Cookbook Magic Bests Harry Potter

By JULIETTE ROSSANT Take a look at the power of the press to create media frenzy. Remember July 16, 2005? People were lining up at midnight to get their hands on a copy of Book Six in the Harry Potter saga, namely Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince? Think this book is going to be at the No. 1 spot on booklists for weeks and months to come? Well, step right up and read about a little magic trick that may blow you away -- as it did Ms. J. K. Rowling. Into the picture stepped the August 2005 issue of the UK's Waitrose Food Illustrated, the magazine of UK supermarket chain Waitrose, with a cover article subtitled, "The Most Useful Cookbooks of All Time Revealed." The winner? A slim volume from 1994 called Roast Chicken and Other Stories (Ebury Press) by Simon Hopkinson with Lindsay Bareham. The UK's reigning TV cook and cookbook author, Delia Smith won a respectable but decidely second place with her "encyclopaedic" Delia's Complete Cookery Course. Waitrose modestly declared on its cover, "Has Delia Lost Her Crown?" and no British newspaper saw the portents -- the Telegraph merely reprinted one of Mr. Hopkinson's recipes. And what about that young Harry Potter, you ask? Waitrose wielded its article like a magic wand, and with a little abracadabra, hey presto! overnight J. K. Rowling fell from first to second place on AmazonUK's topselling booklist, while Mr. Hopkinson's decade old book rose from 44,235 the previous week to mighty No. 1. Take a Keanu Reeves moment and just say, "Whoah!........." You may ask yourself, just who is this Simon Hopkinson? He was chef at London's Bibendum restaurant. Now, that restaurant is in the Michelin Building and even has a Michelin Window (see image at right), so perhaps... No! And Mr. Hopkinson is the author of a dozen books like Gammon and Spinach and Other Recipes (2001) and -- a favorite -- The Prawn Cocktail Years (1997) -- titles so obscure as to ring sweetly Shakespearean only to the truly obsessed Foodie. Roast Chicken itself is a cookbook of 160 recipes, whose cover displays on blue background a lemon aglow like a lightbulb. Reviewers praised it, saying, "This is a magical book and its diminutive size belies its incredible value...a collection of his favorite recipes for his favorite ingredients." A look through the Media Kit supplied to superchefblog (click here to read -- NB: PDF) confirms this opinion. Somehow, Hopkinson is radically Foodie: his cookbook titles are so hardcore, they are somehow reminiscent of Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent D'Arby. How to get such a brilliant cookbook author the attention he deserves? Mr. Hopkinson had to wait over a decade for discovery -- by a supermarket chain. Well, that's not fair: Waitrose is more than a supermarket. They not only have 166 retail outlets but online food shopping -- supported by a broadband deal. Waitrose are the British, online counterparts of American superstores like Costco, who bring in customers by offering cheap gas. And then there is Waitrose Food Illustrated. These guys are smart -- and it's starting to show when they can usurp Rowling with a ten-year-old cookbook! The magic of having Waitrose discover and promote a truly brilliant cookbook to a top position, reveals the power of Media. Of course, the work has only begun for Mr. Hopkinson if he wants to stay on top: now he needs to have his "brand" nurtured, just like anyone else. Nor can he start too soon: Roast Chicken has already slid to the No. 2 slot. Meanwhile, the run on Roast Chicken rendered it unattainable within a very short time. While the book is being reprinted, Waitrose's PR company, The Spa Way, has sent superchefblog a recipe to share with readers: ROAST CHICKEN 110 g/ 4 oz good butter, at room temperature 1.8 kg/4 lb free-range chicken salt and pepper 1 lemon several sprigs of thyme or tarragon, or a mixture of the two 1 garlic clove, peeled and crushed Preheat the oven to 450°F/230°C/Gas Mark 8. Smear the butter with your hands all over the bird. Put the chicken in a roasting tin that will accommodate it with room to spare. Season liberally with salt and pepper and squeeze over the juice of the lemon. Put the herbs and garlic inside the cavity, together with the squeezed out lemon halves – this will add a fragrant lemony flavour to the finished dish. Roast the chicken in the oven for 10-15 minutes. Baste, then turn the oven temperature down to 375°F/190°C/Gas Mark 5 and roast for a further 30-45 minutes with further occasional basting. The bird should be golden brown all over with a crisp skin and have buttery, lemony juices of a nut-brown colour in the bottom of the tin. Turn the oven off, leaving the door ajar, and leave the chicken to rest for at least 15 minutes before carving. This enables the flesh to relax gently, retaining the juices in the meat and ensuring easy, trouble-free carving and a moist bird. Carve the bird to suit yourself; I like to do it in the roasting tin. I see no point in making a gravy in that old fashioned English way with the roasting fat, flour and vegetable cooking water. With this roasting method, what you end up with in the tin is an amalgamation of butter, lemon juice and chicken juices. That’s all. It is a perfect homogenisation of fats and liquids. All it needs is a lights whisk or a stir, and you have the most wonderful ‘gravy’ imaginable. If you wish to add extra flavour, you can scoop the garlic and herbs out of the chicken cavity, stir them into the gravy and heat through; strain before serving. Another idea, popular with the Italians, is sometimes known as ‘wet-roasting’. Pour some white wine or a little chicken stock, or both, or even just water around the bottom of the tin at the beginning of cooking. This will produce more of a sauce and can be enriched further to produce altogether different results. For example, you can add chopped tomatoes, diced bacon, cream, endless different herbs, mushrooms, spring vegetables, spices – particularly saffron and ginger – or anything else that you fancy. 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