I purchased the book Jamie At Home last Christmas, when I saw it advertised at less than half price in Asda. I am not a huge fan of the chef, but I had watched and liked the premise of the At Home series. As soon as I picked up the book too, and saw the recipe ideas and beautiful layout of the volume I decided I had to have it.

The book is in hardback format and contains 407 pages. It retails at £25, although as mentioned above, I purchased it for £10. To be honest, I would be reluctant to spend more than £10 on a recipe book, as I own a huge number of cookery books, and there are so many recipes available for free on the internet anyway. I would not have paid the price for just the recipes themselves either - the fact is At Home is a work of art in itself, and clearly a lot of time and creativity has gone into the design.

The book is split into four main parts:

- Spring
- Summer
- Autumn
- Winter

Each part covers a selection of some of the fruit and vegetables available in said season, and Jamie's recipes pertaining to each ingredient are included. For example, in the third part, Autumn, the fruit and vegetables covered are:

- Chillies and Peppers
- Feathered Game
- Furred Game
- Mushrooms
- Orchard Fruit
- Pickles

This particular part covers around eighty pages, and 10 - 15 pages are devoted to each ingredient. In the chapter about mushrooms for example, the book begins with an introduction to the vegetable, stating interesting facts about it, tips for foraging and the varieties available. It then moves on to cover three mushroom-based recipes. The recipes in this chapter are titled:

- Grilled Mushroom Risotto
- Ultimate Mushroom Bruscetta
- Wild Mushroom and Venison Stroganoff

At least a double page spread is devoted to each recipe, with the instructions on one side and a beautiful full colour photograph on the other. Also included in each chapter is a section on how best to grow or cultivate the vegetable.

Being vegetarian I do not, of course, practise any of the recipes involving meat or fish. What I do do however, is look at some meat-based recipes and work out if and how they can be adapted to suit my diet. For example, in the recipe Crispy and Sticky Chicken Thighs with Potatoes and Tomatoes, I can simply substitute real chicken with Quorn chicken fillets, and follow the rest of the recipe accordingly. Having said that however. The only recipes I have actually tried from the book to date are sweet ones. I grow rhubarb in my garden and the section on rhubarb offered a lovely recipe I tried, entitled Rhubarb and Sticky Stem Ginger crumble.

This is a gorgeous book to look at, and would make an ideal gift. It oozes quality with its beautiful photography and charming country artwork. The pages are thick and have an almost handmade feel. My main criticism is that it seems as though Jamie has spent too much time cultivating his ingredients and not enough time drumming up creative recipes. The mushroom chapter mentioned above, for example, contains all the recipes I would immediately associate with the vegetable; risotto, stroganoff and the bread-based bruscetta dish. Similarly, the rhubarb crumble dish, while it tasted lovely, only contained a small number of ingredients, and I have see and used many other more delicious and creative crumble dishes elsewhere. This book would, as I said, make a perfect gift, but is not for those looking for new ideas in the kitchen.