Customer Reviews

Delia Smith's Summer Collection

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

You have to try the Roasted Peppers recipe - it's easy and I continually impress all dinner guests with the simple dish. The Chicken Basque is delicious and although the fresh fruit terrine needs 24 hours to finish, it tastes great, looks delicious and impresses everyone. It is my favourite cookbook!

If you are looking for light, fast to prepare, and delicious Summer recipes this is a great choice. As there are innumerable cookbooks available, I am highly selective in my cookbook library. Like every other foodie, I have a few cook-bibles (Marc Bittman, Cooks Illustrated, Fannie Farmer), but I do add the occasional unusual reference. Delia Smith's book is one.

The recipes in this book are clearly described, easy to follow, and range from appetizers to meals.

Most important, however, is that recipes in this book are not found elsewhere.

I've been using this cookbook for a few years and checked to see if she'd written anything new. The recipes are delicious. The cooking instruction is clear. She adds a special touch with her comments that make me feel that I have an expert guiding me in the kitchen. This American cook loves Delia Smith! My family, guests and neighbors love the recipes I prepare with this book and Delia's Winter Cookbook.

If you are frustated by reading colourful and glossy recipes that turn out disasterous the delicious Delia is for you. Her recipes always work. Her UK television programme back room staff ensure that, as most if not all are demonstrated on TV, and even the most acknowledged cooks in the UK will tell you that it will, yes will, work the first time. My wife, a proffesional cook, makes no excuse for always having her volumes at hand for that sudden emergancy. Typical of the main stream of modern British cuisine in the mid 1990s, full of the feeling and flavours of that oh so elusive English Summer.

Delia Smith is thoroughly wonderful. Her recipes are packed full of flavour, are delicious and unpretentious. However, sometimes her attempts to help the home cook go awry. In an attempt to save on washing up, her chicken cacciatore recipe calls for half-cooked chicken to be left on the bench for 40 minutes. Good God! That might work in a colder climate (I have no idea, I wouldn't try it!) but I'd suggest it's not worth finding out the hard, possibly DEAD way. And forget no-stir risotto. The stirring breaks down the outer layer of the rice, and that's what makes risotto creamy. If one is looking for a no-stir rice, there are plenty of truly exquisite baked Mexican rice recipes around. By all means, make one of those, but don't bake rice and call it risotto.

And the lemon curd cake, while thoroughly, immensely delicious, suffers from the directed shortcuts. It's the only cake I've ever baked that I had to go out and buy a replacement for. A nuisance, given it was for a birthday. I tried it several times with the same result.

Sometimes shortcuts just aren't necessary, or helpful.

Delia Smith's cookbooks are consistently mavelous. The only problem is that no one has translated the directions into American measurements, American names for ingredients. e.g. "eggplant" for "aubergine". Her recipes ALWAYS work and I wish, for all my friends on this side of the pond, that she were better known here. As I'm an American cook with a bunch of British friends, I've been able to use their knowledge for translation purposes, perhaps her publisher would do a small supplement with such information to go along with the books.

I've cooked with Delia for more than 20 years now -- her recipes are great and to have a summer selection means I can entertain year round

Very helpful as the author incorporates the foods of the season into her recipes. They are not time consuming and are easy to follow. Good luck trying to get a copy! They were obviously popular, so if you enjoy summer cooking but want time away from the kitchen for your garden and other activities buy this!

Buy this book! Sumptuously illustrated with some really mouthwatering recipes - try the Strawberry Granita for instance. Very good all round.

Delia, oh Delia. The woman who taught me how to make toast! (I was actually making it wrong all these years...) Delia is one of those television personalities who you really would like to have as a friend. Her books are extremely personable and can literally be read aloud - gives you that "Delia is in the house" feeling. The Summer and Winter Collections are Superb books. Also check out How to Cook One and Two. Excellent. Now, where can I buy the How to Cook video collection?