No comments about Vegetables by 40 Great French Chefs.

4 comments about Le Creuset Cookbook.

1. `Le Creuset Cookbook', written in French by Elisa Vergne and David Rathgeber, and translated into English by Josephine Bacon is all about cooking with the wares produced by the French cookware company, Le Creuset, which is possibly the most popular line of cookware used by professional chefs and serious foodie amateurs. I was really impressed with the relative importance of the Le Creuset casseroles and Dutch ovens especially when every single show on the Food Network used Le Creuset products. At first, I thought it was just because the enameled insides of the big Dutch ovens were white, so it was easier to see on camera what was happening in the pot. I promptly got several pieces and became immediately addicted to using the 8 quart Dutch ovens and the great brasserie dishes (covered, shallow braising pans).
   
   For many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that this is an attractively designed book for a reasonable less than $20 list price, I would be inclined to give this book five (5) stars, were it not for the fact that the translation into English or the editing of that translation (probably both) are quite poor for a professionally published book, not done by a vanity press. These problems are of at least three types. First, there are outright misspellings. I found several, and I suspect there are several more I did not detect. Second, there are garbled explanations of techniques for some dishes. One, in particular, was the description of how to create a stuffed cabbage dish, which, for the life of me, I could not follow, in spite of the fact that the picture and the overall description of the dish made it one I would very much like to make. Third was the use of ingredient names that were vague or plainly unfamiliar to the average American cook. For example, one recipe calls for `spice mix', with no clue as to what should be in the spice mix. It would be a small tragedy if the original French was `herbes fines' and the translator was clueless to the fact that the French term was much more exact and familiar to American cookbook readers than the very vague English expression. I see similar foolish translations such as changing `Tart Tatin' to the pedestrian `Upside Down Apple Tart'.
   
   All of these weaknesses are a shame, because for the avid foodie, this is a better than average introduction to a lot of very common French dishes which you would otherwise only find in speciality books on charcuterie or the less frequently visited pages of `Mastering the Art of French Cooking'.
   
   One effect of the book is to make us familiar with many Le Creuset products we may not ordinarily see in the average well-stocked American cookery store or even on Amazon.com or Williams-Sonoma.com. For the Le Creuset collector, this provides a real wealth of things to do with these honestly very attractive pieces of cookware, not to mention excuses to buy more of these little darlings.
   
   The Book has six chapters of recipes following an introduction on the `Principles of cooking' that really just gives advice on how to cook with the Le Creuset enameled iron and stoneware products. The recipes are just unusual enough to justify buying this small book. The six (6) recipe chapters are:
   
   Soups and appetizers including Rabbit in Aspic, Sabodet Sausage in Wine, and a Crawfish gratin.
   Fish including Bourride, Eel Slices, Braised Brill in Champagne, and Frogs Legs with Parsley and Chervil
   Meat including Stewed Lamb Provencal-style, Beef Cheek casserole, and Pork Belly with buttered cabbage
   Poultry including Coq au vin, Rabbit with Two Mustards
   Vegetables including Wild Mushroom Risotto, Fall Vegetable Casserole, Pumpkin Gratin, and Ratatouille
   Desserts including Souffle with Cointreau, Cherry Clafoutis, and Upside Down Apple Tart
   
   This is obviously a collection of recipes that contain both recipes very familiar to the American foodie as well as recipes that never quite made their way from France to the average American table. It is also a very broad application of many different types of cookware, such as the special dish for preparing the `Upside Down Apple Tart'. Oddly, there is no dish for the very distinctive tagine, of which I know Le Creuset produces their typically colorful version.
   
   The book includes two very good indices, one on principle ingredients and one on recipe names. Oddly, there is no general index or index of cookware types. And, while this may seem like an unabashedly commercial addition, I would really have liked to see a catalogue of all types of Le Creuset cookware.
   
   Each recipe begins with a little picture of the cookware appropriate to the recipe, plus a very handy duration for prep, resting, and cooking. Unfortunately, this intro doesn't say which size of cookware to use, which is a shame, since some shapes come in every size from 2 to 12 quarts or more, all with roughly the same proportions.
   
   The primary author, David Rathgeber, is the chef at one of Alain Ducasse's restaurants in Paris and the details of the recipes, when they are not hopelessly garbled in translation, seem to be quite good, although for the more common dishes, I would not necessarily give up my favorite Julia Child or Patricia Wells or Richard Olney version. This is a book for exploring new things.
   
   A very good choice for the foodie, cookbook collector, and Le Creuset collector. Others should stick with superior books originally in English.



2. I like the book overall. I can tell by the other reviewers that it's the type of book for folks with a lot to say about cooking. I wanted to have ideas on how to use my new cookware. I found the recipes a bit over the top with a lot of veal(never a good idea) and unsavory/expensive/hard to obtain cuts of meat. I love the recipes I used but a lot of the book is useless to me. I am a mother of two young children and I enjoy cooking well and trying new things but this might be a book I need to shelve until later in life.



