HONEY FROM A WEED

PATIENCE GRAY, PROSPECT BOOKS, $69.99

Perhaps more a book to lie under a tree and read than to cook from. Described as both a passionately autobiographical cookbook, and a cult classic, it’s been in print continuously for 30+ years. While this is the food of the Mediterranean – risotto, cuttlefish, brodo, pasta – it’s the author’s musings on life on its shore that make it unforgettable. If Patience Gray were alive today she would be 105. Her recipes for salads of foraged ‘weeds’ could have been written yesterday.