A YEAR IN MY KITCHEN by Skye Gyngell

Quadrille (Southern Publishers Group) NZ $65

"The more I read Skye Gyngell’s book A Year in My Kitchen, the more I fall in love with her food. It is easy to see why it won the 2007 Cookery Book of the Year award given by the British Guild of Food Writers.
This book, with its beautiful illustrations, is not about fine dining. Each chapter follows the seasons, providing recipes with a comforting familiarity and writing that’s full of warmth, generosity and opinion. At the core of Gyngell’s food is an abundance of spirit and the desire to share that with others.

It is reassuring, too, that along with her appreciation and understanding of great produce, she truly loves eating."

The above is how Martin Bosley begins his enthusiastic review on his beautifully designed double page spread in the NZ Listener August 18-24 which along with his name, (his eponymous Wellington restaurant has just been named by Cuisine as NZ's finest), and his comments about A Year in My Kitchen had me positively drooling and wanting to own the book, instantly!

Well today my want has been satisfied and I have just lost two hours, (which were mean to to have been used for reading a batch of crime fiction), reading this stunning volume and I have to tell you it is a must for any serious home chef/foodie.

Gorgeous, practical, built around seasonality I want to cook everything in it but I think I'll start with Slow-cooked pork belly with cinammon, cloves, ginger and star anise. This will be a first for me, I always order pork belly when I find it on a restaurant menu but I have never cooked it before.

We learn from Martin Bosley's Listener story that Skye Gyngell is a London-based 43 year old Australian and is chef at the very hot Petersham Nurseries Cafe where the waitresses wear gumboots beacuse of the dirt floors.

And use this link to read a most interesting piece about her in The Times last October.What an amazing life she has lead.

And here is a piece from The Observer describing Petersham Nurseries and their development.

And here is how The Australian sees a favourite daughter whose pic by Vanessa Hunter is taken from that newspaper.

I'm picking A YEAR IN MY KITCHEN, which has been something of a sleeper up until now, will prove very very popular in the run up to Christmas. Already I am wondering how I ever lived with out it!