How to Butter Toast: Rhymes in a Book That Help You to Cook

How to Butter Toast is the antidote to cookbook-overload. In this fun and entertaining recipe book without any recipes, Ottolenghi co-writer Tara Wigley equips you with rhymes and confidence to cook great food instinctively.

Melted butter on hot toast and served up on a plate.

It seems like nothing, really, could be clearer or more straight.

But though, in terms of things required, the number is just two,

there is a lot of wiggle room for what there is to do.

Cook and author Tara Wigley had been to cookery school, read hundreds of cookbooks and developed recipes for over a decade. Yet she found the fewer the ingredients in a recipe, the more confusion there was about how best to make it. The result is How to Butter Toast, a collection of rhymes that will enlighten and entertain, reassure and ultimately liberate the culinarily confused.

The rhymes provide reassuring – and memorable – answers to the culinary conundrums we often face: How long should I boil an egg? What’s the best way to crush garlic? How do I make mayonnaise, a martini or indeed the perfect cup of tea? Tara’s playful take on these food quandaries seems effortless but belies her knowledgeable and carefully researched approach to cooking.

Beautifully packaged with bold and witty illustrations throughout, How to Butter Toast is the perfect gift for cooks of all levels. This is the first book in a series Tara is publishing with Pavilion.

‘I can't think of many food authorities who can string together words which are as poignant and profound as they are entertaining and ear-pleasing.’Yotam Ottolenghi

‘A total joy. Part Dr Seuss, part Ogden Nash, part Julia Child, 100% inspired and inspiring’ Samin Nosrat

‘Fun and wise, Tara manages to capture the kinds of the things we cogitate about – sometimes without even knowing! – and provides reassuring answers to those confusing everyday conundrums. A collection for when you are weary of recipes and cooking, but not of life itself!’ Helen Goh

‘Those who have followed her ditties on Insta since Lockdown will be delighted, but the detail, the skill, the Ballymaloe cookery school training, the years as co-writer with Yotam at Ottolenghi will save serious cooks a fortune in cookery school fees. How she manages to explain chemistry in rhyme is little short of genius.’ Gilly Smith

‘Tara brings together her genius for both rhyming and cooking in this witty, illustrated book. Recipes are replaced by rhyming couplets that are entertaining, sometimes silly and always wise. The ditties make the instructions for how to poach an egg, make hummus or even roast a chicken easier to commit to memory.’ Ravinder Bhogal

“It feels gently revolutionary … Wigley’s book has the makings of a modern classic. Imagine the literary lovechild that might have resulted had Dr Seuss eloped with Elizabeth David. Smuggled within the sing-song is a trove of know-how … in other words: she’s got chops.” The Wall Street Journal

As the in-house writer of Team Ottolenghi over the last decade Tara Wigley has co-written eight major books, including million-selling Ottolenghi Simple and Falastin. In addition, she writes the weekly Ottolenghi Guardian column and the monthly column in the New York Times. She has a dedicated following on Instagram and writes about food in ways that audiences find engaging and informative. She was a judge on the 2022 Fortnum & Mason Food & Drink awards.