Many histories of inns, taverns and the English public house have been written over the past 150 years, but the name the Seven Stars stands out as a special case. Compared to many other images used for pub signs, the depiction of seven stars has a wide range of cultural and literary associations. They appear in religious and astronomical context, in the Bible, have been adopted by the Freemasons. This special book traces the meaning and origins of the sign back 1,500 years to the legal codes of the Anglo-Saxons and beyond that to the mythological astronomy of the ancient Mediterranean region. It is believed that the sign of the Seven Stars originated in the star cluster of the seven Pleiades which was considered to be a bunch of grapes in the sky in a Dionysian and Bacchic world view, and therefore used as a suitable tavern sign. The first half of the book briefly tells the history of public drinking and the oldest and most interesting Seven Stars pubs going back to the 14th century. The first image is of Ye Olde Seven Stars, Withy Grove Manchester in 1908, a half timbered house displaying the sign 'The oldest licensed house in Great Britain licensed over 540 years.' The second part of the book is a discussion of the various meanings that have been proposed, many based on ideas from ancient astronomy. The distribution of the older pubs with the name is closely related to the areas of the Saxon and Mercian law codes that were in operation after the Danish invasions of the 9th and 10th centuries. The conclusion is that the symbolism involved retains surviving ideas from the mythological astronomy but were lost in the areas dominated by Scandinavian values where the social and political role of drinking establishments was distinctly different. Featuring rare archive photographs of interiors decorated with clocks and badges and banners, the book delves into religious symbolism and the Immaculate Conception, the Book of Enoch, the Masons, the solar system, the Seven Stars of Taurus, stars and monasteries and how the hexagram or six pointed star was a symbol for beer in parts of Germany in the Middle Ages and still found to the present day. Beautifully illustrated in colour throughout this large format 240 page softback.

Celebrated for its health benefits, superior texture and unique flavour, sourdough goes back to the roots of traditional breadmaking and gives you the freedom to craft your own dietary staple to your own specifications. Artisan baker Kevan Roberts takes readers on a sensory journey through the formation of sourdough from natural yeast to the craft of producing your own perfect bread, croissants, pancakes, pizza and more. With step-by-step colour photographs and detailed guidance, his original recipes take us through the understanding of the sourdough process: how to build and maintain a healthy sourdough starter, essential equipment, methods and preferments, techniques in kneading, shaping, scoring and baking, converting commercial yeasted products to sourdough, gluten-free sourdough and a comprehensive troubleshooting guide. There are 30 recipes from a basic starter to getting colourful and creative with herbs, nuts, seeds, fruits and cheeses like the Walnut and Stilton Spring Onion Bread, Wild Garlic Rolls, Spelt, Buckwheat and Honey Sourdough, a Gluten-Free Pizza or Focaccia plus sections on milling at home, additions to aid digestion and what to do with leftovers like making Crispbreads or Bread and Butter Pudding. Wild yeast are organisms that live everywhere and here is your chance to get a Biga start. Sorry bread lovers! Learn to create your own freshly baked sourdough again and again. 144pp in large softback, 100 colour illus.

