plum tart

I've owned Classic Home Desserts for over 20 years. Between it and the Chez Panisse Desserts, I have never felt the need for any more dessert cookbooks. I bake several of the coffee cakes often and several of the Christmas cookies are keepers and have become part of my annual Christmas cookie collection. Also his tiramisu is authentic and delicious. I have trouble keeping the book in my house. I have a friend who borrows it for months at a time and when I go to use it, it is nowhere to be found. I should buy Katherine her own copy. And, I agree. His writing is lovely and personal. I felt so very sad when he died knowing there would be no more books from him.

thank you for the tip. I found the piri piri chile and several others plus kokum and some other spices I have been looking for.

Does anyone know a source for African devil or African bird's eye chiles used to make piri piri sauce. The World of Spice has a very nice blend which uses Mexican chiles and I like it but I would love to find the real thing.

Like several other respondents I would have to take a small library of cookbooks and even though I own over a thousand and buy new ones every day I would take the old battered classics, the ones that have good food writing as well as good recipes -any cookbook or all the cookbooks by Elizabeth David, Jane Grigson, Alice Waters and Paula Woolfert (especially her Moroccan and Mediterranean books) Marcella Hazan for Italian, Julia Sahni for Indian, Diana Kennedy for Mexican food, and Irene Kuo for Chinese. These books date back to when I was learning. The recipes are in my bones. I have a slight feeling of betrayal when I cook from someone else's cookbook which I do all the time. I've never been very good with general cookbooks. I relate strongly to the author/cook and how they write about a dish. David Thompson would be my choice for Thai food.And, Miriam Cunningham's Breakfast Book for my favourite meal of the day and Patricia Wells Bistro cookbook and Chez Panisse for desserts. And as for a new well used book I would have to say Sara Jenkins "Olives and Oranges". Then there are the books that make me hungry when I read them but from which I only cook infrequently, mostly British in fact but they write wonderfully about food - Simon Hopkinson, Nigel Slater and Tamasin Day Lewis. Hardly what you would call "travelling light"!

Your description and pictures of your cauliflower soup have convinced me to buy ad hoc. It looks gorgeous and delicious.

I think the new and the nostalgic can co-exist, they certainly do for me. I am constantly buying new cookbooks and trying new ingredients and then once a dish becomes mine and part of my repertoire I will become nostalgic about it and try to replicate my food memories of it, when I cook it a year later or two years later.. . I make a plum tart every August when the prune plums are ripe. The day I bake it has to be a particular kind of day - an end of summer day and then the nostalgia sets in and as I pit the plums, I remember the other plum tarts I have eaten or baked and the people who are part of those food memories. Sometimes I accuse myself of manipulating memory and time, but in the end, the plum tart is always beautiful and delicious and my family and friends always enjoy eating it.