How To Eat: The Pleasures And Principles Of Good Food (2002) - Plot & Excerpts
This is one of my favorite cookbooks, as well as one of my favorite books, period. Not everyone likes Lawson's narrative style, but I can't get enough of the way she writes about food. Her cookbooks feel like conversations with a close girlfriend, and not in the cliched Sex & The City kind of way. She's friendly, and real, and helpful, and she anticipates questions and concerns that I have about recipes, ingredients, menus, and meals. One of the best things about this book is the inclusion of sections on eating alone and eating with just two people. There are some excellent meal ideas here, ones that I rely on regularly. Lawson embraces the act of eating solo with her usual sensual, indulgent writing and recipes to match. She has advice about stocking your freezer, losing weight (god forbid), entertaining two guests or eight guests, feeding babies, preparing desserts in advance, and saving money. This is the cookbook that put moules mariniere on my dinner rotation, the cookbook that taught me to love anchovies, the cookbook that showed me how to roast a chicken. I cannot recommend this one enough. I often get it out as my bedtime reading. It's that well-written and accessible. A comforting, useful, personal cookbook.
How To Eat.....the title at first can be a put off. But once you open it and glance through the pages and Content, it seems that you ought to buy this book. It is from Basics to just anything about cooking. Correct and appropriate tips that you can never Forget. Basics like broth and meats and how to treat them. She Shares alot from her experience as a child....recipes that have been passed on from her grandmother and some that she has chanced upon. How meals can be managed and combination Foods that make a feast. She has for convienience made meals with People number in mind so that proportons and portions are all taking into consideration. You almost dont buy the book, but cannot Keep back either, you somehow just Need to own it...
What do You think about How To Eat: The Pleasures And Principles Of Good Food (2002)?
Someone wrote that if one liked the writing of Laurie Colwin, this book of Nigella Lawson's would also be appealing. Well, that person was right!While it is impossible to compare these two women, both write lovingly about food and eating. Lawson calls herself an eater, not a chef, and I am sure that Colwin would have described herself the same way.This book is just so darn universally appealing. I bought three to give for Christmas gifts.There is nothing not to like about this book....great stories, writing, and recipes.Although I say that I read this book, and have, it is one that I will read over and over, just like I do with Colwin's books.
—JoAnn/QuAppelle
Fab...The wonderful Nigella writes beautifully. Ideal for those who are already confident in the kitchen and view eating as a sensual pleasure rather than essential. Like Nigel Slater, Nigella gives the reader credit for knowing what they want and this book is more of an informative guide rather than a step-by-step hold your hand type book you might get from Delia. The book itself is actually rather ugly to look at but the words are evocative and mouthwatering. Food writing rather than traditional recipe book.
—Marie Claire
Yes, it's a cookbook - in that it contains recipes - but it holds so much more as well. Nigella's philosophy on not just cooking but eating really resonated with me on a lot of levels and as a result, this book sits not with the other cookbooks in the kitchen but on my "pull down, thumb through and often re-read" shelf in easy reach of comfy chairs. The tone is informative and conversational - it's like having one of your best friends over for a putter in the kitchen just to see what you can come up with. This is the woman who actually got me to go INTO my kitchen and anyone who knows me can tell you what an amazing feat that is.
—Deborah
