Sally Clarke's Book: Recipes from a Restaurant, Shop and Bakery Book

Is Sally Clarke the coolest chef in London? The answer would depend on a number of factors: the austere elegance of her restaurant/bakery/food shop in South Kensington; the fact that she was among the first, if not the very first, to import the subtly hedonistic, visionary Californian style of Alice Waters; that she herself would probably never even contemplate the question; and now Sally Clarke's Book. Clarke's cooking is of disarming simplicity, everything depending (rather unfairly, the supermarket-reliant home cook might feel) on absolute freshness and quality of organically-grown ingredients. Famously, following the example of Waters at Chez Panisse, her menus offer no choices. But who would turn down "Parsley Soup with Morel Mushrooms and Creme Fraiche", or "Slow-Baked Duck Leg with Onion Marmalade, Duck-Fat Roasted Potatoes and Bitter-Leaf Salad", or "Baked Vanilla Cream with Armagnac Prunes and Ginger Florentines"? Or "Soup of Five Tomatoes and Three Beetroots"? Or "Wild Mushrooms Baked in Cream with Gorgonzola Mascarpone"? Or "Baked Beans"? (Baked beans!) This is simplicity arrived at by distillation to essentials, by stripping away the inessential. Clarke's food is seriously pleasurable. Any cook will learn a great deal from her book. The answer? Of course she is, but the question is meaningless. --Robin DavidsonRead More