Behind the Cookbook

40 years ago, Shirley Spear and her husband opened The Three Chimneys, a restaurant on the Isle of Skye which went on to win a Michelin star and which transformed perceptions of Scottish cooking. In this Behind the Cookbook feature, Shirley, who was the restaurants Head Chef until 2005, tells us how her interest in Scotlands culinary heritage was first awakened and how the seasonal harvest from Scotland’s fields and lochs drove the development of her menu.

The Dooky Chase Cookbook, first published in 1990 and re-issued last year, is the latest classic title to be added to ckbk. Its author, Leah Chase (1923–2019), was known as the “Queen of Creole Cuisine”. While she stood less than 5 feet tall, she had an outsize influence on food culture in her hometown of New Orleans, and far beyond.

Fred Plotkin is an expert on both Italian opera and Italian food. His regional Italian cookbooks on the cooking of Friuli-Venezia Giulia and of Liguria have already delighted users of ckbk, and we pleased to also now make available The Authentic Pasta Book, his canonical work on real Italian pasta. Below Fred recalls the journey which led to the writing and publication of this much-loved work.