If you love cookbooks - or are in search of a gift for someone who does - the pickings, as ever, are rich. And this year local foodie personalities are giving overseas celebrity chefs a run for their money: the sensual covers and interiors of their creations make you feel as though you have stumbled into some fabulous deli. The cookbook as storybook is big. And the first this year to make an elegant leap onto the bandwagon was former restaurateur (Parks in Constantia, Cape Town, among others) Michael Olivier with Michael Olivier - A Restaurateur Remembers (Double Storey, R195, 144pp).
His bon vivant's journey begins with a childhood on a Cape farm, where boys shot rock pigeons for Sunday lunch, and meanders through years as an apprentice at Stellenbosch's landmark Lanzerac Hotel, a stint at Boschendal Estate, and a career in the kitchens and front of house at three fine restaurants.
Fellow foodies, friends and family members, to many of whom he devotes a recipe or two, and wine are strong themes in this charming, evocative account. And when it comes to finding a dish or two to reproduce, they range from the down-to-earth (the ultimate cheese and tomato sandwich) to the decadent (galette of fresh dates with caramel sauce).
Food writer and broadcaster Gwynne Conlyn, in her Food Gurus Uncovered (Gwynne Conlyn Publishing, R350, 271pp), also tells a story: of what makes great local cooks and chefs tick and of great one-off feasts.
Her gurus range from the well-known Billy Gallagher, of Southern Sun Hotels, Franck Dangereux, of Constantia's award-winning La Colombe, and Walter Ulz, of Sandton's venerable Linger Longer, to the less-well-known Dorah Sitole, food editor of True Love magazine, and Yvonne Short, ebullient operations director of game lodge group CC Africa. And it's great fun reading about what inspires and drives them in - and outside - the kitchen, not to mention getting to grips with their out-of-the-ordinary recipes.
Lannice Snyman is a regular on the local cookbook circuit. Her latest, Posh Nosh (Lannice Snyman Publishers, R279,95, 192pp), subtitled "Fabulous Food for Family & Friends", is a celebration of cooking because, as she puts it, "you want to - not because you have to". And its recipes are inspired by her travels throughout Southern Africa and abroad.
I was relieved, however, to find that her dishes are not so posh that they intimidate cooks who have yet to get to grips with whisking up a homemade mayonnaise. Instead, they range from comfort and retro-classic to classy. My favourites? Smoked trout frikkadels with charred limes, Moroccan lamb shanks with coriander yoghurt and sozzled nectarines with pinotage and lavender.
What may intimidate those who haven't mastered mayonnaise is Irishman Liam Tomlin's Season To Taste (Struik, R275, 224pp). Former executive chef of one of Sydney's finest restaurants of the late 1990s, the now-defunct Banc, among other top-chef titles, Tomlin today lives in Cape Town and is food editor of Top Billing magazine. His book is based on 18 of his favourite seasonal ingredients, including mushrooms, asparagus, oysters, duck, chocolate and citrus fruit.
Visually, Season To Taste . . . well, takes the cake, its delicate, technically masterful dishes photographed against white plates and bowls to maximise their crave factor. If you're deft - or brave - enough, try white asparagus with twice-cooked egg and truffle vinaigrette, oysters with cucumber jelly, sour cream and caviar, roast breast and confit of duck with seared foie gras and sauce soubise or white chocolate and honeycomb mousse with dried fruit and nuts.
A real cutey of a cookbook is Elephant In The Kitchen (Wildlife Films Press, R350, 191pp).
It's by Craig Higgins, Scottish chef at Wilderness Safaris' premier Mombo camp in Botswana, in association with Beverley and Dereck Joubert, two of National Geographic's finest wildlife photographers and filmmakers. And it's beautiful, funny and crammed with oddly tantalising bush recipes.
A more serious one, bound to appeal to historyphiles, is Leipold's Cellar & Kitchen (Cedarberg Publishers, R125, 222pp), a collection of the series of 55 articles the late, legendary C Louis Leipold wrote for Die Huisgenoot between 1942 and 1947. They have, of course, been translated into English and are accompanied by a 1933 article on bredie and more than 30 black-and-white photographs depicting the SA of yesteryear. It's a handsome, affordable collector's item for foodies who cherish SA's culinary heritage.
Two international cookbooks I'd recommend are Jamie Oliver's Jamie's Italy (Penguin, R250, 319pp), especially if, like me, you're mad for authentically simple Italian food and especially risotto, and The French Market (Doubleday, R274, 253pp).
Oliver's book is a reflection of the inspiration he has always taken from Italy, a land of plenty, to his and many other cooks' minds. He has taken a journey from Sicily to Tuscany so as to become stimulated afresh by the local fishermen, family bakers and, of course, "mamas", and to produce new recipes. Great stuff from SA's "favourite chef", as an ointed by followers of DStv's BBC Food.
The French Market is a second book by the authors of The French Kitchen, food-loving novelist Joanne Harris (Chocolat and the delightful new Gentleman and Players) and word-loving chef Fran Warde, and it's more of the same: hearty food from the heart of a French family, including a sublime cassoulet Toulousain.
And a yummy Christmas to you.
