Cook, Eat, Repeat: Ingredients, Recipes and Stories

Product Information

Some of the recipes seem recycled ideas or borrowing from others (which is fine)- marzipan loaf, the banana and tahini bread, the NYT loaf, another lemon and almond cake- and overall an esoteric collection of ingredients that normally I would default as an 'Ottolenghi' move: marrowbone, celeriac, a lot of chestnuts. When I made the No -Knead Black Bread, I left out the caraway and fennel seed and added additional nigella seeds because I like the oniony flavor of nigella better. Within these chapters are recipes for all seasons and tastes: Burnt Onion and Aubergine Dip; Butternut with Chilli, Ginger and Beetroot Yoghurt Sauce; Brown Butter Colcannon; Spaghetti with Chard and Anchovies; Chicken with Garlic Cream Sauce; Beef Cheeks with Port and Chestnuts; and Wide Noodles with Lamb in Aromatic Broth, to name a few.

Dedicated chapters include ‘A is for Anchovy’ (a celebration of the bacon of the sea), ‘Rhubarb’, a loving defence of ‘Brown Food’, a suitably expansive chapter devoted to family dinners, plus inspiration for vegan feasts, solo suppers and new ideas for Christmas.This book - her greatest since How to Eat in 1998 - is about embracing the idea of cooking as a series of soothing rituals. Páčilo sa mi, že ju nezaujíma, či si dá dve alebo štyri porcie a už vonkoncom, že si dáva karbokombo v podobe zemiakov a cestovín. I enter into the exuberance, but a continuous diet (true of any stylistic author, including Wodehouse, Trollope, Dickens, Karon, and others) of Nigella drains the sparkplugs. I’m glad she included those mentions because it adds a pathos to the book that wouldn’t otherwise be there. COOK EAT REPEAT is a delicious and delightful combination of recipes intertwined with narrative essays about food, all written in Nigella’s engaging and insightful prose.

Yes, I do hear the voices of Elizabeth David and Anna del Conte- but they all have a commonality of sharing a passion of cookery and food from within the kitchen. And although I’m rarely “feeling fierce in the morning” (I need to get past 11am and three coffees for that) her scotch woodcock is to die for.Nigella debunks the latter by helping us celebrate what we have and challenging us to explore what we may not like or take for granted. She’s so authoritative, in fact, that she makes me eager to try foods I would usually give a definite miss. I did hint strongly that I wanted this book, but my family know that the latest Nigella cookbook will always be a popular present with me. I feel conflicted with this, while I worship the altar of Lawson and have cooked, and still do, many of her recipes over the years this one was not a hit with me.