Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen

Description

'No one who cooks, cooks alone. Even at her most solitary, a cook in the kitchen is surrounded by generations of cooks past, the advice and menus of cooks present, the wisdom of cookbook writers.' Weaving together memories, recipes, and wild tales of years spent in the kitchen, Home Cooking is Laurie Colwin's manifesto on the joys of sharing food and entertaining. From the humble hot-plate of her one-room apartment to the crowded kitchens of bustling parties, Colwin regales us with tales of meals gone both magnificently well and disastrously wrong. Never before published in the UK, this is hilarious, personal and full of Colwin's hard-won expertise. Home Cooking will speak to the heart (and stomach) of any amateur cook, professional chef, or food lover.

Laurie Colwin is the author of five novels - Happy All the Time, Family Happiness, Goodbye Without Leaving, A Big Storm Knocked It Over and Shine On, Bright and Dangerous Object - three collections of short stories - Passion and Affect, The Lone Pilgrim and Another Marvellous Thing - and two collections of essays, Home Cooking and More Home Cooking. Laurie Colwin died in 1992.

Laurie Colwin writes about food with love, lightness and an elegant intimacy reminding us that cooking is about life not recipes. Her books are more than cookery books. They are the diaries of someone - who died young - with a huge appetite for life and the rare ability to convey it. She writes so movingly, too, about her daughter and I can't help thinking what a testimony of love she left her -- Nigella Lawson A feast . . . witty, no-nonsense . . . there are echoes of Nigella Lawson, one of Colwin's fans . . . Home Cooking is a culinary companion as comfortable beside your bed as your cooker. It has an essay for everyone who loves to eat and demonstrates that home is where the heart is - and the stomach happiest * Observer * Shrewd and witty essays on food . . . a consistently enjoyable bedtime read * Mail on Sunday * I have in my kitchen a book called Home Cooking. And, in between following the recipes for Extremely Easy Old-Fashioned Beef Stew or Estelle Colwin Snellenberg's Potato Pancakes, I would frequently sit down on a little stool in my kitchen and read through one of the essays in that book. I never read through Joy of Cooking, and I can read The Silver Palate Cookbook standing up, but I always sat down to read these. -- Anna Quindlen Memories, recipes and tantalising tales of the kitchen * Sunday Times Style * Shrewd and witty * You Magazine * Laurie Colwin's food thoughts are like phone calls from a dear friend * The New York Times *