Keep it Simple: Fresh Look at Classic Cooking

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It's partly about admitting the limits of one's ambition; but it's more about one's attitude to failure. The majority of pages are undamaged with some creasing or tearing, and pencil underlining of text, but this is minimal.

The mouli doesn't work as he says, and on turning out the soufflé collapses flat and the sauce became a quarter deep layer on top of it, ie. If you gave him a human brain he might poach it lightly in a reduction of 1978 Cornas and top it with a mortar-board made of liquorice; but he might not understand all that had been going on inside it before he popped it into the pot.The publisher of Simple French Food meanly had the book glued rather than sewn, and the pages you use regularly just fall out when you open it.

This much loved cookbook (and the eponymous restaurant) was part of my life for far too short a time, but it was a joy to revisit the book after almost thirty many years! My annotation of Olney's Courgette Pudding Soufflé (and I apologise in advance for the language) goes as follows: "This dinner for 2 took me 4 hours. One of the best weeks I have ever had, full of simple classic Italian cooking, lots of laughs and in a dreamy setting. Discover the joy of reading with us, your trusted source for affordable books that do not compromise on quality. In any case, he said an oven thermometer was essential; you also had to make sure the heat had stabilised before putting the meat in.Fusion food does make its mark in this book but it would be unfair to characterise the whole work as that; some dishes may be fusion inspired but others owe clear allegiance to a particular national culinary tradition.

A restaurant critic told me the other day Mr B also believes that if you prick each chip individually with a fork, this makes for an even finer end-product; but that for some reason (like straining our credulity) he didn't put this in the recipe. The recipes are organised seasonally and reflect Little's interest in Italian, Japanese, Chinese and French cookery. The last of them was developed to a greater degree by another Glenfiddich Award winner: the thoroughly British The River Cottage Year. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. If we make a dish once, and it turns out anything from a serious muff to a complete hash, then we don't cook it again.It was, inevitably, in that drawer where you put such things and then forget about them, where everything is tangled up - whisks with chopsticks through their wires - a shameful place.