Gregoire Michaud shares a recipe from his new cookbook.

Two key things I look at when considering cookbooks to buy are the images and the recipes. The images should ideally be full page, and they must stimulate my mind, body and senses, literally making my mouth water with a simultaneous desire to get into the kitchen. The recipes need to be accessible and when tried should work. Never Skip Dessert by pastry chef Gregoire Michaud, meets both these criteria. And, I am not even that big a fan of desserts! Inline with the current trend of leading pastry chefs, Michaud takes many classic dessert recipes and revitalises their taste and presentation. Many of the recipes also use ingredients that one doesn't normally associate with desserts. In all senses it is a modern dessert cookbook for the modern home chef.

This month Paul McLoughlin provides some suggestions for interesting salads and advice on dressings, Gregoire Michaud explains the use of dark chocolate, and Eric Hendry tells us about his favourite food to prepare for friends.

This month's questions are answered by Paul Lau, Gregoire Michaud, and Florian Trento

This month Gregoire Michaud, Michael Van Warmelo and Ashton Hall provide delicious mango recipes, and Paul McLoughlin answers a question about his worst professional experience.

WOM talks to Gregoire Michaud, Paul Lau and Paul McLoughlin

WOM talks to David Goodridge and Gregoire Michaud

Artisan Bread by Gregoire Michaud hopes to bring back the passion, art and science of producing crusty and flavourful bread – Artisan bread. The comprehensive book includes information on understanding the character of wheat, the flour and the ferments, through to baking techniques and wide variety of recipes. In essence all you need to become an artisan baker. The book was published in May 2008.

This month Paul Lau, Paul McLoughlin and Gregoire Michaud answer your questions.

This month Ashton Hall answers a question on crispy pork, Michael van Warmelo lets us into the secret of authentic hummus including a recipe, and Gregoire Michaud gives hints for impressive desserts.

As we learnt in part one sous-vide is not a new technique. It has simply become more well-known among diners due to leading culinary professionals who champion the technique and use it in many of their creations, such as Thomas Keller, Joël Robuchon, Charlie Trotter, Heston Blumenthal, Ferran Adria, and Tetsuya Wakuda. And, it has now advanced into the homes of the amateur with the release of a water-oven for home use.

Two major factors that prevent most home cooks from achieving restaurant results are equipment and technique. Professional chefs have at their disposal a range of equipment that many home cooks just don't have access to that enable them to create complicated dishes with ease. They also use techniques that are unknown or largely out of reach of the amateur chef.

When researching my articles on Sous Vide I came across articles that were of the opinion that sous vide was unsafe for two main reasons. One, the temperatures that the food is cooked at is not high enough to destroy harmful bacteria and, two, harmful chemicals in the plastic bags used to cook the food could leach into the food.

I am writing this from my native Valais, southwest Switzerland, on vacation that has seemed a long time coming. As soon as we arrived, we had a blast of the local flavours.

Here comes an inconvenient truth for a pastry chef: I don’t fancy macarons. And actually, I’ve never quite got what the fuss is all about either.

When Mother Nature decides to throw a not-so-nice spring season in Europe, we can expect the red delicacies that are cherries to reach us a bit later than usual and in limited supply.