Review
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I felt that prickle of excitement that you get when
you get your hands on a book that you know will be a friend in
the kitchen for months and years to come. (Matching Food and
Wine)
Like the best food writing Five Quarters is also a form of travel
writing, as it provides a taste of history, memoir and literate
display. It is a form of utopian thinking too, you could argue.
This is how we might live, it implicitly says. Or at least look
at the pictures of how we might live. Why do we love cookery
books? Because the best ones are about so much more. Rachel Roddy
- like Yotam [Ottolenghi] and Nigel [Slater] - is writing about a
sense of place, about culinary culture and culture in general. In
short, she is writing about life. The nice pictures are just a
bonus. (Herald)
Roddy is a gifted storyteller, and a masterful hand with simple
ingredients. She brings to life in mouthwatering detail her
culinary love and daily discoveries from a life lived well, of
Roman markets and full family tables. (Guardian Cook)
This is the most wonderful cookbook, especially - though not
exclusively - if you like really reading cookbooks, possibly in
bed. Rachel Roddy is a marvellous writer, and her ruminations
about living in Rome - about markets, pasta-cooking water, being
unfaithful to her usual butcher, Jane Grigson, the old Jewish
ghetto, letting the meatballs rest, her daily life and so on, are
total heaven (also, excellent restaurant recommendations). What I
especially like is that she sounds like a real,
complicated-in-a-good-way, intelligent and forthright person, not
some ninny going 'Ooh, I love Italy, me' while poncing about on a
Vespa. She is proper. You feel like a friend is leading you by
the hand, going 'Look at this, make this, and if you make it like
this it will taste even better'.
The recipes are great. The vast majority are simple,
family-friendly things you or I could make for supper with
minimum fuss, and everyone would pat their stomachs delightedly
and go 'Man, that was unbelievably good'. Everything I've cooked
has been delicious, unfussy, robust and somehow honest. More than
once I've been surprised by the simplicity of the recipe and the
complex deliciousness of the results. Very precise instructions,
too. Plus, a beautiful-looking book, beautifully produced, which
doesn't hurt.
(India Knight)
Just looking at the juicy apricots on the cover of this recipe
and memory-filled love letter to Rome is enough to transport you
to Italia - land of delicious, superior, mouth-watering
cuisine... Five Quarters illuminates the colourful experience of
a year in her Italian kitchen where she cooked, ate and wrote,
with her notes contributing to the book's 120 both Italian and
British-influenced recipes. (Scottish Woman Magazine)
This wonderful book, which came about as a result of an
award-winning blog, charts a year of cooking in the tiny kitchen
in her flat, shopping at local markets and writing about her
culinary finds... an unputdownable book packed with the
unpretentious home cooking, heady with the smells of Southern
Italian markets. (Crumb Magazine)
Rachel Roddy's Five Quarters is by an English food blogger
settled in Rome, who felt a natural affinity with the simplicity
and resourcefulness of Roman cooking; this is a homage to the
quarter in which she lives and the food of her neighbours.
(Evening Standard)
The writing beautifully describes a quiet domestic life centred
around her kitchen, while the photography by Roddy herself is
reminiscent of Dutch interiors. (Ham & High)
Unpretentious, unusual and delicious. (Country Life)
Five Quarters stands out as particularly considered and
evocative...Impeccably researched and transportive, it's a proper
read, rather than a quick flick. (AA Gill Sunday Times, picked as
best cookbook 2015)
Book Description
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Five Quarters - , recipe book and kitchen
diary. Award-winning Guardian Cook columnist, Rachel Roddy,
merges her love of Italian cooking with a strong nostalgia for
the family mealtimes of her English childhood.