3. this is the dumbest cookbook i ordered. i was interested in using Le Creuset cook ware instead of receipes for food i would never in my lifetime be caught dead eating. Who in their right mind would even think of cooking the trash they present in the book. i would advice anyone to not buy this stupid book.



4. Nice Book for Library with many ideas and Receipts for "slow" healthy and extremly tasty cooking.

5 comments about French Farmhouse Cookbook.

1. This is one of the most practical and most referred to book on my cooking shelf. This book is extremely practical because Loomis uses easy-to-find ingredients and the recipees for entrees can be made in 30 minutes or couple of hours (but most of that is waiting time). The instructions are detailed but to the point and tips are delighful. There is also a good diversity in the complexity of the dishes but most are relatively simple, as they were farm-house cooking, meaning either they had to be put together very fast before dinner, or tossed into the oven or stove before doing the days' chores, and to be enjoyed at night after a long stewing/braising/etc. The dishes (esp the basque region dishes) are very flavorful and bring out the best flavors in the ingredient. Highly recommended for enhancing/inspiring your home cooking.



2. The stories about the actual farms and farmers who provide the recipes and ingredients in this wonderful book are fascinating. Nothing is taken for granted, and meals are extensively discussed and savored. Memorable is the story accompanying the recipe for Duck with Prunes in which the cook providing the recipe explains apologetically that the recipe is from another region of France, but "we love it so much, we cook it all the time."
   The farmers' pride in the quality of their produce and livestock, and the care with which Susan Herrmann Loomis specifies exactly what kind of oranges, or chickens or asparagus are to be used in each recipe inspire a very unAmerican way of viewing cooking and eating, in which only the finest ingredients are perfectly cooked. The descriptions of the walnut farms, the Bresse chicken farm, the vanishing family farms are evocative of a great foreign film. After reading this book cover to cover, I feel as though I've had a course in French rural culture--with refreshments. Highly recommended!



3. My wife is French, her sole and all-absorbing passion in life is cooking. She has two armoires filled with cookbooks, including all the classics. This is her favorite. All of the recipes she has made from this book have been exquisite. Two thumbs up, and all eight fingers! This is a must-have!
   Bon Appetit!



4. I served for two years in southwestern France as a Mormon missionary. When I came home to Calgary, Alberta I pined for the simple, fresh, unpretentious food I'd grown used to eating in rural France. Luckily the French Farmhouse Cookbook was first published about four months before I got home, and when I stumbled on it by accident in a bookshop I was overjoyed.
   
   Not only are the recipes authentic and accessible, but the stories Ms. Loomis tells about how food is raised and grown -- how seriously the farmers and growers view their work -- ring absolutely true to my experience living in France. I've never found another North American book so true to real French family food.
   
   Especially useful are recipes for small things that one can take for granted at any supermarket in France -- creme fraiche, sucre vanille, quatre epices, etc. -- but that are hard come by in most US or Canadian stores. You can substitute other ingredients (sour cream for creme fraiche) but it's not quite the same; the effort the author took to include everything needed to reproduce the authentic experience is another reason this is my favorite French cookbook. I can't recommend it highly enough.



5. My husband first bought a copy of this cookbook at a yard sale. I didn't look at it right away, fearing another overblown, complex and difficult French cookbook. Mais non! Most of the recipes are fairly easy and reflect the fresh, authentic nature of country French cooking. We now keep this cookbook at our house in Southwest France, in Wisconsin AND in Florida. This is the only book of which we have three copies!! The recipes are a delight (Loomis' gougeres are the best and have several quite helpful hints that no other chef has given).
   
   The food and the stories capture the essence of rural France--making the cooking, wherever you may be, pure delight a la Francais!

5 comments about The Whole Chile Pepper Book.

1. Basically, THE WHOLE CHILE PEPPER BOOK, by DeWitt and Gerlach includes a history of the chile (how it left the New World and conquered the Old World) four colorful pages of photos of various chile peppers, and lots and lots of exotic recipes. I bought this book thinking it would include much more detail on raising peppers in the garden than Rosilind Creasy's book THE EDIBLE PEPPER GARDEN, but for my purposes it is not as useful. I don't really need more recipes, I need a book that shows me photos of various peppers and explains their basic uses.

   I fould the book more or less interesting - a narrative that explains how the pepper moved from area to area and how the locals in varous areas incorporated the new vegetable into their native cuisines, often developing pepper children who differed from their American ancestor. For example, while Africa had an affair with Paprika, Southeast Asia incorporated peppers into everything from curry to sate. So, according to DeWitt and Gerlach, the American pepper is the ancestor of those hot foreign dishes you eat in Thai, Chinese, and other ethnic restaurants.

   I am puzzled as to why anyone would publish a book about something as colorful as the pepper and include so few color photos, however, the book includes many black and white photos and illustrations, along with plenty of text. If you like reading about peppers, this is the book for you.




