New cookbook ideas please.

[prattinthekitchen]

Help!
I write cookbooks and am looking for a great idea for my next book. I would really like to do something that people will find useful. What is lacking in the cookbook market?What would you like a new cookbook to be about? Any feed back would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.
Jo Pratt

I would love to own a cookbook that has all the traditional recipies of great british cooking (ie apple pie, roasts, toad in the hole etc), but the recipies have to be low fat or no fat ones.

I've never seen a low fat traditonal great british cookbook with all the old favorites combined in one book. If you can do this,I will be out there buying it and I know that it would sell really well in the gym I own,as they are all obsessed with eating nice food, but are not sure how to make it work using low fat or no fat ingredients.

I'd like a winter store cupboard cookbook. Using all things, dried, preserved and frozen. Its for those days when you can't get to the shops and need to use up all the bits in the cupboard and try to be inventive. I don't even know what those bits should be that are in the cupboard.

OMG! I saw the thread title and thought someone was asking for the names of good cookbooks and was going to suggest yours! I love your books! Recently made the chateaubriand with asian coleslaw and it was fantastic!

Sorry, didn't mean to sound so excitable!!

I, like many other people, have an eat-in kitchen so I am always looking for prepare ahead recipes for entertaining. I want to make something impressive as I love cooking but don't want to be doing anything last minute as everyone can see me (and I've had several glasses of wine by then!).

I think I agree with Stilletoe.
I have found it much harder to cook in a vegetabley, low-fat sort of way when I use English seasonal ingredients, esp in the winter, than when I do lots of stir fries and pasta with flown-in ingredients.
Therefore something that used root veg, cabbage etc, but without also using loads of cream, high-fat cheese and pork, would be good
Haven't read any of your books but saw you on tv - think I did your pecan pie from Afternoon Kitchen (or whatever it was called) a few times and it was v nice.

i would like one that my children and i could cook from. i have 3 boys that i'm trying to teach the basics to. for example, they are now cooking jamie olivers pancake recipe which is 1 mugs flour, 1 mug milk and an egg. one son does a cheesecake from rick stein - more advanced. it would be lovely to have a whole book that we could use together. my main turnoff in cookery books are things with obscure/long ingredient lists as i don't have time to shop and cook for 1 meal

And there must always be photos for everything - saw a lovely book the other day all about entertaining but there were no photos so I didn't buy it.

Gordon Ramsey does a regular column in 'Good Food' which I love - it tells you all of the things that you can do to get ahead/ do in advance and then 'how to plate up like a professional'.

Hasn't seasonal food been done to death lately? I like stilletoe's low fat British food idea.

My fave at the moment is Fay's Family Food - I love the idea of just cooking one meal for everyone but not having to resort to pasta just because it's a family meal.

Also - would love to open a book and know that I can make anything, and it's not going to need more than (say) 10 ingredients. One of Rachel Allen's biggest turnoffs IMO.

Did we scare you away???

As you know well, with the internet you can look up a recipe for anything, with any ingredient. The only reason to buy a cookbook is for the sheer love of the book, rather than just the recipes, so the photos point is good, as is the quality of the prose ( which is I guess what makes Nigel Slater such a success ).

Then I guess there's the lifestyle aspect ( Nigella, Sarah Raven ). I have been very impressed with crossover books, esp. Sarah Raven's Christmas Food and Flowers. I read somewhere she's writing another and am hoping its going to be on Entertaining. I'd like a holistic book, one that captures the entire spirit of the event, from planning to recipes to table dressing to creating the ambience etc. But not stuffy - cool and funky and laid back. And lots of photos to drool over.

Thanks all for your very useful messages. Keep them coming!

Littledawley - you didn't scare me away! Glad you are a fan of my books. I hope you will like my next one.

I am currently keen on going down the family food route (quick easy meals for all the family to enjoy) or just quick easy food for midweek meals (for busy and/or working people who love good tasting, nutritious food which doesn't take ages to shop for or cook).

As for pics in books - I agree it is good to have as many as possible, but that is where it gets very expensive to produce books.

Keep the ideas coming. Thanks. x

sounds good to me. at the risk of sounding nuts, the paper and layout makes a big difference - i like the nice mat stuff many people use nowadays