A Long and Messy Business

Description

Winner of the Guild of Food Writers General Cookbook Award 2019 'I get fed up with the number of cookbooks that promise quick and easy meals, those that promise a three-course dinner that can be knocked up in thirty minutes. Most cooking, and certainly most enjoyable cooking, takes a little longer. I can knock something up in a hurry if I have to - there are plenty of quick and easy recipes in this book - but that ability was a long time in the acquisition, and I still prefer to take my time, in order to do it better than I did it last time.' These recipes and essays, first published in the Financial Times, are a distillation of Rowley Leigh's forty years as both a professional chef and a home cook. They detail with precision and wit how to cook and enjoy both unusual and familiar ingredients through the seasons. With Leigh's succinct wine recommendations and over 120 recipes, this is a book to get messy with overuse in the kitchen and to pore over in an armchair with a glass of the author's beloved Riesling close to hand.

Rowley Leigh was born in Manchester in 1950 and fell into cooking 'almost by accident' in 1977. Working with the Roux brothers at Le Gavroche in 1979, he took over their Le Poulbot restaurant as head chef in 1984 and won The Times' 'Restaurant of the Year' award in 1986. He has won three Glenfiddich awards for his work in the Guardian, the Sunday Telegraph and the Financial Times. He left Kensington Place in order to open Le Cafe Anglais in 2007 and is now a consultant for the Soho House group, overseeing the opening of their Cafe Monico brasserie in April 2016. He lives in Acton, west London.