Cookbook Review: The World Food Cafe

The World Food Cafe Cookbook

I love cookbooks. Buying me a new cookbook is a failsafe birthday present. I read them like novels; from cover to cover. Inevitably, however, I only ever end up make 3-5 recipes from each book and then I remember them as old favourites and return to them again and again. I always seem to forget that all the other recipes exist. It's probably because I've got distracted by another cookbook. Do you find that the same thing happens to you? For any specific recipe or method I need (e.g. how to make homemade buttermilk), I'll just search for it on BBC Good Food rather than check out my encyclopaedic recipe books. Bad I know, but it's just so much quicker.

The World Food Cafe cookbook finally arrived from Amazon. It cost £9.59 (link) and, reassuringly, it's very highly rated. It's really the diary of a married couple's travels around much of the world. They don't attempt to comprehensively list all the recipes from a particular region - they merely give their particular favourites. The book itself is complemented by Chris Caldicott's beautiful photography of particular areas e.g. local tribes men in Africa. If I had to have one negative, it would be that I would prefer more photos of the dishes themselves. Most of the recipes are unfamiliar to me and I would appreciate a photo of the end dish so I know what I'm aiming for.