I love cookery books, gardening books, photography books. I love
leafing through the pages, looking at the pictures and dreaming
that one day I'll be able to produce an end product like the
one I'm looking at.
I really enjoyed Nigel Slater's The Kitchen Diaries. I liked how he
prepared dishes from whatever ingredients he had to hand, and
while I don't think I followed any of the recipes, it gave me the
confidence to improvise and to substitute ingredients if
I didn't have everything specified in a recipe.