2. That's a great book! Full of information on every aspect of the 'Burning Way' of peppers. A lot about planting & growing them, a lot of recipes... Cultural history and diffusion all over the world is also great! Only one thing: a full list of peppers and how to recognize them is missing... only the most important varieties are described!



3. Lots of good info. Everything from history to growing to cooking with chilies.



4. This book includes a short history of the chile pepper, 4 pages of color photos, and about 180 recipes. It doesn't include much about growing peppers or explain their basic uses (other than as part of recipes). While it includes a few pages of color photos, all other photos in the book are black and white.
   
   The history of the pepper, while sometimes interesting, wasn't as inclusive as I thought it would be. Basically, it explains how the pepper moved from area to area and how the local people grew it and used it in their cooking. According to the authors, the American chili pepper is the ancestor of the spicy dishes from Thailand, China, and elsewhere.



5. Wow! These chiles are HOT! An excellent, well researched
   piece of work. I especially enjoyed the detailed ethno-botanical
   portions, and the histories of how the use of chiles evolved
   throughout the world. Great recipes too!

5 comments about Glorious French Food: A Fresh Approach to the French Classics.

1. `Glorious French Food' by leading culinary educator, James Peterson may be a true lost classic, in the cookbook world similar to `The Thirteenth Warrior' in the movies or the novels of Thomas Berger, including `Little Big Man'. I noticed a copy on the bargain stacks a few days ago and immediately felt regret for not having done a review of it to help, in some very small way to raise the reputation of this excellent culinary pedagogical text.
   
   I have a very `love / hate' relationship with James Peterson's books. Peterson has a very well deserved reputation as the author of the classic reference, `Sauces', now in a second edition (rare for cookbooks) and his Jacques Pepin homage, `Essentials of Cooking' (for those of you who need your culinary show and tell in full color). He has also done several excellent texts on special subjects such as Vegetables, Salmon, Duck, and Soups. I have reviewed each and every one of these books favorably, yet my experience when doing specific Peterson recipes (except those in `Sauces') is mixed. I am not entirely surprised at this, as I sometimes find his individual recipe descriptions just a bit mixed up, as if his copy editor was taking a coffee break as they were editing that recipe.
   
   Peterson may in this book offer a great explanation for this paradox. He says that his greatest ambition would be to write a cookbook with no recipes. This is not as easy as it sounds, since I reviewed Pam Anderson's book `How to Cook Without a Book' and I found it wanting in several regards. Peterson also says that his greatest compliment is when a reader says they made one of his recipes, but changed it a bit, and it came out very well. All this means is that Peterson is a relatively unconventional cookbook author who is best approached differently than you may approach `The Joy of Cooking' or `Mastering the Art of French Cooking'.
   
   This book, even for its great size (almost 750 pages) is, like Madeleine Kamman's `The New Making of a Cook', a book meant to be read from front to back in an easy chair with no electronic distractions nearby. The first and most important reason for reading this book like a novel is its novel organization. Instead of chapters on Salads, Soups and Stocks, Meat, Poultry, Starches, Vegetables, and Desserts, there are a very neat 50 chapters on fifty of the most famous dishes from the French culinary canon. As you may guess from the size of the book, there is a lot more here than 50 recipes which, with a typical treatment, may take not much more than 100 pages to dispatch. Rather, most of the chapters are really about a family of dishes.
   
   The very first chapter takes twelve (12) pages to cover `Assorted Vegetable Salads', all falling under the rubric of the French word, `Crudites' which, roughly translated, means raw vegetables. In this chapter are nine (9) dish recipes for Celeriac Remoulade, Grated Carrots, Red Cabbage Salad, Cold Cucumbers, Marinated Mushrooms, Baby Artichokes with Walnuts, Shaved Fennel Salad, Tomato Salad, and Parisian-Style Potato Salad. There are also two `pantry' recipes for Basic Mayonnaise and Crème Fraiche. Like the very liberal Chris Schlesinger (`The Thrill of the Grill', `How to Cook Meat', etc) and unlike the very traditional Madeleine Kamman, Peterson is extremely liberating with his advice. He tells us how to improvise crème fraiche and he tells us all the reasons why some substitutes, such as American sour cream, will just not work as well in some recipes. He does not tell us not to improvise. He also follows the party line on the right potato for the right dish, but he also says that you can probably get away with using any kind of potato for any kind of dish, which fits my experience in using a russet for both mashed potatoes (with a good potato ricer) and potato salad, two recipes for which russets are supposed to be inferior to waxy or `all purpose' varieties.
   
   Part of what makes many great cookbooks such a pleasure to read is the extent to which the author introduces their own informed opinion into the writing. Both `Mastering the Art of French Cooking' and `The New Making of a Cook' would be great cookbooks without the lively opinions of Julia Child and Madeleine Kamman, but they are much better at getting their subject across than a dry presentation of quantities and procedures. If you think this is unimportant, take a quick look at a few recipes in `The Joy of Cooking' and you will see an ample amount of humor in even this encyclopedic collection of recipes.
   
