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Our author interview this month is with Fiona Beckett, the award-winning food and wine writer, who tells us a little more about her fabulous new book, Food, Wine & Friends.
I started off as a general feature writer working for a British national newspaper (Today) but as I was interested in cooking I ended up writing many of their food features. So far as wine was concerned I had a lucky break. A well-known wine writer had been signed up to do a regular column for the paper but when the first article came out another publication she was writing for objected and she had to pull out. They turned to me and said "You know about wine - write us a couple of pieces" The truth was I didn't, but I obviously wasn't going to say so! Anyway I did a good enough job for them to keep me on. That was about 16 years ago and since then I've managed to keep a foot in both camps, wine and food which always seems to me to make sense as most people enjoy the two together Recently I've set up a website on pairing wine and food called www.matchingfoodandwine.com I wanted to write a book that fitted in with the typical modern lifestyle. We want to have our friends round and to show them hospitality yet we're all short of time. My own belief is that you can do this just as effectively by putting together good ingredients and choosing interesting drinks to match as by spending hours slaving away in the kitchen. The menus in the book all contain recipes but easily pick one dish you want to make and buy the rest in. Your friends come to see you not to rate your cooking.
Don't be too ambitious! It's better to serve one or two really good dishes than four or five ones that don't quite come off. If you're not an experienced cook try out a new recipe on your family first to give you confidence. And include at least one dish that you can prepare ahead.
Oooh, hard question! Depends what time of year it is. If it was spring I'd probably go for the Farmers' Market Supper but as an ardent Francophile I love the French Bistro Dinner. And then I love recipes like the chicken, lemon and green olive tagine, the chicken tonnato pasta salad and the orange and Cointreau syllabub from some of the other menus.
Again, that's hard. But I particularly like the four seasonal cheeseboards and their drinks matches. There are many other possibilities than red wine with cheese. I think there will be more and more informal entertaining. We rarely have the time for a full three course dinner party these days, nice though that is to do for a special occasion. It's better to invite your friends round for drinks and a few nibbles or a dessert and some delicious sweet wine after dinner than not to invite them because you don't feel you've time to cook. That's why I've included so many ideas for drinks and nibbles and my (rather wicked) 'Just Desserts' section.
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