She pulls out her phone. “My brother lives in Paris,” she says. “And he sent me this today which is a picture of a sign outside his local school – that day’s lunch menu: cucumber vinaigrette, fish meunière, cheese plate, fruit salad. Children get four courses, proper cooking, all subsidised or free. And here?” This highly anticipated cookbook is more accessible than any other to have come from the kitchen of Ruth Rogers' legendary Michelin-star restaurant The River Cafe, set on the banks of the Thames in London.

With more than 50 iconic recipes, each of which has been masterfully adapted and revised by the River Cafe chefs specifically for those new to cooking, the fabulous dishes in this collection bring the warmth, beauty, and sumptuous ease of Italian family home-cooking to cooks of all levels of kitchen expertise - including your kids!The River Cafe Look Book: Recipes for Kids of all Ages Ruth Rogers, Sian Wyn Owen, and Joseph Trivelli Rogers’s own second-generation American parents had roots in Russia and Hungary; food was always an occasion for conversation. Her love of Italian food was nurtured when she married Richard and came under the culinary influence of his formidable mother, Dada, who grew up wealthy in Trieste. On her deathbed, Dada pulled her daughter-in-law close and gave her two familiar pieces of advice: “Ruthie, promise me you will put more cream on your face and fewer herbs on your fish.” She and Richard, it always seemed, from their years living in Paris while he worked on the Pompidou Centre, had a marriage made of love and wonderful bold colour. The River Cafe Look Book is a new cookery book from the acclaimed London restaurant that Ruth Rogers CBE launched with Rose Gray in 1987. Over the decades, the restaurant has introduced Londoners to modern, Italian cuisine, and trained up some of the world’s best-known chefs, including Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. The first cookbook from London's iconic River Cafe written with beginner cooks and children in mind - a collection of more than 50 delicious and easily achievable recipes, including a host of River Cafe classics that have been specially adapted for new cooks In the years since I saw them in action first-hand, some of that colour has leached from Ruthie’s world. In 2010, after a long battle, her irrepressible double-act partner at the restaurant Rose Gray died of cancer. The following year Richard and Ruth’s younger son Bo drowned in his bath at the age of 27 following a seizure. And last December Richard himself died, aged 88, after suffering two years of brain damage following a fall.

Bring a large saucepan of salted water to the boil and cook the gnocchi for 3 minutes until they rise to the surface. Remove with a slotted spoon. The colorful book is a master class in graphic joy, to say nothing of what will happen in your kitchen.' – Air Mail I ask Rogers about her “restaurant children”, that legion of chefs who have worked and trained at the River Cafe in the last 35 years – Jamie Oliver, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall among them – and gone on to set up places of their own. Does she always look out for them?In this new title Rogers, accompanied by the River Cafe’s current co-head chefs Sian Wyn Owen and Joseph Trivelli, set out to educate a new generation of home cooks, with a book that’s equally well suited to children as it is to adult beginners. Tim ate Pumpkin and feta fritters with yogurt dip; steamed halibut with sorrel, lettuce and herb sauce Photograph: Sophia Evans/The Observer

Our latest cook book The River Cafe Look Book; Recipes for Kids of all Ages by Ruth Rogers, Sian Wyn Owen and Joseph Trivelli. 100 beautiful and inspiring photographs, 50 easy-to-cook recipes, and invaluable tips from chefs of The River Café.Firstly, just to note that the tagline of this book could be misinterpreted. It's a book for beginners, which could include kids, but the presentation of the contents is adult orientated. The format is a unique combination of art and cookery. The first half of the book consists of pairs of photographs. Each pair features one of the fifty recipes in the book, accompanied by non-food image, which reflects the recipe photo in some way, making you think about the colours and textures of the food.