Life is a menu - Michel Roux

Michel Roux began his life's work at the age of fourteen when his mother took him, dressed in his Sunday best, to be apprenticed at a grand patisserie in the north of Paris. There, day after day, he did nothing but break eggs - the painstaking beginnings of a long, hard training in traditional French cuisine.

Almost half a century later he looks back at the experiences and mixed fortunes that together have made him one of the most renowned and highly regarded chefs in the world, the owner of, at time of writing, the only Michelin three-star restaurant in Britain, The Waterside Inn at Bray.

Typically, he thinks of his life in the form of a menu, dividing the incidents and reminiscences into the courses of a formal meal - hors d'oeuvres, soup, eggs, fish, etc. - and concocts each chapter with a complementary mixture of entertaining anecdotes and recipes.

This is the story of a man who has followed his passionate interest throughout life and through it can view the world with sympathy and humour. Engaging, informative and amusing, his reminiscences build up a picture of a way of life that is far out of the way of most people, yet that touches us all in one important respect, the love of food. We learn of the dishes that have meant most to him, from his mother's soups, or Mlle de Rothschild's simple little egg dish, to a friend's recipe for baked eggs with truffles . . . and because it is impossible to read about such wonderful things without wanting to try them he has included his recipes, many previously unpublished, throughout.