Relish - Book Review

Last week my lovely friend Anna sent me a copy of the amazing How to Feed Your Friends with Relish by Joanna Weinberg.  This book has become a kitchen essential for me and I advise you all read it.

My apologies to Anna that it’s taken me so long to blog about this wonderful gift, but I wanted to have had a good read through it before talking about it here.

From the front cover to the back page this book is wonderful, brilliant writing, excellent photography, what more could I ask for?

It’s written in a friendly tone, and is full of anecdotes about the author’s life and passionate relationship with food.  I think it’s because of the way her passion shines through that this book is so approachable and readable; many of the topics covered such as seating plans at various styles of dinner parties wouldn’t be half as interesting without her little humorous comments, in fact they’d be down right dull.

Other than following the sentiments of Nigella Lawson with regard to feeding friends/dinner parties that the only way to feed guests is generously I wasn’t very knowledgeable about this whole activity.  This book has opened my eyes up to a whole new, more relaxed way of entertaining, to quote Helen Fielding (Bridget Jones’s Diary: A Novel) “Remember, everyone’s coming to see you, not to eat parfaits in sugar cages”.

The book is split into two sections.  Part one: Getting Started which deals with the fundamentals of cooking/entertaining such as equipment, fridge/larder basics, shopping, and seating plans.  Part two: Tucking In which deals with menu plans and recipes; many of which are just mouthwatering, fabulous flavour combinations and a good mixture of simple and relatively complex methods.

An example of the lovely photography is the chocolate birthday cake.