2008-07-09 Offally grumpy

I too, was misled by the title into thinking this would be everyday recipes, arranged by the seasons, but it turns out that 'Week in, week out' refers not to the cooking but to the writing of his weekly column in the Independent. Although there are 52 columns there are no headings and no very discernible order (starts with New Year, Christmas still being mentioned on p.67) so you can't easily find a recipe suitable for a particular time of year.

Although some of the recipes are very good, and the methods given are very thorough, this was spoilt for me as an enjoyable read by the sheer tetchiness of the author's tone. As the favourable review by Henrietta Green notes, he is 'dismissive of modern food fads'. Well, he seems to be dismissive of plenty of other things too: supermarkets, celebrity chefs, idiot readers who make his recipes using low quality ingredients, idiot shoppers who are too stupid to care what they are buying, even recipe descriptions (apparently it should be 'crisp' and not 'crispy'). He writes: "The suggestion that there is no need to top and tail a gooseberry is yet another indication that we, as a nation, have become the most slovenly of cooks". Well, it sounds like common sense to me if you're going to sieve them anyway, and this suggestion was made by Elizabeth David in the 1950's in her excellent 'Summer Cooking' so it can hardly be used as an indicator of modern culinary doom either.

This book would suit you if you cook a lot of offal and less mainstream ingredients and if you, too, feel pretty grumpy about the modern world.