14 Gardening 73030 TALES FROM MY


GRANDMOTHER’S KITCHEN by Jessica Gibson


Traditional, rich, classic recipes are in danger of being forgotten in the fast-paced, food fad world of the present day. This sumptuous book, based on the recipes collected, sifted and perfected by her colourful Chilean grandmother, recalls the author’s memories of extravagant creations lathered in cream, often


dosed in brandy - exquisite, but never plain and homely. They encompassed appetising appetisers, succulent dressings for ‘the rabbit food’, savouries to go with the ‘dutiful drinks’, the main course - or in Grandmother Mimi’s terms ‘the main event’, and ‘sticky endings’, as well as a few ‘sweet stories’. We have to admit that rabbit food would be vastly improved by the Green Goddess Dressing, that Cheese Savouries and Pisco Sour are perfect partners, that Spiced Red Cabbage with Caramelised Chestnuts is infinitely superior to plain old greens, and that Prince Charles’ Pancakes are a delicious way to round off a meal. A charming, and perhaps timely, nostalgic trip into a foodie’s past. 158 pages with line drawings and conversion tables for weights and volume.


£9.95 NOW £4 72338 LAROUSSE


GASTRONOMIQUE: Recipe Collection


designed by Laura Palese Since its original publication in 1938, Larousse Gastronomique has withstood the test of time and trend to remain the world’s most authoritative culinary reference work. Its comprehensive collection of 2500 classic recipes makes it an indispensible resource. Recently


updated, every one of these recipes has now been organised into four compact paperback volumes and presented in a glamorous slipcase. The first is Meat, Poultry and Game with more than 800 essential recipes and nearly 200 additional recipes for such basics as pastries, condiments, garnishes, stuffings, marinades and more. Roast the woodcock until rare and slice the meat to make Cold Woodcock à la Diane. Put red burgundy into your saucepan and bring to the boil to make Roebuck Noisettes with Red Wine and Roast Pear. Hare with Cherries, Guinea Fowl Salad with Fruit, Ballotine of Goose with Savigny-lès-Baune are among the recipes. 533pp with colour photos. The second volume presents 500 quintessential fish and seafood recipes including Lobster Thermidor, Salmon Koulibiac, Pike Quenelles Mousselin and more than 150 recipes for sauces, dressings, glazes, condiments and stocks. 344pp in paperback with colour photos. The third volume provides landmark vegetable and salad recipes such as Asparagus Mousse, Gratin Dauphinois, Mushroom Duxelles, Truffles with Champagne, Sauerkraut and 600 other classic preparations along with sauces, dressings, pastries, butters, stocks and more. 304pp with colour photos. The fourth volume looks at timeless desserts, cakes and pastries from Black Forest Gateau and Passion Fruit Sorbet to Doughnuts, Stollen, Muscat Grape Tartlet, Savoy Sponge Cake to the Russian Cheesecake, Vatrouchka. 352pp in paperback with colour photos, 500 quintessential desserts, plus 60 recipes for sauces, custards, icings, preserves, creams and more. Slipcased box set. $60 NOW £22.50


52782 DICTIONARY OF PUB NAMES A fascinating compilation containing nearly 5000 absorbing entries and can be dipped into for fun or consulted on a serious level for intriguing and amusing information not readily available elsewhere. The local pub is an institution unique to the British Isles, but since English literature abounds with references to hostelries past and present, real and imagined, and no tourist’s itinerary is complete without a visit to one or several on their route. 446 page paperback. ONLY £4


71008 FOOD FOR FREE by Richard Mabey The book was first published in 1972 and became an instant cult success. Beautifully illustrated, it helps you identify 240 wild foods including fungi, seaweed, shellfish, roots, vegetables, herbs, spices, flowers, fruits and nuts and includes some picking rules. With a new foreword and recipes, it also suggests the best ways to cook and eat them to discover their delicious and often exotic flavours and aromas. Heavyweight softback, 272pp, colour line art. £12.99 NOW £4.50


