Marie Claire: Seasonal Kitchen by Michele Cranston. ISBN 978-1921259036, Murdoch Books, RRP $59.95

Because I buy most of my food at my local market or farmers’ market, we eat a lot of seasonal produce. While I don’t insist we eat only food from a 100-mile or 160km radius, nevertheless I subconsciously try to stick to what is currently being harvested locally.  While one market stall may be selling cherries, I don’t want to buy them in the middle of winter. Asparagus is a treat I like to savour in the spring when the first local spears come in.

A seasonal cookbook is a great help if this is your approach to buying for the dinner table.

By the end of summer, salads are beginning to pall and the thought of braises and root vegetables appeals. The bittersweet transition from long evenings outdoors through to chilly nights by the fire – even if it is a gas one! - is made easier by the  bounty of an autumn harvest.

All these moods are captured beautifully in Michele Cranston’s thoughtfully compiled recipe collection as it surfs the seasons. There are light bright dishes for spring and summer, colourful autumn fare and comforting dishes for the shortest days. There’s a good mix across the seasonal courses from soups and starters to sweet things.

This is a large, heavy and handsome book, cleanly laid out and beautifully illustrated with food-for-the-eye photos by Gorta Yuuki and  Mikkel Vang. Inspiration is drawn from Asia, the Pacific, the Middle East and the Mediterranean.

The book begins with spring fare and I for one can’t wait to get started. This would be a grand book to give – and to receive!

How to Drink Absolutely Everything by Ben Canaider, ISBN 978-74166-465-2, Random House Australia, RRP $34.95

There’s something rather sobering about pondering the life of someone who drinks for a living. I mean – when do you start for the day? When do you call it a day? What happens if you also want to make a night of it? And if you’re going to write about it all, soberly and sensibly, is it necessary to go on the wagon for a while? Most journalists learn early in their career that the alcohol-generated brilliance that flows through the fingers as they dance over the keyboard seldom looks as inspired when seen through a glass of AlkaSeltzer next day.

Ben Canaider admits, “I have always drunk solidly: never moderately, never apologetically, always to my professional detriment (and cost), and never have I been a hypocrite. I drink.”  So he gets five stars for honesty. 

Those who enjoy a cleansing ale, a cheeky little pinot gris or a restorative single malt will equally enjoy a frolic through Canaider’s entertaining book, and may even be tempted to extend their imbibing repertoire, goaded by the author’s persuasive words. This isn’t a book for wowsers who will no doubt find ample evidence therein on the evils of drink.

Take the office party. Canaider offers his advice, no doubt learned the hard way: “Have your mobile phone charged, leave your credit cards at home, take $100 in cash, and wear the work shirt and tie you hate the most.” At least that way you’ll still be able to ring a cab and you won’t blow – or lose – the credit card. “Let’s face it: the only time you end up in the back of a police car is when a) the mobile is dead; b) the credit card is lost; c) the $250 shirt is ripped and d) the Italian silk tie is covered in Frangelico.”

Ben Canaider writes about booze for magazines and newspapers. In this book he deals with such vexing questions as surviving a wine tasting,  alcohol-free days and how to avoid them and intersperses his counsel with amusing tales. We join him learning to make grappa, attending an AA meeting, hurling leftover spirits in the punchbowl, getting a dinner party moving with tequila shots for everyone, trying to recover his lost taste for beer, or mixing up a Bloody Mary for a hangover. A good book for nights when you're not out drinking, or recovering from nights out drinking.

Ready, Steady, Spaghetti by Lucy Broadhurst, ISBN 978-1921208980, Murdoch Books, RRP $29.95.

There’s nothing quite as satisfying as watching the family enthusiastically consume something you’re cooked up yourself – particularly when you are a child. This is a lovely cookbook for the budding chef or indeed for anyone who cooks for children.

The recipes are tempting and tasty and not beyond the scope of the average child with some adult assistance or supervision, depending on age. Getting a child to cook can sometimes help achieve a breakthrough when there have been problems with vegetables, or school lunches that come home uneaten. Helping plan menus and getting involved in meal preparation instils a sense of pride.

