A Year in My Kitchen By Skye Gyngell

Whenever Skye Gyngell needs a brief respite from the hot, harried environment of her kitchen, she needs only to look out of the window or step into her herb garden. Gyngell works in an idyllic setting: the cafe she is head chef of is in the grounds of the lush, green Petersham Nurseries in Surrey, England.

Gyngell tries to source the cafe's produce, meats and seafood locally. Hers is an ingredients-focused cuisine - she cooks her food simply to showcase the products, rather than trying to manipulate them and impress the diner with new techniques. The dishes are divided into chapters according to season and, like many Australian chefs, she matter-of-factly incorporates Asian, Middle Eastern and Mediterranean ingredients, rather than treating them as something exotic. For spring, she suggests dishes of broad beans with mint, ricotta and crisp Parma ham; crab salad with nam jim (Thai chilli sauce) and mixed cress; and lobster curry with tamarind, roasted coconut, ginger and coriander. For summer there's monkfish and clams with roasted almonds, rosemary and aioli; tea-smoked fillets of wild salmon with pickled cucumber salad; and squid and chorizo with black olives and red pepper.