Why I didn't buy this cookbook

Yesterday I called into Doncaster on my way home from a haircut, to get a couple of special things (cheap grana padano and portuguese sardines) from Colonial Foods, but mostly to check out Readings bargain table to see if they had some wonderful new cookbook at a bargain price. I felt like treating myself to something.

There were a few including one on the food of Lisbon and also Jamie's Christmas book but this one was the one I picked up to check out. Why?

I liked the cover - it was a hardback and I rather liked the confusion of it all. Inside it was beautifully photographed and designed. Also I was interested in the concept of the wife of possibly the world's most famous chef - René Redzipi of Noma in Denmark - writing a book about what she cooks for him at home. No doubt the publishers thought this would be a tempting concept too. And it was very cheap - I think a mere $13 or $14. Which probably should have made me suspicious.

I scanned the recipes, and I do mean scanned, I didn't check them out in detail, but this is where I found myself saying no.

The first recipe I noticed was Spaghetti with fresh tomato and basil sauce.

Now I know that even with so few ingredients and such a basic recipe there are infinite variations, but really they are minor and we are probably all familiar with them. I've probably got at least a dozen examples scattered throughout my collection. So why would I want another one?

Ditto for the Lasagne with sausage meatballs which might have looked marginally more complicated and different but wasn't really. Well perhaps I'm being a bit unfair here, but nevertheless I do have lots and lots of recipes for lasagne, and when you have used so many - and I have, you get to know what you can do with this particular dish and so I generally just make my own version which tends to vary according to what I have in my fridge.

I flicked some more and did find the odd interesting recipe like Warm potatoes, greens and herbs but I could see from the photo that it wasn't really all that complicated. Indeed it's a Donna Hay kind of dish that looks impressive but is really just potatoes mixed with some greens and some herbs at the end. Perhaps I was unfair about this.

I went away and checked out books in general - I even bought one - and came back to have another look before leaving. Perhaps I really was being unfair? But no, as I flicked again through the pages, beautiful though they were, I decided that it didn't have anything sufficiently tempting to me, and I suspected that the words would only be saying how famous chefs liked to unwind with simple dishes. And I don't regret my decision.

I adore cookbooks. I have lots and lots. Three small bookcases full, not to mention the discarded magazines. I treat myself every now and then to a new one, but it is getting increasingly difficult to find one that tempts. There are certain cooks whose books I will buy as a matter of course. Well almost. I was not tempted by Ottolenghi's last book Sweet - which was all about sweet things. And I think buying his restaurant book Nopi was a bit of a mistake. And I am very cautious about buying a book by someone I have never heard of, but mostly I am pretty happy with my purchases. I don't use them a lot but I love to have them. Whilst 'researching' this post I found a post by Rachel Cooke in The Guardian about the love of cookbooks. Read it - she says it all much better than me.

"I made a lemon cake from a recipe by Arabella Boxer. It was damp, it was delicious, it looked exactly like the one in the picture. But still, I felt restless… Perhaps there exists an even better lemon cake than this one, I thought, forking it into my mouth. Cookbooks are a repository for such restlessness because only they can deliver the next lemon cake, and the one after that. Like a boyfriend who blows hot and cold, they encourage the chase even as they purport to be able to end it for ever (consider how many cookbooks aim for Bible-status, to be the "only one you'll ever need")." Rachel Cooke

Perhaps I just didn't want to make pasta with tomato sauce. Dymock's had one of Nigel Slater's wonderful books Greenfeast - full price - I think it was $55.00 - and I couldn't quite bring myself to spend that much. It was a relatively small book. But perhaps I should have. I do marginally regret that decision. The problems of growing up poor!