   One thing I especially enjoyed in this book was the affirmation of the doctrine in Ms. Kamman's book that in spite of all the butter, pork fat, goose fat, or olive oil in popular recipes, French cooking is NOT about high fat content. Peterson is especially good on fats in general and butter in particular, as he hits all the right notes about cooking with butter. For one thing, he discounts the common practice so popular with TV culinary personalities of mixing butter and oil to raise the burn point of butter solids. He says it simply does not keep the butter solids from going black. He also clearly differentiates plain clarified butter from the Indian staple, ghee, where the butterfat is taken to a darker brown than is done by simple clarification.
   
   I even found something new on my favorite cookbook subject, omelets. Peterson gives two different techniques and clearly differentiates both the method and the cultural differences in French cooking between the omelet and scrambled eggs.
   
   The bad news is that if this book may be in danger of loosing its market, and it may go out of print. The good news is that you should be able to get a copy from our beloved Amazon.com for cheap.



2. I absolutely love this cookbook. As a culinary student, I wish they had issued this book out instead of my $150 doller culinary workbook. This book is such a wealth of information. "Glorious French Food" is big, but Peterson's writing is so interesting and entertaining that I've taken it to the beach with me many times. I've always felt dishes are tastier when one learns the history behind the creations. As for the recipes, they are excellent. I test them on my boyfriend, who by chance is French and a culinary graduate. He feels the recipes are very accurate and will sometimes admit that some of them are better then his family's dishes. I highly recommond this book, for both fun and serious cooks out there. It's a great gift to give.



3. I am a big fan of his books after receiving copies of Sauce and Splendid Soups. He brings a fresh approach to the subject and it is written in a style more suited to my learning. I have always been slighly intimidated with the Classic side of French cooking. I hope by the end of the book I will be better aquainted, better versed and better versed.
   
   Bon Appititte.



4. French cuisine, despite predictions of its demise by food writers admist inroads of other Western cuisines including Italian and Spanish cuisines, is still going strong. Many people will, have heard classic/haute cuisine, nouvelle cuisine, bourgeois/bistro cuisine, and regional cuisine that form the four important strands of French cuisine, and this book has touched on all four of these cuisines.
   
   One important difference between this book and others is it uses 50 dishes as the starting point and teach 4 to 10 more dishes that share either the principal ingredients or are related by techniques. It is, as Peterson himself mentions in the preface, aiming to teach you to how to cook on your own and understanding cooking is not just a mechanical follow-one-recipe process: it is a little like how you learned mathematics in electrical engineering and apply the central methodology into diverse areas like power load flow analysis, calculating a circuit's small signal behaviours, using signal processing in protection relays.
   
   Bear in mind that this book is geared towards big city or middle-sized suburban-area American homes. Duck a l'orange, for instance, is in the American adaptation version. This makes the book a little tricky to be used if you live in Auckland, Sydney, or in London, where the ingredients available will likely be different from what's available in US. For those armchair chefs who want to buy a book that tells how French food is actually prepared in France itself, another book, such as the Konemann publications, will likely be more useful.
   
   By all means this book is not meant to be an exhaustive coverage of France's cookery. , but most books on French cooking tend to cover very small specialized subject areas (Provence's bistros) or are just a thin compendium of recipes (eg 100 recipe in a 200 page cookbook showcased as "Cuisine of France"). If you are interested to build a library of French cookbooks, I recommend the more exhaustive publications of Jacques Pepin, Alain Ducasse's Grand Livre de Cuisine (currently with 2 titles in English, but there are a few more published in the original French), and the ever reliable Larousse Gastronomique, in addition to this book. Otherwise for a tight bookshelf, this book on its own may be what you want for French cooking.



5. This is a wonderful companion to Julia Child, Paula Wolfert and Richard Olney. It is contemporary without being trendy. His recipes are fairly practical--not larded with recipes for truffles and caviar--and yet are unabbreviated and uncompromising. It will appeal primarily to advanced amateurs and consistently sells for under ten dollars--an amazing value for such a comprehensive and well-crafted work.

2 comments about Lulu's Provencal Table.

1. `Lulu's Provencal Table' by renowned culinary writer and editor, Richard Olney is one of the best works in the very select genre of what might be called `culinary anthropology'. The works I know in this field are few in number but very high in quality and in the rewards for interested readers.
   
   The leading work in this field is certainly `Honey from a Weed' by Patience Gray. Other notable titles are `The Cook and the Gardener' by Amanda Hesser and `The Tuscan Year' by Elizabeth Romer. Befitting Olney's influence, almost all of John Thorne's essays also belong to this tribe of writing. Also befitting this influence, it is Thorne who writes the new introduction to this very substantial work. In this piece, Thorne cites Madeleine Kamman's `When French Women Cook' as another member of this select tribe. I cite this in deference to Thorne's expertise in the area and I hope to review it very soon.
   
