Tender

Great title of the cookbook that I just picked up at the library:

Tender: A cook and his vegetable patch by Nigel Slater   

 See his beautiful website of a cook who writes.
I am taken in by the first paragraph and the layout and photos of where he lives in England:

I keep lists. Some copied into notebooks in neat italic script in blue-black ink, others scribbled almost illegibly in soft pencil on the back of an old envelope. Most remain in my head. There is the usual inventory of things I need to do, of course, but also less urgent lists, those of books to read or read again, music to find, plants to secure for the garden, and letters to be written (few of which will ever see the light of day). One list that has remained in my head is that of favorite scents, the catalogue of smells I find particularly evocative or uplifting. Snow (yes, I believe it has a smell), dim sum, old books, cardamom, beeswax, moss, warm pancakes, a freshly snapped runner bean, a roasting chicken, a fleeting whiff of white narcissi on a freezing winters day. 


Also picked up this book  which makes me think of Melissa:

Masala Farm, Recipes and Tales From an Uncommon Life in the Country by Suvir Saran with Raquel Pelzel and Charlie Burd  Chronicle Books, September 2011

subtitle: IN which a city boy from India  meets country farm in Upstate New York and has many culinary adventures

Emma is cooking from this cookbook tonight. I've a few favorites from it:

 
Heidi's blog: 101 Cookbooks