I have just finished a very disappointing Nigel Slater book, which really made me review my opinion of NS as both a writer and a cook.
Eating For England consists of hundreds of vignettes about different aspects of British food. A paragraph on Spangles here, four or five different spields about farmers’ markets there, interspersed with “comic” portraits of different types of cook (The Fussy Cook, The Man Cook).
This is a shallow, repetitive and judgemental book, and really demonstrates how well-established a writer he is, to be able to get away with phoning in such dross as this.
This ticked 19 (to-read pile), 13 (non-fiction), and sort of ticks 25 (memoir). Now I’m reading The Emperor’s Tomb by Joseph Roth, the latest to check off number 19 again.
I am picturing Damien from In and Out of the Kitchen being reminded by his agent that he has promised a book and the deadline is a month away.
Did you like in and out of the kitchen? I couldn’t quite decide. I love Miles Jupp generally but am not sure it quite hit the mark…was quite clearly Nigel though, wasn’t it?!
I have finished just my type, a light, fun, easy to read book about fonts that ticks numbers 13 and 40, and the mysteries that ticks 7, 33, 38, 40 – apparently she is very famous but I hadn’t come across her before.