Dianne Bibby gives us a bite out of her latest cookbook

Are you a coffee or tea person? A 100% coffee person. You’ll find me in my kitchen very early in the mornings making coffee. Before we get to the table it’s rusks and coffee in bed.

What was on your breakfast table this morning? Regulars are smoothies, granola — with berries and yoghurt — and on a good day maybe a batch of waffles or crepes. This morning it was Greek yoghurt, honey and walnuts.

The newly published Bibby’s More Good Food is your third cookbook. Is there a personal favourite among the trio, and does publishing become any easier the more you do it? Without a doubt, Bibby’s More Good Food is my favourite. After my first book I said I’d hang up the apron — and yet I’m here again. I said it would become easier, but it doesn’t — not for me, anyhow. Though the structural process becomes more familiar, it still requires the same amount of research, time and dedication to put meat on the bones. To some extent there’s an even greater expectation with each publication.

You undertake all the photography yourself, and Bibby’s More Good Food is no exception. Any tips or special equipment for those who enjoy photographing food? I don’t use any fancy equipment, just a good camera and tripod. That’s it. And natural light, it is the ultimate illuminator. Unfortunately the only advice that really works is practise and repeat, then practise some more.

As an early riser, what makes you get out of bed in the morning? Enthusiasm and discipline. When enthusiasm wanes, discipline will keep you going. Once entangled with food, its grip will have you up at unimaginable hours, cooking in pyjamas. You need to love what you do, beyond comfortability.

You write so evocatively about food and all your recipes carry an enticing introduction. Is it something that comes easily to you? For me, writing about food in an engaging manner that doesn’t have the reader nodding off mid-sentence is undoubtedly the most challenging part of a cookbook. It definitely does not come naturally. Oftentimes it’s like striking a rock and waiting for water. Nothing. Even Google struggles with alternatives to the “delicious” dilemma!

What piece of handy kitchen equipment or gadget you can’t live without and use over and over again? I’d like to choose two, please. A good zester — there’s hardly a dish that doesn’t benefit from the addition of lemon zest. With hummus being a staple in our home, a robust blender is a must.

If you could only have three ingredients in your kitchen, what would they be? Good-quality extra virgin olive oil, lemons and sea salt flakes. 

What two dishes in your latest cookbook do your family request you to make over and over again? The chicken and chorizo pasta, a dish I cooked for a well-known Italian restaurant some years back and it was so popular they put it on their menu. It remains my family’s most loved pasta to date. And weeknight Tuscan chicken, because every time I make this dish, the pan hardly needs rinsing.

For a celebration dinner for friends and family, what would you prepare from your new book? I’d make the pan-grilled feta with chilli honey butter followed by gingery chickpea curry and roast harissa aubergines. For dessert we’d most probably finish with red wine and cardamom fig ice cream, because this menu celebrates the limitless potential of plant-based food — and it’s anything but bland.

If you could choose your last meal, who would you invite to share it with you and what would you prepare? Darren, my husband. I know he’d like scouse, Liverpool’s finest beef stew — but seeing as it’s my last meal, it’s going to be something vegetarian, maybe Parmigiana di Melazane, with extra Parmegiano.

BIBBY’S MORE GOOD FOOD

By Dianne Bibby

Penguin Random House

R480