famous ghost story is set in a remote house with a small cast of characters. A young governess has recently joined the household and although at first believes it to be an idyllic post, she soon finds herself entangled in a terrible tale. She begins to see ghostly figures around the estate that resemble previous employees who are recently deceased. The two children in her care are well behaved and beautiful but she soon comes to believe they are in league with the ghosts, leading to a tragic attempt to protect them.

The novel is told in first person narrative by the governess (except for the opening which merely introduces the account that follows). We see in her a woman who takes on far more than she can manage in a futile attempt to please her employer, who remains absent throughout. Seeing events unfold through her eyes we are led to understand how she came to her conclusions yet critics have been divided over whether or not the ghosts are real or if she is descending into madness. James’s careful ambiguity has allowed this debate to rage for decades and it is ultimately a question that will remain forever unanswered. Whichever way you read it, it is clear that you cannot take the narrative as absolute truth.

The first appearance of the ghost peering in through the window is truly unsettling and as the story progresses the governess fabricates an internal life for them, imagining their purpose and beliefs despite them never speaking a word or indicating any intention to do harm. Is she allowing her paranoia and imagination to run away from her? Rumours of the actions of both the previous employees hang over the governess and contribute to her belief that their presence will end in harm.

The children have moments of playing up which she believes is a result of ghostly interference, causing a strong reaction in her. The children are unsurprisingly unnerved by the seemingly erratic, extreme responses of their governess. Is she acting in selfless defence of her charges, wishing to be the hero of their story, or are her own delusions causing their strange behaviour?

An atmospheric read that will send shivers down your spine. Whether character study or ghost story, it is an intriguing tale and a sinister one at that. A book that stands up well to a re-read, especially when considering the opposing interpretations.

Pick up a copy:

Bookshop
Foyles
Waterstones