‘The Vegetarian Kitchen’ cook book

The Vegetarian Kitchen

I knew Peta was a great cook and a fantastic baker and pastry chef. But I was a bit nervous that she might not write well, and that I’d be editing and nit-picking and we’d end up not getting on anymore. But of course she turned out be everything I could ask for in a food-writing partner: great ideas, patient testing and retesting, terrific attention to detail and above all a real love of food.

The truth Is we are both a bit greedy, and both like unpretentious family food with shovelfuls of flavour. Neither of us want to be messing about with tweezers  arranging single micro leaves or adorning a plate with mini dots of yuzu jelly.

When we first discussed the book, it was to be our favourite family recipes, but when we looked at the list, all of Peta’s were vegetarian or vegan (well she’s a veggie of course) and a good deal of mine were too. since I like vegetarian food a lot. And obviously my puddings and breads were veggie too.  So we’d have had a very unbalanced book. So when Bluebird suggested we just make it veggie, we agreed in a nano-second.

Vegetarian Black Bean Chilli

The only aggro we had was that she was used to Google Drive and I used Dropbox, and trying to marry them up drove me mad. I tried to learn Google Drive but it wouldn’t let me work off line and as I do most of my work in the back of taxis and in trains and planes, that didn’t always work.

The other small problem was a delightful one. Peta got pregnant. So when we were taking the pictures she thought she was too fat – she wasn’t of course, she looked terrific. And once Milo had arrived, she needed time off and I suddenly agreed to film Junior Bake just when we’d agreed to doing publicity stuff – interviews, radio, book festivals etc. So we delayed the publication until now.

I’m thrilled with the The Vegetarian Kitchen , it was huge fun to write and I’m confident it’s a really good book. Just hope you do too. Let us know!

Vegetarian Calabrian Orrechiette I’m thrilled it’s finally out  It was huge fun to write and I’m think it’s a really good book. Just hope you do too. Let us know!