I'll Cook for You. By Georges Kaftal. (Harvill Press. 7s.
6d.) THIS excellent book on how to make the best of rations should prove a godsend to those thousands of amateurs who have been forced by circumstances to become cooks. So simply and concisely does this expert give instructions that not even the vaguest of us can mis- understand. We are not ordered, as in the prehistoric cookery-books of Beeton and Roundell, to "take half a pound of butter, six eggs and a gill of cream" before commencing culinary operations ; we are merely shown how to make Brussels sprouts, cabbage and vegetable marrow into delicious dishes and how to transmute hard beef into Bitock a la Russe. Magic sauces, soups like crab and Bortsch, a Brioche en Surprise (made from a bun) and a dozen ways of treating potatoes are among the items dealt with. The spine of this book is not stitched, but fastened with wire in the Continental way, and therefore when opened its pages lie flat upon the table. M. Kaftal is a Russian, who, in the intervals of work at Oxford, cooks for hint
self. Well does he know the value of time to the housewife. Nothing in his book takes over an hour to prepare ; many dishes less than half an hour. He certainly deserves the enthusiastic thanks of all amateur cooks for making their task rewarding and easy. This is indeed cookery without tears.
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