Voluptuous Delights.

For Christmas I was given Sophie Dahl's cookery book. Her first one; Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights. Yesterday I sat down with it for the first time, to give it a proper once over. I could read cookery books like novels, and none so fervently as one written by Sophie Dahl, from cover to cover. She's a writer, she loves to indulge, she's infatuated by food, and she describes it all with phrases like: "Puddings were towering, trembling creations: lemon mousse, scented with summer; chocolate souffles, bitter and proud." It would be strange for me not to like her.

It's a cookery book-cum-autobiography. Of course the narrative centers around food and her love thereof, but incorporated into it are insights into her character and her life growing up. Which I think is excellent. She says of her eighteen year old self: "I had no real idea about what I wanted to do, just some vague fantasies involving writing, a palazzo, an adoring Italian, daily love letters and me in a Sophia Loren sort of dress, weaving through a Roman market holding a basket of ripe scented figs." My sort of lady. Every Romantic's dream. Her writing and her stories are just as appealing as her recipes. I would like to inhale her words just as I would like to inhale her desserts.

Her relationship with food correlates with her story. She eats beautiful looking and beautiful tasting food, and indulges in it simply because it is pleasurable. I agree with her sentiment. Why should we eat food (or partake in anything, really) that doesn't benefit us or make us feel good? Of course I am not saying over-indulge. Because if you do it too much, it's no longer special.

The book is separated by the seasons. She lists her favourite Winter breakfasts, lunches and suppers, and so on for Spring, Summer and Autumn; each recipe with a short anecdote about when she first ate it, who she likes to make it for, or the kind of mood, most preferable, for this specific meal. There's a lot of vegetarian food included, which bodes well with me. It's all fresh and colourful, but not skimping on the butter. There's a perfect mix of sweet and savory breakfasts, always using seasonal ingredients. And it just looks yum, okay? I can't wait to get started, making my way through it.