Featuring recipes selected from the award winning Paradiso Seasons, A Paradiso Year offers a practical and inspirational approach to cooking and eating seasonal food. Autumn arrives with its solid crops of vegetables. Is there anything more solid than a pumpkin? Just as spring has a dramatic effect on our cooking after the heaviness of winter, autumn reins it in again, slows it down. Then we come to winter when the available produce is dominated by hardy greens and the many edible roots: carrots, turnips, parsnips, celeriac predominantly. These are foods that are perfect for dishes we love, need even, to eat in the cold dark days. Stews, soups, rich bakes and roasts, slow braises.

Denis Cotter is owner of the Cafe Paradiso restaurant in Cork. He is the author of the acclaimed Cafe Paradiso Cookbook and Paradiso Seasons (winner of Best Vegetarian Book in the World Award 2003)