With 38 years of cookery writing under her belt, when Delia brings out a book, it's a reason to sit up and listen. And this collection of recipes, as always, delivers on every front.

There's the usual appreciation of good ingredients as she captures the essence of what makes a dish both tempting and cookable.

The layout is easy to follow, with dishes grouped around their main ingredient eg pasta, eggs, cheese. This is particularly appreciated for vegetarian cookery, where you often find a lack of variety. Not everyone wants cheese for starter, main and pudding! It also helps to identify vegan dishes.

There's a section on entertaining where smart dishes like Wild Mushrooms in Madeira En Croute with Foaming Hollandaise sit alongside more informal fair like Thai Green Vegetable Curry. There's plenty of ideas for sprucing up your vegetable sides. Soups, starters, salads and puds all get the Delia-treatment.

What's lovely about this book, is that you know you'll be able to cook anything and it really will work. Not only that, but 38 years have far from jaded our favourite home cook, the ideas and the images are fresh and modern. They take advantage of all the weird and wonderful ingredients that are available to us now but they never stray from the sublime to the ridiculous.

Vegetarian or not, this a book for your collection, to be reached for whenever you need some herbivorous inspiration.



Recipes from Delia Smith's programmes, plus more about her life and career to date.