Some of the recipes are very simple – maybe an omelet made from instant noodles with a cheese topping,  or pretty fresh spring rolls made from bought barbecued chicken.

There are mains and snacks, drinks and salads, pasta and puddings and baked goodies. Recipes are temptingly illustrated, sometimes with three or four photos to showing cooking stages. And there’s a bit of fun  in the party fare with bleeding fingers, blood baths, squelch and crunch and swamp mud.

A great book to get kids cooking, particularly during the school holidays.

The Pig, the Olive and the Squid by Greg Duncan Powell, ISBN 978-1921208591, Murdoch Books. RRP $36.95

This is a brown book. The food has a brown cast, the text is in a browny-aubergine tint and then there’s this fellow posing in flowing brown robe or in a balloon-sleeved smock, brown weskit and trousers. A bucolic monk? A leftover hippy from the 60s? He peers out from a rustic barnyard every chapter or so, looking sometimes smug, sometimes saintly.

At least from the title, we know he’s not a vegetarian. No, our monk/hippy turns out to be Vogue Entertaining + Travel’s wine and drinks editor Greg Duncan Powell, so this won’t be puritanical fare, either. Those are his peasant robes and he’s going to dip into history and rediscover some oldies but goodies in the catalogue of humble meals.

If you like to read cookbooks, as well as cook from them, this is one for you. Each chapter looks at a single classic ingredient and different ways to cook and serve it – and what to drink with it.

Appropriately it starts with the grape, looks at the forgotten condiment – wine – and the commonly available wines are introduced. Beware of poncy packaging, Duncan Powell warns. “If it attracts your eye … it means the money didn’t go into the grape.” He says not to worry too much about the names and vintages but “do try to remember successful combinations of regions and grape varieties". To help, he lists 13 of the best Australian grape and region combos. Worth memorising.

In the next chapter olives come under review. The recipes start simply with mayo and sauces, then the pasta is introduced. Nothing wildly complicated just good, honest ingredients. Enter the legumes – comfort food of generations. No long lists of ingredients here, either.

Things get a little fancier in the squid section. New elements are introduced as various cuisines are touched on. Soy sauce and grated ginger, noodles, curry spices.

It’s almost like bringing in the different instruments in an orchestral work. In the chicken movement Greg Duncan Powell gathers momentum with dishes from Thailand, Italy, Spain and Portugal. And so on through the pig, the sheep, the cow as we jump from Pork steaks and wine-infused cabbage to Venetian lamb’s fry to a large and rustic Pot au Feu and then a little Post-modern steak sandwich.

Vegetables are lifted out of the mundane with tasty variations. Cauliflower, for instance, is spiced up with lemon juice and paprika then sauced with garlic, parsley and fried bread all crushed together then softened in the cooking liquid – Cauliflower murcia from  Spain.

The coda weighs in on a sweet note with favourite lemon and apple dishes.

As cookbooks go, this is a fairly modest collection of five dozen recipes.  But they are tasty and simple to prepare. And there are nice bite-sized bits of history, trivia and food facts in each chapter. Great to dip into. Not a bad gift for a dad for Father’s Day, I reckon.

Edible Auckland: Foodie Adventures from Mangawhai to Pokeno by Jennifer Yee. ISBN 978-0-9582635-3-5, Renaissance Publishing, NZ$27.99

People enjoy clocking up their own food miles these days – miles covered in pursuit of new foodie adventures, quality produce, lovely little regional cafes, winery grazing stations and farmers’ markets. But it can get rather overwhelming planning such outings if you’re in unfamiliar territory or you don’t know your own home town as well as you might.

Lucky Aucklanders have Jennifer Yee to guide them in the right direction and this helpful book is going to become as essential in the car glovebox as the local maps.

The city of sails has a very eclectic population and this is reflected in the fine fare available locally.

The book is sensibly divided into chapters covering central Auckland, Waiheke Island, North Shore, and the north, west, east and south regions of Auckland.

Yee has sought out gourmet foodstores, cooking schools, bakeries, coffee suppliers, butchers, fruit centres, caterers, delis, kitchen equipment specialists,  organic produces, spice purveyors, kosher products, seafood suppliers, drinks makers, poultry, olives, cheeses, confectionery, Asian specialty stores – it doesn’t look like much will have escaped her notice.

