The design and UX isn't done, Rob and Abbie, okkurrrr! đ
kyliecardell's review against another edition
Light, indulgent, thoughtful -- just like the kind of food Wood writes about so lovingly. I enjoyed the mix of personal reflection and enquiry into the everyday rituals of eating and sharing food & it made me think about the little rituals that permeate my own family and that have shaped an approach to food. My Mum is a wonderful cook, but a cookbook cook -- never deviating from the recipe while I tend to (sometimes at my peril) experiment and play withhold and flavours. Can't get over a little quirk in the book where Wood offers up fish as food for vegetarian friends (?!) but I folded many corners over on recipes to try and all up this was a little treasure of a read.
shelleyrae's review against another edition
4.0
Charlotte Wood's Love & Hunger combines delicious yet simple recipes and cooking tips with philosophical and personal ruminations. It is easily read from cover to cover but then deserves a place amongst your shelves of recipe books, to be pulled out frequently when looking for menu inspiration. Charlotte derives great pleasure from cooking and this book is infused with her passion, but rather than preaching about the correct steps and right tools, Love & Hunger is a conversation about food and cooking.
Love & Hunger encourages an approach to meals that considers food not just merely as fuel for the body but also as a form of nourishment for the mind and soul - from the satisfaction of learning a new skill, like making pastry, to the kindness in providing assistance in times of crisis. Wood urges simplicity and generosity over complicated, intricate dishes and the beauty of fresh ingredients. That is not to say she derides creativity, for she encourages experimentation with ingredients and methods as a way to promote confidence in skills.
The recipes Charlotte shares are varied and include tempting snacks, sides, main meals and deserts. Basics are demystified in chapters like 'How To Roast a Chicken' and the provision of an 'Essential Ingredients' list. Legumes and vegetables are featured quite heavily but there are also recipes for standards such as spaghetti bolognese and Chicken Marbella. The index is sorted both traditionally and by main ingredient so it is a simple task to find a recipe and blank lined pages invite you to add your own notes.
While the recipes are a feature of Love & Hunger, it is Wood's thoughts on food and cooking that makes this much more than a cookbook. Wood writes wonderfully of the way in which food promotes the bonds between families and friends. The ways in which we celebrate with shared feasts, console with hearty dishes or comfort with a favourite meal. She talks of 'mercy meals' shared amongst mourners, relaxed dinners during during beach holidays and dinner parties amongst friends. She reminds us that food is a gift, that cooking should be a work of heart, rather than art, to be enjoyed by those who provide and those who receive it.
Once a month or so my husband and I host a barbeque for friends. Each couple contributes to the meal by bringing either salad, snacks or desert while I serve my own 'secret recipe' versions of fried rice and potato bake. It's always a wonderful night as the children run riot while we adults relax with few drinks to chat. Eventually the men fire up the BBQ (usually when the children start complaining of being starved) and us women gather in the kitchen (I know, terribly sexist of us) to toss salad, butter rolls and then lay out the dishes family style for everyone to fill their plates. As we gnaw on ribs and pass the tomato sauce around the table we talk, and laugh and share. I look forward to these Saturday nights, the food is simple but the ritual of preparing and cooking and eating gives us a reason to gather and helps to reinforce our friendships.
Love & Hunger is an inspiring book which offers something for both the accomplished and novice home cook. It is a reminder to take pleasure in food and cooking and a guide for renewing the joy in preparing and serving meals to loved ones. Love & Hunger will make the perfect addition to your own kitchen, and to the kitchen of those you love.
knightpanda's review against another edition
4.0
I enjoyed this book immensely. More a collection of vignettes on food and the way it figures in Wood's life, Love and Hunger fulled my already burgeoning foodie tendencies and has inspired me to get back into the kitchen and create.
Each chapter is a self-contained story, followed by corresponding recipes. Sometimes I would skip ahead just to see the deliciousness that the chapter would allude to. Wood's recipes are simple, but fresh and colourful, and this is way I prefer to cook. Her emphasis on the best produce (without the wank) prepared with love and flavour mirror my own aspirations for the kitchen. Anyone with any love of cooking will find this book an inspiration.
Each chapter is a self-contained story, followed by corresponding recipes. Sometimes I would skip ahead just to see the deliciousness that the chapter would allude to. Wood's recipes are simple, but fresh and colourful, and this is way I prefer to cook. Her emphasis on the best produce (without the wank) prepared with love and flavour mirror my own aspirations for the kitchen. Anyone with any love of cooking will find this book an inspiration.
bookeboy's review
5.0
I have just finished Charlotte Woodâs Love and Hunger and urge everyone to read it, especially those who must cook every night and resent it, or avoids cooking when they can because they consider it a chore. This book has the power to reignite a passion for life, friendship, food and the everyday.
