If all you do with cookbooks is put them on your coffee table and admire the glossy snapshots of amazing dishes, here's a book that might get you back in the kitchen.
Some people rarely cooked in their lifetime and feel intimidated, don't know where to start.
With Forgotten Skills of Cooking, Darina Allen (some call her the Julia Child of Ireland) gets back to basics with 700 recipes "divided into chapters such as 'Dairy', 'Fish', 'Bread' and 'Preserving'
and forgotten processes such as smoking mackerel, curing bacon and
making yogurt and butter are explained in the simplest terms."
I remember the days (about 20 years ago) when I used to make my own yogurts using the pressure cooker.
Want to get a taste of what Darina has in store for us, she guides us on How to make Jam and 'Everything you need
to know about making jam from scratch and an easy first recipe to get
you started' (Guardian, March 10)
The book was published by Kyle Cathie in the UK in 2009 and just released in the US.