This is what we've all been waiting for: Donna Hay's fresh new two-book series that updates timeless cookery classics and establishes some modern ones. These are the essential handbooks to perfect (or kick off) your cooking talents.

The first of a duo of titles, `Modern Classics: Book 1' revisits the classics with a modern edge and presents the essential recipes of contemporary cooking with Donna Hay's signature simplicity, clarity and beautiful styling.

Master a roast, make the ultimate meat pie, whisk up the perfect salad dressing...Donna Hay's modern classics will become the handbooks of a new generation of home cooks and indispensable refresher manuals for those who came before them. No kitchen will be complete without her fantastic modern take on the food everyone would love to cook if only they knew how.

Chapter by chapter, Donna Hay gives you the basics, step by step and beautifully photographed, as well as some simple but wonderful recipes to use every day, then takes you beyond with extras, variations and twists for special occasions and adventurous days. Includes soups, salads, vegetables, roasts and simmers, pasta and delicious pies.