Elizabeth David's cook books - simple, fresh food. Brilliant!

In Oz there is a common custom of "bring and share" dinners to take the load of responsibility off the host/ess. Everyone contributes a dish and usually there is a wide variety of food to suit all tastes. The trick would be to convince your relative that this is a brilliant idea - a diplomatic mission worth accomplishing. Then, at least, everyone would get something they like to eat and they would only have to take a small sample of what they didn't like.

My Mum cooked meat & 3 veg meals which were all good. Not exciting, not gourmet, but good, healthy fare. She didn't make a lot of sweet things, even before she was diagnosed with diabetes, but anything she cooked was good. Lucky us! She even worked out healthy vegetarian alternatives for my Dad when he decided to stop eating meat.

Helen