71289 BEERS AND BREWERIES OF BRITAIN by Roger Putman


Beer is an alcoholic beverage fermented by yeast using sugar from a cereal source. Today the cereal is mainly malted barley and beer is almost universally flavoured with hops. The book answers every question you might have about British beer and brewing such as did you know that more than 2000 barley corns are required to make each pint of beer? Each pint contributes useful protein, vitamins, minerals and fibre with low levels of salt, free sugar and no fat or cholesterol whatsoever. Cheers to that! Today there are more than 2000 brands to choose from. 56pp in paperback with colour photos. £5.99 NOW £3


71583 PERFECT PLACES FOR AFTERNOON TEA


by AA Publishing and the Tea Guild Find dozens of award-winning cafés, many with picturesque views of rivers, handmade cakes and seasonal produce. There are some excellent walks suggested through magnificent estates, medieval villages like Penthurst, all with OS explorer map references and maps provided along with opening times, addresses, telephones, e-mails, websites, directions and what to eat, whether it is a Devon cream tea or strawberries and even notes on friendly service from smiling staff. 304 glossy pages, colour photos. Paperback. £9.99 NOW £2


71596 GOOD HOUSEKEEPING: The Baking Book edited by Meike Beck


Featuring more than 400 delicious, sweet and savoury recipes, this baking compendium helps you prepare scrumptious scones for afternoon tea, elaborate cakes for special event or fresh cookies for the biscuit tin covering all the basic baking techniques as well as advanced methods such as pastry making, cake decorating and sugar crafts. From bread rolls to brioche, glazes to gateau, pizzas to pies, here are beautiful Mini Green Cupcakes, Clown Cake, Cherry Clafoutis, Pitta Bread, Pistachio Baklava, Summer Fruit Parcels to Steak and Kidney Pie and Orange and Chocolate Cheesecake. A beautifully designed 352 page large hardback, colour photos.


£25 NOW £7


71773 HALOGEN OVEN SECRET by Norma Miller


Anyone with a halogen oven will know it is miraculous and have rapidly risen to popularity because it can grill, defrost, bake, steam and roast, cook, brown and cook everything fast, with this multi-purpose, portable, table- top oven. Here are over 100 tried and tested tasty recipes from traditional Shepherd’s Pie, Toad in the Hole, Sweet and Sour Pork and Chicken Curry to Fish Kebabs with Mango Salsa, Mustard Sardines, Nutty Pork Meatballs in Chilli Tomato Sauce, Sticky Chicken Wings with Green Salsa to Roasted Pineapple Wedges, Crème Brûlée, Coffee Cake with Butterscotch Cream, Fruit Cake and even Viennese Whirls. 192pp in large softback, colour photos. £7.99 NOW £4


71709 COOK’S HERB GARDEN: Grow Harvest


Cook by Jeff Cox and Marie-Pierre Moine A delightful practical pot-to-plate guide to successfully growing and cooking with herbs. It is a photographic catalogue of over 120 herbs with notes on flavour, best growing conditions and use in the kitchen schemes for window boxes and pots such as Mediterranean, Everyday Essentials and Salad Herbs. There is step-by- step advice on how to plant, nurture, harvest, store and prepare herbs on small and larger scales, and finally a collection of over 60 recipes which include flavoured butters, oils, vinegars, rubs, marinades, salads and dressings. The Mixed Herb Pesto, Tarragon Butter and Cream of Herb and Guacamole Soups particularly caught our eye! 192pp.


£12.99 NOW £5.50


72197 MARY BERRY’S DESSERTS: Recipes to Impress by Mary Berry


Should you wish to master the classics like Apple Strudel or Crème Brûlée, you will discover how easy they are to prepare, or if you would like to charm children from six to 96, then Swan Cream Puffs and Meringue Mushrooms will help you to do just that. Whether you want mousses and soufflés, pancakes and crêpes, cakes and biscuits or just hot puddings, life’s a jolly holiday with Mary. 264 pages 21.5cm x 27.5cm with close-up photos in colour, plus diagrams and step-by-step instructions.


