I got this book a few years ago and just decided to give it a review as I feel it deserves a highly rating than the reviewers here have given it. When I received this book I sat down and read it for about an hour. Unlike most cookbooks which I tend to flick through and use for inspiration this book draws its inspiration from the highly readable genuine writing style of the author. I guess what I'm saying is that even though it doesn't have pictures this doesn't seem to take away from the book. The author clearly has a passion for food and there is a feeling that you are receiving many family recipes here and they certainly are home style rather than the fancy resturant style. Many recipes have side notes in the margins with variations of the recipe or mini recipes for basic sauces or dips. What I like a lot about this is that the recipes are vegan versions of very authentic Italian recipes, an introductory paragraph explains the history of the recipe how it s usually eaten, the region it comes from etc, which I really enjoyed. There are lots of recipes for cheeses such as parmesan, ricotta and feta based mainly on tofu, with soy free variations usually featuring nuts. The cheeses are pretty tasty. The book also covers breads, I made focaccia and standard white bread and both came out delicious, and the recipes are simpler and came out far nicer than the bread recipes in Nigellas "how to be a domestic goddess". There os a section of recipes ising tofu and seitan. The seitan recipes are not ones that I have used much, mainly because I liek in Ireland and only recently food a supplier for gluten, I tried the mock beef and it was ok, not delicous, but this could be me and not the recipe. In response to the other reviews - I found all the ingredients easy to get in Ireland, aside from the vital gluten powder, which can be purchased online from flourbin in the UK, and I think that using wine in a tomato sauce is a pretty basic and common practice.I have lots and lots of cookbooks but I tend to use this one a lot more than others. If you are vegan and like Italian food then I would highly recommend this book.
