I’ve never managed to love an American cook book. My next-door neighbor, who photographs and styles cookbooks, agrees with me that the Brits and Australians have a more fun, stylish approach to the field (which is hard to understand.)
I’ve been following Nigel Slater since he did Marie Claire’s food writing in the early 1990s. He’s come into his own voice, and if he’s getting a little flouncy on the proclamations (along the lines of “Only sad people make their own grissini…it’s sad and pretentious to serve pretty restaurant food instead of gloppy stews at home…”), he’s still entertaining and down-to-earth. Good breakfast table reading.