In addition to a region by region approach, Yee also provides a specialty index in case you’re after a single product such as cheese, honey, halal meat.

As with so many other cities around the world, Auckland’s number of farmers’ markets is growing. It’s good to meet local producers and growers, find the best seasonal produce and learn how it is grown or farmed. Stir in some of Auckland’s ethnic food and the ingredients are there for an interesting weekend market outing.

The book is thoughtfully compiled and entries include addresses and contact details, what is available at the venue, opening hours, if credit cards and eftpos are accepted, directions for getting there, parking availability and information about each business.

This book is a must for every Auckland foodie and visitor.

Fish: All You Need to Know About Sourcing, Cooking and Eating the Catch of the Day by Pete Evans, ISBN 978-1921208584, Murdoch Books RRP$34.95

Pete Evans would be a handy man to have about the house. Not only does he enjoy fishing, he also knows how to cook the catch. Unfortunately most of us don’t have such a resident asset. However, we can now have the next best thing with Evans’ first book, Fish.

It’s a few years since I experienced the thrill of reeling in a fish, but it’s almost as exciting unwrapping my weekly purchase from the market. It’s recommended we eat fish at least twice a week for cardiovascular benefit. Three to five fish meals should provide a useful amount of the Omega 3 that we hear so much about. That’s no hardship when you consider this can include fresh fish, canned fish, oysters, scallops, mussels, prawns, crabs and rock lobsters. Some might be expensive but others are very cheap.

Evans starts at the beginning of the alphabet with abalone. In New Zealand we call them paua and I’ve had them fresh off the rock, pounded with a flat stone and cooked in a pan over a driftwood fire. Evans turns his into little bite-sized schnitzels given a bit of bite with chilli flakes and crisped up with panko crumbs. A squeeze of lemon on the finished product, or a little dollop of aioli if you’re aiming to impress.

At the bottom end of the alphabet there’s red-claw yabbies with tomato gazpacho, definitely one to remember when tomatoes are reaching their peak over summer.

In between there are recipes covering the whole gamut of flavours and cuisines. Barramundi with porcini risotto; blue-eye trevalla with baccala sauce on soft polenta,; chilli mud crab; kingfish sashimi with pineapple, crispy shallots and nam jim; a delicious take on garlic prawns done with anchovies and crushed tomatoes and mixed with chunks of ciabatta toast – the picture almost had me digging my fork into the page.

There’s fried whitebait with tingly Szechuan pepper and lemon dipping sauce sitting next to spaghetti vongole with bottarga. Sometimes the braincells go on holiday when they’re needed (probably because one hasn’t been eating enough fish) and an ingredient may hit a “now what’s that?” spot. Fortunately Pete Evans is there to help, casually reminding the reader bottarga is the pressed row of tuna of mullet, or that guanciale is cured pork cheek. Of course it is. But it's helpful not to be left wondering.

The influences are many – tandoori prawns,  chermoula-rubbed pearl perch with yoghurt, coriander and mint sauce,  olive-crusted mulloway with a warm Mediterranean salad. There’s Thai, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, Indian.

Pete Evans is a chef, restaurateur, television presenter and above all, a fisherman. This book follows on from his television series of the same name and will be a real asset in anyone’s quest to include more fish in their diet – and keep it interesting. This is a book to use, and use often. There are simple dishes, quirky dishes and plenty of fresh downright "cook me" dishes.

A useful collection of fish mugshots will help readers identify the commonly used fish and there's also a good section on basic additions like dressings, and other accompaniments to add magic to a fish dish.

Fish is an attractive book with a tidy, unfussy design, beautifully styled by Yael Grinham with food photography by Alan Benson. There are also a number of snaps showing Pedro the fisherman himself with the ones that didn’t get away.

Pork & Sons by Stéphane Reynaud, ISBN 0714847610, Phaidon, RRP $59.95

Some people are afraid of pork. They don’t know how long to cook it for, they’re not sure when it is properly cooked. Then there’s all that fat – it can’t be good for you, can it?

