Les Murray, the great Australian poet, was talking recently about his country childhood. It was the lack of urban diversions which enabled him to immerse himself in books that helped form his outlook on life. I had a similar experience and two books in particular encapsulated for me the romance and craft of cooking: La Fine Bouche and Escoffier. I would read Escoffier on rainy afternoons and by the age of thirteen my desire to be a chef was confirmed, much to the horror of my parents. Other parents may have hidden such malign influences from an impressionable adolescent along with sexually explicit literature. Mine, however, provided easy access to their entire library and thus sparked two major interests that will hopefully survive middle age!
