GATHERING INGREDIENTS...

...or ingreedyments, as one of my nieces used to call them. I'll be cooking up a storm later for a family get-together this weekend. Food is always the most important element of family gatherings.

This is one of my favourite ever cookery books. I inadvertently gave away my first copy (lent it to a friend who genuinely thought it was a present), and spent ages - before the internet had properly kicked in - hunting down another copy. I eventually tracked it down in Clarissa Dickson-Wright's shop in Edinburgh. She was there, and told me off for giving away my previous copy. I didn't tell her that my mother used to work with, and admire, her father, as C D-W's negative opinions of him were well-known at the time. Since then I've guarded the book carefully.