How To Eat: The Pleasures and Principles of Good Food

The book is neatly divided into categories--cooking in advance, weekend lunch, low fat and so on--each with its own passionate and intelligent introductory essay. The recipes are straightforwardly presented and the occasional school-mistress tone--"You must keep your stock in the freezer," or "I loathe the acrid dustiness of standard-issue sherry"--is always justified by its implication of an entirely proper seriousness and her endless common sense. But most of all Lawson is a greedy eater who knows about food and can write like an angel. "I hate the new-age voodoo about eating," she declares. "The notion that foods are either harmful or healing, that a good diet makes you a good person." Hurrah! How to Eat is the perfect book for anyone who knows that food is more than fuel. --Nick Wroe