Tender

With over 400 recipe ideas and many wonderful stories from the cook’s garden, Tender: Volume I – A cook and his vegetable patch, is the definitive guide to cooking with vegetables from the presenter of BBC One’s Simple Cooking. 'I would like to think I know more now than I did before I picked up my trowel and dug that first furrow of red and white radishes. How to get the best out of a vegetable yes, but also what are the different ways to treat it in the kitchen, which seasonings will make it sing, what other ingredients is it most comfortable or most exciting with. What are the classic recipes not to be missed by a newcomer and what new ways are there which might be of interest to an old hand.' In his inimitable, unpretentious style Nigel Slater, the presenter of BBC One’s Simple Cooking, elevates vegetables to the starring role in his latest cook book, whether that means enjoying vegetables for their own sake or on the same plate as a piece of meat or fish. From crab cakes and crushed peas to broccoli and lamb stir-fry, luxury cauliflower cheese to a delicious broad bean salad, ‘Tender’ has everything a cook could want from a recipe book.

'Slater applies his very evocative, sensual writing style to such topics as tomato varieties – which ones he likes and why – with impressive verve…it's an inspiring read; we are left feeling if he can do it, so could we.' Guy Dimond, Time Out, Book of the Week 'Slater's writing, always a bit exquisite, has here been burnished a stage further into prose poetry…it is nothing less than a combined spiritual testament and devotional manual: a guide to the way of St Nigel…he's genuinely original…Nothing here is second-hand, let alone insincere. And that makes Tender a book to treasure, to read and re-read, as well as to cook from…it really is that rarity, a companion for life.' David Sexton, Evening Standard 'A fine collection of honest, interesting, life-sustaining recipes that beg the reader to pick up a vegetable knife and start chopping.' Daily Telegraph 'Suffused with genuine passion and the author's natural enthusiasm for veg, growing it and cooking it…It is a timely guide as recession has sent us all back to the land, with allotment waiting lists stretching out for years.' Sunday Telegraph 'The don of them all.' Daily Mail 'This is one to treasure, beautifully written, informative and inspiring in equal measure.' Fuschia Dunlop, FT, Books of the Year 'Gorgeous recipes.' Ben Wilson, Sunday Times, Books of the Year 'A book so beautiful that you crave Slater's life and his garden.' Kate Colquhoun, Daily Telegraph, Books of the Year ‘Brilliant as always.’ Leslie Geddes Brown, Country Life Magazine, Books of the Year

Nigel Slater is the author of a collection of bestselling books, including the classics ‘Real Fast Food’ and ‘Real Cooking’, and the award-winning ‘Appetite’. He has written a much-loved column for ‘The Observer’ for over a decade. His autobiography, ‘Toast – the story of a boy's hunger’, won six major awards, including the British Biography of the Year, the Glenfiddich Award and the André Simon Memorial Award. ‘The Kitchen Diaries’ won the Design and Production Award at the 2006 British Book Trade Awards.