The food and cookery writer for The Guardian, The Times, The FT, Sainsbury's Magazine and many others, James Ramsden's Secret Larder is one of the most popular supper clubs in London with a reputation for exciting, trendy and tasty food without the gaga gourmet. With a light-hearted and enticing style, here is practical staged cooking, batching and organising of drinks, party bites, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, time plans, side dishes, cakes and other treats, leftovers and edible presents. See 90 fresh and modern recipes for making festive food well in advance, ideas for scaling up, menu planning and storage. Champagne Truffles and Pickled Pears are among the gifts, and to jangle your tastebuds are Goose-Fat Fried Christmas Cake with Stilton, Rumbledethumps, the Scottish equivalent of Bubble and Squeak with leftover veg and potatoes, and in desserts Marmalade and Ginger Cake, Bourbon and Maple Mince Pies; in sides are delicious gravies, Horseradish and Roast Garlic Cream; try Roast Cauliflower with Spiced Almonds, the Successful Roast Potato, much simpler than you think by parboiling in advance, Figgy Pudding with Brandy Butter is finger licking good in the colour photograph, and there is Roast Turkey Crown with Confit Legs. Plan what to do up to three days ahead, one day ahead, three hours ahead, 90 minutes ahead right through to serving, carving and trimmings. On the lighter side there is a salad of chicory, orange with walnuts and goat curd, plus a delicious Roast Onion, Potato and Blue Cheese Pie, Coffee-Roasted Beetroot with Horseradish and Buttermilk Dressing and toasted hazelnuts, a Prawn and Mango Salad, Salmon Ceviche Toasts, and to drink Prosecco with Elderflower, Orange and Rosemary or the bawdy sounding Slogasm, a perfect union of sloe gin and champagne or Cava. With a few menu suggestions, approximately 100 full page colour photos in a beautifully designed 200 page large perennial hardback.
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Because we sold out of an alcohol-free cocktail book recently on Bibliophile, we jumped on this one. With all the glamour of cocktails with none of the drawbacks and hangovers, dive into a gorgeous selection of alcohol-free drinks and innovative healthy bar snacks, learn how to make delicious, guilt-free cocktails that will dazzle your guests and delight your tastebuds. Treat yourself to a refreshing Apple Mockjito, sample the darkly decadent Black Magic featuring activated charcoal, and learn how to make your own shrubs and cordials. Grouped by Classics, Martinis, Mojitos, Long Drinks, Fizz, Frozen and followed by Canapés, you will need a few key ingredients like apple cider vinegar, aquafaba or liquid from tinned chickpeas, birch water, cacao powder, coconut sugar and coconut water, ginger, hibiscus flowers, Himalayan salt, maple syrup, madjool dates, pomegranates and xylitol which may sound like a freaky chemical, but it's actually just the dried sap from birch trees. There are Lychee and Yuzu Martinis, Flu Fighters Martini, Basil and Blackberry Bramble, My Tai, Lemongrass Lemonade, a Moscow Mule, and for when you want to get fizzy, a Peach and Passion Bellini and a Frozen Pineapple Margarita. Canapés include Slow-Roasted Activated Almonds, Mini Sweetcorn Pancakes and Polenta Fries with Fermented Smoky Ketchup, Chargrilled Courgette Roll-Ups and the bestselling sweet treats which are Dates Bliss Balls. Tempting full page colour photos, 128pp.

With alkaline recipes, this health transforming book looks at the four-letter word that's secretly destroying your health - ACID. It causes inflammation and is the culprit behind many of our current ailments from weight gain to chronic disease and cancer. The good news is that health visionary Dr Daryl Gioffre shares his revolutionary plan to rid your diet of highly acidic foods, alkalise your body and balance your pH. An acidic lifestyle includes consuming foods such as sugar, grains, dairy, excess animal proteins, processed food, artificial sweeteners, along with lack of exercise and proper hydration - and stress. They all cause inflammation. The plan outlined in the book in seven steps and seven days will help you gain more energy, strengthen your immune system, diminish pain and acid reflux, improve digestion, focus and sleep and lose excess weight and bloating naturally. Taking minerals such as magnesium, calcium, potassium and sodium bicarbonate is a fast way to neutralise acid so that your body doesn't need to do it all on its own. Alkaline minerals are also very calming to the nervous system and will put your body into a deeper REM sleep when it needs it most. With recipes for easy, delicious snacks and meals like Apple Cabbage Salad with Beetroot, Spiced Cold Tomato Ginger Soup and Savoury Avocado Wraps among them, all about dietary, metabolic, emotional and environmental acids, there are also quizzes to help you test your levels, much about breathing, saunas, kidney stones, limiting net carbs, how dairy is scary and much more. 284pp in very large softback.

