RECIPES MY MOTHER GAVE ME: Stephanie Alexander presents 'Through my Kitchen Door', the first published cookbook of her mother, Mary Burchett

One of the greatest disappointments of my life was the realisation that my dear Mum, some time in the early stages of the dementia that eventually finished her off, had destroyed the black exercise book full of recipes that was kept in the kitchen drawer with the clean tea towels. Well, it didn't work any more, did it?

I make do with this. As a cook Mary Burchett was quite adventurous for her time, more adventurous than my Mum, but the evocation of Australian family life in the middle of the twentieth century that comes from reading her recipes and Stephanie's comments is heartwarming.