Nigel Slater

[nakji]

I really enjoy reading Nigel Slater's pieces on the Guardian/Observer website. I'd like to pick up one or two of his books and wondering what people have and recommend? I'm leaning towards Real Fast Food, Real Food, or The Kitchen Diaries. Anyone have any of these?

[Soundman]

They're all good books, I think I use Real Food the most, but they all have good, well written recipes.

[Pam Brunning]

I think Kitchen Dairies is the best by far it covers such a wide range, mine is used a lot and full of notes. It is the type of book that is a good base that you can build dishes from with slightly different ingredients. Real Cooking is also useful.

Edited May 17, 2010 by Pam Brunning (log)

[ajnicholls]

I have all of his books; Appetite was the first I bought and probably the one that taught me the most. I was 18, starting uni and it gave me many a building block and technique to work with. I love the Kitchen Diaries as it's a beautiful read as well as having some great recipes in it. They all have their merits. Real Food, Appetite and the Kitchen Diaries would be my choices.

[nakji]

Sounds like I can't go wrong! I made his mince pies for Christmas from a recipe on the Observer website, and they were so simple and easy. I'm interested - does he have a lot of vegetable-centric dishes, or is he more like Nigella - "Let's cook a crown roast, mmm won't that be lovely!" I like meat as much as the next person, but I don't have access to a wide range of cuts or kinds - we're talking no beef or fish. I'll be more specific with my request, I guess - I'm looking for recipes that feature heavily pastas, grains, and vegetables, and are meant to serve two people. Not a lot of roasting or baking. In this case, would you give the edge to Kitchen Diaries or Real Food?

[dougal]

He's more about ideas than recipes - and consequently his recipe quantities are far from standardised (even within the same section, let alone book).

I'm going to suggest Appetite, as giving a great explanation of what he's about - which I'd say was breaking away from the ideas of a recipe as being a straitjacket or bully and of home eating with 'styling' - its about oral gratification! His ridged grill pan gets a lot of use in Appetite, but there are pasta/noodles, veg and rice sections. But for seasonal veg-led stuff, see Tender vol 1, that's what its about.

Appetite is the very antithesis of The French Laundry Cookbook. To read it is to feel hungry, not in awe.

I see Real Food as being its companion volume, more on the same lines.

Real Cooking is slightly different, a more conventional, and quasi-international, cook book.

As ajnicholls indicates, Appetite is a great way to start cooking. And to start Nigel.

My second suggestion is the (essentially unillustrated, cheap paperback) Real Fast Food - its fizzing with ideas for good, simple and quick (half hour total prep & cook) eating -- mainly for one or two people.

"The 30 minute cook" is almost a vol 2 of this, with consciously cosmopolitan inspirations.

And then Real Fast Puddings rounds off that group.

I've actually liked Kitchen Diaries the least. Why? Because too much of it (for my liking) is about how Nigel felt on a particular day and his domestic minutiae. Yes, its about the connection between the food and the weather, moods, needs, seasonality, practicality, etc. That's fair enough, but I got tired of it pretty quickly, a month or two. I don't need twelve months to get the idea that what we might choose to eat is shaped by how we feel, and that, in turn can be shaped by all manner of things. Nice concept for a book, just that my interest was more in the food and less (barely at all) in his emotional journeys.

Maybe its a Mars/Venus thing, but I prefer his other stuff.

No, I'm not interested in his autobiography (review of "Toast") either.

Hope some of that helps!

Edited May 19, 2010 by dougal (log)

[nakji]

Thanks for your detailed reply! That gives me an excellent idea of which to choose. Real Fast Food sounds great, but I like pictures to help me get inspired about making something, so I might defer that one to a later purchase - although it sounds exactly about how I cook most of the time (for two; really quickly).

I hadn't given Tender much thought, so I'll look it up on Amazon. Appetite sounds like I'd love it, but when you say his grill pan gets a lot of work - what is he grilling?

[dougal]

Maybe I exaggerated (memory playing tricks?) - he uses it in Appetite for some meaty things, and generic veg. And he describes it as his first 'essential' bit of kit in the (fairly basic but very true) discussion in the first part of the book, talking of using it for meat, fish and veg. I'd bet he uses it for fruit too somewhere - probably the imminent Tender v2.

Edited May 19, 2010 by dougal (log)