Britain’s foremost food writer Nigel Slater returns to the garden in this sequel to Tender, his acclaimed and beloved volume on vegetables. With a focus on fruit, Ripe is equal parts cookbook, primer on produce and gardening, and affectionate ode to the inspiration behind the book--Slater’s forty-foot backyard garden in London.
 
Intimate, delicate prose is interwoven with recipes in this lavishly photographed cookbook. Slater offers more than 300 delectable dishes--both sweet and savory--such as Apricot and Pistachio Crumble, Baked Rhubarb with Blueberries, and Crisp Pork Belly with Sweet Peach Salsa. With a personal, almost confessional approach to his appetites and gustatory experiences, Slater has crafted a masterful book that will gently guide you from the garden to the kitchen, and back again.

“Mr. Slater’s prose is so evocative that it will tap into the collective yearning that courses through cities and suburbs across the county, into our need to be disconnected from the ‘virtual’ and reconnected to the rhythms of nature.” 
—Wall Street Journal

“As with Tender, however, the real reason to add Ripe to your cookbook shelf is Slater’s smart, supple prose and tart observations, which are at once lyrical, deeply felt, and irresistibly irreverent.”
—KQED Bay Area Bites

“This is so much more than a cookbook. With each chapter focusing on a different fruit, Slater offers tips on growing the fruit in your garden, characteristics of the most common varieties, how to handle them back in your kitchen, and tried-and-true ingredient pairings. Slater feels like a companion on a fruit-finding journey.
—TheKitchn.com

“A comprehensive fruit book that’s sure to please the farm-to-table minded.”
—Library Journal

“Nigel Slater has written an impossibly beautiful and elegant companion to Tender. In Ripe, Slater treats fruit with respect and affection. Apricots are nestled between layers of almond cake. Currants are bolstered with bread. Plums jump with pickling spices. Treat yourself to this treasure.”
—Amanda Hesser, cofounder of FOOD52.com
 
“Nigel’s voice is the most distinctive and expressive among current food writers; his food is original, comforting, and completely delicious. Ripe is an inspiration.”
—Yotam Ottolenghi, author of Plenty
 
“I keep half a dozen favorite cookbooks on a special shelf next to my desk, and three of them are by Nigel Slater. Ripe is Slater at his best: warm, gracious, and profoundly knowledgeable. Start with the chapter on apples--be sure to make that ‘deeply appley apple crumble’--and you’ll know exactly what I mean.”
—Molly Wizenberg, creator of Orangette
 
“Nigel Slater’s masterpiece is a quiet, gorgeous, slow-motion riot where nature teaches the hungry gardener everything about beauty. But this is a cookbook? Absolutely and deeply, starting with how great fruit happens. From there, the sublime recipes seem inevitable. When I thumbed upon the blackberry focaccia, I tore out the page to tuck in my July calendar, whispering ‘genius.’”
—Judy Rodgers, author of The Zuni Cafe Cookbook