40 years ago, Shirley Spear and her husband opened The Three Chimneys, a restaurant on the Isle of Skye which went on to win a Michelin star and which transformed perceptions of Scottish cooking. In this Behind the Cookbook feature, Shirley, who was the restaurants Head Chef until 2005, tells us how her interest in Scotlands culinary heritage was first awakened and how the seasonal harvest from Scotland’s fields and lochs drove the development of her menu.
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“Recipes are stories. They are tales that travel through time—gifts shared with us by witnesses of bygone eras, preserving memories of times spent with family and friends.” Bruno Feldeisen
Recipes are indeed stories, and what better way to explore the world, than through the stories so generously shared by its chefs. We are thrilled to have a quartet of Canadian books newly added to ckbk, each with a generous offering of Canadian goodies to share.
Choosing wild game has so many advantages and benefits for the planet, and for you. Alongside being a sustainable choice and reducing your carbon footprint, you can enjoy tasty and versatile meals at an affordable price.
It’s easy to make swaps from your usual farmed meats to create delicious mid-week meals; choose wild venison steak over beef, pheasant or partridge instead of chicken in a curry, a rabbit ragu instead of beef mince or even a wild duck for your Sunday roast.
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Chef and cookbook author Julie Jones has always baked. It was the thing she did with her mum, standing on a stool at her side, and it was the thing that helped her manage her days and emotions when her mum was diagnosed with dementia, and then later taken into care. This deeply personal journey touched others when she began to document it and share what she was going through and what she was baking. She is eloquent on the therapeutic space baking gave her:
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The festivities are over, and if you are in the Northern hemisphere there is a long stretch of winter still ahead. Wherever you are, the sparkles of Christmas and New Year are put away now. This is the perfect time to revel in a period of retreat, in taking care of yourself, in repair and restoration. And of course, food is a precious and wonderful part of that. Key are comfort and healing.
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What is better than a delicious home-cooked feast? All that wonderful food, when you haven’t only just finished slaving for hours creating it. Leftovers are the cook’s joy, a day-after-the-party treat. So, enjoy, and with a little extra love—no more slaving, we promise—you can make even more of them.
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As you limber up for the big day, and anticipation mounts for that all-important Christmas lunch, here is a little extra inspiration and guidance to ensure that festive feast is all you want it to be.
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James Read is the founder of artisanal kimchi brand Kim Kong Kimchi (a Nigella favourite) and the author of On Cabbages and Kimchi, a bestselling book on fermented food. Here he digs into this obsession and highlights fermentation-related books and recipes from ckbk’s collection.
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We are halfway to Christmas Eve—how did that happen? It is time to plan the food shopping, and what to make when, and while we can’t do your shopping or organise your diary for you, we can certainly make sure that you have all the ideas, recipes, and ingredient lists you could possibly need. Christmas ckbk-style is a tempting proposition!
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The Dooky Chase Cookbook, first published in 1990 and re-issued last year, is the latest classic title to be added to ckbk. Its author, Leah Chase (1923–2019), was known as the “Queen of Creole Cuisine”. While she stood less than 5 feet tall, she had an outsize influence on food culture in her hometown of New Orleans, and far beyond.
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It’s great to see more and more recipe reviews appearing on ckbk each week! Reviews help to identify the standout dishes in ckbk’s large (and sometimes almost overwhelming) collection of cookbooks. Reviews are also a great way for users to share their practical tips, based on their experience cooking a recipe—and quite often the cookbook author may chime in with advice too. To make reviews even more useful, we’ve now added the ability to include a photo so you can show how the recipe worked out. Read on to find out how to use this feature, and how you could win a ckbk apron and free ckbk Premium Membership for a year.
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Born near Frankfurt in Germany, Heidrun Metzler’s childhood was gloriously flavored by the delicious baking of her mother, aunt and grandmother. Traditional German baking, recipes handed down through generations, and with a careful balance of sweetness, of nuts and dried fruits and buttery goodness, were a constant and a joy. After she moved to the US in 1978, and began her journey to becoming a food writer and educator, recreating those bakes, and helping others to understand and achieve fine results with her recipes, became central to her work
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For this year’s ckbk gift guide, we asked members of the ckbk team to each suggest both a favourite ingredient and a kitchen gadget that would make a great gift. Of course, it goes without saying that if you are looking for a gift for a food lover, the very first thing on your shopping list should be a ckbk gift subscription. For a strictly limited time, you can pick gift subscriptions half price with our BLACKFRIDAY24 special offer. So why not order a handful and cross several gifts off your list at once?
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For those of us longing to be festive, we officially announce that Christmas prep is on! In Great Britain the last Sunday before advent is Stir Up Sunday—November 24 this year. A Victorian tradition, this is the day to make those Christmas treats that need to be made well ahead—such as Christmas pudding, fruitcake, and the mincemeat for mince pies. Several weeks of maturing and being ‘fed’ regularly with spirits ensures they are at their tip top best when the time to serve them comes around.
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Fred Plotkin is an expert on both Italian opera and Italian food. His regional Italian cookbooks on the cooking of Friuli-Venezia Giulia and of Liguria have already delighted users of ckbk, and we pleased to also now make available The Authentic Pasta Book, his canonical work on real Italian pasta. Below Fred recalls the journey which led to the writing and publication of this much-loved work.
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Everybody loves chocolate – we couldn’t agree more! In her new book Everybody Loves Chocolate: Delicious Recipes from Around the World, Australia-born food writer Jennifer Donovan takes an enthusiastic journey through Europe, Asia Pacific, the Americas, the Middle East and Africa, gathering chocolate goodness along the way. There is a chocolate recipe here for every person and every mood.
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In this third installment of our series on cooking fundamentals, Cat Black moves on to look at bread, a food that is both utterly familiar and yet endlessly diverse.
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After a decade at the forefront of the Edinburgh dining scene working under Tom Kitchin, Roberta Hall-McCarron and husband Shaun opened their first venue together.
Now, with flagship The Little Chartroom, sister restaurant Eleanore, and wine bar Ardfern, they run a culinary mini-empire in the Scottish capital’s quiet outpost of Leith.
You may also know Roberta and her exceptional food from her two appearances on Great British Menu. We are extremely pleased to bring you The Changing Tides, Roberta’s first cookbook, on publication day.
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ckbk has rapidly emerged as a valuable electronic resource for use in culinary schools, technical colleges, university programs, and even high schools.
ckbk’s vast array of recipes, background information on culinary history, in depth technical reference material and global scope have made it a valuable offering which enhances the learning experience of students. Read on to discover some of the ways ckbk is now being used in education.
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