Over a lifetime you come across many different types and styles of food, and when you have a passionate and professional interest in food, your experiences can be even more varied.
In Everlasting Feast: A treasury of recipes and culinary adventures, (Random House) Lauraine Jacobs, one of New Zealand's leading food writers, tells the story of her life with food, from her childhood in Auckland, studying Cordon Bleu in London and travelling in the 1970s, teaching cooking classes from home as a mother with young children, to becoming president of the US-based International Association of Culinary Professionals and hobnobbing with some of the world's most famous chefs and writers.
Each section is accompanied by recipes from the time and place she is talking about. They vary from fresh tomato soup and strawberry trifle from her Auckland childhood, through spaghetti bolognese, country terrine and fillet of beef in pastry with mushroom duxelles from her travels and Cordon Bleu training, to a couple of decades of New Zealand food during her writing for magazines such as Fashion Quarterly, Cuisine and now the Listener.
These vary from restaurant food such as curry blue cod salad, fennel and mussel soup, and blueberry and nectarine frangipane tart to food from her more recent travels around the world - po-boy sandwich, Sri Lankan potato and fish curry, Greek country salad and Matakana salad of oranges, beetroot, watercress and fried haloumi. Along the way, in the narrative parts is a lot of information and many stories - the principles of planning a meal, how to cook duck, changes in food fashions, meeting Julia Child, cooking for Charlie Trotter, and promoting New Zealand produce overseas.
Natalie Oldfield, who runs the Dulcie May Kitchen in Auckland, has published her fourth book on the theme of her grandmother's recipes, many updated and interspersed with some from elsewhere. Gran's Sweet Pantry (HarperCollins) is a feel-good cookbook, full of nostalgia for her grandmother's baking, her grandfather's vegetable and fruit garden and the way things used to be, amply illustrated with moody, mouthwatering photographs. It includes sections on scones and muffins, biscuits, sweets, cakes and loaves, slices, desserts, and preserves. and recipes range from orange and date muffins with cinnamon cream cheese, and coconut ice, to Albert squares and steamed winter pudding.
Richard Till is a down-to-earth sort of cook. His food tends to be hearty, practical and no-nonsense. His latest book, One Pot Cooking (HarperCollins) is no exception. His aim is to give recipes that will cook in one pot or dish, whether it's a casserole, frying pan, roasting dish or saucepan. Most are everyday meals - hearty soups such as eggplant and olive, seafood chowder, and French onion, braises like oxtail stew, beef rendang, chicken pot roast, six-hour leg of lamb, fish pie, cheesy bread pudding, moussaka, lasagne and gado gado.
