Coming Home: With Over 150 Easy to Make Recipes from Return of the Chef (Hardcover)

As someone who has one great regret in life, that he did not train as a chef, I enjoy nothing more than seeing how it is done - so what a treat Return of the Chef has been. In fact enjoyment of the programme persuaded me that I should have a look at the book Coming Home, which accompanies the series.

Return of the Chef is about the return of John Burton Race and his family to England from their year in France. The series is centered around his acquisition of the premises for his new restaurant known as The New Angel (formerly the famous Carved Angel restaurant in Dartmouth), its refurbishment, teething problems and day to day running all interspersed with bits of family life.

I can't tell you what the food is like as I live too far away to have dined there but it certainly looks appetizing when you see it being prepared. The fact the restaurant has all ready been awarded a Michelin Star in the 2005 guide really says it all - when you consider that the guiding principal for all dishes to be served in the restaurant is the use of fresh local ingredients it is hardly surprising.

The book follows on from this concept and talks about what there is not time for in the television programme - the style of cooking and the recipes. The recipes featured in the book are many and varied and fall into the main categories of restaurant style dishes, which you would serve for dinner guests, or family dishes which appeal to everyone.

Make no mistake there is something for everyone inside the covers of this book. Discovering this was a pleasant surprise for me as I had expected to find a lot of difficult recipes glorifying the capabilities of a Michelin Starred Chef - it is very much the opposite. John Burton Race has written this book with his reader in mind.

In his introduction John spells out his philosophy for the New Angel and explains how and why everything came about . . . "Some of the dishes included here are from The New Angel repertoire, others are personal or family favourites. But all of them are easy to make, and I hope there's something here for everyone".

The book is divided into eight main sections each with its own introduction:

* Shellfish
* Fish
* Birds
* Meat
* Vegetables
* Pudding
* Home bakes
* Essentials

Each section has its own introduction with the nice touch of an opening quote. For example the opening quote for the Shellfish . . .

"Finding freshly caught shellfish just over the road was something I'd only ever associated with France . . . until Devon."

or for the Meat . . .

"Roast Beef with Yorkshire pudding is a Sunday lunch favourite that always leads to a punch-up. Everyone wants seconds!"

But what I also like about the introductory sections is the human family touches you find which make the book have a far more personal appeal. Summing up about Shellfish he explains that his wife cannot eat it and the children all hate it . . . "All very irritating because, as far as I'm concerned, there are few finer things in life than eating seafood that has been freshly caught, cooked and brought straight to the table." Very much my sentiments!

When you start reading through the recipes, recipes like Grilled Langoustines with a Soy Vinaigrette, it makes you wish you lived near enough to dine at the restaurant, and if you could see the photograph you would certainly know what I was talking about. The book is beautifully illustrated throughout with some great photography.

If you can't make it to the restaurant then this book is for you. The recipes are all easy to follow and within everyone's capability of producing. Have I got any complaints? Yes! I spotted the use of chervil in one or two recipes. I have not yet found a shop that sells fresh chervil - the professionals can buy it through their suppliers so why do the supermarkets not put it on their shelves?

I was very interested to learn of the new book "Coming Home" which ties in with the television series "Return of the Chef". The book seems to follow the same format of many new cookery books that are based around a particular location and the text is accompanied by many shots of the South Hams and Dartmouth (where John's new restaurant is based, the New Angel) as well as shots of the complete dishes. John bases a lot of his recipies on local ingredients and there is even a recipe for Devon Pasties (which I found quite amusing having spent much of my childhood in Cornwall!!). All in all, a good book and a great companion to the TV series. BUT.....and now for the crunch. I cannot help feeling that as a result of the book and TV series, Dartmouth will suffer the "Burton-Race effect" in exactly the same way that Rick Stein put Padstow in Cornwall on the map. It is no wonder that this town has the nickname, "Padstein". I am quite sure that we will see "Burton-Race's deli" and "Burton-Race's gift shop" etc appear in Dartmouth over the coming years.

I did chuckle to myself when reading the introduction that after returning to the UK from France, John and Kim decided on an extended holiday touring Devon and "discovered"(?) a wonderful sea-side town called Dartmouth. After this, John decided to buy a local restaurant and of course, it just had to be the Carved Angel (which incidentally is legendary among culinary circles in Devon). I suppose it was only a matter of time before he arrived complete with Patricia Llewellyn and film crew....after all "French Leave" was a great success and I suspect Ms Llewellyn came up with the idea of producing a similar programme but in the UK.

In conclusion, the book is good and I've no doubt that it will be a great success but every time I look at this book or watch the TV series, I can't help thinking that Mr Burton-Race is a money-making machine and I've no doubt it will be only a matter of time before we see the obligatory supermarket advert...after all Ms Llewellyn actually discovered a certain Jamie Oliver!.