I had heard the story a number of times before from numerous different people to the extent that I came to consider it the norm. All of them professing their love of cookbooks while simultaneously confessing their lack of devotion to the ones that they already owned - 'you find one or two recipes that you like & the rest of them languish on the shelf, eh?' I was determined not to fall into this trap when I began my burgeoning collection a year or so ago, focusing on quality over quantity & while I can still count their number on one hand (just) I must admit that it's not been altogether successful. Aside from occasional impassioned weeks of trying new recipes to dispel my guilt at having to blow the dust from their covers, I too have earmarked a few favourites from my cookbooks & very rarely looked beyond those that I've tried & succeeded at. I was mulling this over while hopelessly poring over Yotam Ottolenghi's new book 'Plenty More' last week (I've always associated him with long lists of obscure ingredients but these new recipes look significantly pared back) when I realised that I was being too hard on myself. There has been one cookbook that has captured my heart, that I've spent afternoons just reading through & that I've cooked from almost every night since I successfully smuggled it underneath my boyfriend's beady eye & into the stack with the rest of them. In writing this review, I've tried to put my finger on what exactly it is that makes Anna Jones' 'A Modern Way To Eat' just so brilliant &, well, un-put-down-able. I've decided on this: everything.
As an object to hold in your hands, to smooth down the pages as you go from recipe to recipe, to use & refer to even as a smear of tomato sauce renders the first two points of the method illegible - it is beautiful. It is minutely styled, thoughtfully put together & infinitely alluring in its presentation of the food therein. The balance of photographs & instruction is perfect - I personally don't like centerfolds full of photographs to mix & match with the recipes & those that are particularly sparing in their instruction - & Anna's writing style is personable & funny. Food, the act of cooking & dishing up have long been sociable acts & the stories behind the recipes in this book (Anna's boyfriend's love of chilli con carne or her afternoons spent sunburnt but victorious in finding the best banana pancake) are what makes them feel so appealing as additions to everyday routines. Anna is also stupendously good at no-fuss explanations of the health benefits of eating certain new-to-most ingredients such as chia seeds & amaranth, there is no sense of a holier-than-thou attitude that some vegetarian & vegan cookbooks can fall victim to, only a genuine interest in broadening the palates of the culinar-ily curious. Reading Anna's own introduction that doubles as a manifesto of sorts, it shouldn't come as a surprise that all of the food in 'A Modern Way To Eat' is simple, fresh, thoughtful & encouraging of creativity. The mint green pages that intersect chapters have been a particular revelation, offering numerous variations on staples such as roasted vegetables, pesto sauces & morning fruit according to the season in which you're eating.
I have found everything that I've made from Anna's book to be easy to put together at the end of a working day but no less fulfilling for it - a stir fry of sugar snap peas & cashews particularly light & lively, a wonderfully creamy textured avocado & lemon spaghetti, slivers of honey-roasted radishes stirred through a dish of puy lentils & potatoes, a wholesome breakfast of nutty & warming amaranth porridge topped with gooey will-definitely-stain-all-wooden-utensils-permanently-purple stewed blueberries. Larger labours of love such as Anna's sweet potato & puy lentil pie & unbeatable 'proper chilli' I found to be even more rewarding & a joy to watch coming together, head in the pot as I stirred crushed cumin seeds into one, bulgur wheat into another. I think I've almost resigned myself to my oven just not being quite hot enough for completely crispy sweet potato fries but ho hum. The reason why I knew, ultimately, that 'A Modern Way To Eat' wouldn't be an impulse purchase was that at whatever point I opened it, I was greeted by something that I would gladly cook any night of the week. As a long-time vegetarian Anna has an intimate knowledge of what us veggies eat every day (lots of nuts, seeds, sweet potatoes, mushrooms, greens) while also introducing additional ingredients that easily find their way into this line-up (a multitude of grains have already found their way into my cupboard & tummy) Most revealingly, however, I've owned this book for weeks now, have cooked a fair few of the recipes & I'm still excited to try more - I'm particularly looking forward to cauliflower crusted pizza, homemade veggie sausages & Anna's take on mushroom burgers that'll be compared to the 'Green Kitchen Stories' halloumi burgers that featured on my table this week. Oh & anything featuring beetroot. Or those super little chia seeds. *****!
Have you picked up a copy of 'A Modern Way To Eat' yet?
Speak soon - O.
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