Heart of the home, meeting point, food centre and conversation place: is any room more important than the kitchen?

Little surprise, then, that for many families it is the kitchen where important events happen, where decisions are made and where lives unravel.

The author talks to, mainly women, whose kitchens play a large part in their life

TEMPORARILY OUT OF STOCK

A collection of healthy mouth-watering recipes and practical tips on better eating from Paul and Caroline Jeffreys.

Paul is the author of the best-selling Diary of a Fat Man. 'It's easy and inexpensive to eat healthily.'

The follow-up to the best-selling Diary of a Fat Man.

In this second book, Paul Jeffreys shares the recipes and eating tips that helped him lose a massive 64 kg.

The emphasis is on simple, delicious, tasty food that is also easy on the pocket.

This book dispels the myth that healthy eating is complicated and expensive.

Each of the 90 recipes takes no longer than half-an-hour and a few pans to cook - with an average cost of 15 dollars to feed four people.

Introduced in Paul's chatty style, these recipes make eating healthily straightforward and easy to incorporate into your lifestyle.

Also included are menu plans, detox plans, what dishes to choose when you are eating out and other key tips to health and wellbeing.

A chapter called 'The Healthy Household' covers what you need in your fridge and pantry.

TEMPORARILY OUT OF STOCK

A guide to preparing food using a process which has its origins in the days when preservation of food was not as simple as just throwing it in the fridge.

Smoking ensured that foods would last until the next hunting season.

By using salt to draw out moisture over a period of days, or even weeks, the meat would eventually achieve a moisture content that wouldn't allow bacteria to set in.

Hanging the meat in the smoke of a fire helped to draw out further moisture while also adding flavour and the smoke itself may have played a part in the preservation process.

The book is a start-to-finish guide covering cold and hot smoking and includes:
preparing the smoker;
preparing the food;
brining and different brine recipes;
saltwater and freshwater fish;
shellfish;
chicken and birds;
sausages;
cheese.

The book also has a variety of recipes that use smoked food.

TEMPORARILY OUT OF STOCK

Snapper is without question one of New Zealand's favourite table fish, and the creamy white flesh has a texture and taste that lends itself to many styles of cooking.

These recipes are unpretentious, simple and delicious.

Also included is a step-by-step guide to gutting and filleting your snapper.

TEMPORARILY OUT OF STOCK

This is the quintessenial Indian cookbook.

It combines easy and quick recipes with readily available ingredients.

Nancy's adaptations of traditional appetising Indian recipes can be enjoyed all year round.

Included are also guilt free enticing recipes for the more health conscious.

Whatever your preference, Nancy lifts the veil of mystery on Indian cooking and bings it into your kitchen for your enjoyment and pleasure.

TEMPORARILY OUT OF STOCK

From Tauhara's Kitchen presents over 120 delicious and easy-to-prepare recipes from the Tauhara Centre, near Taupo.

Many requests from visitors have prompted them to share their kitchen secrets.

Compiler, Cathy Stevens, has included mouth-watering recipes for soups, salads, main courses, side dishes, desserts and breakfasts and guarantees every recipe has been tested and enjoyed.

TEMPORARILY OUT OF STOCK

From fledgling status a decade or so ago, the New Zealand olive oil industry has grown in leaps and continues to flourish.

Today there are hundreds of producers, from boutique outfits to large-scale operators, putting top-quality, home-grown olive oil on our tables and into the export market.

Like the NZ wine industry, the olive oil business has its fair share of mavericks and growers whose vision - along with typical Kiwi grit - is at last beginning to pay dividends.

This new book is an essential directory of brands for anyone who wants to explore the vibrant tastes of New Zealand olive oil.

Fairly and squarely aimed at anyone who might need a bit of help in the kitchen when faced with the prospect of cooking freshly caught fish and seafood, Hook It and Cook It is a new edition of Noel Holmes' popular 1960s classic first published as Just Cooking, Thanks.

This collection of Holmes' columns is as fresh today as the fish he would catch, clean cook and subsequently write about in his hugely popular column Auckland Star column of the 1950s and '60s, 'Just Looking, Thanks'.

Holmes wrote with great dollops of humour and common sense so that, in his own words, 'any tyro who cannot deal with a bucket of scallops or a live crayfish after reading this book just has not been paying attention'.

Now, over 40 years later, his wonderfully informal collection of recipes is still as useful as it ever was.

Not least because as well as learning how to make a sauce or poach a fillet or figure out what to do with paua and other shellfish, you'll also be enormously entertained by Holmes' easy writing style, described by Warwick Roger as 'the best columnist this country has had'.

Digby Law's Pickle & Chutney Cookbook is a New Zealand classic used and respected by home cooks and professionals alike.

This indispensable reference contains 300 easy-to-make recipes for chutneys, relishes, sauces, oils, pickles, jellies, vinegars and mustards.

Discover traditional preserves from Europe and North America, exotic specialties from Asia and Latin America, and enjoy familiar New Zealand favourites.

This classic deserves a place in every New Zealand kitchen.