Soups, starters and snacks, salads, side dishes, meat and poultry dishes, fish dishes, vegetarian dishes, breads and scones, here are 350 delicious, easy-to-make recipes for two all-time staple foods. Shown step-by-step in 1,500 glorious photographs in colour are soups to bakes, classic dishes from all over the world like Frittatas and Latkes to Risotto and Paella, Moussaka, Yorkshire Potato Puffs, Baked Sweet Potato Salad, Dill and Potato Scones, Wild Mushroom and Bacon Rosti, Potato Chorizo and Cheese Tortilla, Cream Spinach and Potato Soup and from India and beyond Savoury Rice with Madras Curry, Sweet Rice with Hot Sour Chickpeas, and from Asia Stir Fried Rice and Vegetables, Crackling Rice Paper Fish Rolls, Thai Crispy Noodles with Beef and a spectacular combination of the fruits and nuts from that region in Alma-Ata with blanched almonds, raisins and basmati rice. With regional sections from North American Waldorf Rice Salad and Smoked Salmon and Rice Salad Parcels, Africa and the Caribbean with Moroccan Paella, Cajun, Creole and South America with Dirty Rice, France, Italy, Greece, Turkey and the Middle East plus guides on cooking perfect rice, rice products and types of rice in a whole half of the book following the potato section with detailed recipes and clear layout for each. Preparation, cooking techniques, tips on storage and the right equipment, here are timeless classics to inspired contemporary creations in a feast of more than 350 recipes. 512 glossy pages in large softback, colour.

This handy history of Mr. Whippy takes readers from the introduction of mobile soft ice cream on the streets of Britain in the spring of 1959, to the beloved brand's acquisition by an industry giant in the mid-1960s and its final demise as part of the Wall's empire in the 1990s. The story of Mr. Whippy begins in 19th century Italy where Enrico Facchino and his wife, Angela Maria, made the decision to move from Sora outside Rome to Birmingham where they began selling ice cream traded from handcarts. It was Enrico's third son, Dominic Facchino, who became the driving force behind the launch of the Mr. Whippy brand and in 1958 decided to use the advertising agency Longleys & Hoffman to help create a professional and uniquely identifiable image which was most notable for the choice of pink and cream livery on their ice cream vans - a direct contrast to the rival, Mister Softee's blue and white vans. The book celebrates Mr. Whippy's success overseas, including in Australia where people were 'enthusiastic' at the arrival of the first Mr. Whippy vans and, in January 1963, a new depot in Sydney had to be opened to receive a second batch of 24 vans. The author uses information, advertising and promotional material from the 1960s and 1970s and the book includes news published pictures. Admire a photo of early Mr. Whippy vans which were hand-painted, a portrait photo of Dominic Facchimo, and a shot of Warwick House, Leamington Spa, which was the hub of Mr. Whippy's operations in the mid-1960s. Paperback, colour and black and white images, 64pp.

Sit back and pour yourself a drink. In this comprehensive handbook, the eager bartender will learn about herbs and spices, distillation, making liqueurs and infusions, cooking with infusions, and enjoying liqueurs. The book offers advice on creating drinks: first, take a spirit (whether that is vodka, gin, whisky or brandy - any distilled spirit), then add some fruit or other flavouring and you have an infusion. It notes that, if sugar is added to sweeten the spirit, this will be a liqueur. Soak in the array of recipes, from transforming vodka into amaretto using almond extract and making a coconut-flavoured rum by combining white rum with dried shredded coconut, to creating absinthe mixing wormwood leaves and spices with vodka. Thanks to the recipes, readers can treat themselves to liquid heaven (also known as chocolate in a glass) by combining chocolate, vanilla and vodka to make a liqueur - the book also suggests using condensed milk and white chocolate in vodka for a sweeter liqueur and introducing two Mars Bars to cream and vodka for a chocolate bar-inspired spirit. Learn that Limoncello may claim to be an ancient drink but it was invented in the 20th century and that, while lemons may grow widely around the Mediterranean and North Africa, they originate from China. Through this book, discover how the hairs on a nettle's leaves may have a vicious sting but the plant can be a natural ingredient in spirits to help with anaemia, osteoarthritis, various allergies and hay fever. Celebrate the power of passion fruit in vodka which can be called 'nectar of the gods' as ancients are believed to have referred to the fruit as such. There are bright images included in the book, with a shot of cocktail-making tools to help the learner, step-by-step photographs of how to make sugar syrup in a pan, and a woodcut from the Middle Ages showing an alchemist's laboratory used to show that distillation was an important art. Start distilling and crack out ice to spice up the drinks cabinet. Paperback, 8.3" x 10.6", colour images, 146pp.

