The fantastic sequel to the best-selling Café@Home.
This beautiful book has a late afternoon and ‘dining’ theme and features recipes and hints for various forms of entertaining, from cocktail parties to full dinner parties, and casual lunches to evening meals with friends and family. It is food to serve during the second half of the day – lunch, dinner and dessert, plus variations on these themes, such as cocktail parties, antipasto platters, main course salads and little after-dinner treats. As well each chapter contains many useful tips relating to entertaining gleaned from Julie Le Clerc's 12 years as a caterer.
As usual wih Julie's recipes, there are so many excellent feasts to be had it's hard to know where to start. Maybe eggplant, pepper, courgette and feta terrine. Coconut chicken salad in a leaf, perhaps. Or steamed lamb dumplings. Will that leave room for limoncello mousse or self-saucing chocolate hazelnut pudding? How-to hints, snippets of advice and presentation tips are sprinkled through the pages. The recipes are simple, stylish and utterly delicious - Le Clerc trademarks. Her greatest gift, though, is turning the familiar into fabulous: smoked fish pie is terrific with capers and parsley mash, roast leg of lamb is revived with a pineapple marinade and salsa, trifle gets a contemporary twist with turkish delight. This is a mouthwatering and inspiring collection.
Review by Sally Butters, New Zealand House and Garden, 2004.
