Relax, it's Only Food Book

John Torode may be familiar to many readers from television but he has also had a highly successful career working in the restaurants of Sir Terence Conran. A busy man, and Relax, It's Only Food is a busy book, fizzing with ideas and enthusiasm. An Australian by birth and inclination, his approach to food is passionate, involved, driven by a curiosity fostered by wide travel. There are so many ideas in this book that it seems as if they couldn't be constrained by the usual formal structure of separate recipes. Formal recipes there are but they're surrounded by buzzing swarms of bright ideas, alternatives, accompaniments, strongly held opinions, anecdotes and pentimenti. Very cleverly, the book is divided into chapters, not by ingredients or seasons or continents or whatever, but by the "moods" of the food: Light, Spicy, Comfort, Classic and Posh. Within these, the range is just staggering. Classic French recipes, Mediterranean, Thai, Chinese, American (the divine brunch combination of Eggs Benedict and Bloody Mary), Italian, English (Sussex Pond Pudding a high point of the Comfort dishes), Japanese and Australian (the iconic Passion Fruit Pavlova); simple and complex, homely and grand; all rub shoulders in harmonious conversation. But the last thing John Torode is interested in is daft fusion muddling of traditions for the sake of novelty: he respects the cuisine he is evoking and the ingredients he is privileged to use too much for that. Inspirational, approachable, vividly written and beautifully illustrated with the photographs of David Loftus, quite frankly it's difficult to praise this book highly enough. As Torode says, "Food and cooking should be a pleasure and a delight, not something deadly serious, or snobbish, or stressful. Because when all is said and done, it is only food..." -- Robin DavidsonRead More