This is a first rate cookery book: easy to follow, well illustrated and inspiring. It does not assume great culinary skills and yet the range of dishes it covers would almost certainly introduce established cooks to something new. Although marketed for the host/ess, hospitality, like charity, begins at home and this would double as a very useful family cookbook.

Beginning with Brunch dishes, which include not only a simple, healthy Granola but also a Breakfast Burrito with Tomato and Coriander Salsa and Home Fries guaranteed to awaken your taste buds to the flavours of Mexico, the 250 recipes cover everything from tea parties via three course dinners to festive meals. It is excellent on sauces and superb on breads. Darina Allen is Ireland’s best loved chef and owner of the famous Ballymaloe Cookery School but here she uses, and pays tribute, to recipes obtained from friends all round the world.

We chose to cook Fish in Fresh Fig Leaves with Nasturtium and Parsley Butter partly because we had all the plants elements of this recipe growing in the garden – and very successful it was too. Next time we plan to try the Tomato and Coconut Milk Soup in Espresso Cups – it looks an easy but stylish starter… then again Peach Gorgonzola and Watercress Salad sounds equally delicious. This is a book which really tempts…

I rate this 4/5. It would have been even higher but for a few frustrating anomalies in indexing and page numbers. For example on page 173 you are directed to page 54 for Moroccan Harira soup - it is on page 84. Similarly on page 143 Rogan Josh is flagged as being at page 130, where you’ll find Beef Rendang. (I am still looking for Rogan Josh – it isn’t in the index, nor are soups as a category). Further not all the pictures are captioned. With common sense you’ll work all this out but these small points detract (unnecessarily when computerised checking has revolutionised book production) from an otherwise excellent and useful book.