An eloquent ambassador for pork is Frenchman and chef Stéphane Reynaud whose Cochon & Fils won the 2006 French cookbook award. Now published in English as Pork and Sons,  his engaging book will soon have its readers thinking beyond spare ribs or roast pork with apple sauce.

Stéphane Reynaud is a good story teller. He belongs to the third generation of a family of pork enthusiasts. The grandson of a village butcher, he hails from Saint Agrève in the Ardèche region of France.  He divides his time between his village, where he lives with his wife and three children, and his restaurant Villa9Trois in Montreuil, Paris, a five-hour drive away.

Stéphane Reynaud saw his first pig slaughtered when he was seven years old. Nothing much has changed since then “except what I have in my glass.” As a child it was a couple of cocoas as the pig was gradually converted into two of metres of black pudding, cooking and cured sausages, a fricassée for lunch (with mineral water), more sausages, pate, roasting pork, hams and rolled breasts.  These days white wine replaces the cocoa, and there’s red wine with the fricassee.

Pork & Sons is a very personal journey. Stéphane introduces his grandfather François Barbe who presided over the village square “as butcher – or rather as professor of butchery!” He takes us to a pig slaughter at Saint Agrève and we meet the cast and the parts they play on the big day. Then we are taken on a porcine journey to explore the pig’s culinary possibilities from ears to trotters, not forgetting the tail. And we join the chef and his pate team friends as they work on their latest production, full of pork belly, pig’s liver, onions, cloves, spice, seasoning, Armangnac (“be generous to allow to tasting”).

There are 150 ideas for preparing pork dishes, and 13 chapters embracing everything from sausages to terrines, casseroles to piggy party dishes.

The photos by Marie-Pierre Morel let the food speak for itself – no prissy props – and the matte paper makes the pages easy to read under kitchen lighting.

Throughout there is a subtle, engaging humour, echoed in the delightful little piggie sketches by José Reis de Matos who must have had great fun drawing them. I particularly liked the short lesson in anatomy identifying individual pig  parts, and the balloon-selling pig with sausage dogs made out of inflated sausage casings.

At a Melbourne book launch, Stéphane signed my book (in French) “I hope you enjoy all my pig stories.”

Oui, oui, oui!

Marie Claire: Dinner by Jody Vassallo, ISBN 978-1-921259-05-0, Murdoch Books. RRP $24.95

There’s a nice touch of fusion to many of the 65 recipes in this scrumptious offering from the Marie Claire series. It follows on from companion volumes Breakfast and Lunch and is a good book to have in the kitchen library when inspiration dries up and you’re aware that the troops have to be fed yet again.

If you’re good at keeping your store cupboard well stocked with pasta varieties, and you have a battery of spices and herbs to cover various ethnic options, many of these dishes can be assembled with just a couple of extra ingredients. Add some boneless chicken breasts and some fresh herbs and you’ll soon have Chilli linguini with chermoula chicken on the table. Some ricotta cheese and a bag of baby spinach leaves and Orechiette with peas and spinach is not far away.

A simple piece of salmon can wear many hats – place it on skordalia with saffron lime butter. Or barbecue it teriyaki style.

Don’t despair if you seem to have mis-matched food in the refrigerator. The skewered Chicken, okra and spring onion yakitori will soon have you springboarding to other unlikely combinations.

From simple one-bowl meals to more grown-up fare, this book ranges from the light meal through to dinner party dishes.

It’s attractively illustrated with the pasta, seafood, poultry, meat and vegetable recipes cleanly styled. The handful of desserts – well, they all look good enough to eat!

The Kitchen Gardener by Julian Matthews ISBN 978-1-921190-64-3 Fairfax Books, RRP $22.95

Inside many cooks there is a gardener struggling to get out. It’s great to have a herb garden to dip into. Nothing beats a handful of sun-ripened cherry tomatoes, picked, rinsed and popped in a rustic salad.

