Newsletter: 🇫🇷 Cruise around the Med and into France + get cooking from our Cookbook of the Month for October 📚

🇫🇷 Cruise around the Med and into France + get cooking from our Cookbook of the Month for October 📚

🇫🇷 Enjoy the flavors of Provence save 25% on ckbk subscriptions!🇫🇷

Mediterranean cooking inspiration

Multi-award winning American food writer Clifford A Wright has written for a Who’s Who of culinary publications, and authored 17 books, including the two-time James Beard Award winning A Mediterranean Feast. He brings his considerable passion and expertise on the subject to his book Mediterranean Small Plates, in which he brings us a tempting array of the tapas, mezze, antipasti and the like, that are much loved in the region. In writing of his own epiphany over crostini in Tuscany, he says:

‘it dawned on me why these little foods were important in a culinary experience. It wasn’t so much that they “opened the appetite,” as it was that they were a reassuring affirmation that we were in the caring hands of a good cook who wanted us to be happy, with the expectation of even greater things to come. It was both a preview and an end in itself, if that was to be our fate. And this, I realized, is what the little foods of the Mediterranean are all about: they can be both a beginning and an end in themselves.’

The book’s introduction eloquently sets out some of the fundamentals relating to these small foods, the core triumvirate of olive, grape and wheat that are at the heart of many recipes, but also the vast diversity of recipe and eating traditions around the Mediterranean, and how greatly these also differ from American attitudes to food, cooking, and eating.

Recipes are ordered by country or area, for example France, Italy, and the Middle East and North Africa, with introductory information about the particular nature of these foods and each region. Find Puff Pastry Crescents with Saffron Chicken and Almonds from Spain, Baked Tomatoes and Peppers in the Provençal Style, and this Turkish recipe for Stuffed Swiss Chard Leaves with Ground Lamb, Rice, and Parsley in Cool Yoghurt.

Find all 115 recipes from Mediterranean Small Plates

Pictured above: Greek Cocktail Meatballs in Sauce from Mediterranean Small Plates by Clifford A. Wright

Feasting in Provence with Robert Carrier

American chef, restaurateur, and cookery writer, Robert Carrier was a debonair presence on our television screens and a prolific author—he wrote 24 books, between 1963 and 1999. He was based much of his life in the UK, with stints in Morocco, and Provence, where he owned houses. Wherever he went he immersed in the food, cooked locally, and shared his discoveries through his work.

We are thrilled to have his much loved Feasts of Provence now on ckbk—a book food writer, and friend of ckbk, Orlando Murrin mentioned recently on Instagram, after declaring himself a ‘second generation fan’ of the great chef. Robert Carrier also gets a name check in Orlando’s most recent column for Waitrose Weekend. Feasts of Provence is as much a love letter to the area, and a tour of its different quarters and ingredients, as it is a recipe book—find sections on Les Herbes de Provence and Villages in the Sky.

The rich store of 165 recipes includes many classics. Find recipes for Tapenade, Le Vrai Pissaladière de Nice—an exceptionally good local tart of onions flavored with anchovy and black olives—and this Provençal Fish Soup.

Explore our French bookshelf

Our Cookbook of the Month for October is… A Year at Otter Farm

Our cookbook of the month for October is the inspiring, and recently added to ckbk, plant to plate guide by Mark Diacono, A Year at Otter Farm. To read more about Mark, his food philosophy, and award winning recipes, here’s a reminder from last week’s newsletter.

If you’ve not joined in with our cookbook of the month before, here is how it works. We have a Facebook group called #ckbkclub, a place to chat about what you’ve made from all the cookbooks on ckbk, or ask for help in the Kitchen SOS chat. And each month we choose a cookbook for the group to focus on, encouraging members to cook from it, chat about it, and share any photos, tips, or questions they have about the recipes.

We can’t wait to see what you make from A Year at Otter Farm, so don’t forget to send us your pictures!

Ingredient focus: saffron

The most expensive of spices, with almost mythical status, true saffron is contained within the stigmas of the crocus flower. These orange-red threads are picked, then dried, and carefully stored to retain purity of color and aroma. It takes around 70,000 flowers to make around one pound of saffron, each hand-picked, which explains the high cost. Originally from West Asia, the saffron crocus has been cultivated in Southern Europe since ancient times.

The Moghuls brought their use of the spice from Persia to India, where some of the finest crops grow in Kashmir. Saffron likely arrived in England as late as the 14th century.

With its unmistakable aromatic quality and beguiling color, saffron has its place in many global cuisines, from Swedish baking to Moroccan tagines, and inspired food historian Sam Bilton to write a feature for us—Consuming Passions: Saffron—and her book Fool’s Gold.

Treat yourself to something saffron scented, and browse our collection of 12 Ways with Saffron—find recipes for Butternut Squash & Saffron Risotto, Saffron-grilled Cod Fillet with Aligot & Beurre d’Escargot, and these Cornish Saffron Buns.

6 of the best taco recipes

The taco—that tasty hand-held tortilla stuffed with all manner of goodies—is such a universally popular food, that there are countless spins on the original. Here are six fine examples.