With humour and reassurance, at last this is a book on nutrition that tries to make you understand how little we know, answering age old questions and a lot more besides for everyone curious about the everyday products we consume or use. Nutrition is a mess of marketing, classism, science, truth, guilt, confusion and outright hucksterism. Cheese puffs, coffee, sunscreen, vapes, hand sanitiser, Zaidan reveals the weird science behind everyday items that may or may not kill you, depending on whom you ask. If you're curious which health studies to trust, what dense scientific jargon really means, and how to make better choices when it comes to food and health, dive right in. Zaidan makes chemistry more fun than a potions class as he demystifies package ingredients we buy in the supermarket and explains how we know whether something is good or bad for you in exquisite, hilarious detail and at breakneck speed 'with brilliant analogies that even an 11 year old can understand.' Chapters include Microbes Are Trying to Eat Your Food, Plants Are Trying to Kill You, Processed Food Is Bad For You, Right?, Sunburnt to a Crisp, and Is Coffee the Elixir of Life or the Blood of the Devil? 'James Lind ran a controlled trial. On a voyage aboard the HMS Salisbury, he took 12 sailors with scurvy and split them up into six groups of two. Each group got a different potential cure: a quart of hard cider, 75 drops of sulphuric acid, two spoonfuls of vinegar, half a pint of sea water, the 'bigness' of a nutmeg, or two oranges and a lemon.' Can you guess the result? See page 168. Some of the language is utterly hilarious, like DNA, if it were the title of a movie, the sub-titles might read: Your Genetic Code, or The Blueprint of Your Life, or There Is No Such Thing As Free Will. With scientific and also hilarious diagrams, 297pp, paperback. Chemistry has never been such fun.

'Pioneers of alcohol-based comedy' - The Sunday Times, this pair of award-winning alcohol experts are also historians and write and perform together. Their motto is drink less, drink better, and their almanac is sub-titled 'Adventurous Drinks and Eccentric Tales for Every Day of the Year.' As Aristophanes once said 'Quick, bring me a beaker of wine, so that I may wet my mind and say something clever.' That's just one of 366 (29th February is free) entries in this eclectic, elbow-bending anthology of discerning drinks and fascinating and unusual facts. Other stories include a pair of whisky highballs for 'National Giraffe Day', a South African sparkling wine served at the inauguration of both Barack Obama and Nelson Mandela, an Alpine elixir inspired by a chap who eats aeroplanes, and a gin cocktail created in honour of someone who sewed monkey's testicles onto the face of a Frenchman. The pair know that alcohol is a fickle fellow that can flip from faithful friend to fearsome foe in the space of a few sips. The 1st January marks the fact that Bass (of the Pale Ale) Triangle registered the first ever trademark in 1876 and 2nd January the most famous bookseller Erika Roe unclasped her bra and ran on to the rugby pitch while England was playing Australia. The pair are drinking a pint of Naked Ladies from Twickenham Fine Ales, a brewery situated less than a mile from the stadium. The birth of Isaac Newton, the death of Sir Ernest Shackleton, the Gibson Flying V guitar patented (1958) is celebrated with a Gibson Martini. For each there is a little potted history plus of course the recipe, ingredients and how best to serve with garnishes, using a cocktail shaker, crushed ice, strainer etc. Firsts include steps on the Moon (communion wine used by Buzz Aldrin) and the first episode of Mad Men released in 2007 celebrating that Don Draper drank - a lot - with Hamm's Beer, an American cult classic, now owned by Coors. 272pp, stylish design.