Book excerpt: More than 100 easy recipes based on Spanish and Mediterranean cuisine for a healthy and diverse diet. This book brings together the best dishes from recetasderechupete.com, one of the most popular recipe blogs in Spanish.This title features: 107 easy recipes with step-by-step instructions; colour photos of every recipe; and lively personal anecdotes. FOREWORD I could tell you that this is a wonderful book. I could also tell you that this book is full of marvelous recipes, illustrated with mouthwatering pictures which would make you dream of savoring these dishes one day. I could comment on how well explained all the tricks and techniques needed to cook these recipes are. I could do all this and I would not be lying. But instead I rather talk about the author. A guy I liked from the minute I met him. He is full of good vibes, and has always helped me and other gastro bloggers in every way he could. Alfonso is one of those odd people who likes everyone, who does not fit the stereotype of a cautious Galician since he is bold and direct, and on top of everything he is no dummy. I also deeply admire him for creating one of the best blogs in Spain Recetas de Rechupete. You might be thinking that you couldn’t care less about all this, and that the personal qualities of the author are not necessary when judging the recipes in a cookbook. This could be true about a conventional cookbook, but never about a blogger’s cookbook. The main value in any blog is that it is personal; no one else could have written it. And when it comes to culinary blogs, it is important that they reflect the origins, experiences, tastes, and the obsessions of the person that is driving it. Both Recetas de Rechupete and the book are 100% Alfonso, they ooze earnestness and frankness, simplicity, closeness, but above all, the good food enthusiasm put into it by the author. I would love to have my own Alfonso preparing all these meals for me, enjoying his conversation. But since this is impossible, at least until the electronic author is invented, I will just have to resign myself to having the book in my computer and reverting to it every time I am in the mood for an everyday meal. Mikel López Iturriaga · El Comidista (Blogger and journalist at elpais.com)