Delia Smith is a household name and as far as many people are concerned, she is THE goddess of the kitchen. With her foolproof recipes and clear instructions you are guaranteed 100per cent success and it is never a problem to make a dish for a dinner party for the first time, wondering if it will turn out alright or not. It always does. Moving on from her phenomenally successful previous titles, she has amalgamated her recipes into four new cookery books grouped by subject - chicken, chocolate, fish and soup. Lavishly illustrated, they are Delia's personal choice of what she views as the best and most popular recipes. And combining them into individual volumes ensures fast access to a particular recipe rather than ploughing through half a dozen in search of that elusive favourite. Chocoholics will revel in the chocolate fudge cake, four nut chocolate brownies, squidgy chocolate log and frozen chocolate bananas. Comfort eaters will find soups to die for with scallop cream soup, smoked haddock chowder with poached quails' eggs and watercress and buttermilk vichyssoise. For chicken fanciers there is chicken jambalaya, coq au vin and chicken cacciatore and for fish lovers there is chargrilled squid with chilli jam, salmon in champagne sauce and luxury smoked fish pie. These are sure to become bestsellers and it is to be hoped that the collection will grow to include other culinary collections and make it a definitive guide to cooking no cook should be without. - Lucy Watson
