Cookbooks

I enjoyed an unusual cookbook recently, unusual in that it is by a South African, Melissa Bushby, but also because it is to all intents and purposes vegan, although I didn't notice until after I'd marked several "must-try" recipes. It's called The Vegetarian Kitchen, (Struik), but the author explains that when her husband was found to be dairy-intolerant, they modified their vegetarian diet to become dairy-free as well.

The food is attractive, modern and, needless to say, healthy -sweet potato and courgette fritters, spiced potato wedges, numerous salads and soups, mushroom pie, several pasta dishes, breads and condiments. But it was the cakes and baking (without butter or eggs) that made my mouth water - muffins, chilli chocolate cake, orange cake, biscuits and cookies, and even a chocolate ice cream made with coconut milk.

Three new cookbooks from New Zealand cafes have come out recently, Treats from Little and Friday by Kim Evans (Penguin), Pipi by Alexandra Tylee (Random House) and Natalie Oldfield's Dulcie May Kitchen Everyday (HarperCollins).

Oldfield and her family run the Auckland store and cafe named after her grandmother, who instilled the love of food into them. This is her fourth book and it includes many of their favourite recipes both from the shop and their home, such as vanilla crisps, carrot cake with cream cheese icing, roast beef with red wine sauce and vegetables, roast parsnip, lentil and mint salad and their famous pressed sandwiches filled with corned beef, coleslaw, cheese and mustard pickle.

Pipi is Alexandra Tylee's current cafe in Havelock North - it was previously in Greytown and Sydney before that.

Judging from the enticing recipes and photographs it's an inviting place with simple, nurturing food - thin, crispy pizzas with flavourful but not too much topping, hearty soups with surprises like wintergreen soup with a thin flatbread baked on top of the bowl, interesting salads such as cauliflower and almond with orange dressing or quinoa, tuna and purple potato salad, as well as bar snacks, a few cocktails and things for children's parties.

Little and Friday is an Auckland bakery - or rather two neighbourhood cafe bakeries in Newmarket and Takapuna, established by Kim Evans, a self-taught baker with an obvious knack for producing things people will queue for. She shares her recipes in the stylishly produced Treats from Little and Friday. They range from lusciously rich chocolate cakes, to tarts of all types, brioche with sweet or savoury fillings, biscuits, loaves, slices and sweets. One that intrigued me was for orange and rosewater cakes that happen to be gluten-free.

Pasta lovers and lovers of beautifully produced books will drool over The Art of Pasta by Lucio Galletto and David Dale with artwork by Luke Sciberras (Penguin). Galletto, as his name suggests, is Italian and owns Lucio's in Sydney. His chef, Logan Campbell, likes to push the boundaries and this comes through in some of the recipes.

There are instructions for making pasta of various colours and shapes and many recipes, mostly of a traditional nature - broths and soups, sauces of all kinds, meat, fish, vegetable, cheese and of course ravioli and gnocchi, but others are unusual like chocolate tagliatelle with wild boar or baked black tagliatelli with white asparagus. It's amazing the variety of flavours you can put with pasta.