Eating for England – Nigel Slater

This is a collection of bite-sized thoughts on food by the renowned chef and writer.

No highfalutin culinary extravaganzas here, just a melange of homage to household staples, nostalgia for brands now departed, side-swipes at pretension, and affectionate finger-pokes at the peculiarities of English ways of eating. The range of subjects is vast, but to give a few examples:

We are treated to praise of victoria sponge, ginger nuts, rhubarb & custard, and sherbet lemons. There  are rose-tinted recollections of Spangles, Fry’s five centres, Tunnocks‘ tea-cakes, Berni Inns, and aniseed balls. Pointed remarks are made on modern trends in shopping, cooking and presentation, including the corner shop, the post-Jamie cook, and supermarket fish. And finally quirky comments abound on such as the Polo mint, the pink wafer biscuit (always the last in the tin), and my favourite – how to eat a Toblerone.

The book is less personal than the author’s excellent ‘Toast’, which had an added biographical depth, but it is still a good read, well-seasoned with wit and insight, and cooked up with no little skill with words.

A New York Christmas – Anne Perry

It is 1904 and Jemima Pitt, independent-minded daughter of Inspector Pitt of London’s Special Branch, has secured a position as companion to business heiress Delphinia Cardew. Her main duty is to accompany ‘Phinnie’ to on a transatlantic trip to marry Brent Albright, the son of her father’s business partner.

Phinnie’s father can’t make the trip due to illness, and when a baby she was deserted by her mother, so there is only Jemima to help her settle in with the prospective in-laws and prepare for the wedding.

With everything well in hand Jemima accepts the offer of Brett’s brother Harley to be shown the sights, but this turns out to be a pretext to involve her in a confused but secret mission to find Phinnie’s mum (who he thinks is in New York) and thwart any plans she may have to spoil the wedding by turning up.

When the mysterious mother is found the circumstance are unfortunate, particularly for Jemima, but luckily a handsome police officer is on hand to aid her efforts to extricate herself from trouble and solve what have by now become multiple mysteries.

In fact the solutions are glaringly obvious well before they are revealed, obfuscated only by the flimsiness of apparent motives for much of the criminal activity. The dialogue is stilted, the characters are paper thin, and turn-of-the-century New York has never been painted so dull.

The book’s saving graces are its slimness (154 pages) and lack of any hard words to slow down the reader.

A Day at the Office – Matt Dunn

Not just any day, but Valentine’s, which has varied connotations for Sophie, Calum, Nathan, Mark and Julie who all work at Seek Software’s office in Soho.

All but Nathan have hopes and plans for romance, half-formed in some cases, half-baked in others, and with unsigned Valentine cards left on desks there is much scope for confusion and misunderstood messages.

As for Nathan, once bitten (or savaged) twice shy (or monastic); he organises an annual Anti-Valentine night out to provide the singletons in the office an antidote to the unwelcome reminder of their status. Sophie, Mark and Julie agree to go, but Calum has an internet induced blind date.

Matt Dunn takes us through their day, hopping from character to character, from the morning commute, through coffee and lunch breaks, taking in hushed conversations in corridors and smoking shelters, and culminating in the after-work activities (some planned and some unexpected). He does it with wit and style, capturing the goldfish bowl nature of life, work, banter and gossip in a small workplace.

The plot lines are cleverly interwoven, as complicated as needed to provide his characters with rising levels of anxiety, self-doubt, jealousy, hope and eventually (no spoiler here) some redemption.

The humour is good, even old chestnuts are well delivered, and by the end I did care how Sophie’s, Calum’s, Nathan’s, Mark’s and Julie’s day at the office concluded.

The Radleys – Matt Haig

Peter and Helen Radley live in the quiet village of Bishopthorpe near Thirsk in North Yorkshire, with their two teenage children Rowan and Clara.

They live a quiet life; one deliberately chosen by Peter and Helen as they seek to distance themselves from the excesses of their past and the temptations of the present. They have become abstainers, foreswearing their natural addiction, as vampires, for blood.

Rowan and Clara know nothing of their heritage, accepting their pale skin, aversion to sunlight (and garlic), and general malaise with adolescent angst. But adolescence is a dangerous time, even for vampires. Clara’s decision to become a vegetarian deprives her of her only legitimate blood substitute; and Rowan’s under pressure at school, attracting the attention of bullies who call him a freak and failing to attract the attention of a new girl in class who he covets.

As Peter and Helen debate if it is time to tell the kids, the decision is made for them in dramatic fashion. Suddenly Bishopthorpe is no longer quiet. Peter’s brother Will (by no means an abstainer) is called in to help. It doesn’t help; it makes everything worse as his past misdemeanours stir up more trouble for the family.

What starts as an amusing domestic comedy with a twist gradually darkens in humour and then plunges into a bloody and gory, but still domestic, drama.

Well enough written to give an air of disturbing credibility, the book provides an entertaining read and a worthy precursor to the author’s excellent “The Humans”.