£14.99 NOW £7


72221 THIS IS ALCOHOL by Nick Brownlee Alcohol is a highly toxic poison. Worldwide it has killed 20 times more teenagers in the last ten years than heroin or ecstasy and is annually responsible for almost 2 million deaths. But alcohol is a constant in world history, a staple of the world’s diet, a global currency transcending barriers of language, nationality and culture. It arouses wit, wisdom, compassion, comradeship and love. Covers culture, world, history, health and money and even has photographs of brain scans showing areas of electrical activity in a normal and alcoholic patient. 180 page illustrated paperback. £6.99 NOW £3


GARDENING


God Almighty first planted a garden. And indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures.


- Francis Bacon


72890 SELF SUSTAINING GARDEN: The Guide to Matrix


Planting by Peter Thompson By combining plants into self- governing communities - “matrix” gardening - we can create delightful gardens that require much less maintenance and, as an added benefit, less chemical control. Peter Thompson, ex-head of Physiology


at Kew Gardens, first explains the principles of matrix gardening, then goes on to help you establish what will work best in your garden, how to create a partnership between plants and use biological solutions to control both plants and pests, and how to improve soil health. Chapters which deal with different aspects of garden design, written in collaboration with his wife Josie Owen, a much-respected landscape gardener, look at pools and wet areas, grasses, mixed borders and utilising shade and shelter, and each of these chapters includes a great many actual case studies from her many years’ experience, demonstrating how the matrix approach can be used to solve all kinds of gardening headaches. Aimed specifically at those gardening in temperate climates, most of the case studies are from England and Wales, including one which made us laugh, the retired (and, not surprisingly, divorced) barristers’ clerk who wanted his suburban garden set up to encourage wife- swapping at his broad-minded barbeque parties! Colour photos and Josie’s drawings. 192pp, 8"×10". £16.99 NOW £6


72779 PRACTICAL ILLUSTRATED GUIDE TO


GARDENING FOR SENIORS by Patty Cassidy The beauty of gardening is that you can do as much or as little as you like, making it an excellent outdoor activity for seniors. This practical, user-friendly and


!


beautifully illustrated book covers all aspects of gardening, including warm-up exercises that will help to avoid strain. Suitable tools, equipment and clothes are essential for safe and labour-saving gardening. The author has a section on working round disabilities such as arthritis, hypertension, problems of balance and visual impairment, and also covers gardening from a wheelchair. She explains how to bend down and lift things safely, together with techniques of digging to minimise jarring, and also covers weeding, watering and mulching for those with limited mobility. It is important to assess your garden in the light of your capacity for physical work, and low-maintenance gardens and plants, including shrubs, perennials and ground cover, are a recommended option, with raised flower beds for the wheelchair-bound. Colourful gardens give pleasure to the visually impaired, and it is also possible to organise your planting to maximise pleasant sounds such as the rustle of grasses and the hum of insects. Among the specific projects described here are patio gardens, window boxes, vertical planting on walls and fences, and making a raised bed from wood, bricks or a kit. A plant directory concludes, including fruit, vegetables and indoor plants. 256pp, large format, 900 gorgeous photos. ONLY £8


