Apples for Jam is a book that gets under your skin. It beckons you, and seduces you to pick it up. The first time I saw it, I reluctantly put it back down. The over $40 price tag was hefty, and I decided I could live without it. It wasn't 24 hours later that I was back at the store and handing over my credit card.
Feeding a family is about stitching all the bits together on a steady thread -- between the tuck shop, your knowledge of nutrition, your own family's tastes, your capacity and how much you can give -- and still leaving some space for spontaneity and the will of nature. And all this should still have the grace and honesty of a daisy chain.
Tessa Kiros focuses Apples for Jam on food for families. The gorgeously designed book bounces between stories from the author's life, gorgeous photos of her family, and over 200 recipes.
The recipes are arranged in chapters by color which leads to very interesting browsing. Is banana bread brown? It's actually monochrome according to Kiros. What could possibly be in a pink chapter? Beetroot gnocchi, baked ham and cheese bread pudding, penne with prawns, cream and tomato, and tiny cakes with pink icing.
All of Kiros' recipes have a casual, conversational tone, as you'll see from the recipe below. Reading through it, I get the feeling that the recipes aren't as much hard-and-fast rules as they are suggestions for one method.