Breaking bread
`It started with a baguette. That first loaf, bought at dawn from a boulangerie on my way home after a night out in Paris, still warm, its crust crackling. The floury, craggy point of the bread ¿ more crust than crumb, more air than loaf ¿wrenched off as I walked, and eaten (sans beurre, sans confiture, sans jambon) in the street will never leave me.¿
So, back to simple
`Dinner is rarely more than a single dish in this house. A bowl of chilli and greens; plump, garlicky beans slowly cooked in the oven, a boned chicken leg on the grill brushed with thyme and lemon. Sometimes we feast: a vast dish of pasta with mussels and prawns; a steaming pie of sweet potatoes and lentils; baked fatty pork with butter beans and broth. Even then, this is straightforward eating. The nearest you will get to a `starter¿ is a bowl of olives.¿
Four chocolate cakes
`One afternoon, late in 2017, I made what was to become my favourite chocolate cake of all. Shallow, fudge-like and spiked with sherry-soaked golden sultanas and shards of chocolate, its surface gritty with caster sugar scented with rosemary. A cake for an autumn afternoon, perhaps with coffee or smoky roasted tea. A fire, several gardens away, had sent a long, lazy curl of smoke into the darkening sky. My fancy turned to the thought of dabbing sweet crumbs, roasted nuts and dark chocolate from a plate with my finger and thumb.¿
Über den Autor Slater Nigel
Nigel Slater is one of Britain's most highly regarded food writers. His beautifully written prose, warm personality and unpretentious, easy-to-follow recipes have won him a huge following. He writes an award winning weekly column in the 'Observer' and edits their 'Food Monthly' supplement, and he is a regular contributor to Sainsbury's 'The Magazine'.