Product Description

Tamasin has an unbeatable philosophy: 'shop like you care (seek out the best quality ingredients, buy what is in season), cook like you mean it, and the result will be truly outstanding.' SIMPLY THE BEST is a rich selection of recipes for the home cook, from the very simplest fresh autumnal mushrooms briefly tossed in olive oil to more serious dishes such as Baked Shoulder of Lamb with Pink Fir Potatoes and Peach and Raspberry Trifle, all designed to allow you to get the very best from the season's harvest.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #217521 in Books
• Published on: 2002-09-12
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Simply the Best is made up of much more than its subtitle, The Art of Seasonal Cooking, suggests. Tamasin Day-Lewis provides so many contexts for her recipes--in descriptions of family holidays and picnics, food-fact-finding expeditions to France, Spain and Ireland, encounters with chefs and organic-food producers and many other delightful experiences--that the effect encompasses a complete lifestyle. Pleasurable in the highest degree, it inevitably induces a bewilderment that the results of one's own exertions should fall so far short of what is possible. What is possible, if you have the time, the money and the inclination to do the kind of shopping that Tamasin Day-Lewis can afford, is wonderful ingredients: cooked with care and attention, they deliver marvellous flavours. The recipes are a mixture of the familiar and less so, the comforting and the exciting. In spring, tender rhubarb is made into ice cream with preserved ginger and acacia honey, and guinea fowl is stewed with preserved lemons and broad beans. Summer might bring squid, braised in its ink with fennel, peas and Oloroso sherry, light fish stews or a white-fruit summer pudding. Wild mushrooms and game are the flavours of autumn, followed perhaps by a steamed lemon-curd pudding; while winter rounds the year off with rich meat stews, baked fruits and chocolate; and, to soothe the post-Christmas stomach, a dish of baked skate, verging on the bland but spiked with lemon and capers. --Robin Davidson

Review
Alongside many of today's top chefs and cookery writers, Tamasin Day-Lewis believes in using the freshest of ingredients to get the best out of a recipe. With the plethora of specialist food producers currently emerging it is possible to get the very best and freshest of ingredients delivered right to your door. "Simply the Best" is a collection of Tamasin's recipes, many having already appeared in her Daily Telegraph cookery column on a Saturday, season by season, highlighting the produce at the peak of its perfection. Freshly picked fruit and vegetables, freshly caught fish, freshly slaughtered Spring lamb, autumn mushrooms and winter chestnuts. Innovatively mixed, the dishes acknowledge tastes from around the world: lasagna al forno, Spanish fish stew, cardamom chicken and rumbledethumps, reflecting today's multicultural cuisine. Attractively illustrated with colour photographs and accompanied by Tamasin's knowledgeable writing, it is a veritable feast of good, natural produce served to perfection. - Lucy Watson

About the Author
Tamasin Day-Lewis is as one of the UK's best food writers. She writes an avidly followed column for THE DAILY TELEGRAPH and is a regular contributor to AMERICAN VOGUE, VANITY FAIR and COUNTRY HOMES & INTERIORS. Her previous books, WEST OF IRELAND SUMMERS: A COOKBOOK and THE ART OF THE TART received rave reviews.

Customer Reviews

Great Stuff
Every one of Tamasin Day-Lewis' books is worth buying, reading and cooking from, and this collection is a classic example of what makes her such an addictive writer. With the emphasis on seasonal produce, this is a collection of food that shows you how to get the most out of your budget and the most taste out of the food that is at its best in each of the four seasons. Modern, unpretentious and compulsive, it's one of those cookery books that you return to time and again.

This is a wonderful book
Tamasin writes with great knowledge of, and respect for, her ingredients. The book is beautifully photographed and presented. Recipes are grouped according to season and effortlessly linked to stories of small food producers. Her writing makes you want to seek out the best quality ingredients you can afford, then return to your kitchen and start cooking your way through her book

Good food all year round
This book is about the art of seasonal cooking. But, I am not one for seasonal cooking, so for me this book is all about good food, of which there are plenty! Along with recipes, this book also has some interesting stories (some from Tamsin's own experiences), eg Phil the Fish, Peter Whiteman's potatoes, the Sheridan Brothers, etc. which make it more than just a cook book: it is a book you can read, appreciate and take to the kitchen.

There are lots of recipes here to try - soups, pies, tarts, savouries, sweets, main courses, light meals, starters etc. It should keep you more than busy for the whole year.

The desserts and other sweet delights in this book are spectacular and I cannot wait to try the other suggestions for the year. This is one section where we are (albeit reluctantly) subject to seasonal limitations. Still, it gives us something to look forward to making in the winters months.

Personally, I love this book - the recipes are uncomplicated, the pictures are truly inspiring and the results are noteworthy.