A celebration of perhaps our finest food writer. But how to pick just 20 recipes from a stellar career of more than 50 years. Some choose themselves: definitive chicken soup from The Book of Jewish Food; essential orange and almond cake from A New Book of Middle Eastern Food. But here, too, are apple latkes, tarte pissaladière, roast chicken with couscous, raisin and almonds. There’s white haricot beans with clams from Spain, fish soup with saffron from the south of […]

Med: a CookbookClaudia Roden(Ebury, £28)More than 50 years after her groundbreaking, genre-defining A Book of Middle Eastern Food, Claudia Roden has produced another triumph that this time travels around the Mediterranean. The most revered of living food writers (by me at least) has relaxed. The recipes are simple and of course immaculate, the writing is effortless. Read and cook from it often. AJBuy it for adding to your Claudia Roden collectionOrder your copy at guardianbookshop.com Nigel Slater’s A Cook’s Book. […]