Claire Thomson's new recipe book is launched on the 11th July, see a preview here
If you listen to the chatter on social media, you will hear the background hum of people who like to tell anyone who will listen that recipes books should stick to ingredients and methods, eschewing all personal narrative. That is their opinion and they, of course are entitled to it. No doubt they have many more where that came from. And if that is what you want, then go ahead and buy that style of book. Spoiler alert – we suspect they don’t buy many books. But, if like us you prefer your recipes with a side order of personality and insight, then Claire Thomson’s books will both inform and delight.
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We’ve been lucky enough to get our hands on a pre-publication of her latest book, Veggie Family Cookbook, described in the introduction as “a blueprint for how we eat at home as a family”. So, what does it contain? OK, so there’s a section on soup and a chapter full of “loaded vegetable traybakes”. All well and good, so far. But it is headings like Fridge Raid and Panic in the Kitchen that speak volumes to those of us with families, work schedules and an inability to produce forensically detailed meal plans for the week ahead. You might think that a mother, chef and food writer like Claire would always have a ready answer to the perennial question, “What’s for dinner, Mum?”, but in Panic in the Kitchen she explains that she complied this section for the days ehen “she has been stapled to her computer with only the debris from a round of toast beside her”. And it’s a real pleasure to see that her recipe for Bubble and Sauerkraut Squeak has been cooked in a Netherton prospector pan; especially when you then read in the acknowledgements that Netherton Foundry is iron from Shropshire, that she wouldn’t be without.
If you want more veg in your life and more life in your veg, Veggie Family Cookbook, published by Quadrille and out on 11th July, is definitely the book for you. You can pre-order here.
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