   Like my reviewing of `Honey from a Weed', I owned the book for almost a year before I opened it up and I deeply regret my delay, as this is a vicarious culinary pleasure of the first order. The subject / cook / interviewee of the book is Lucie Tempier Peyraud, known to all as `Lulu', the wife of the important French vintner, Lucian Peyraud and co-owner of Domaine Tempier, a vineyard and dwelling `nestled in the hillsides outside the neighboring fishing ports of Bandol and Sanary, some ten miles from Toulon and thirty miles from Marseilles.' Author Olney became friends with the Peyrauds shortly after purchasing a very run-down cottage near Domaine Tempier, before he was the renowned culinary writer he was to become with his books on French cuisine and his editorship of the Time-Life series of books on world cuisines.
   
   Olney was talked into doing this book by another Peyraud friend, Alice Waters, whose Chez Panisse has been a buyer of Peyraud wines for many years. The inspiration for the book is Lulu's great cooking experienced by Olney for decades, and experienced by Waters during frequent trips to Provence on wine testing and purchasing expeditions. In fact, according to Thorne, it was Waters who initiated the project and talked Olney into carrying it to publication.
   
   On the surface, the book may appear to be just another Provencal cookbook, similar to several titles from the likes of Patricia Wells and Lydie Marshall. And, it can be used in this way, but it is much, much more.
   The book was built out of interviews by Olney of Lulu as she prepared her various dishes. As Lulu was the consummately instinctive cook, she rarely knew on a conscious level exactly how much of a particular ingredient she uses for most recipes. As one reads Olney's asides on this archeological aspect of the interviews, one senses they are reading the captured essences of an ephemeral form of cooking which arises out of a great love of the art and the ingredients to the cooking.
   
   This is also what makes this such a great `reading' cookbook, yet it is not a culinary memoir with recipes added in here and there, which always play second fiddle to the narrative. Every other recipe offers important hints on general cooking technique such as the suggestion to leave the outer membrane on squid to add to the flavor and to search out the leafy bible tripe from the cow's third stomach, a very delicate addition to the traditional honeycombed tripe from the second stomach. While this is a relatively simple form of cooking, it is not primitive, as many recipes especially the famous French daubes take many hours to prepare, even with the addition of major modern kitchen equipment such as the blender and the food processor, which Lulu and Olney use frequently.
   
   Waters describes Lulu's cuisine as `la cuisine de bonne femme', which may be loosely translated into what Emeril Lagasse labels as `a food of love thing'. This is part of the reason this is both simple, but requiring a great amount of attention. This style of cooking will fail if it gets only half your attention, the other half being spent with Opra, the Knicks and Lakers basketball game, or an errant adolescent not quite old enough to be counted on to stay out of trouble on its own. This means that this book jumps to the top of the list of books I recommend to people who like to read cookbooks. It also jumps to the top of my list as a source for Provencal cooking. Since both author and subject are true to the terroir of coastal Provence, there may be a few recipes, such as the classic nine page long recipe for Bouillabaisse which you will not be able to duplicate as you may simply not be able to get whole rascasses, wrasses, combers, and John Dory's. Scribe Olney is true to his mission of describing how Lulu actually cooks, but he does transpose an aside here and there for us New World suburbanites so we may approximate the classic dishes.
   
   I heartily agree with Thorne when he says that the first sixty pages of the book can easily be left to a later time, as it is largely a `pro forma' recitation of the history of Lulu, Lucian, and their Bandol vineyard. The real action starts on page 61 with `Lulu's Kitchen: Recipes'. This recipe by recipe table of contents demonstrates that this is a really serious cookbook that just happens to be a great culinary read as well. The recipes cover all standard courses and food ingredients, with each and every recipe being a part of Lulu's real cuisine. There are no fillers here, so you will find no bread baking recipes, as it is apparent that Lulu did not bake her own bread.
   
   This is an important culinary book, a superb mix of cookbook and memoir of the Provencal terroir and style. Very highly recommended.



2. Richard Olney probably came closer to perfection as a cookbook author than any other American. His books are exquisite models of focus, structure, warmth, and practicality, and his treatment of food and wine somehow manages to be simultaneously perfectly balanced and highly personal. Next to Olney's cookbooks and vinyard monographs, the oevres of James Beard and Julia Child, for example, feel overblown, oversold, and downright sloppy.
   
