Nice guy Simon Gault takes us into the family kitchen

Simon Gault strikes me as being one of the really nice guys out there in the sometimes vicious world of professional chefs. I have never met him but feel as if I know him from seeing him occasionally in the distance at Euro and so often in the media, especially of course the first three series of NZ Masterchef and his 2011 programme Chef on a Mission.

This morning in my Post Office box I found my review copy of his new book, published this week,  SIMON GAULT - homemade, and as a result I have "lost" four hours reading the book from cover to cover, drooling over the recipes, enjoying Kieran Scott's fine photography, and particularly enjoying Gault's obvious affection for his parents and the way they introduced him to interesting food from a young age resulting in him wanting to become a chef from about the age of eight.
This enormously appealing book is all about family food and family cooking. Quite a number of the recipes are from Simon's Mum and several from his Dad, dishes that were favourites when he was growing up and remain so today. He has given some of them a tweek to incorporate foods that were not around earlier.
I have already marked seven dishes I want to make in the next week or so but it is my plan to try and make every dish in the book during the course of this year.

Here are those dishes I have on my priority shortlist:

Mussel salad
Marinated snapper salad
Venetian style prawns
Vegetable Clafoutis
Coq au vin on risotto
Whisky & marmalade Chicken
Dad's sage chicken

More about this book shortly but right now I have to get back to my Barbara Vine novel (The Child's Child).