Forever Summer

Book excerpt: It’s sensuous summer all year long with Nigella -- in a fabulous new cookbook that draws on the best from all over the world: to tie in with her new 8-part television series. Summer food doesn’t have to be eaten just in summer. Even on our coldest days, indeed especially then, we need to summon up a little warmth on our plate. Summer cooking is relaxed cooking that conjures up a mood of sunny expansiveness: easy cooking, easy eating. No one wants to slave over a hot stove for hours: the keynote, as ever with Nigella, is simplicity. The ideal is of lazy abundance. The food of Italy and Spain, the fragrant mezze of the Eastern Mediterranean, the traditional strawberries-and-cream feel of an English summer afternoon: all these notes and flavours are reflected in Forever Summer. The uniting force is attitude as well as palate so the food is far-reaching but personalised, and fresh so that it fits in with the way we live. It’s a way of celebrating summer while it lasts, and extending it into the months beyond. Forever Summer has the practical appeal of a cookbook as well as the aspirational lure of a travel book, the sort one might flick through longingly in winter, dreaming of much-needed sunshine.