Having recently substantially increased my cookbook collection due to my birthday, I thought it was time to present them to you here, at Sarah Cooks. (PS this only includes cookbooks that I've bought/received for MYSELF, not my mum's ones.)

Reading cookbooks is my thing. Many people my age seem to fill the meaningless stretch of time that we call life by playing videogames, listening to music, surfing the net, chatting on the phone, watching DVDs, working, shopping, going out, clubbing, drinking, smoking, doing drugs, having casual sex etc. I do some of these things too... but my hobby of choice is reading cookbooks.

Anyway, here they are, on top of my chest of drawers. Before my birthday, I still had my high school textbooks (yes really) sitting there, with my cookbooks scattered around the floor, the kitchen, the lounge room... but now the textbooks have been conclusively shoved away, with my cookbooks having pride of place.

I've learnt so much more from cookbooks than I have from textbooks...


My cookbooks

Nigella Lawson
- How to Eat
- How to Be a Domestic Goddess
- Nigella Bites
- Forever Summer
- Feast

Jamie Oliver
- The Return of the Naked Chef
- Happy Days with the Naked Chef
- Jamie's Kitchen
- Jamie's Dinners

Nigel Slater
- Real Food

Bill Granger
- bills open kitchen
- bills food

Neil Perry
- The Food I Love

Stephanie Alexander
- Stephanie's Menus for Food Lovers

Donna Hay
- Modern Classics Vol. 1
- Modern Classics Vol. 2

Jill Dupleix
- Old Food

Michel & Albert Roux
- The Roux Brothers on Patisserie

- The Essential Dessert Cookbook (Murdoch Books)

The best ones out of these are the Nigella ones (duh!), which I love to pieces and read and re-read time and time again, and constantly cook from. How To Eat, her first (and some say, best) book, is my most recent acquisition, and I can't wait to work my way through all 526 pages! (But more on this later...)

Also especially good are Jamie's Dinners and Real Food. Bill Granger also has nice recipes, which are relatively simple to make, quite healthy and light, and usually turn out quite well. But he's not quite as inspiring to read, in a literary sense, as Nigella, Nigel, or even Jamie. I've also got Toast, which is Nigel Slater's autobiography... I can't wait to read that one.

Ooh, I just realised that the last three ones aren't on my shelf. I'm going to go and move them there now...