SQUEEZE ME by Ruthie Rogers and Ed Ruscha: How to find your zest for life... cook with lemons!

RECENTLY, after a really tough emotional time, a feisty young friend of mine showed me her new tattoo. On her upper arm was a small, perfect lemon. Why? I asked. She shrugged: ‘Because when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade.’

That well-known piece of wisdom can’t be disputed: yes, out of the sourness something delicious can come, but you have to be determined to create it yourself. There’s a version of the saying within the pages of a sumptuous new book celebrating the not-so-humble lemon.

If you think of the invaluable citrus as necessary for your gin and tonic and that’s it, think again. The celebrated chef and restaurateur, Ruthie Rogers, has made a unique collaboration with her friend, the American artist Ed Ruscha to elevate lemons into works of art. They have created a volume of words, photography and recipes that will be coveted by cooks and creatives alike. Can you call a book ‘delicious’? I don’t see why not.

Ruthie Rogers is the co-founder of London’s fashionable River Cafe, which trained Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. Designed by the late Richard Rogers, it hosts London’s literati, fashionistas, movers and shakers every day. The ambience is plain, the Michelin-starred food excellent, the bill as eye-watering as lemon juice squirted carelessly your way

THE work of Ed Ruscha celebrates the beauty of everyday objects, finding what’s extraordinary in ordinary things. Like a lemon. His signature combination of words and photographic images (as well as collage, film, painting and many other ways of making art) has made him famous, honoured and rewarded.

And one beautiful, sunny day the chef and the artist were walking in a lemon grove under a blue Californian sky and the consequence was . . . this beautiful, sunny book. Making magic out of ordinary ingredients – isn’t that the alchemy of the best cuisine?

Each stunning, two-page spread in Squeeze Me displays an intriguing photograph of a lemon or lemons – but who would have thought they could be imagined in so many different ways? Alongside the photographs are recipes, 50 in all.

But this is no conventional cookery book, displaying a picture of each dish. You have to feast your eyes on the combinations of lemons, blue sky and words, and let your imagination reveal what panna cotta with lemon and grappa might look like. Ruthie Rogers clearly wishes to inspire, not show and tell like a teacher.

Did you know lemon juice was used by spies as invisible ink in the American Revolution, the American Civil War and both world wars? Heating the ink would reveal the words. Did you know that the brilliant Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, (winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971) wrote an Ode To The Lemon?

Pithy slices of information and amusing quotations frame the lemons all through the book. There are words from Ernest Hemingway and the French dancer, singer and actress Josephine Baker, as well as quips to make you smile: ‘I cling to you (said the pith to the lemon).’ Oscar Wilde opined: ‘A grapefruit is just a lemon that saw an opportunity and took advantage of it.’

Ah, but the recipes... I know I’ll never make lemon almond cake or lemon fennel seed biscuits or lemon ricotta and pine nut cake (I think I hear my husband ask, ‘why not?’) but the pasta recipes especially are future delights.

Many years ago, in another life, I enjoyed a sharp, lemony risotto in the River Cafe, and now can’t wait to try one of the risottos in the book. Or roast guinea fowl stuffed with lemon; tagliatelli with lemon, cream and parsley, or crème fraîche and rocket; penne with zucchini and lemon zest. So many of the Italian recipes are easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy.

And all the better for that. If you’re afraid of butter and cream, then stick to the marinated lamb or chicken and vegetables – but this is a zesty collection celebrating excess as well as beauty. If ten tablespoons of butter in one risotto makes your cholesterol levels quail, then go for the spinach or swiss chard with healthy olive oil – and lemon, of course. But hey, don’t suck a lemon!

Life is short. Me, I want to create a whiskey sour or martini or limoncello (recipes provided) and raise a toast to food and art – and plenty of it.