WHISK — Kitchen Essentials — Cooking and Cooking

Having an expert on hand in the kitchen is a bonus. If you don’t have a resident chef, you could try the next best thing: a cookbook about cooking and everything you need to know.

Food historian and home cook Bee Wilson brings us her first recipe book, The Secret of Cooking. And with the subtitle, ‘recipes for an easier life in the kitchen’, you feel at ease with Wilson straight away. With chapters on pots and pans, knives, the joys of the box grater — your essential tools, and getting the most from your ingredients, discovering what element is missing in your dish, and finding easy solutions, there is knowledge galore. Delving into her bank of food knowledge and drawing from some of her favourite food writers, this is not only informative but packed with recipes, from sauces to treats and everyday wonders, across a wide range of culinary styles. This excellent book, compiled from a lifetime’s experience of preparing, eating, thinking and writing about food, realigns even a sophisticated cook’s basic approaches and ingredients, and makes life in the kitchen simpler, more enjoyable, and always satisfyingly productive.

What the critics say: “Reading The Secret of Cooking is like sitting in a warm kitchen with an exceptionally articulate friend.” —Sarit Packer and Itamar Srulovich, authors of Honey & Co.
”A genuinely game-changing cookbook. There’s not a kitchen that should be without a copy” —Nigella Lawson

Enjoy simple cooking at its best with Jeremy Lee’s Cooking: Simply and Well, For One or Many. For everything that’s great about potatoes, aspargaus, and beans, for the love of food — whether it’s a pie or a hearty dish, smoked treats or restortaive soups — you will find something to love here. In Lee’s wonderful turn of phrase, childhood memories, cooking experiences and joyous explorations, the pages are alive with inspiration and musings. There’s a whole chapter on the potato, alongside one on salsify, and you can get to the heart of the matter with offal and nut it out with the walnut. This beautifully produced book is idosyncratic and bursting with food goodness.

What the critics say: “I worship Jeremy Lee. Not just the best cook, he’s also the jolliest, most joyous host, in person, and on the page.” —Olivia Laing
”Jeremy Lee is not only an expectional chef, but an exceptional write. One of the most beautiful cookery books I have ever seen.” —Rcahel Roddy
”Jeremy Lee masters the alchemy of food writing: insighful, witty, encouraging, patient, wise.” —Charlie Porter