The writer and broadcaster chooses his top five food books. His first cookbook, "Nights Out At Home" – with recipes for favourite dishes collected over his 25 years as a restaurant critic – is out this week.
Roast Chicken and Other Stories
As I discovered when I came to write my own, good cookbooks aren’t just about great recipes. They are about tone, about the sense of a trustworthy, non-judgemental hand on your shoulder. Hopkinson’s book, arranged by ingredient, and beautifully illustrated rather than full of shiny photography, gets that just right.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The Food of Sichuan
Fuchsia Dunlop, 2019
Dunlop has done more than almost anyone to widen our understanding of the breadth of Chinese food. This book, first published in 2001 and now reissued and updated, demystifies everything. With Dunlop as your guide, an eye-widening and delicious world of chillies, Sichuan peppercorns and fermented bean pastes opens up before you.
Motherland: A Jamaican Cookbook
Melissa Thompson, 2022
Caribbean food has, for too long, been either ignored or characterised as monolithic and merely about a couple of familiar dishes such as jerk or rice and peas. Both are in this magnificent volume, which focuses on Jamaica – but there is so much more. Plus, there’s a deft narrative which moves it into the anthropology column.
Heartburn
Nora Ephron, 1983
Simply the funniest, smartest food-based novel ever written, by the co-writer of "When Harry Met Sally". It’s a true classic. Treat yourself. You’ll never look at a key lime pie in the same way again.
Do Yourself a Flavour
Fliss Freeborn, 2023
If you’re waving off a new student this year, this is the cookbook to give them. Too many student cookbooks are written by people for whom university life is a distant memory. Freeborn is not long graduated. More importantly, she is a brilliant writer full of wit, vigour and insight.
-
How travel insurance through a credit card worksThe explainer Use a card with built-in coverage to book your next trip
-
‘We owe it to our young people not to lie to them anymore’instant opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Chile picks leftist, far-right candidates for runoff voteSpeed Read The presidential runoff election will be between Jeannette Jara, a progressive from President Gabriel Boric’s governing coalition, and far-right former congressman José Antonio Kast
-
The 8 greatest heist movies of all timethe week recommends True stories, social commentary and pure escapism highlight these great robbery movies
-
Film reviews: ‘Jay Kelly’ and ‘Sentimental Value’Feature A movie star looks back on his flawed life and another difficult dad seeks to make amends
-
6 homes on the Gulf CoastFeature Featuring an elegant townhouse in New Orleans’ French Quarter and contemporary coastal retreat in Texas
-
The vast horizons of the Puna de AtacamaThe Week Recommends The ‘dramatic and surreal’ landscape features volcanoes, fumaroles and salt flats
-
The John Lewis ad: touching, or just weird?Talking Point This year’s festive offering is full of 1990s nostalgia – but are hedonistic raves really the spirit of Christmas?
-
Margaret Atwood’s memoir, intergenerational trauma and the fight to make spousal rape a crime: Welcome to November booksThe Week Recommends This month's new releases include ‘Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts’ by Margaret Atwood, ‘Cursed Daughters’ by Oyinkan Braithwaite and 'Without Consent' by Sarah Weinman
-
5 ghost towns worth haunting on your next road tripEnjoy a glimpse of the past
-
Train Dreams pulses with ‘awards season gravitas’The Week Recommends Felicity Jones and Joel Edgerton star in this meditative period piece about a working man in a vanished America
