Smart Tart

Tamasin Day-Lewis's The Art of the Tart was published in 2000 and became an international bestseller. Smart Tart is less of a sequel and more of a companion. It's a book about food and how if defines us - in 15 autobiographical sketches, Tamasin takes us back to early memories of making jam tarts with her mother, the matchless taste of the Bakewell tart made by her grandparents' cook Rhoda, her father's elaborate Christmas rituals and the pleasures of tea at Fortnum & Mason with her brother Daniel. She writes at length of the beauty and restorative power of County Mayo in the west of Ireland, where she has spent every summer since childhood, and of the important role food played in the social revolution of the 1960s. In one of the most powerful pieces in the book she recounts six months teaching a group of local mums how to cook as part of a Homestart programme and how it transformed their lives. Each of these sketches allows her to tell stories drawn from her own life - anecdotes about food, friendship and family, as warm and eccentric as the tarts that inspire them.
Plus there are illustrated recipe sections at the end of each chapter, containing Tamasin's 30 very best tart recipes, the ones she has perfected over the 13 years since her famous debut. A beautiful packaged small hardback, with illustrations by John Broadley and photographs by Robert Fairer, Smart Tart will make a perfect addition to anyone's Christmas hamper. 'Part story, part memoir - something to get your teeth into reading-wise, as well as your elbows deep in butter and flour' Tamasin Day-Lewis