Julian Matthews comes from a family of talented gardeners and garden writers. In the late 70s I was features editor of a newspaper and Julian’s mother Barbara was our gardening correspondent. When we bought our Wellington house, Barbara generously walked through the suburban jungle with me identifying the trees and shrubs, telling me what to keep, what to cull, how to turn the stubborn clay into something more productive. She was only a phone call away whenever I reached a horticultural impasse. Julian inherited his parents’ enthusiasm for growing things and his latest book is just the sort of inspiration to get today’s new home owner out taming their plot of land, or a seasoned gardener excited about introducing some new varieties into the food plot.

This book is full of down-to-earth (sorry!) advice on choosing the right plants, how to grow them, what style of garden to have, and what to do when there’s no garden space at all. There’s an A-Z of vegetables, how to slip some flowers into the vegetable patch and the most important of all – how to get the garden to grow.

And just in case anyone’s in danger of losing the plot, there are lots of beautiful photos showing what is in store for those who persevere. This is a practical guide for Australia and New Zealand.

Vegetarian: Tempting Recipes from Your Favourite Chefs Edited by Kylie Walker, ISBN 978-1-921190-66-7, Fairfax Books, RRP $34.95

I’ve never been tempted to be a vegetarian. I guess one of the things that put me off was the food served at a vegetarian eatery and “health food” place near the office in the 60s. All those bean sprouts, brown rice, slabs of Hunza pie and carrot juice. This was before nouvelle cuisine and cuisine minceur, the glorious days of beef stroganoff and beef Wellington, snails in garlic butter, duck a l’orange, coq au vin, pepper steak. Nope, I was a hedonist, not a hippie.

Things have changed in the past four decades. Cream and butter have been vanquished from everyday meals. We’re eating less red meat, less fat, more fish, more white meat. And vegetarian food has undergone a revolution. It can look wonderful, smell wonderful, taste wonderful and sometimes you don’t realise there’s not a gram of meat involved.

Once the thought of coping with a vegetarian at the dinner table would send the host or hostess into a panic. Books like Vegetarian have solved that problem. For anyone with a vegetarian house guest, there’s everything from breakfasts through soups, salads and starters to mains and desserts.

The contributing cooks come from both sides of the Tasman and most of them aren’t vegetarians. The list includes Stephanie Alexander, Viviane Buzzi, Tony Chiodo, Steve Cumper, Jill Dupleix, Peter Gordon, Brigitte Hafner, Lauraine Jacobs, Sarina Lewis, Genevieve McGough, Michael Magazanik, Steve Manfredi, Ruth Pretty, Natalia Schamroth, Fiona Smith, Caroline Velik, Jo Wilcox and Alessandra Zecchini. All have contributed to Fairfax newspapers and magazines in Australia and New Zealand.

The recipes are invitingly illustrated and cover such interesting fare as Roast parsnip and chestnut soup, Fig and caramelised onion pizza,  Cauliflower and tarragon tart, Butternut, haloumi and pepita salad, Capsicum stew with potatoes and olives, Baked mulberry zabaglione, Muscatel and aniseed schiacciata and dozens more. Yes, there’s even a Hunza pie!

Many of the savoury dishes will sit quite happily alongside a serving of meat but keep the family vegetarian happily catered for as well.

Good Food by Neil Perry ISBN 1-74045-923-7 Murdoch Books RRP $54.95

Neil Perry is more than a pony-tail and an engaging smile. We’ve all seen the Sydney chef whip up classy little dishes on TV. His programmes exploring the produce and cuisines of Australia, New Zealand and South East Asia are always a joy to watch because Perry has such a passion for food and clearly revels in meeting like-minded people. This passion clearly comes across in his new book, Good Food.

While Perry has been known to say “Don’t try this at home” when there’s a slip-up in the kitchen, this book is full of recipes that are very much for trying at home. It’s not a “special occasions” collection, but everyday food.

We all know the mantra – the freshest and best ingredients, cooking with the seasons. The fact is, though, that this simple philosophy does work. It’s half the battle won when it comes to putting delicious food on the family table.

Perry’s a family man and this book is dedicated to his daughter Josephine: “I know that one day you will enjoy vegetables.” (I can assure him kids do eventually get over vegetable aversion – usually round the time they leave home!)

So, what’s in this book that would make you want to buy it?

