My mother was a phenomenal cook and an incredible teacher, but she was such an instinctive cook that she really struggled to teach me how to actually recreate the tastes of home. I also moved here at 22, so although I knew how to make meatballs and Italian Wedding Soup; my repertoire was incredibly limited. She used cookbooks for inspiration but rarely actually made anything out of them.
I, on the other hand, learned lots of the basics from the queen Nigella’s How to Eat. Her language around food and eating and experimenting and adapting recipes to become your own gave me an entry way into becoming a very different cook than my mother, but finding my own way in a kitchen with confidence. I highly recommend this for any person in your life moving into their own space, or going to Uni, or who is keen to get the basics sorted.
When my mother passed away, I couldn’t find my way back into the kitchen. I couldn’t really look at Italian food, let alone cook it. And it was most of what I would make. My mother rarely if ever ate or cooked Indian food which is how I found my way to Asma Khan’s Indian Kitchen. It was my first foray into making my own paneer and Indian food and got me back in front of a stove. It also was the start of a beautiful friendship with Asma who has now been featured at my London Seafood Festival and just had her team serve incredible food at the UN Women UK Awards this past week. Her second cookbook was specifically for her own mother and is called Ammu. I recommend both.
Last year almost every thing I cooked for Christmas was from Nigella’s Cook, Eat and Repeat. The chicken and orzo and the lamb shank in aromatic broth were my favourites.
And this year, I’ve fallen asleep with my nose in Notes from a Small Kitchen Island by my adored Debora Robertson. The beauty and generosity and simplicity of the recipes. The joy of being in Marseillan and eating oysters with Debora and Sèan and Octopus Pie, and shopping in the market while I fawned over everyone’s dogs.
All of these books are meant to be really read and savoured, the recipes are love letters to you as the reader and to those that you will nourish at your tables. I can’t recommend any of these any more strongly. They scream love and kindness and nurturing to me.
And I am back to making my famous meatballs for my best friend’s children. Jamie’s famous meatballs are talked up all over Philadelphia. My Godson says I’m his fairy Godmother and my Fiona tells other people that their meatballs don’t even compare which is rude (but cracks me up).
So serve up love on a plate, with these wrapped up under the tree for those cooks in your life. I’m sure it will be appreciated.
And support local bookstored. These are linked on uk.bookshop.org