How to Butter Toast

How to Butter Toast is the antidote to cookbook-overload. In this fun and entertaining recipe book without any recipes, Ottolenghi co-writer Tara Wigley equips you with rhymes and confidence to cook great food instinctively.

Melted butter on hot toast and served up on a plate.
It seems like nothing, really, could be clearer or more straight.
But though, in terms of things required, the number is just two,
there is a lot of wiggle room for what there is to do.

Cook and author Tara Wigley had been to cookery school, read hundreds of cookbooks and developed recipes for over a decade. Yet she found the fewer the ingredients in a recipe, the more confusion there was about how best to make it. The result is How to Butter Toast, a collection of rhymes that will enlighten and entertain, reassure and ultimately liberate the culinarily confused.

The rhymes provide reassuring - and memorable - answers to the culinary conundrums we often face: How long should I boil an egg? What's the best way to crush garlic? How do I make mayonnaise, a martini or indeed the perfect cup of tea? Tara's playful take on these food quandaries seems effortless but belies her knowledgeable and carefully researched approach to cooking.

Beautifully packaged with bold and witty illustrations throughout, How to Butter Toast is the perfect gift for cooks of all levels. This is the first book in a series Tara is publishing with Pavilion.

'I can't think of many food authorities who can string together words which are as poignant and profound as they are entertaining and ear-pleasing.' Yotam Ottolenghi

'Fun and wise, Tara manages to capture the kinds of the things we cogitate about - sometimes without even knowing! - and provides reassuring answers to those confusing everyday conundrums. A collection for when you are weary of recipes and cooking, but not of life itself!' Helen Goh

'Those who have followed her ditties on Insta since Lockdown will be delighted, but the detail, the skill, the Ballymaloe cookery school training, the years as co-writer with Yotam at Ottolenghi will save serious cooks a fortune in cookery school fees. How she manages to explain chemistry in rhyme is little short of genius.' Gilly Smith

Review:

'A total joy. Part Dr Seuss, part Ogden Nash, part Julia Child, 100% inspired and inspiring' Samin Nosrat

'Gorgeous new book, full of useful cooking tips and tricks for so many different everyday meals and very tastefully done in gentle rhyme form! Love the uniqueness of this gorgeous little guide, great for family cooking, too!' Sabrina Ghayour

'Discovered Tara in lockdown and [she] made me laugh out loud which was much needed at the time, so I'm very pleased to see there's now a whole book of rhyming recipes.' Claire Thomson AKA 5oclockapron

'In just a couple of hours reading it, I feel l've learned more than from reading dozens of recipes. It's something to dip into and return to with delight. A lovely kitchen companion.' Bee Wilson

'If you love reading cookbooks as bookbooks then then this is for you.' Georgie Hayden

'An ingenious, original, rhyming cookbook.' Dominique Woolf

'Can't wait to read it over martinis and poached eggs (probs not together).' Angela Clutton

'Only my finest butter dish to announce this brilliant, witty book by the fabulous one who can write a ditty about anything. A cookbook without recipes - it's a BRILLIANT addition to any book shelf!' Ravinder Bhogal

'[A] unique and brilliant rhyming recipe book. A gorgeous recipe book without any actual recipes but plenty of poems featuring all the clever tips and tricks for making eggs and vinaigrettes and martinis and toast truly your own.' Martha Delacey

'Charming' Nigella Lawson

'Amazing culinary instruction in poetry' Tamar Adler