   Olney's warmhearted incision is the perfect match for the home cooking of Lulu Peyraud. Mm Peyraud is the Marseille native, mother of seven, keystone of the Bandol food and wine community, renowned home cook, and owner-operator of Domaine Tempier, widely considered the finest vinyard of France's Mediterranean coast. Most famously, she is gratefully credited by Alice Waters, Kermit Lynch, Jeremiah Tower, Paul Bertolli, and a host of other American food heirarchs with being their inspiration and touchstone. But for years before America found the simple pleasures of expertly-prepared, highly-local, regional foods, Lulu and Richard were cooking lunches for each other under their respective grape arbors. This book is a broad sample of those meals. In it, Olney documents the preparation, from farm and fish-market to plate, of Mm Peyraud's favorite family meals. Each recipe is presented with notes on ingredients, irregularities and seasonal adjustments in Mm Peyraud's preparations, lucid explanations of techniques, and reminders to keep things loose. The result is a highly-informative glimpse into the regional cuisine that forms the culinary hunge between France and Piedmont-Liguria. This cuisine is one of the world's most satisfying, and I believe that this book is its greatest Testament.
   
   I won't single out any recipes this time. The book is full of stunners from salad to desert. Buy this book and a couple of bottles of Domaine Tempier [a rose and a red, for starters], and serve those wines, chilled Provence-style, with a sampling of these magical dishes. Serve them, if at all possible, under a grape arbor on a hot, sunny day in an ocean breeze. And raise a glass to Lulu and Richard for their generous hospitality.

5 comments about the girl & the fig cookbook: More than 100 Recipes from the Acclaimed California Wine Country Restaurant.

1. This book by restaurant owner Sondra Bernstein, with recipes by executive chef John Toulze represents the cuisine served at a chain of Sonoma County based restaurants after which the book is titled. Based on the passions of Ms. Bernstein and her staff, the book and the restaurants focus on figs; dishes based on figs; the produce of Sonoma County; the cuisine of Provence, France; and the similarity of the terroir of Sonoma with Provence.

   One object of the book is to publicize the chain of restaurants and the line of products based on the owner's love of figs. This is not too unusual, as I am certain this is one of the motives behind every celebrity chef / restaurant owner's cookbook. Some, like Tom Colicchio are less obvious about this interest. Others, like Emeril Lagasse, are pretty out front about this objective. All restaurant based cookbooks aim at providing the reader with some twist to their cuisine or it's presentation which adds sugar to the bait to create an interest in the restaurant(s).

   One special feature of this book is borrowed from Ms. Bernstein's distinguished California culinary neighbor, Thomas Keller of the French Laundry. This is the addition of sidebars on some of the restaurants' more important, or, at least, more interesting suppliers. This includes fig, mushroom, and cheese vendors, past and present. This highlights one weakness to the book, in that it is so thoroughly based on what is available from the gardens and vineyards of Sonoma County. Not everyone in the United States is blessed with access to wild mushrooms and the talented foragers who supply them, or to cheeses from artisinal cheese makers. Happily, the chef / recipe writer has supplied generally available products to substitute for his Sonoma pantry.

   The cornerstone of the book's cuisine is the parallel between the Sonoma and Provence produce and the cuisine which can be based on that similarity. Therefore, it should be no surprise to see most recipes appear to be straight out of the pages of books by Patricia Wells and Lydie Marshall. One of the most pleasant parallels is that the Bernstein / Toulze cuisine is based on fairly simple recipes, often with the kind of recipe modularity of sauces and pantry preparations common to an influence from Julia Child. The recipes for stocks, for example are about as simple as they come. There is no Thomas Keller / Judy Rodgers obsessiveness about technique here. Most recipes follow a recent quote I heard from Wolfgang Puck who said that the trick was to start with great ingredients and try not to mess them up. There are some unusual twists, such as the cooking oil of choice, a `blended oil' of one part olive oil and three parts canola oil. I am totally baffled that disciples of Provencal cuisine should eschew pure olive oil.

   The recipes are organized by size and role of the dish rather than by main ingredient. Recipe chapters are:

   `a small bite' hors d'ourves with figs, radishes, mushrooms, olives, shellfish, charcuterie, and crackers
   `from the garden to the stockpot' soups, including many Provencal classics
   `in the salad bowl' with lots of vinaigrettes, figs, asparagus, beans, endive, beets, walnuts, and cheese
   `large plates' 25 familiar dishs such as pastas, coq au vin, duck cassoulet, and lamb shanks
   `sauce over and under' with lots of butter, aioli, pistou, rouille, citrus, shallots, remoulade, and figs
   `on the side' with lots of balsamic reductions, familiar vegetable, polenta, couscous, olives, mushrooms...
   `sweets' with lots of figs, apples, pears, nuts, lavender, cheese, and cream

   The cuisine owes a fair amount to the exchange of cuisine between Provence and northern Italy, with a fairly substantial contingent of recipes involving pasta, risotto, polenta, cipollini onions and balsamic vinegar. This makes the abandoning pure olive oil in favor of the blended oil even more puzzling. In spite of this mystery, I am certain that these recipes, especially those based on figs, are superior to many and worthy of the authors' dedication to Provence.

