Cookbook of the week - Food for Friends and Family

    Cookbook of the week this week is Sarah Raven's Food for Friends and Family, a collection of four hundred recipes arranged according to season, and illustrated with the most marvellous photographs by Jonathan Buckley (visit his site for pulse-quickeningly beautiful images of flowers).

    From the winter section - and bear in mind this alone runs from snacks and canapés through soups and accompaniments, salads, vegetarian dishes, fish, meat and vegetable side dishes to puddings, cakes and biscuits, preserves, drinks and Christmas dishes, so pretty comprehensive - we've begun with the celeriac salad with apple, pine nuts and prosciutto.

    "A dense, filling salad," the book says, and so it is, but the flavours more than match its heartiness, the celeriac and apple cut into matchsticks and dressed with a herby mayonnaise, then tossed with some toasted pine nuts and flat leaf parsley and topped with the prosciutto.