The Commonsense Cookery Book ~ NSW Teachers Cookery Association

This is the book I first learnt to cook with. My mother had a very tatty copy which had lost both the front and back cover and which we'd flip through on weekends and in the school holidays to look for cake and biscuit recipes. I recall a particularly vicious marble cake in chocolate and three shades of green that went down a treat, once you got over the colour. Mum's original copy went missing in a move when I was in my teens and so I bought my own copy of the revised edition once I moved out of home - and so did my mother (who also later gave copies to both of my brother's-in-law).

The book is quite basic, even down to a recipe to make a cup of tea, however what it does is cover the basics very well. The book was originally published back in the 1920's or 30's with several revisions along the way, and the recipes do hark back to a simpler cuisine, but there are some gems within that are both simple and guaranteed to keep you cooking (try the Chocolate sauce pudding).

I would recommend this to beginner cooks and to primary school aged children. It would also be a handy gift to a son or daughter moving out of home for the first time without extensive culinary skills.

- kath