   One very serious aspect of the restaurants' connection to Provence is Ms. Bernstein's commitment to wines based on varietals originating in the Rhone valley rather than the wines which made Napa and Sonoma wines famous. These are the Carignane, cinsault, Grenache, Roussanne, Syrah and Vognier grapes. All but the Syrah are unfamiliar to me, but that's just a symptom of my ignorance of wine. Each recipe gives a very simple recommendation of wine selected from this list. The emphasis on simple is important to contrast it to the elaborate, sometimes arcane recommendations given by Patricia Wells and others.

   The authors' dedication to their chosen cuisine and their featured product is genuine and fruitful, producing many simultaneously simple and worthy recipes. There are occasionally long recipes for standards such as cassoulet and coq au vin, but that should be no surprise. They have convinced me to look forward to a visit to their restaurants if I ever get to northern California.

   Recommended recipes for even novice cooks. A good read at a fairly reasonable list price. If you already own 10 books on Provence cuisine, you may want to take a pass.




2. As a local who lives and works within two blocks of the girl & the fig restaurant, I admit to being biased, but I just have to correct the previous reviewer: the girl & the fig restaurant is not and has never been a chain! There's only one restaurant, and it's my favorite place to take visitors who want to experience authentic Sonoma Valley cuisine at its very yummiest and most inspiring. The cookbook is a delicious introduction to the area for foodies who are still planning their first visit ... and a great way to keep the experience alive for those who can't wait to come back. I highly recommend it.



3. My first experience with Girl and the Fig was it's first home in Glenn Ellen, CA. which is still there. The restaurant quickly became a favorite. The newer restaurant in the town of Sonoma, also excellent, has a wonderful bar. Great place to join friends for a glass of wine from their excellent wine list or enjoy one of the best martinis. They have also opened a restaurant in Petaluma, CA.
   I am delighted that they have finally come out with this wonderful cook book. It represents the best of the Girl and the Fig's cuisine. I love to cook and I am thrilled to have this cook book in my collection.



4. I purchased this for a Christmas present and she loved it! There are some recipes that are a little too fancy for my taste, but otherwise this book includes great recipes to serve with individual wines.



5. For me, this book was a fun and very usable introduction to a new world of foods...and the Rhone-style wines that go with them.
   
   I admit it: I'd rather go to Sonoma than to Napa. And when I do go to Sonoma, I always try to visit the author's restaurant, The Girl and The Fig, located on the corner of the Town Square. When I can't be there, I love using the book at home to remind me of being there.
   
   I like this book a lot and use it about once a month.

5 comments about On Rue Tatin: Living and Cooking in a French Town.

1. Having been a student in France in the 1970s, this book brought back a lot of good memories. Ms. Loomis is an excellent writer and tells a good story making me feel like I was there. I could easily imagine all of the situations and think any person with an interest in France or cooking would enjoy the book. It'll be kept in my library to reread in the future.



2. Very disappointing, the only good thing in it is the food. It's terribly condescending and author's ego is all over the place. But the most annoying part is that while it claims on the back that this is a book about a cooking school and anyone about to open a small business should read it, this is not the case at all. She only talks about the school a bit at the beginning and then we are just left with her life, her view of the French, which is not very exciting, and an awful lot of adjectives.



3. This is not a cookbook, but a memoir with a scattering of recipes. The story is a familiar one: American becomes enthralled with France (or Italy as is often the case), manages to buy and restore a delapidated country house, and lives to write about it. It is hoped that the proceeds from the sale of the resulting book will defray the costs.
   
   I am sure that Susan Loomis is a nice person, but she is a mediocre writer. Her tale is written in a self-absorbed style that just detracts. The writing is ponderous and irritating.



4. I took a cooking class with Susan when she made one stop in California. I learned alot and so I read this book to see how she ended up in France. It was a delight. It made me want to pack up and visit the town where she lives. I loved reading of the people who live there and the recipes she shares. Very enjoyable.



5. This book is bad in many ways. Like many readers who have pointed out, its writing is just awful. Then, the author seemed small-minded about French culture at times which makes me wonder why did they move to France? She never properly explained it other than saying 'I just Love it there'. One example is when she wrote how she felt uncomfortable with the French way of 'by-passing' the system. She gave the impression that she felt it's wrong to do such things, then gave several examples of how they got their parking tickets waived because they knew this friend and how they bought stuff at cheaper prices because they knew some other friends - in other words, how they cheated the system themsevels while feeling this 'French' way is wrong. This is just hypocritical and condescending.
   
   This book is NOT about living in a French town for the most part, rather, about the author's own life, a quite boring one, that is. The author went into great length into describing every little detail about every little thing. Describing their housekeeper's habbit of cleaning in the dark took 2 pages, then another paragraphy about how the housekeeper doesn't clean the cobwebs very well, then another paragraph of how she's not complaining and 'the world still turns'. It is just painful to read.

5 comments about Chez Panisse Menu Cookbook.

1. There's a special reason we go to the books of the great chefs. It's not to throw a meal together in 2 minutes, or to make sure we will find a dish we can cook with no trouble in two pans in our kitchens at home. It's to look inside an imagination and see what someone can achieve with ingredients and passion when it's what they do all day, every day, with devotion.

