I didn’t realise there was a little hole in my bulging cookbook library until Alice Hart jumped out and filled it with her latest book, Friends At My Table. It’s not just the recipes that you really want to rush away and cook - it’s the practical ”battle plan” approach that she proposes to help us tackle the tricky art of preparing food for an occasion.

I consider myself a competent cook - obsessive rather than talented - yet I am never at my culinary best when guests are afoot. I’m fairly organised, so that’s not the problem. I think I get a little stressed when my food is centre stage; I don’t cook in the relaxed way I do when I am alone in the kitchen, so I don’t trust my instincts. I also feel self-conscious about cooking once guests are through the door, and tend to concern myself with filling glasses rather than paying due attention to the food.

What Alice proposes isn’t rocket science, just extremely helpful wisdom gleaned from her experience, and clear love, of cooking for crowds. She identifies which parts of a dish can be prepared hours or even days ahead in order to spread the entertaining load, and offers practical strategies for getting it done without going into a tailspin. For this reason I would readily try menus like her Vietnamese bridal shower feast.

In fact, I would happily make every recipe in the book; they’re all modern and the product of widely travelled taste buds that can mix and match the ingredients and techniques of different cuisines. The different menus are grouped by season and themed (country house party, New Year, posh wedding) but clearly you don’t need impending nuptials to enjoy any particular plate of food.

In line with the prevailing trend in a world overloaded with cook books, this one contains more than just recipes. If your gathering happens to be at a music festival or on the beach, Alice tells you which kitchen bits and bobs you’ll need to carry with you, and even how to build a fire pit.

Her writing is readably quirky - how many publishers would devote a spread to an author’s thoughts on wild swimming or beach cricket? - but if such whimsy is not to your taste, there is plenty to satisfy those with more practical heads. I’m very much liking her section on hedgerow foraging (although maybe some drawings would have been nice so I could identify my chickweed) and cooking mash for 10 or more a day ahead, just to name a couple of the interesting sections that make this book just as fab for the bedside table as the kitchen bench.

Recipe I want to try most? Too many to narrow down. Really. But if pressed, the homemade pastrami.

Buy this for: a good friend who likes the outdoors and loves entertaining. It doesn’t really matter if they’re not into cooking. Or yourself, to read in bed.

Published by Quadrille on May 1