THE most delicious cookbooks aren’t really about recipes. They’re about stories.

That’s so true of the new “Skeehan Brothers Cookbook”, produced by Canberra’s Tom and Dan Skeehan.

Tom and Dan were fortunate to grow up in a family that adored cooking honest food. The book shines with no-frills recipes celebrating quality produce and made with love. You won’t find disclaimers about recipes being “triple tested” or ingredients or techniques requiring you to take a course at a highfalutin cooking school.

The brothers travelled a lot when growing up, including to family in the US, and so the cookbook explores Australian and American food culture.

“Nan and pop’s farm backs on to the Clyde River, which has the freshest oysters on the south coast,” says Dan, who enjoys slurping them right out of the shell with a bit of fresh lemon juice or a teaspoon of single-malt scotch whisky.

The honest approach also applies to trout caught after six hours of fishing in the Snowy Mountains. Simple smoking, filling the fish cavity with slices of fresh lemon and lime and topping it off with sliced chilli, dill and lime wedges is the way to go.

The book includes recipes that Dad Skeehan (Vince) has been making for yonks, including for flour tortillas (he whips up 140 in 90 minutes) and tostadas.

“The apple pie recipe was inspired by the beautiful pies our aunties make at their bakery in Pagosa Springs, Colorado,” says Tom, “and the cinnamon rolls recipe is straight from our grandma’s cookbook, injoy.”

The cookbook was about a year in the making and included cataloguing family recipes and documenting the process of cooking. Dan was the head cook and Tom the main photographer. The brothers spent hours cooking, styling and photographing dishes.

Family recipes are supplemented by those from friends. Other Canberra friends involved included Bison (tableware) and Inklab (graphic design).

But why create a cookbook? Surely Tom, an award-winning industrial designer at the helm of the studio Skeehan, and Dan, who manages Hippo Bar, have enough on their plate?

The answer is as simple as the recipes themselves. “Because we could,” says Tom. “I just love hanging out with my younger brother and we wanted to do a book.”

And so Tom’s lounge was converted into a studio and his kitchen a pop-up with the brothers tackling about four recipes a week. Then it was time to dish up the final product.

“Skeehan Brothers Cookbook” is a short-run, self-published cookbook. Orders to info@skeehan.com.au