POTATO FAVOURITES
Allyson Gofton – Penguin Books - $30

Now here is a real little gem of a book. The woman we all think we know because we see her every night just prior to the TV One News at 6.00pm, Allyson Gofton, has put together a book that should be in every home and bach in New Zealand.

Overflowing with masses of wonderful potato (and kumera) recipes and containing everything you need to know about this most popular of vegetables.

As Gofton says in her introduction, “Boil, bake, roast or fry, serve hot or cold, on or out of their jackets, creamed or plain, potatoes can be eaten at any meal”. And then she proceeds to show us how. Under headings such as Nibbles, Soups, Salads, Light Meals, Main Course, and On the Side she provides easy to follow recipes that are guaranteed to enhance any meal. Under the chapter on Salads for example there are eight recipes and for my test, ( I always try to make a recipe from a cookbook before writing about the book), I chose Spring Potato Salad and it worked a treat, easy to make and the family loved it.

And here is a substantial piece of trivia I learned from the numerous bites of information on the spud scattered throughout the book:
Around 500,000 tonnes of the humble spud are grown annually in New Zealand. As an average potato is 175 grams, that means we grow 2,855,000,000 potatoes per year. Potatoes provide NZ’ers with 30% of their vitamin C requirement.

Tomorrow I’m making potato and red lentil curry. And Annie says next week she is going to make the apricot, pork and kumara bake. Bring it on!

My pick is that this book will be the biggest selling book in New Zealand in the last quarter of the year. And if you missed buying Dad a Father's Day gift last week then buy him this, he'll love it.