Where do I start ,I am delighted that I have bought Ed Smiths book ,.If you buy this book you will find that it is a well written and an incredibly useful cookbook to have on the shelf, good to cook from ,good to read and good to refer to for ideasOn the Side is a book that will be pulled off the shelf many times over the years.The recipes are all accompanied with a photograph ,mostly the photographs are simply of the side dishes but a few of then do contain meat which show how the side dishes can be used ,( I am pointing this out as I know that some readers will be vegetarian ) .The majority of the recipes in this lovely book are suitable for vegetarians and I'm sure some of which can be adapted in size to make them main meal vegetarian dishes . However ,just a few of the recipes contain things like chicken stock , fish sauce ,bonito flakes ( thin shavings of dried and fermented fish ) anchovies and parmesan which are not suitable for vegetarian use , it would be very easy to substitute these items for more vegetarian friendly ingredients if that suits your type of diet..'On the side' by Ed Smith will help turn any normal dinner into an occasion , make a simple supper more enjoyable and might even change the way you serve vegetables always .This book looks good for all skill levels.I would not hesitate to recommend this very useful book ( but I would warn vegetarians about this points I have made above )NB .... I wrote this above review for the Amazon UK website . As there are no reviews of this very useful book here on Amazon.com I thought I would copy and paste it over .