CHARLES HUTCHINSON discovers he has an appetite for Nigel Slater's latest cookery book.

Book: Appetite, Nigel Slater (Fourth Estate, £25, hardback).

Chef's CV: Author of Nineties' kitchen essentials Real Fast Food and Real Cooking and weekly food column in The Observer, championing unpretentious, instinctive cookery. Winner of six Glenfiddich awards for his writing and art direction. His last book, Real Food, was complemented by an award-winning series on Channel 4, and became a number one best seller.

Presentation: Links up once more with regular sideman, photographer Jonathan Lovekin, illustrator of his Observer column. Photographs show work in progress, as well as the final culinary canvas - Slater's radical creed is to acknowledge that we eat food, not unnecessarily immaculate presentation! Recipes are accompanied by a second page of suggestions for alternative ingredients, for changing or taking a recipe further, a jazz approach to cookery that encourages experimentation and a refusal to follow the rules slavishly. His turn of phrase is succulent, too.

Ingredients: The first half is the manifesto, as Slater goes back to first-base cooking principles, explores ingredients month by month, assembles the basic kitchen kit, gives tips on how to cut down the workload and the art of washing up, and explains what ingredient enjoys the happiest marriage with what. Most telling chapter heading: Measurements. And why you don't really need them. In the second half, Slater reveals an appetite for soup, pasta and noodles, rice, vegetables, fish, meat, fruit, pastry, pudding and cake, i.e. everything! Note the informative recipe titles, such as An extremely versatile fish soup; A winter supper to revive and restore; A spectacular dessert for a special occasion.

Recipe chosen: A Cheap Spaghetti Supper

Ready, steady, cook: You what, a pasta recipe without a sauce? How does he do that? Easy, with "things we tend to have knocking around anyway", such as bacon and bread. Nigel promised crisp bacon and breadcrumbs would work brilliantly with long strings of pasta, with a final few glugs of oil (olive, not motor) being lubricant enough. He was right, just as he was in his warning to keep an eye on the breadcrumbs, which turned as suddenly and unpredictably as Johann Cruyff in his World Cup pomp, from light to brown to...slightly burnt. For added flavour, I took up Nigel's first alternative suggestion from his "And more" list, crushing a garlic clove into the butter before frying the crumbs.

Taste test: Slater is never afraid to add butter to butter in his recipes, and so this spaghetti dish is as rich as a Camelot boss. Crunchier than a Crunchie, too, which normally only happens with pasta when you break a tooth.

Verdict: A kitchen manual with attitude, aptitude and an appetite, this is Slater's best celebration of "real food" so far and this foodie reviewer's favourite cookbook of the year. Flavour, not glamour is Nigel's credo, a meat-and-potatoes policy that suits all manner of food. Appetite will rest on the stove, not the shelf. HHHHH

Recipe

A Cheap Spaghetti Supper

Ingredients, per person:

White bread, two thickish slices, crusts removed

Spaghetti, a thick handful, about 125g or so

Butter, a thick slice

Olive oil

Bacon, two good-sized rashers of streaky

Parsley, a small bunch, leaves only, roughly chopped

Method:

1. Whiz the bread to rough crumbs in a food processor, or grate it by hand. It won't hurt at all (in fact it will be a bonus) if some crumbs are on the large side.

2. Put a big pan of water on to boil, salt it generously and shove in the pasta. Let it cook for about eight or nine minutes, till it is tender but chewy.

3. Meanwhile, melt the butter in a frying pan with a little olive oil to stop it burning. Cut the bacon into short pieces and fry it in the butter till its fat is golden and the kitchen smells wonderful. Scoop the bacon out with a slotted spoon into a large, warm serving bowl.

4. Add a bit more butter and oil to the butter and bacon fat in the pan and tip in the breadcrumbs. Stir them from time to time in the sizzling butter till they have turned a rich gold. Nigel's tip: You need to keep an eye on them because they appear as if they are never going to brown, then suddenly they are almost black. Charles's tip: don't be caught reading the recipe for the next instruction when you need to be focusing on those pesky breadcrumbs.

5. Drain the pasta and toss it with the hot crumbs and any of their butter, the bacon and the parsley, and just a little olive oil to moisten and flavour.