Seasonal Spanish Food cook book
Finalist in Guild of Food Writers awards
At the Guild of Food Writers Awards ceremony last night, Seasonal Spanish Food didn’t win the Jeremy Round First Book Award: Laura Santtini’s Easy Tasty Italian did. Congrats to Laura! Pizarro was heartbroken not to win; being in the top 3 out of a 1000 entries was not enough for him. But for my money, the right book won (even though ours has sold more copies, according to Kyle Cathie) as she did actually write the thing, whereas Pascal Aussignac and Pizarro had significant help. Not that there is anything wrong with that – most chefs are too totally knackered to hit the keyboard after completing their 18 hour shifts even assuming they have the writing skills in the first place.
That was one of things that struck me about the gathering: it was a room full of talented, knowledgeable people, most of whom weren’t famous in televisual times. These days successful food authors are actually successful at something other than writing and the business of crafting text is often delegated to someone else (sometimes a team of people) referred to deep in the acknowledgments section as the editor, or the person ‘without whom the book would not have been possible’.
There are of course chefs and presenters who are up front and gracious about the help they get – Pizarro or, more famously, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall with his landshare initiative are two examples – but we’ve come a long way from the likes of Marguerite Patten who was also there last night and who was (and is) revered as a cookery writer in her own right. She’s sold 17 million copies.
Come to think of it, if you are a woman and you want to be a successful food writer you have three career options: set up your own food related business; make sure you have a well known father or husband as a door opener (failing that be fiendishly well connected); and/or be gorgeous to look at. If you’ve got a book proposal in mind, your chances of getting it published will be improved immeasurably if you can say there’s a TV production company interested in making the series. Note: your income will not be derived from your book sales, unless you are Nigella but she is a casebook example of what I’m talking about. So Laura Santtini, you go for it girl, you’ve got all the right ingredients and you’re a lovely woman to boot.
But let’s not forget Warm Bread and Honey Cake by food historian Gaitri Pagrach-Chandra which the Guild voted The Cookery Book of the Year; a round of applause not just for Gaitri but also the Guild for not getting distracted by the siren call of commercial considerations and telly.
Seasonal Spanish Food now available
Today is the official launch of Pizarro’s and my book ‘Seasonal Spanish Food’. I’ve just about got over the publisher’s decision not to mention me as co-author on the front cover (that’s enough ego, Bennison!) It is, after all, about his cooking, his family and his growing up in rural Spain; but I still feel proud when The Independent describes the book in their Ten Best Autumn Cook Books as ‘charming’. The Telegraph’s Saturday magazine also ran an extract a couple of weeks ago, woo-hoo! Read the rest of this entry »
Peach sorbet
This lovely sorbet is an out-take from the book. It made way for a couple of cherry recipes, which I thought a bit of a shame – I liked the ‘Chicky and his mule’ introduction. Pizarro tends to attribute most of his inspiration to his beloved Mum, and I was delighted to elicit this small snapshot of life in the campo. And since peaches are coming into season, I thought it would be a good moment to post it:
Editing the text stage
Today I had a phone discussion with the copy editor, Emily. We have to go through all her queries she’s sent through (to quote her “The book’s in pretty good shape, I like Pizarro’s tone, and the recipes seem great.” hurray). And, wow, her attention to detail is amazing. Take, for example, the recipe for grilled lamb cutlets with allioli:
“are you happy for us to define allioli as ‘the Catalan version of Provence’s famous garlic sauce, aioli.”
Food photo shoot
I’d never appreciated how similar preparing food for a photo shoot was like glamming up models for the catwalk.
Having hiked it out to Earlsfield in south London, I wandered into the warehouse to see Emma Lee, the very fab photographer for the book, up a stepladder and focusing her Hasselblad camera like a microscope on the chocolate cake below. She was surrounded by black painted polystyrene panels, while the rickety table and backdrop huddled up against a north-facing window. Her camera was linked to her Mac and every shot taken was scrutinised by her assistant. A model can probably get away with a spot on her forehead, but there was no hiding place for that cake. Was every crumb in focus, was the lighting right? Read the rest of this entry »
Seville Orange Sorbet
If you live in London SE1 and wonder why there aren’t any Seville oranges in the shops, it’s because I’ve bought them all. I’m testing a sorbet recipe for the book I’m writing with Jose Pizarro called Seasonal Spanish Cooking.
I started by thinking I’d need a 2 to 3 ratio of bitter orange juice and sugar syrup, but actually equal quantities works brilliantly: it produces an intensely tangy sorbet which my hubby loved so much I had to wrest the spoon from him. Read the rest of this entry »
