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However when it comes to cookery books and particularly cooking features in newspapers and magazines, my respect for minimalism evaporates and instead I revel in over-the-top descriptions of Nigel Slater’s lifetime love affair with cheese and garlic. I also mentally gorge on the modern artistry that is culinary photography, tumbling around in wild imaginings about preparing, presenting and devouring such feasts of crisp fish with garlic, chilli and basil. And that’s what it is most of the time: wild imaginings. I’m a bit of an armchair cook, loving to read the books by night but rarely transforming the mental adulation into a plate of steaming food.
And so, Maureen Evan’s Eat Tweet cookbook, containing 1,000 of her favourite recipes from her Twitter stream, didn’t endear itself to me immediately. Written in Twitterese and bereft of any such photographic artistry, it seemed as about as inviting as a dictionary. I was also marginally concerned that this book might function only for the seasoned cook, taking technique for granted and not for somebody who mightn’t know how to make a béarnaise sauce by heart.