Lovely brunch ideas for lazy weekends. Then some great soups - pumpkin soup with spicy overtones, a gorgeous chilled broadbean soup that makes the double-podding worth the effort,  and a chestnut, pancetta and cabbage soup that looks so enticing in Earl Carter’s wonderful photograph. 

What footy lover wouldn't want to tuck into this lamb, mint and pea pie while watching the
game at home?

There are salads that double as starters or lunch. I fancy the chicken salad with ranch dressing laden with fresh herbs. Pot pies make a nice change from winter braises, specially the veal and paprika pie Perry recommends for a footy lunch.

Pasta is always a good canvas for a family meal and Perry’s take on the ubiquitous spag bol has ingredients that will yield a sauce of greater complexity than the usual mince and bottled sauce variety – without involving much extra labour at all.

Seafood – I eat it at least once a week and there are plenty of ideas to keep me going for the next few weeks. I’ve already got placeholders on several recipes – herb-crusted snapper with crunchy salsa, Sicilian-style whiting with currants, roasted pine nuts in an agrodolce sauce,  roast barramundi with a garam masala marinade (that would probably be equally good on chicken).

We move on to the meat and poultry section. The crumbed pork cutlets with sautéed apples, potatoes and sage look good. Then duck braised with white beans,  saffron chicken and rice, barbecued pork sausages with a balsamic onion sauce. In fact, that looks like it would go with many dishes…

Room for dessert? I am a big clafouti fan and Perry’s twist is to make it with pre-baked pears. And I don’t think you can beat a good lemon tart.

The book ends with a few kitchen basics – chicken stock, mayonnaise, versatile harissa.

The food is presented simply but each dish looks very tempting. Best of all, dishes like the braised leg of lamb and the veal involtini are photographed there in the sauce encrusted casseroles they were cooked in – just as they would look at home.

Good Food will be an inspiration to any home cook who is seeking to extend their repertoire or pull themselves out of the culinary doldrums we all get stuck in from time to time.

Eat to Beat Cholesterol by Nicole Senior and Veronica Cuskelly, ISBN 9781741104493,  New Holland Publishers, RRP$29.95

You’re told you have high cholesterol though you don’t think you’re eating excessive amounts of animal fat. In fact you’re wedded to the olive oil bottle, you cut all visible fat off every piece of meat you put into your body and you’d be lucky if you bought 500g of butter in a year. You discover 50% of your fellow Australians are in the same boat. The doctor prescribes cholesterol-lowering drugs which cost $60+ a month.

If it’s time to lose weight, find heart-friendly foods and rearrange your diet to match your good intentions, this will be a valuable book to help you achieve your goal.

The cholesterol facts are presented in an informative, easy-to-read fashion. The dieting advice is straightforward and sensible and so is the chapter on increasing physical activity.

The heart-friendly diet is simple enough, including fruit, vegetables and wholegrains each day, legume and fish meals at least twice a week, 30g nuts daily, low GI foods at most meals, herbs and spices rather than salt, healthy oils and spreads, tea and coffee in moderation and perhaps 1-2 standard alcohol drinks daily.

Menus and interesting recipes will help keep you on track.

A good investment for anyone wanting to beat the cholesterol blues.

Why it's Good for You by Emma Young ISBN 978-1-921190-49-0 Fairfax Books RRP $18.95

Chocolate is good for you. Chocolate is bad for you. Red wine is fine. Don’t drink alcohol. Coffee, tea, oysters, eggs. Heroes one day, villains the next. While we’ve been sweating over the food and beverages we consume, Emma Young has been diligently digging up the facts for the past two years.

She has thoroughly researched more than 100 items for her regular column in the Sydney Morning Herald and her findings have now been gathered together in this handy and timely little book.

I decided to check out my vices and see how well informed I was.

Avocados are packed with vitamins E, C and B6 and can help reduce cholesterol absorption. But one avocado contains about 240 calories. Still, I share mine.

Strawberries reduce longterm risks of cardiovascular disease and cancer. About eight a day can decrease blood pressure. Dipping them in chocolate might even halve my risk of dying. (A pity chocolate makes me feel guilty!)

I like the effect chillies have on me – after my lips and mouth stop protesting. The punchy chemical compound they contain – capsaicin, can kill pancreatic cancer cells.

