I ADORE THE TITLE OF THIS BOOK. It makes my heart melt as if it was the swede in his pasty recipe (560), or the centre of his chocolate beetroot cake (p.78), or the gratin of white cabbage, cheese and mustard (p.156) or the pumpkin scone (502).

I buy cookery books all the time. None are as useful or as beautiful as Nigel's. If I come across an ingredient in my veg-box or in the fishmonger or wherever, and I think to myself in the shop, "how could i turn this into my dinner?", the recipes and ideas that spring to mind are almost always from Nigel's books, or the folders I have full of Nigel's Observer newspaper recipes. Leafing through 'Tender' this morning with a cup of tea (I did preorder it for yesterday but I was out when the citylink van turned up) it is clear that this book will become the most well thumbed of all my collection. Cooking with a Nigel Slater book liberates you very quickly to cooking in a certain way, adapting recipes, swapping flavourings etc.

'Tender' carries on the precedent set by Kitchen Diaries for breathtakingly beautiful book-design and photography.

I have already decided what we're having for dinner, and everything is already in the house... it's on page 506.

xx