THE RECIPE WHEEL (EBURY, 2014)
I like to draw and paint. Some days I paint fruit, some days it’s vegetables, some days I draw mindless scribbles on a Post-it note. Scattered around my kitchen surfaces and holding the pages in my cookery books are torn bits of paper with scratchy mind maps, worn thin with coloured pen. It’s the way I think about things. But mostly, it’s what inspires me to cook.
This book follows the route of these doodle mind maps. It explores ideas, visually. Each chapter in this book has its own mind map, its own recipe wheel. At the centre of each wheel lies a basic recipe and technique: bread; soup; risotto; roast chicken; braised beef; poached fish; gratin; wilted greens; sponge cake; and custard. Nothing fancy. From these cores stem new, more developed ideas that all have the basic formula at their heart. The wheels make it simple to adapt recipes, substitute ingredients and play with flavours according to your mood.
This is a book about loving and understanding the food you cook. It's about discovering what you like and how to get there. Start with the basics, and move forward to something a little different; or go on a wild tangent, knowing that you'll never stray too far from what you already know.
The Recipe Wheel is dotted with my washy watercolours, and with Will Webb's genius recipe wheel graphics. To buy the book, click here