Soup wheel

The Soup Book is a very nicely written book, from the fifties I think. I got it for 10p from the Fara charity shop bin, and was pleasantly surprised by these lovely fold out 'soup wheels'. You use one can of the central ingredient, then half a can of one of the next, half again of something from the the next ring, and a smidgen from the outer ring. How beautiful is that.

Also, Richard Wentworth speaks well about menus:

"I like menus, I like the gap between desire and text and interpretation. It's a social thing, coursing across the print, watching the maths, eyeing the props, taking pleasure in my ignorance, editing and re-editing. You plan a risk, you rehearse a conservative choice, you plunge in. It's only ingredients, processes and procedures but there is room to extemporise, to play clerk of works, to write a short play, to paint by numbers. Talking is the same, just quicker. I like using words to order and I like unfamiliar words. I have, for want of language, pointed at other people's dishes and, very occasionally, I have ordered by numbers."