73176 BEDSIDE BOOK OF THE GARDEN


by Dr D. G. Hessayon Gardening, the author admits, has to be about planning, planting and pottering, but it is also about sitting back occasionally and just looking and imagining. The trouble with most gardening books, he says, is that they always tell you to do something - go out and prune the


shrubs, spray the apple trees, plant the cabbages and so on. They are always encouraging you to go out and buy things - the most up-to-date lawnmower, the newest weed killer or the latest rose varieties which are so much better than the ones growing in your garden. Here is a just-lazing book to settle back and enjoy, filled with the wonderful features and the fascination of our favourite national pastime. In these pages, you will discover gardens you may never see, plants you may never grow and people you will never meet, but each one has its own special story, casts its own enchantment and has lessons to teach all of us who love our gardens. You can also read about the way in which they did things in the past, and about people long since dead who gave us the plants and great gardens of today. In case all this inactivity makes you restless, here too are all sorts of gentle, garden-linked jobs to do indoors, from making wine to windowsill allotments. You will also find a wealth of surprising facts, folklore and favourite sayings that cannot fail to open your eyes to the magic of the garden. 334 pages with line drawings and silk bookmark.


£12.99 NOW £6 72457 HANDBOOK OF


BONSAI by Craig Coussins Bonsai originated in China, where it is called penjing, but in the 17th century the Japanese adopted 30 Chinese species and started to develop their own unique form of cultivation. In the past 50 years the whole Bonsai scene has changed, as the post-war


availability of copper wire meant that it was no longer necessary to rely on clipping to create a Bonsai resembling a full-size tree in shape and perspective. During the 1960s Bonsai trees were exported to the west, but many growers killed the plants through ignorance. Today the art of Bonsai is better understood, and growers throughout the world produce impressive specimens, some of which are pictured in this practical book. When choosing a Bonsai the beginner is advised to select a quick-growing species such as maple, juniper or cypress. Watering and placement are crucial, and for the enthusiast who has expensive Bonsai it is a good idea to ask a friend to cover holidays. Pruning, pinching, cutting-out, potting and repotting are important techniques, and as your Bonsai matures, single and multiple wiring will create your desired shape. The author describes Bonsai care in clear, step-by-step stages, making this an ideal book for the beginner and for the established enthusiast. 240pp, softback, reference table, numerous colour photos. £12.99 NOW £4


72741 SMALL IS BOUNTIFUL: Grow Your Own Vegetable and Fruit in Small


Spaces by Liz Dobbs No garden? No problem! Even the smallest space can yield a bountiful harvest if you know how to use it well and this bright and colourful book, shows us how. We were


absolutely amazed at the quantity and quality of produce you can grow in pots, planters, windowboxes and other containers, and nothing beats the taste of fresh fruit and veg straight from the plant to the plate. The ready availability of “turbo” plants, which are new plants grafted onto a vigorous root stock, is particularly useful for pot growers, providing greatly improved yields in a shorter space of time. The Small Bites section looks at herbs, chillies and salad items that are easily grown in pots, and this is followed by the Bigger Servings chapter in which we are shown how to make the most of larger containers to accommodate lettuces, courgettes, strawberries, potatoes and other bulkier crops. Going Up!, as the name suggests, demonstrates how to get the best from climbers like beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, aubergines and the like. The How to Grow section explains and resolves the issues faced by small-scale container growing, and the final section dedicates over 50 pages to the 34 plants most suitable to a balcony vegetable garden, with full details on when, where, sun, soil, spacing, planting, care and harvesting, plus a wealth of tips for success. Sturdily bound and sumptuously illustrated with hundreds of colour photos, 160pp, 9½” square.


£14.99 NOW £6.50


70460 CONCISE GUIDE TO ROSES: Species, Care and


Garden Design by Sandra Lindner Rose lovers will find here fact sheets on the origin, flowering, growth and care of each species and, indeed, everything that they need to know about the


classification, maintenance, location and characteristics as well as planting conditions of 30,000


species worldwide. The author has selected 300. 256 pages, colour. £5.99 NOW £2


70448 BEST OF EXPERTS by Dr. D. G. Hessayon


In 1958 a young botanist had the idea of a new type of gardening book. Be Your Own Gardening Expert by Dr. D. G. Hessayon appeared, a 36 page staple-bound ‘flattie’ with coloured charts, annotated diagrams and an array of small blocks of down-to-earth information, modestly priced. In a now modernised layout, these bright, well designed pages feature colour diagrams, potted histories, practical advice on repairing concrete or fixing a trellis, rose black spot, quizzes to Name that Shrub, tying tips, caring for your orchid, the anatomy of a bird-friendly garden. 128pp in large softback. £7.99 NOW £3.75


