A Celebration of Cookery books

I seem to be a binge-blogger. Nothing for weeks and weeks and now look at me. Anyway, recently we have been slow spring cleaning our house and throwing stuff out, reorganising and even actually cleaning occasionally. And I reorganised my cookery books, and counted them. I have 60 or is that 61. Not sure as two have just arrived and one is currently lent to someone but I can't remember who (not a good idea). So I thought why not do an entry on each. Should keep me going for a couple of months!

First up: A Celebration of Soup by Lindsey Bareham

Haven't owned this for long. Just under a year I guess. And to be honest, I'm not that keen on soup. I'm not very good at drinking hot liquids and well, soup can be a bit dull and insubstantial. BUT if you are going to buy a book on soup, and why not, then this is the one. Brilliant chapter on stocks (which is useful not just for soup). A whole part (three chapters no less) on stuff you can add to or eat with soup, like croutons, meatballs, onion flakes. And loads and loads of soup - thick, thin, clear, whole meal, stews and gumbos etc. etc. etc. This book is in the vein of Elizabeth David (no surprise that Bareham was a great friend of hers) so it is written beautifully and clearly, with no pictures. I love books that tell you extraneous but fascinating information like Mozart's favourite soup was clear soup with liver dumplings, garnished with chives and eaten with sauerkraut. Not sure you'd want to kiss him afterwards.