There is an old joke which says that if you are lost in the desert, start making a salad dressing as someone will pop out of a sand dune and tell you that you are making it the wrong way. This, in essence, is what Felicity Cloake does in her recipe book Perfect (Fig Tree, £18.99). And the idea is a good one. Cloake has done all the hard work — read all the top cookery writers, tried out their versions, and then picked the best, or ‘Perfect’ one. So you have 68 ‘perfect’ recipes.
The title is meant to be comforting, or encouraging, but it could be a little dangerous. Once you start bandying the word ‘perfect’ around you’re going to have every Tom Dick and Harry who can make a béchamel leaping out of the sand dunes and complaining.
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