RHUBARBARELLA'S
COOKBOOK REVIEWS

It's always important, when using food as a seduction tool, to have a great recipe book you can always rely on to find a fabulous dish in with which to impress the object of your desires...and if you fail to seduce, a cookbook can be a good substitute for sex if it's got good pictures!!

So, we're going to be reviewing the latest cookbooks so you can avoid making book-buying mistakes...

HOW TO EAT  by Nigella Lawson

This is a totally fabulous book, not only are there many rhubarb recipes, but the author waxes lyrical about the joys and pleasures of rhubarb, and even states that she loves rhubarb. There are a fantastic 8 rhubarb recipes, and not just your traditional crumble-type recipes either.This is a woman after our own hearts! I'd say this book should win the first "seduce with rhubarb" prize for combining eroticism and rhubarb so sucessfuly, and for setting such a good example to us all.

A sample quote, referring to rhubarb..." It's the taste, the smell, the soft, fragrant, bulky stickiness of this that seduces". If that's not rhubarb pornography I don't know what is.
There is even a fantastic photograph of rhubarb. I can't recommend this book highly enough!!
(and the other recipes aren't bad too...)

A fabulous 9 out of 10 (looses 1 mark for not having more rhubarb recipes)

THE NAKED CHEF by Jamie Oliver

Now, this was a disappointing book if ever there was one. Tries to be oh-so-trendy, with its 'new italian' style of cooking, but not a mention of rhubarb anywhere to be found (and no pictures of naked chefs either!!)

A deeply disappointing 3 out of 10

Delia Smith's COMPLETE COOKERY COURSE

It's true that this is an old favourite in my kitchen, and that Delia has even been referred to as a godess of cooking, but I have to say that there are disappointingly few rhubarb recipes in its 600-plus pages...only 3 that I could find, and not very exciting ones either!

Perhaps the Cookery Course is showing its age, and maybe her new How To Cook books will be better, but I have to give Delia a disappointing 5 out of 10 for this book. It's great if you're trying to cook Christmas dinner, or want to impress the mother-in-law with a traditional Sunday roast, but for rhubarb-seduction, this is a bit of a damp squib of a book.