Part memoir and part recipe book, Love and Hunger can be read cover to cover, as I did, just like a novel, or can be dipped into when the moment requires. Charlotteâs unusual cook book is the wise friend many of us do not have ready at hand 24/7.
Love and Hunger is a guide, an encouragement and an inspiration.
Part memoir and part recipe book, Love and Hunger can be read cover to cover, as I did, just like a novel, or can be dipped into when the moment requires. Charlotteâs unusual cook book is the wise friend many of us do not have ready at hand 24/7.
Love and Hunger is a guide, an encouragement and an inspiration.
viragohaus's review
4.0
A book to warm you through. Its mindful generosity is a great pleasure. So many fab recepies to try to boot
kathryn08's review
4.0
I have to confess that my motives for reading this book were not initially as pure as the driven snow. I originally borrowed it from the library because I needed a book written by an Australian author with a bright cover to satisfy the criteria for one of the challenges I was doing this year. And I realised, as I scrolled through my Australian author bookshelf on Goodreads, that most of the covers I could see (and admittedly there are sometimes different cover variations on the books I get from the library, but I couldnât be bothered looking at all of the different options and then turning up at my library to find the book I wanted didnât have the same cover!) looked fairly drab, muted, pale, or colourless. So I looked further afield and found this one, which sounded like it would interest me.
Once I started it, at first I was a little surprised as I expected more of Charlotte Woodâs attitudes and responses to foods and her observations or research of other peopleâs attitudes and responses - which we do get a little of (and there is more further on in the book), but in the first chapters there is more focussing on specific procedures such as how to roast a chook, or concepts such as regaining your mojo in the kitchen when youâve lost the desire to cook. Which is all fine - just not quite what I was expecting!
I liked the authorâs mention of how far we have come in culinary matters - pointing out that in The Commonsense Cookery Book, published in 1976, that out of 130 recipes, only three called for garlic - and in quite measured quantities - âthree thin slices of garlicâ for spaghetti bolognese!! I already had a mantra that garlic in recipes can normally be safely doubled, but if Iâm referring to a cook book from the 1980s or earlier, I think Iâll increase that factor to at least 5 times as much!
I enjoyed her comparisons of cooking with writing and some of the associated quotes:
âWhat pleases me first as a reader is the feeling that Iâm in completely safe hands - at times I think this is the aspect of reading that gives me the most pleasure of all; a writerâs control of their material, their effortless-seeming blend of form and content to create something seamless, something beautiful. Itâs a kind of beauty that has nothing to do with the story itself, but everything to do with its construction."
And while I agree with a lot of the things that the author says about foods and cooking and our attitudes to all such things, I have to say - although perhaps I am on my own here out in the land of the food Philistines - that I still like apricot chicken when I have it on occasion, despite her statement that apricot chicken has been consigned to the âretro joke bookâ.
I am now interested to read Charlotte Woods' fiction books to see if her fiction writing style is as good as her nonfiction style!
Once I started it, at first I was a little surprised as I expected more of Charlotte Woodâs attitudes and responses to foods and her observations or research of other peopleâs attitudes and responses - which we do get a little of (and there is more further on in the book), but in the first chapters there is more focussing on specific procedures such as how to roast a chook, or concepts such as regaining your mojo in the kitchen when youâve lost the desire to cook. Which is all fine - just not quite what I was expecting!
I liked the authorâs mention of how far we have come in culinary matters - pointing out that in The Commonsense Cookery Book, published in 1976, that out of 130 recipes, only three called for garlic - and in quite measured quantities - âthree thin slices of garlicâ for spaghetti bolognese!! I already had a mantra that garlic in recipes can normally be safely doubled, but if Iâm referring to a cook book from the 1980s or earlier, I think Iâll increase that factor to at least 5 times as much!
I enjoyed her comparisons of cooking with writing and some of the associated quotes:
âWhat pleases me first as a reader is the feeling that Iâm in completely safe hands - at times I think this is the aspect of reading that gives me the most pleasure of all; a writerâs control of their material, their effortless-seeming blend of form and content to create something seamless, something beautiful. Itâs a kind of beauty that has nothing to do with the story itself, but everything to do with its construction."
And while I agree with a lot of the things that the author says about foods and cooking and our attitudes to all such things, I have to say - although perhaps I am on my own here out in the land of the food Philistines - that I still like apricot chicken when I have it on occasion, despite her statement that apricot chicken has been consigned to the âretro joke bookâ.
I am now interested to read Charlotte Woods' fiction books to see if her fiction writing style is as good as her nonfiction style!
starwolvie's review
3.0
I'm quite partial to reading books about food. It was a quick read that was part memoir part musing on food. What did shine through was her love of food and how it can bring people together.
I skipped through the recipes that were included at the end of each chapter - but they may be useful for cooks who aren't as experienced.
I skipped through the recipes that were included at the end of each chapter - but they may be useful for cooks who aren't as experienced.
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