Kitchen prep

I was very inspired by Cheryl and Gavin Meek, who last weekend invited someone they had never met before (me) around for dinner. It was such a lovely night I thought I'd dust down my old cook books and start planning some lunch and dinner parties.

Unfortunately I realised the last cook book I bought was in around 1990 and culinary trends have moved on somewhat.

I'm an avid viewer of cookery programmes and I know chefs publish recipes in newspapers all the time, but they always save the best for the book.

Also books are nice aren't they.

So yesterday I popped in to Waterstones in Notting Hill, sat down in an armchair and started browsing my favourite chefs.

It didn't take me long to settle on Tom Kerridge (the first man to be awarded a Michelin Star cooking in a pub).

I photographed the man, alongside many other chefs at the London restaurant Festival a few years ago and found him to be terribly nice and friendly, despite being photographed during lunch service.

The book is called 'Tom Kerridge's best ever dishes' and I am currently working on 'Lamb breast with caper and mustard glaze' (quite simple and only takes 9 hours to prepare). It's a clever recipe because lamb breast is a very cheap cut of meat but requires a lot of slow cooking to render down the fat and make it tender. You have to partially cure it to start with too.

Can't wait for the result.