My Mother's Cooking

My Mother’s Cooking is both a recipe book and a family portrait of a legacy passed from parents to children through hard work, determination and the adapting of tradition to modern times. In this cookbook, Joan Roca compiles the most wonderful dishes made by his mother, Montserrat, from whom he and his brothers Josep and Jordi learned so much in the kitchen of Can Roca. Now that his own restaurant has been distinguished with three Michelin stars and recently recognized as the Best Restaurant in the World, Joan wanted to return to his roots, to the warmth of family and home cooking. The book is well structured: each recipe begins with the ingredients, then details the preparation process step by step and finally ends with comments from the chef and author. Here we find all sorts of recipes, matched with suggestions for the pantry, basic cooking tips and an homage to the foundations of the most traditional Catalan cuisine. These very simple recipes, which any home cook can make, will add a touch of the Roca family to your own kitchen. This is a highly recommend cookbook, particularly as a nudge to those who need to wake up their inner chef, those who think of the stove as a minefield and subsist on take-out, pasta and omelets.