Did you ever see that film where Meryl Streep played Julia Child? The film tells the true story of a woman who wrote a blog in which she cooked each of Child’s recipes over the course of one year. I have somewhat plagiarised the idea (although I’m sure I can’t be the first) and have decided to cook every recipe from a collection of books by a wonderful food writer. No, not Julia Child. Instead, I will cook every recipe written by Delia Smith.
Recently, I visited a local bookshop and came across a secondhand copy of Delia Smith’s Winter Collection. A chilled, autumn rain fell outside the bookshop – this first of the season. As I flicked through the battered copy of The Winter Collection, I felt warm and cosy. It was exactly that feeling you get when visiting your grandmother’s house for supper. I needed that feeling of home, of comfort.
When I arrived at home with the cookbook, I realised that I had come across it before: my mother cooked from it so I phoned her and we spoke intensely about the food in the book. We had loved the recipe for nutty brownies when children and my parents had introduced us to Carbonara from a recipe in this book.
The more I read of the book, the more recipes I felt compelled to make. Without realising, I had made a commitment to cook every recipe in The Winter Collection. This blog, honestly, is my way of formalising that commitment, (how many times in my life have I started something and not finished it?!) but also for sharing my thoughts and love for the 150 recipes in this collection.
Ben
Cooking with Delia 