Taste of Morocco, by Robert Carrier (Boxtree Books, £12.99 in UK)

This is the perfect armchair cookbook to while away these lazy summer days

This is the perfect armchair cookbook to while away these lazy summer days. It is packed full of mouth watering recipes rendered even more interesting because they are placed in their historical and geographical context. The use of exotic ingredients (pounded pigeon, warkha pastry, zebda butter, argan oil) and unfamiliar cooking equipment (charcoal braziers, T'bsil dial warkhas, tagine slaoui and midounas) gives one the perfect excuse not to dash out to the kitchen to rustle up one of the meals described - neither the ingredients nor the equipment could be easily found. Better to learn about Moroccan cuisine by, devouring the contents - of this book and dream of being transported to this country where cooking seems to combine the earthy with the sublime.