My 5 most used cookbooks
the ones I keep returning to, from a collection of many
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I should caveat this piece by firstly saying, it’s not that often I use cookbooks.
Not because they’re not great but because for most of the week, I eat very simply.
A weekday dinner usually involves: beans, lots of olive oil and garlic, seasonal veg, tinned sardines, yoghurt with homemade bread and half a raw onion eaten like an apple (it’s the Turk in me). This doesn’t need a recipe.
This is honestly my favourite way to eat.
I crave these simple and highly nutritious meals, especially if we’ve been filming MasterChef for a few days. Then it’s on weekends where my husband and I might dip into a cookbook for something more involved and perhaps with meat.
Like many in the food industry, I am the lucky recipient of many cookbooks – it’s a major job perk.
Last year I was on the judging panel for the Fortnum & Mason Food & Drink Awards which involved reading 8 big boxes of books delivered to my home; I got to keep them all. Publisher’s also routinely send new titles to journalists and writers.
This is all to say, I see a lot of cookbooks.
I gleefully peruse every single one but I can tell pretty quickly if I’ll actually make something from it. My favourites sit proudly on my kitchen shelves (freshly painted, btw).
But it’s these five, in particular, that keep calling me back.
The recipes excite me, they’re the flavours I most frequently seek and most importantly, they aren’t a faff. I’ve also just realised, they’re all by women.