Robin Davidson, Amazon UK

If Rosemary Shrager is roaring with laughter on the cover of Rosemary, Castle Cook (and she is), you can understand why. She has what must be the almost unalloyed pleasure of running a summer cookery school in a castle overlooking the Sound of Taransay on the Isle of Harris, in the Scottish Hebrides.

Rosemary, Castle Cook is as much a tribute to this magically beautiful place as a record of her cooking. The cooking, in any case, is guided and coloured by the seasonal availability of the local ingredients. And what ingredients! Blessed with the best fish and shellfish in the world, feathered and furred game, fine beef and lamb, and soft fruit of unparalleled quality, Harris has much to offer the cook.

Rosemary Shrager's cooking is fairly straightforward, allowing the superb quality of her raw materials to emerge. She cooks pretty much in the French tradition (she has worked for Pierre Koffinann and Jean-Christophe Novelli), with results that are at once robust, elegant and subtle. Her Crab Risotto is flavoured with leek and shallot and garnished with mussels and peas. She pairs, sumptuously, turbot and lobster in a cream sauce. Seared medallions of venison sit on a bed of spinach surrounded by a deep fawn morel mushroom sauce.

The visual effect is as ravishing as the flavour must be superb. Puddings range from exquisite raspberry souffles to that crowning marvel of Scottish cookery, the Clootie Dumpling. If this book gives a true flavour of Rosemary Shrager's qualities as a teacher, then she must be inspiring indeed. The only pity is that we don't all have the same first-class produce on our doorsteps. That is hardly her fault, of course, so there is no reason to withhold an unreserved recommendation for the Castle Cook.