Celebrity television chefs like Jamie Oliver and culinary stars like Hugh Fearnely-Wittingstall have made Americans newly aware of the great potential in British cooking. But the new British food revolution is not limited to fine restaurants and television. Within Britain, pub and country inn chefs, newspaper and magazine food writers, and everyday home cooks are taking a renewed interest in their own traditional cuisine, at long last approaching it with more pride than with prejudice. In The Ploughman's Lunch and the Miser's Feast, the American cookbook author, travel writer and professional photographer Brian Yarvin brings these newly rediscovered pleasures to the attention of home cooks on this side of the Atlantic. In 100 recipes, 65 color photos, and dozens of lively sidebars, Yarvin reveals what he has discovered in his numerous walking and driving trips across the length and breadth of Great Britain. His recipes emphasize traditional and down-home dishes as perfected and updated by the best cooks in Britain. They include lots of pub fare, like Fish and Chips, Shepherd's Pie, Ploughman's Lunch, and a host of savory cakes and pasties. There are festive and substantial main courses like Howtowdie, Poached Salmon with White Sauce, and, of course, a splendidly done Beef Wellington. The hard-working Brits love big breakfasts, and there is a chapter devoted to those, while another chapter celebrates the sandwiches, salads, and snacks that are served at tea time. Curry shops have been ubiquitous for so long that Indian food by now is properly British, and Yarvin devotes another chapter to dishes such as Shrimp Biryani and Chicken Korma. A big chapter, too, shows us how to make the best-loved British sweets, from the humbly named Plum Pudding and Mincemeat Cake to the amusingly monikered Fast Rascals, Kentish Huffkins, and Welsh Dripping Cake.

Fanatical about protecting his wealth, the paranoid Harpagon (Griff Rhys Jones) suspects all of trying to filch his fortune, and will go to any length to protect it. A matchmaker motivated only by money, he sets his sights on wealthy spouses for his children, so his riches are safe from their grubby hands. As true feelings and identities are revealed will Harpagon allow his children to follow their heart, or will his love of gold prove all-consuming? Passion and purse strings go head to head in this rip roaring comedy, by France's greatest dramatist.

Retells the traditional Pacific Northwest Native American story of the man who climbs Mount Rainier to collect a valuable shell and discovers what is important in life.

THE STORY: The widower Harpagon, so cheap he'd swipe the pennies off a dead man's eyes, rules his roost with a tight, iron fist. His unhappy, rebellious children, Cléante and Elise, are afraid to tell him of their romantic attachments: Cléante has

The Miser's Daughter by William Harrison Ainsworth is the story of a man who refuses to spend and his family which is affected by his spendthrifty nature. The story centers around Randulph Crew, a man from Cheshire, as he comes to London during the early 18th century after giving up his inheritance to his father's creditors upon his father's death. While there, he becomes infatuated with a girl named Hilda, whose father, Scarve, is a miser.