Claudia Roden has apparently cooked some of these recipes, but whether the rest of us would be able to is debatable.Those in need of an everyday Moorish cookbook should consider the intelligently written Tastes of North Africa with its easily followed recipes. There is some overlap between this and the repertoire in the heavier, more modish and quirkier Moro, with its charming sepia photographs, postcards and snapshots of the region, and more complicated recipes. Both include harira, the Ramadan soup, ajo blanco (white gazpacho) and the charmingly named Moors and Christians (black beans and white rice).A seasonal approach is more relevant for northern Europe. Le Gavroche Cookbook lists tempting seasonal ingredients in its Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter sections, while The Paris Cookbook by Patricia Wells (Kyle Cathie, £19.99, 288pp) dots alluring menus such as "A Springtime Parisian Party" and "Summer on the Seine" in between chapters revealing a love and inside knowledge of Parisian restaurants. Its American author, Patricia Wells, has lived in France for years, and has a devoted following for her personal, evocative and cookable recipes.Organic is a buzzword much used in marketing, but is there any need for an organic cookbook as opposed to a normal one? Organic: A New Way of Eating by Sophie Grigson and William Black (Headline, £25, 256pp) answers this reservation by methodically examining the realities behind the organically-produced food before dedicating half the book to Sophie Grigson's homely recipes.Flavours of the sunSpecifically designed for the time of year are the summery-looking, picture-led books with explicit titles like Risotto by Ursula Ferrigno (Ryland Peters & Small, £8.99, 64pp) or Ice Cream by Shona Crawford Poole (Conran Octopus, £12.99, 95pp).Risotto, subtitled 30 Simply Delicious Vegetable Recipes from an Italian Kitchen, may inspire with suggestions such as watercress and taleggio. But don't think that because they are vegetarian, they will be slimming The recipes ooze melted cheese, butter and cream. The recipes in Ice Cream, however, are surprisingly health-conscious And you don't have to buy an ice-cream making machine.
Packed with practical advice and ideas, the clearly written recipes for everything from lime and papaya crush to brandy snap baskets say which can be made by hand.One that's as much about travel as cooking is Nikko Amandonico's glorious Pizza! (Mitchell Beazley, £20, 168pp). A glossy book, it incorporates sensational photographs, passion and attitude alongside extremely good recipes. It is dedicated to the Neapolitan pizza and is so evocative in an over-the-top Italian sort of way that you will have to book a ticket to Italy in order to satisfy your craving to eat a juicy pizza Margherita in a hot piazza. Similarly, the tempting and thankfully highly cookable recipes in The Paris Cookbook will inspire many to escape across the Channel.Midsummer coolA few books are held back until later in the summer. This year the most notable is Sichuan Cookery by Fuchsia Dunlop (Michael Joseph, £20, 352pp) which is due out on 28 June Sinophiles should order it now. It has been many years since the last arrival of a serious book on Chinese cooking let alone Sichuan cooking. Better still, Fuchsia Dunlop writes beautifully about Sichuan's culinary history, culture, methodology, philosophy and ingredients.
She makes you want to cook every one of her gorgeous-sounding recipes, from crisp lettuce in sesame sauce to spicy noodles with soft beancurd. If there is one book that might challenge chefs' preconceptions about how they cook this year, it is Sichuan Cookery.. Doctors are overprescribing anti-depressants to people with mental illness because of the failure to develop adequate mental healthcare services, a charity leader said yesterday. Doctors are overprescribing anti-depressants to people with mental illness because of the failure to develop adequate mental healthcare services, a charity leader said yesterday. Judi Clements, in her last speech as chief executive of Mind, the mental health charity, said a 116 per cent rise in the use of anti-depressants in the past five years and a 732 per cent increase for newer style drugs such as Prozac was a sign of the effectiveness of "the pharmaceutical industry's marketing strategies and bankruptcy of some of our medical practices".It was possible more people were seeking medical help for mental problems, she said, "but we still have to ask whether the high rate of prescribing and repeat prescriptions is not missing the real opportunity to improve mental health".Ms Clements, speaking at Mind's annual awards ceremony in London, condemned the state of psychiatric hospitals, which most people found "unpleasant, untherapeutic, and often downright frightening".She criticised the fact that one in three people with severe mental problems had been turned away when seeking help and attacked the emphasis on forcing mentally ill patients to comply with treatment.
