If you're thinking of opening an all-day deli-caf, or you need to pep up the breakfast service at your hotel, you could do worse than take a look at this little book. Written by food writer and freelance chef Jacque Malouf - who, by the way, is a woman from Australia - it covers all the bases as far as the start to the day is concerned.
Australians are big on all-day dining. Breakfast and brunch are taken seriously as meals, not just regarded as fuel to kick-start, or sustain, the morning - and that comes through in the book.
It's refreshing to see Malouf's take on something like eggs benedict (she substitutes smoked trout for bacon, instead of the more common smoked salmon), and her hybrid of boiled and scrambled eggs (the eggs are scrambled, crme frache added, popped back in the shell for serving and topped with caviar). Both are simple but effective deviations from the norm.
Being from the southern hemisphere, Malouf doesn't hesitate to include influences from all around the world in her recipes - churros, polenta cakes (flavoured with raspberry and yogurt), bubble and squeak, corn fritters, for example - and also a chapter on drinks. The Middle Eastern rosewater and mint-scented lemonade sounds enticing, as does the more wintery hot chocolate flavoured with cinnamon, cardamom and vanilla.
The book is divided into nine chapters - easy to negotiate with good, but not artfully silly, photography and self-explanatory groupings. To wit: drinks, cereal, fruit, home-bakes (muffins come in this section), hot sweet stuff, sandwiches, eggs, brunch and on-the-side.
You'll get hungry as soon as you open the pages.
Joanna Wood
Breakfasts
Jacque Malouf
Conran Octopus, 12.99
ISBN 1-84091-414-9