Not another Christmas List
A few good pressure cooker friendly books and a little bit more besides
This isn’t a Christmas gift guide as there are about a million of them circulating, and I am still pretty much in bed and honestly don’t have the energy right now, or the ability to go downstairs and physically lug around cookery books. But Christmas isn’t Christmas for my family without books* and I know a lot of you feel the same, so I thought I’d both recap on the books I’ve reviewed so far in these newsletters and throw in one or two more as well. This post will probably chop off in email, so if you want to be able to read the footnote, you will have to click through. Sorry about that!
A Little Sale for Charity
Before I get onto some reviews, just to let you know as a little Christmas charity thing, I am offering copies of my book Citrus for sale.
I think it’s a great book to give or receive at Christmas as it is full of good ideas for all those fruits which come into their own over winter - we already have bergamot, but mandarins and clementines, Seville oranges, blood oranges, even a few yuzu are coming into season and January really is the best time to celebrate them.
I’m doing this purely because I want to do something a little bit charitable and my husband has kindly offered to do a Post Office run for me. I’m giving end of Monday as a cut off so he can do one trip on Tuesday - plenty of time for 1st class delivery before Christmas. The single trip assuages my guilt a bit!
£5 from every sale will be given to The Store Cupboard, local to me, which is a food pantry designed to give agency to those on a very low income. It’s a place I wholeheartedly support as it allows people to eat real food compared to most food bank parcels which don’t allow much in the way of ingredients. So please get in touch if you would like a copy. I’m selling them for £20 which includes postage and the charitable donation.
Now, onto other people’s books.
I hope it goes without saying that the books I have reviewed on this newsletter over the past few months are all books I would recommend - to pressure cooker users and non users alike. To recap (and for all new subscribers who might not have plumbed the admittedly fairly shallow depths of my archive), the purpose of these reviews isn’t just to review them as conventional cookbooks, but to establish how well their recipes adapt to pressure cooking. This with the purpose of making sure that you all get really confident at converting all your favourite recipes for the pressure cooker. All of these featured have well over half - frequently two thirds or more - of the recipes suitable for cooking or partially cooking in the pressure cooker. Click on the title to take you to my review, and the image caption to take you to either Bookshop.org or Hive.
Every Last Bite, Rosie Sykes in which we are offered so much by way of stunning flavour combinations and, because this is Rosie, many more tips and bits of good common sense besides.
And I am also a huge fan of her Sunday Night Book which makes a great stocking filler if you can track down a copy.
Vegetables, by Mark Diacono which I am just now going to back after a stint earlier in the summer as some of the wintery dishes are so good.
Also, if you are a budding food writer or want to treat a budding food writer in your life to something very special, I believe there are still one or two places left on this course that Mark is running with Diana Henry. The feedback on their previous courses is excellent. Mentioning this gives me an excuse to talk about Diana Henry, who has long been one of my favourite food writers. I can honestly say that encountering Roast Figs, Sugar Snow: Food to Warm the Soul was a transformative experience for me and one of the strands of inspiration which led me to a career career in food writing. And it is utterly timeless and so good it was reissued a year or so ago. A perfect winter gift.
One more book for winter - this is not a new one either, but I came across the author’s name in a novel based on Nantucket and could not resist and now follow avidly on Instagram. I love this book - divided into chapters with titles like “Stormy Weather and Magic Mountains”, “Finger Food for Frosty Weather” and “The Tease of Spring” and filled with exactly the kind of food I expect people on the North Eastern Seaboard to eat. Lots of dairy with seafood and smoked meat and cranberries, and pecans and potatoes.
Back to the previously reviewed books with -
Greekish by Georgina Hayden was a lovely meander through Greek cuisine with enough twists along the way to keep it interesting.
Next up a charity book perfect for winter as it is all about Soup. Good for warmth, good for health, good for the pocket, good for the soul:
Soup for Good by the Cook for Good Community
And finally, a book which I think has been on every single list I have seen thus far and rightly so, I think it is the best Ottolenghi book in years:
Comfort, by Yotam Ottolenghi, Helen Goh, Verena Lochmuller and Tara Wigley
A handful of others:
If you want a reminder about why we should be cooking from scratch and therefore why pressure cooking is so good for us, or you need ammunition for someone who have yet to convince, then this, now out in paperback, may help. I thought I knew everything there was to know about UPFs. So wrong.
Next, Blasta Books. I love, love, love this series and have been collecting them since Tacos was first published. I have been sent the most recent titles, but I can honestly say I would have bought them anyway. They are so collectible - beautifully designed and illustrated, but that doesn’t mean squat if the words and recipes aren’t any good, and they really, really are. There isn’t single one I wouldn’t want or recommend, which is no mean feat for an ongoing series. Oh and the publisher, Kristin Jensen has an excellent Substack newsletter which has an especially good edition every Sunday full of interesting food related links to read. Usually keeps me busy for an hour or so every Sunday morning.
And finally, just one more which might surprise you. Microwave Meals by Tim Anderson. The thing about Tim Anderson is that he is a) forensic in his research and testing b) creative in his recipe writing c) bloody brilliant when it comes to flavour and texture which means d) if he thinks a book on microwaves is worth writing, then I believe him. I have bought his book, I have read his book, I have not yet bought a microwave to test any of the recipes in the book, but I do actually intend to get some kind of combi version and I can tell - as a food writer and as someone who has in the past used a microwave - that they are good. Tim talks about his recipes in the same way I do, hoping that people are flexible and experimental but within the parameters he has explained. I come from this as someone who has never quite got over the excitement of watching a steamed pudding rise and cook before my very eyes when my parents first bought a microwave in the 80s. But also, because microwaves can help with the same things pressure cooking can - fuel costs, time saving, water saving etc.
And finally, back to my own books and Everyday Pressure Cooking and its inclusion in Delicious Magazine’s Top 25 books of the year. This is what Mark Diacono had to say about it:
Very chuffed. Also, if you have the book, please cook the onion gratin and soup because it is the best winter thing, apart from maybe the poutine, or the potato and camembert gratin. There is a similar version here, too.
That’s it for now! Hopefully my next post will contain an actual recipe in it. In the meantime, if you have any questions about pressure cooking and Christmas, please do shout out. And I’d love to know what food/cookery books you have enjoyed this year too. As ever, please pass this free post onto anyone you think might appreciate it, and please take a moment to click on the heart. Thank you!
*Quite a few years ago now, when the children were quite small, we started doing Jolabokaflod, literally a “flood of books”, which culminates in a Christmas Eve exchange when everyone gets a new book to read along with chocolate to go with. My family is one that is a bit short on traditions - my husband was bought up Muslim so he never experienced Christmas as a child. The way he describes it is very much outside looking in. And many of mine were centered around a very rural way of life (think Alison Uttley/Miss Read/Laurie Lee and you wouldn’t be too far off) and a very large extended family (my dad is one of 8 and everyone used to congregate at my grandmother’s on Christmas afternoon). So we have become good at creating new traditions for ourselves. One of our favourites is to choose an independent book shop and for the four of us to go in and choose a book for each of us. So we keep dividing into groups of three. Then it’s chocolate or hot chocolate on the night. It is a joy to do.
I have bought myself an Instant Pot Duo Crisp and Air Fryer (after much deliberation) and your Everyday book. So far I have made the lamb and spinach curry, the sausage meatball casserole, one of the recipes with chickpeas - all glorious. So easy and full of flavour. Thank you.
Thank you thank you