miss dahl's voluptuous delights: a book review

i am seriously in love with this cookbook, and the proof is in just how many tags are in it telling me which recipes i want to cook:

i remember catching a glimpse of the cookbook in Waitrose, having a quick flick and then putting it down again; i figured that Sophie Dahl must have a TV programme out which probably wasn't that new or interesting, and probably laden with far too much sugar and carbs...how wrong i was! (yes, i know, i didn't even check the ingredients list, i just assumed and judged, bad bad me)

miss dahl's voluptuous delights is funny, interesting and full of totally simple yet stunning recipes. she's incorporated loads of different styles of cooking, and her recipes really reflect the journey she's taken with food. a lot of the recipes are vegetarian and gluten free, which is totally the kind of food i love to eat - and i've been seeking out new interesting recipes.

the book isn't written from a chef point of view, it's literally one person sharing her passion for food in the written word. and for that i love it. she shares her food journey with the reader, and speaks about some of the conclusions she's drawn about food over her life so far - i would agree with most of them. and i love that she has both english and american measurements - how ingenius!

the main thing is that there's so many of these recipes i want to make: paris mash, indian sweet potato pancakes, breakfast burrito, crab and fennel salad, flourless chocolate cake, rhubarb compote, squid salad with chargrilled peppers, buckwheat mushroom risotto...the list goes on and on of things i'm dying to taste.

unfortunately (actually i think it's a crime), she's taken a lot of bad publicity for her TV series, The Delicious Miss Dahl, saying she's trying to be too much like nigella, but i totally disagree; she's not obvious, and she has a kind of awkwardness about her which i totally relate too. she's intelligent and understandable, and doesn't cook only with butter, sugar and flour like nigella does most frequently. i love how she has her own personal adjustments to classic dishes, as well as having invented a few of her own.

i am so excited for the future episodes...