Cool People

Speaking of Cool People, as we were with Barack and Michelle, brings us to Michelle and Erik, founders of Dublin's blessed trinity of ELY winebars.
Mr and Mrs Robson have, for ten years now, proven themselves to be brilliant restaurateurs, with an intuitive understanding of what people want and how they want it. And that is why ELY, ELY CHQ and ELY HQ work. They serve us the things we want, the way we want them: fine wines, good food, great surroundings.
Ten years ago, they opened on Ely Place with that simple mantra. Ten years later, that mantra is made to work each and every day in all three ELYs
They have proven in their work that Cool can mean modest, hard-working, understated, generous. They show that Cool can be a part of everything you do: the wines you select and the way you serve them; the attitude and grace of your staff; the design of the rooms in which you work; the confidence to keep things simple, but genuine. That is Cool. That is The Cool.
And now, with a stunning book, “the wine and food of ely through the seasons”, they take that Cool to another level. This is a landmark book in Irish food publishing. It is pure gorgeous. The food is amazing. The wine writing is concise and wears its learning lightly. It is witty, and often downright funny. It is everything that ELY represents, on the printed page.
It is The Cool.

Cookery Book: Good Things by Jane Grigson

Ann Dolamore is the sharpest food publisher on the block. She has a habit of snatching up neglected classics and turning them into smart new editions for her company, Grub Street, and her new edition of Jane Grigson's "Good Things" is one of the nicest reprints she has ever done.

All of the late Mrs Grigson's books are cherishable, but GT is perhaps the most personal of all her works, and all the better for it. There is a chapter on prunes. There is a chapter on chicory. There is a chapter on sweetbreads. Throughout there is wisdom and learning, lightly displayed and despatched.

Here is a typically charming recipe from this precious volume, and one that has become a kitchen classic.

Curried Parsnip Soup
3oz butterlarge parsnip
4oz chopped onion
1 clove garlic, crushed
tablespoon flour
rounded teaspoon curry powder
2 pints hot beef stock
quarter pint cream

Peel and dice the parsnip. Put the onion, parsnip and garlic into a heavy pan with the butter and cook for 10 minutes slowly with the lid on the pan. The vegetables must not brown, but gently absorb the butter. Add flour and curry powder to take up the fat, and gradually incorporate the hot beef stock. Simmer until the parsnip is cooked. Liquidize or push through the mouli-legumes. Return to the pan, correct seasoning with salt, pepper and a little more curry powder if liked (but be cautious: keep the flavour mild.) Add the cream and a spinkling of choppedchives. Serve with croutons of bread fried in butter and oil.

Note: Liquidized soup may need the further dilution of some extra stock, or some creamy milk.

Cookery Book: Cook Simple by Diana Henry

Megabytes has often praised the work of Diana Henry, especially her classic first book, "Crazy Water, Pickled Lemons". Somehow, as well as writing for The Sunday Telegraph. Ms Henry is managing a cookery book each year, and her latest is another beauty. "Cook Simple" borrows it's name from Escoffier's dictum, "Faites Simple", and takes the idea of simple cooking to deliciously logical extremes.

The chapters are divided up into menu mainstays - Chicken; Chops; Sausages; Leg of Lamb; Fish; Pasta; Leaves and Herbs - and so on, and the imprimatur is that the dishes involve the minimum amount of work, of which the opening recipe, Pacific Lime Chicken, gives a classic example. "A recipe, from a café in Hawaii, which I have been cooking for years. There's practically no cooking, but everyone loves this dish…" Diana writes.

Another smart, friendly book that will be dog-eared and stain-splattered before you know it.
Mitchell Beazley £20stg.

What cookery book has made a huge difference to your Monday to Friday cooking?

Cookery Book: "Cooking by Hand" by Paul Bertolli

When did you last come across a cookery book that had been conceived and executed as a work of art? Today, the majority of successful cookery books are works of pure commerce: Nigella, having done Feast, must now deliver Fast, because what else can constitute a framework for the next television series? Jamie, having delivered the Cookery Bible (the big book!) must now do The Good Life, because what else can constitute a framework for the next television series?

It wasn't always like this. The greatest cookery Books - Simple French Food by Richard Olney; A Book of Middle Eastern Food by Claudia Roden; Honey From a Weed by Patience Gray, to name just three - are self-consciously Works of Art, as well as supremely useful cookery books which grant you recipes for your lifetime.

Books by Marcella Hazan, Jane Grigson, Alice Waters and Elizabeth David are designed not simply to be practical, but also to convey the aesthetic of their subject. They are, very decisively, not books of their moment: they are books of their generation, if not indeed of their century.
So, where might you go looking today for something as fine as these great classics. Well, finding a conduit through Alice Waters and her supreme aesthetic is a good place to start. It was whilst reading an article on Chez Panisse alumni -folk like Steve Sullivan of Acme Bakery, Mary Jo Thorensen of Jojo, and Paul Bertolli, former head chef for a decade who moved on to Oliveto restaurant and who has now set up his own specialist salami company, Fra'Mani - that we looked up Mr Bertolli's site and discovered a 2003 cookery book, "Cooking by Hand", that had never been printed here. Having got our hands on a copy, published by Clarkson Potter, it shows what a shame it is that in this age of commerce a brilliant, exceptional book such as this doesn't cross the Atlantic.

"Cooking By Hand" is the cookery book as art. That's not to say it's a big, glossy tome like The French Laundry Cookbook: it isn't. It's almost exclusively in black and white, with just a few colour photographs. But Bertolli's obsessions - tomatoes, charcuterie; pasta, balsamic vinegar - are treated here as subjects to be teased and explored, executed and considered, and to be written about is stunning aphoristic prose:

The trouble with cooking begins when you decide to take it seriously. This raises the question: 'What does seriously good cooking mean I must do?'. As long as I have been cooking in earnest, this question has led me down trails full of circles and switchbacks, sometimes taking me directly into the brambles. And the learning never ends. The idea of 'mastering' cooking now seems more like an illusion than a goal".

How wise and modest that is, and that is what this book is: wise and modest, and not a "pukka" in sight.

Tell us your favourite cookery-as-art book