The Food I Love

It's a rare thing for an internationally renowned chef to admit to a passion for simple cherry tomato pasta or golden fried fish and chips with lots of garlicky aïoli, but that is exactly what award-winning chef Neil Perry does in this superb new book, The Food I Love. Taking its inspiration from the cooking of the Mediterranean, The Food I Love is, however, more than just a collection of recipes. Neil Perry has produced a book that can be utilized in a number of ways -- you can simply enjoy the 200 delicious recipes or you can be inspired by the thousands of suggested food combinations that work together to create superb dishes for breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert. This is home cooking at its very best: simple, seasonal and absolutely delicious. There is also straightforward advice on everything from how to properly hold a cook's knife to trussing chicken and filleting fish. Full of the enthusiasm and joy that comes from creating wonderful food from great ingredients, The Food I Love is a book that you will cook with, learn from and delight in many times over.

Neil Perry is one of Australia's leading and most influential chefs. He has managed several of Sydney's top restaurants, including the award-winning Rockpool. This landmark establishment celebrated its fifteenth anniversary in 2004, and since its inception has been consistently highly recommended by food critics around the world. Among Rockpool's many achievements is winning the Australian Gourmet Traveller Restaurant of the Year Award for the third time in 2004 -- the only restaurant in the Award's history to have achieved this distinction. This enviable reputation is due to Neil's passion for great food and tireless commitment to excellence -- qualities which have brought him to the forefront of modern Australian cooking.

In recent years Neil has established a dynamic consultancy business that provides training and menu development for Qantas Airways and a fresh food product line for Australia's Woolworths. He does regular television work as well and is the author of two previous books. In 2004 his famed XO restaurant reopened in Sydney, with its distinctive take on modern Asian food.

Neil Perry lives in Sydney with his wife Samantha, their new baby Macy and his elder daughter Josephine.