Chicken soup has often been called Jewish penicillin. It seems it’s packed with medicinally active compounds such as vitamins. And it’s good for treating a cold.

Yes, eating celery can burn off more calories than you consume.  And it contains phthalides which can reduce levels of stress hormones. Plus it’s a diuretic.

Brandy – no I gave it up years ago because it made my heart race. Seems it’s not the panacea we once thought.

Aaah. Vegemite. A good source of B vitamins, as long as I don’t slather it on too thickly and overdo the salt.

Oysters – well, they seem to have a lot going for them as long as you don’t strike a bad one.

This is a really informative little book and a good springboard to further research.

A dozen oysters with a chilli dressing, please, and a side order of celery!

Grub: Favourite Food Memories by Jane Lawson ISBN 1-74045-873-7 Murdoch Books RRP $45

We all have those childhood memories associated with food. Mine, going back to the 50s, include lemon tarts on triple decker afternoon tea stands, the joy of eating spaghetti on toast in a department store dining room,  Dad’s pancakes on a Sunday night,  thick vegetable soup with lots of barley.

Jane Lawson has put together a great collection of personal favourites. “a home to all those traditional or inherited family recipes you can never find, a replacement of smudged, dog-eared newspaper clippings or hand-scribbled notes you didn’t quite get round to typing up.” Haven’t we all got treasures like that!

While Jane Lawson’s memories are more recent than mine, there’s a certain touch of nostalgia about many of the recipes – French onion dip, quiche,  strawberries Romanoff,  beef Stroganoff, coq au vin, duck a l’orange, steak Diane, peach Melba, carrot cake, coquilles St Jacques. All were favourites at dinner parties in the 70s and early 80s and many are worth reviving.

There are lots of comfort food favourites such as Irish stew,  fish pie, meatloaf, cheese soufflé, Scotch broth, macaroni cheese. But there are also plenty of recipes that sit quite happily in the 21st century – macadamia, fig and wattleseed muesli, roast pumpkin with rocket salad and creamy mustard dressing, eggplant with goat’s feta and oregano dressing. The book has enough ideas in there to keep everyone in the family happy.

Steve Brown’s photos are delicious. The only quibble I have with the book is it’s a bit of a typographical nightmare. Page numbers are all over the place. Type weights and sizes are scattered around and there are slabs of upper case text, making for difficult reading. Yet the list of ingredients for each recipe is in the smallest point size of the lot when it needs to be the most legible – certainly taking into account the distance a cookbook is read from in the kitchen.

Nonetheless it’s a great collection of recipes and Lawson has done us a big favour capturing them all in one place.

Epicure Autumn edited by Kylie Walker ISBN 978-1-921190-18-6 Fairfax Books RRP $34.95

Autumn is not a word I like. Daylight saving ends, the leaves start falling, no more long evenings outside. But there’s nothing we can do about it. Autumn follows summer and that’s that.

If we have to head towards winter, then this latest seasonal cookbook from the Fairfax Books stable will make the journey more bearable.

Stephanie Alexander, Jill Dupleix and Brigitte Hafner are back with another interesting collection of recipes to get us fired up with enthusiasm as we give the barbecue a farewell scrub and bring out the Dutch ovens, the roasting pans, the stock pots and the pudding basins.

This is a time of plenty, as the autumn produce ripens – apples, chestnuts, figs, grapes, guavas, quinces, tomatoes, eggplants, sweetcorn, chokos.

So what will make us feel happier about autumn? Alexander’s Crab-apple tarte Tatin and her Chestnut almond torte will definitely help. Hafner’s Slow-cooked rabbit with chorizo and mushrooms with its generous cup and a half of sherry will soon have us smiling. So will Dupleix’s Oxtail and chickpea stew.

There’s plenty of comfort food stored in these pages – soups, salads and starters, mains and desserts.

This book is the fourth in this popular series and maintains the high standard we’ve come to expect. A good investment for delivering some excitement to the autumn table.

Whip it Up: 3 Quick Ways with... by Lynne Mullins. ISBN 978-1-921190-36-0, Fairfax Books, rrp $24.95

How many times do we have an ingredient in search of a recipe? We come back from the farmers’ market with some perfect nectarines. Lamb backstraps are on special at the butcher’s. There’s a pumpkin glut and they are soooo cheap.

