Off Topic: Take a minute to appreciate Cookin' with Coolio's incredible scallops recipe.

The highest praise I can lay on Cookin' with Coolio: Five Star Meals at a One Star Price is that when I went to look for my copy the other day I realised I'd leant it out to someone and would probably never see it again.

This is the life of cook books, isn't it? When they aren't in the kitchen, getting splattered with hot sauce or providing a resting place for wooden spoons, they're loaned around, pages marked, moving between hungry friends: you must read this! You must make this!

Cookin' with Coolio is where my mind went when I woke up one morning last week and learned that Coolio had died. Being a 90s person, I think this news would always bum me out. But having read and loved Coolio's cook book, I'm ashamed to say it all struck a bit deeper. Over the following days when all these stories started to come out about how brilliant Coolio was - how kind, how thoughtful and perceptive and funny - none of that was really a surprise? Why? Because I had read Cookin' with Coolio.