A Thousand Feasts

From award-winning writer Nigel Slater, comes a new and exquisitely written collection of notes, memoir, stories and small moments of joy.

For years, Nigel Slater has kept notebooks of curiosities and wonderings, penned while at his kitchen table, soaked in a fisherman’s hut in Reykjavik, sitting calmly in a moss garden in Japan or sheltering from a blizzard in a Vienna Konditorei.

These are the small moments, events and happenings that gave pleasure before they disappeared. Miso soup for breakfast, packing a suitcase for a trip and watching a butterfly settle on a carpet, hiding in plain sight. He gives short stories of feasts such as a mango eaten in monsoon rain or a dish of restorative macaroni cheese.

This funny and sharply observed collection of the good bits of life, often things that pass many of us by, is utter joy from beginning to end. Nigel homes in on the scent of a bunch of home-grown sweet peas, the sound of water breathing at night in Japan, the occasional ‘pfuff’ as a tiny avalanche of snow falls from leaves. Moments like these, he hopes, might bring happiness to others too.

Reviews

PRAISE FOR NIGEL SLATER:

'He is king among food writers’ Nigella Lawson

‘After all these years, no one describes the simple sensuous pleasures of food better than Slater’ Bee Wilson

‘The beauty of his prose is matched to the warmth of his recipes’ Tom Parker-Bowles

‘Every time Nigel Slater announces a new book, I quickly make a spot next to all his other books that sit on my bookshelf’ Nik Sharma

About the author

Nigel Slater is a bestselling and award-winning author, journalist and television presenter. He has been the food columnist for the Observer for over thirty years and is one of Britain’s most highly regarded food writers. His memoir Toast won six awards and became a film and stage production. He lives in London.