Lynne Mullins, who writes the Whip It Up column in Sunday Life magazine has published a collection of her recipes under the same name.

Each ingredient is given three treatments. The lamb backstraps can be turned into sticky lime kebabs with spiced tomatoes, a stir-fry with water chestnuts and coriander, or a Greek lamb salad with peas, mint and oregano. Lebanese cucumbers can be dilled and served with salmon, made into a salad with tomatoes and herbed feta or become a chilled gazpacho.

A further 73 ingredients are given the Mullins treatment. They range from fresh produce, legumes,  pantry staples like anchovies, macaroni, and frozen peas,  capers, olives, red curry paste, pizza bases. While the recipes are given in narrative fashion, rather than as an ingredients list and a method, they are easy enough to follow thanks to typographical variation.

This is a gem of a book that deserves a place in the kitchen library for the days when inspiration is elusive.

Super Natural Cooking: Five Delicious Ways to Incorporate Whole and Natural Ingredients by Heidi Swanson (ISBN 13 978-1-58761-275-6, Celestial Arts)

Those who follow food blogs have probably already come across Heidi Swanson through 101cookbooks.com, a site she started when she realised she had more than 100 cookbooks, but instead of going to them for inspiration she was cooking the same recipes over and over again. It must have got her creative juices flowing because now she has come up with her own cookbook.

I own more than 1000 cookbooks - gathered over a lifetime, I hasten to add - but there's always room for one more, particularly if it a goodie like this. Like Heidi, I prefer to cook from scratch and make the most of good, natural ingredients. I like this book because it isn't a preachy treehugger's manual. Heidi does interesting things with healthful ingredients, dishes that are delicious to eat and not ones that make you feel like you're doing your penance for the week.

Anyone who likes experimenting with grains and fresh vegetables will find this a good place to start.

Grower's Market: Cooking with Seasonal Produce Leanne Kitchen ISBN 1-74045-816-8, Murdoch Books, RRP $45

Since coming to Australia I rarely buy fresh produce from a supermarket. Instead I visit my local market, or go to one of the regular farmers’ markets.

At the market I can check out the goods before I decide, doing a round of the vendors to see who is offering the best buys. I can chat to them about the produce – which potatoes are best for roasting, where is the asparagus from, what’s the best way to cook that vegetable? Unless the boy restocking the vegetable display in the supermarket is a culinary student, I’m unlikely to get that sort of information in the produce department. In fact some young people on the checkouts have to ask customers “What’s that called?” before weighing some produce.

Farmers’ market sellers know their own produce intimately and will happily talk about it, share recipes, give storage hints.

It’s good to watch the seasons change. Just when I’m seeking some inspiration in the kitchen, up pops the new spring asparagus or the stone fruit starts appearing. And when lines are cheap and plentiful it’s time to get out the recipe books and find new and interesting ways to prepare them.

Grower’s Market (published in the US as The Produce Bible) is a comprehensive guide to fresh fruit and vegetables. It’s more than a recipe book. Leanne Kitchen goes through the various fruit and vegetable categories, explaining the different varieties, how to select and store them, how to prepare them and their culinary uses. There are interesting little historical notes. Then it’s recipe time and the recipes are anything but mundane. Sure, there may be some occasional favourites or classics but there are plenty of new ideas too.

How about walnut and cheddar soda bread, warm silverbeet and chickpea salad with sumac, green onion pancakes, asparagus and mint frittata?

Some produce lends itself to preserving for year-round enjoyment and there are good ideas for jams, marmalades and other preserves.

From comfort food to summer delights, this book will be useful all year round.

Thanks to being printed on sturdy stock, this is a weighty book but it’s chock full of information and ideas and will be an ideal addition to the kitchen library. The produce is artfully photographed by Natasha Milne and Steven Brown has taken the tempting recipe photos.

Leanne Kitchen has extensive experience as a food stylist, recipe writer and cookbook editor. She trained as a professional chef and for the past 10 years has worked in food and travel publishing. She lives in Sydney.

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