71592 THE ENGLISH ROSES by David Austin David Austin OBE is, quite simply, the world’s leading authority on roses. Divided into three parts, part one describes the form, history, qualities, ancestors and fragrance of the English rose. Part two, which forms the major part of the book, is a gallery of types: the Old Rose Hybrids, the Leander Group, the English Musk Roses, Alba Hybrids, Climbers and Cut-Flower varieties, celebrated with a full-page colour close-up and full background to well over 100 hybrids. Part three, English Roses in the Future and Rose Cultivation, demonstrates how to plant for best effect, and also takes a fascinating look at what the future may hold for the rose. The final word in rose appreciation and growing. 320pp, 9"×11.5". £30 NOW £11


71737 A HISTORY OF


KITCHEN GARDENING by Susan Campbell In over 20 years’ research and visiting Susan Campbell has plotted the development of the big house and its kitchen garden from the early 17th century to the present day, and her wonderfully evocative book takes the form of a guided tour around the garden,


explaining all about how these marvels were made to work, and the people who worked them. With the benefit of air freight we can get strawberries and grapes for our Christmas Day dessert but, with a good location and a skilled head gardener, centuries ago the gentry could enjoys new potatoes and salads for Christmas, strawberries and kidney beans in April, nectarines and figs all summer long, asparagus and rhubarb in November and root vegetables all year round, all well as everything else in season. Pencil illus. 304pp softback pages. £14.99 NOW £5


71927 THOUGHTFUL GARDENING: Great Plants, Great Gardens, Great Gardeners by Robin Lane Fox


Taking readers on a varied and highly enjoyable journey through each season of the year, it draws on his lifetime of practical gardening and reflects his many years as garden Master of New College Oxford, as well as his experience of his own Cotswold garden. Ranging from problems with badgers to how to take root-cuttings or choose flowering trees, it includes examples of gardens at home and abroad. Combining a principled view of the craft of gardening with dozens of new ideas for planting, and visiting other gardens, it also provides touching reminders of the power of literature and art to deepen what we see. 356 pages colour illus. £25 NOW £5


71944 VICTORIAN GARDENER


by Anne Wilkinson Drawing on the vast wealth of contemporary gardening magazines from the Victorian era, and on other sources, the author provides extraordinary insights into the practices of the Victorian gardener. In the 1860s, a new breed of gardeners was emerging. Their gardens ranged from cottage and


rectory gardens to those found behind terraced houses in towns. These innovators laid the foundations for modern amateur gardening as it is today. They learnt by trial and error and, by persistence and dogged determination, turned the horticultural world upside down. With foreword by Bob Flowerdew. 236 pages illustrated in b/w with contemporary photos, 13 colour plates. Places to Visit. Softback. £14.99 NOW £5


72609 GROWING CHINESE VEGETABLES IN


YOUR OWN BACKYARD by Geri Harrington Broadening your gardening horizons to include Chinese greens, beans, herbs and other edible plants is sheer delight, throwing up new challenges for gardeners and providing cooks with a wealth of new, fresh flavours straight from the soil. Part one looks at 40 of the most widely enjoyed plants, divided into cucurbits (melons), beans, cabbages, radishes, herbs and water-plants and for each provides an illustration, instructions on their history, culinary use, appearance, germination, planting, soil preference, harvesting, storage and varieties. Part two shows how to be successful in real-world backyard gardening, advising on soil maintenance, what pots and other containers and equipment are needed, how to avoid disease and specific information on certain crops. Drawings. 216pp. $16.95 NOW £4.50


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