Niamh Shields: Comfort & Spice (Quadrille)

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  • Comfort & Spice

Niamh Shields, celebrated Waterford-born food blogger at @eatlikeagirl, has written her first cookery book and, in the process, she's also written her first novel.

“We took the Eurostar at stupid o'clock...”.
“Add the spices and stir for a minute or so to temper them”. 
”A Blaa is a fluffy white bread roll with a floury top, so expect to get a flour moustache as you eat them”.
“When you fry the rolls the meat crumbles, so when you bite in you find little pork crumbles fugitive amongst the noodles”.

Wow! What sort of inspired writing is that, and I could pull down fifty more examples where Ms Shields finds the perfect, poetic word: the pork crumbles fugitive amongst the noodles; stupid o'clock; the spices tempered; the funny, giggly flour moustache. Inspired. Most novelists never get with an ass's roar of such wit and culture.
And if the writing is inspired, then the food is double inspired. In a season when publishers are predictably rolling out big books from the Hughs and Jamies, with their I-speak-your-weight monotony of tone and temperament and their crushing lack of inspiration, here is a book that has been lived in: it's funny, smart and real, just like the grub it lovingly describes. I look forward to cooking everything from it over the next few months, starting with, I think, the sumac lamb meatballs with cucumber and tomato couscous and the blackberry and creme fraiche filo tart. “Comfort & Spice ” is destined to be a cult book.