The best book of the year The Cafe Paradiso Cookbook, by Denis Cotter (Atrium, £20), came from Cork's brilliant chef and restaurateur, whose wise and witty text truly managed to explain how a great cook thinks and works, and why he is so entranced by food and cooking. Utterly essential.
Next comes Jean Georges Vongerichten's Simple Good Food (Kyle Cathie, £19.99 in UK). Vongerichten is one of the most influential cooks at work today, and the elegance and intuitive creativity which he reveals in his fusion cookery is going to dominate restaurant cookery for the next five years.
The Food Our Children Eat by Joanna Blythman (4th Estate, £8.99 in UK) is a masterly, common-sense treatise on getting kids to respect and enjoy food that is good for them, and thereby helps you to rear smart food-lovers who will enjoy the sociability of the table as much as good cooking. Ally Blythman's masterpiece with Watch It Cook by Ivan Bulloch and Diane James (TwoCan Publishing, £5.99 in UK) and the little critters will be bounding into the kitchen. Nose To Tail Eating by Fergus Henderson (Macmillan, £20 in UK), the most quixotic and original book of the year, is nothing less than a treatise on offal in all its magnificent glory. Henderson's unclicheed manner is a delight.
Also worth mentioning is Jamie Oliver's The Naked Chef (Michael Joseph, £18.99 in UK). The much-hyped lad of television cookery has allowed his producers to brand him as a culinary wideboy, which is profoundly annoying, and rather a pity, as he is a shrewd cook.
Dan Leppard and Richard Whittington 's Baking with Passion (Quadrille, £18.99 in UK) offers thrillingly inventive breads and cakes from the outstanding London bakery Baker & Spice - the meringue recipe and Dan Leppard's garlic bread recipe alone justify the price.
Meath-born Richard Corrigan is the hottest chef in London, and his food is gutsy and elemental, and extremely influential, so watch out for The Richard Corrigan Cookbook (Lir, £25 in UK).
And finally The French Laundry Cook-Book by Thomas Keller (Workman, £40 in UK) is the gastro-porn book of the year, a sumptuous text into which you immerse yourself, and dream of the luxury of the Napa Valley's French Laundry Restaurant. Unrestrained in every way.
