Donna Hay is wrong in many instances. She is more of a photographer than a chef.

So a thin slice of cake on a plate sells, does it?

I would not be licking a cover if that was all that was on the cover. The same goes for her other 2 meals.

Donna Hay is not a chef. She is more a food stylist. If you have ever read any of her recipes you will know they are about as basic as you can get. Her and that oh so contrived Bill Granger are far more about putting food together than cooking.

She does have some great recipes for sandwiches though.

Edited by: melrich2 on 17/07/2009 13:30

Actually, it's the other way around for me.

The pigs trotters were presented as shaved meat - that looks just like sliced ham you buy from the shops - doubt anyone would be turned off by that if were talking about a photo for the front cover of a book!!!

Yeah - I actually have heard people drool over pig's trotters. They are regarded as a delicacy and aren't generally cheap. Try searching for the French version of the dish, Pied de Cochon.

Funny thing is, most people don't seem to get their knickers in a twist over lamb shanks and that's mainly because the small section of the foot has been removed prior to it being roasted and served up. Seems that doesn't offend their delicate sensibilities. But because the most popular of the pig's trotters, the rear feet which normally come with the shank attached and still have the foot attached, people carry on like precious fools.

Me? I'd much rather tuck into the pig version rather than the lamb. I detest lamb with a vengeance, stinky, smelly, greasy, rancid tasting stuff it is. I've never understood people actually liking lamb.

As for Julie's cookbook. Thank you but no thank you. I don't need a recipe to cook roasts or tasteless and dry 'chocolate' cake. I actually want to serve up decent food and can do without Julie's raw fish, raw lamb (on several occasions) unsuccessful pies, poor cake baking, etc etc etc. Strangely enough, in her invention tests, where she has mainly cooked her ''home style'' recipes, she has been roundly criticised each and every time for lack of flavour, undercooking, failed recipes and lousy presentation.

I couldn't give a stuff about Julie and her family and what they eat for breakfast, or what her next door neighbour feeds her husband and brats. I already have my good old Commonsense Cookbook for the basics and my ancient Mary Berry 'Everyday Cookbook'. Both of these are reliable, cover the basics, and the Mary Berry gives me room to make changes to the recipes and record them and to record my own recipes. I also have a cookbook of my mother's, carefully divided into sections for entrees, mains, desserts etc with half a dozen blank pages at the end of each section where she recorded her own favourite recipes.

Oh, and for that 'something special' recipe - I still have ALL the Robert Carrier Cookery cards from the 70's (with a couple of thousand recipes) sitting in their card file - along with around 50 or so cards of my own special recipes.

A friend of mine, who works in a wholesale butchery which also makes its own sausages has a rather funny answer to the question when asked what's really in sausages.

His response?

Lips and ar#eholes