Four seasons cookery books

My recipes for seasonal meals are divided into groups: simple ones for everyday, and sophisticated ones for en- tertaining, as indicated below. Of course, a freezer is your true friend when it comes to advance preparation. Forget the fog and ice, and have a splendid cook-in. Make big, nourishing stews in double portions—one for now and one for the freezer. Start a special Christmas basket or shelf devoted to the festivities. Make up sausage rolls, mince pies, Brandy and Cumber- land butters; even turkey stuffing can be made well before- hand. In a restful moment, draw up a Christmas catering plan and use mine for inspiration. For the adventurous hostess, a pleasant surprise is in store. It is much easier than you think to make marrons glacés, expensive-looking petits fours, and glacé fruits for parties. Winter is, above all, the party season; a season when one truly cooks for pleasure, and I hope your pleasure will be increased by * Sophisticated the new recipes and ideas you find in this book. : 4 Simple Buying guide for the season Storage space is probably at a premium during the Winter months for gardeners. But as you use up your harvest of apples, pears and toma- toes, you should find room for root vegetables which must be removed from the ground before the frost turns it hard as iron. Root vegetables kept in a dark place tend to sprout if the atmosphere is damp, or to shrivel up if it is too dry. For a storage time extending beyond the usual week, pack such vegetables in boxes with layers of sawdust, straw or sand—the old farmhouse way! They should be clean but, if washed, perfectly dry, and certainly not peeled since the skin is a natural protection. In the shops, you can choose between nicely washed imported young carrots, or the larger maincrop carrots which are inevitably coarser and less attractive. Providing the latter have no woody cores, the flavour and tenderness are just as good when cooked, and they are much cheaper. Winter turnips, swedes and parsnips are all best after a touch of frost. The only tip on buying is to avoid those with brown spots, spongy patches or holes made by the fork. Do not confuse maincrop turnips with the delicate little early ones available in Spring and early Summer. During Winter the small pickling onions of Autumn disappear and the choice is between large mild Spanish onions—though the name now signifies any large mild onion—and the maincrop onions which are smaller, with skins varying from straw colour through pale golden brown to a rich bronze. Do not accept any which are soft and spongy around the neck as the centre of the bulb may be uneatable. Other members of the onion family are shallots, much favoured on the Continent for their delicate yet slightly garlicky flavour. The best ones have a well-swollen rounded bulb and narrow neck. Garlic itself comes, unlike the cluster of shallots, in a whole bulb. The skin is papery white or pale pink and the bulb is divided into small segments called ‘cloves’. Each clove must be separately peeled, and if the bulb has been properly dried and after purchase is kept in a dry, dark place, it will last until all the cloves have been used. But it is rather an ex- pensive investment to buy a whole bulb unless you cook with garlic frequently, as the unused cloves tend to wither up eventually. Jerusalem artichokes, for which I give some recipes, deserve to be better known and more popular, as the flavour is quite unique and delicious. Try to choose large tubers which are even in shape as there is a lot of waste when peeling small or misshapen ones.