Inspired by the River Cafe's iconic style, this crab pasta recipe features an 'electric sauce' of olive oil, red chilli, fresh parsley, garlic, and lemon.
My copy of the River Cafe Cookbook has lost its original blue sleeve over the years, leaving the hardback cover completely plain. Now, the only identifier is my handwritten 'River Cafe blue' along the metallic spine—though there's little risk of confusing it with the yellow softback of River Cafe Cookbook Two or the emerald green of River Cafe Cookbook Green.
The blue book was first published in 1996, a sobering fact. That same year, I enrolled at the Drama Centre London, and Pierce Brosnan debuted as James Bond in GoldenEye, with Dame Judi Dench making her first appearance as M. Brosnan had trained at Drama Centre from 1973 to 1976, which gave me high hopes that my future career might resemble his or Judi's—or both.