   As Nigella Lawson said about another writer, "I often cook, if not directly from it, then inspired by it (which is more telling)". This is a truly inspiring work, one you will go back to again and again. From the buckwheat crepes with glaced fruit and eau de vie, to the amazing amazing fish soup, simple dishes with corn and over the top reworking of french classics, the judgement of flavours and textures is perfect. Ignore Water's fetish about perfect lettuce, read it, and just go to the kitchen. 10 stars out of five, the best of all the Waters books.




2. This is one of Alice Waters' early books, and it shows, as compared to the later ones. Many of the recipes are complicated, and involve ingredients that are not easy to come by, even in NYC. I read it more for amusement. The later books (Vegetables, Fruit, Cafe), are much more user friendly and result in great dishes. I wouldn't recommend this to someone new to her philosophy of cooking, or who doesn't have serious kitchen experience.



3. There's a lot of good sense and good food in this book, but the California style is getting a bit past mark of mouth, if you'll permit an archaic phrase/pun. I've made a few of these dishes, and they're fine, but somehow this isn't the book I pick up and flip through, asking myself, "what's for dinner?" With Jody Adams, Daniel Boulud, and Pat Wells on the shelf, I'm not sure I'd call this a "must have" addition. But, if you're a Waters fan, go for it .



4. American foodies owe a debt of gratitude to Alice Waters. She is the patron saint of California cooking, or new American cooking, or whatever you want to call it. She's the one who gave us goat cheese croutons, roasted beets, mache, and so many other now-ubiquitous dishes. "Former Chez Panisse chef" is just as much a brand name as the brand named meats and produce she serves at her restaurant.
   
   For those reasons, I actually read The Chez Panisse Menu Cookbook cover to cover, the way one reads an MFK Fisher book - to get an understanding of the cook's philosophy as well as recipes. Both women write in a formal style and have strong ideas about ingredients, preparation, presentation, and consumption. Unfortunately, Water's writing is more spare, perhaps as befits a patron saint, and lacks the pithy humor that leavens Fisher's books. Reading her prose is more like learning a lesson than being entertained.
   
   Which may be why this book struck me as an essential book for someone who wanted to learn to be a restaurant chef, but not particularly useful for someone cooking at home. Most of the menus require some final preparation of the next dish after the preceding one has been served - possible in a restaurant, but not much fun at a dinner party if the cook wants to eat with the guests.
   
   The individual dishes are also complicated or labor-intensive, causing me to often think as I read, "I'd eat that if someone made it for me." Waters is particularly fond of leg of lamb, lobsters, and quail and her recipes for these show the difficulty in preparing them at home. First, most of the lamb recipes call for spit-roasting the leg of lamb. She even explains how to build a spit. In my spit-deficient kitchen, those recipes are not possible.
   
   Second, while I find a steamed lobster to be a wonderful treat on a special occasion, Waters takes the fun out of it with instructions to semi-cook a lobster, then remove the meat and make a fumet with the shells - a process involving roasting the shells, making the broth, putting the shells in a blender, then straining the whole thing through a fine sieve - then finish cooking the lobster. Whew!
   
   Finally, quail do not usually show up on my dinner table, but if they did, I do not think I'd have the dedication to follow Walter's recipes. In most of her quail recipes she gives similar instructions: "Marinate the quail in a cool place overnight . . . turning the quail four to five times during this time." No little boney bird is worth losing a night of sleep.
   
   Reading this Menu Cookbook made me want to spring for dinner at Chez Panisse, but it did not make me want to don an apron and start cooking.



5. Having heard about Chez Panisse and my sister finally having the opportunity to dine at the restaurant, I gave the book to my sister as a gift. She seems quite happy to have the cookbook (she is a fabulous cook!) and says she has plans to try a number of Alice Water's wonderful recipes!

5 comments about Le Cordon Bleu at Home.

1. The recipes in this book are amazing. I've been going thru each recipe one by one. Even the recipes that I thought I wouldn't like turned out to be a fab surprise. I've learnt so much abt cooking since I started the lessons. The book goes from easy to difficult recipes. This is definitely a good buy.



2. Many think of cuisine as a creative art.
   They see their favorite chefs tossing in a bit of this, a bit of that, and voila! A magnificent masterpiece!
   Anyone who has put in the hours to learn an art of any kind, be it playing the piano, painting, or yes, cooking, knows: technique comes first.
   
   What is technique? It is the efficient coordination of movements/actions, applied in a consistent way, to produce a desired effect. In cooking, it is trussing a chicken, chopping in various ways, creating a stock, simmering a sauce. It is creating your mise en place, understanding how long each step of a recipe takes.
   
   As an avid home cook (a pure amateur), I heartily recommend this title from The Cordon Bleu. Using a progressive program of instruction, based on their own diploma program, it incorporates technique into a set of classic recipes. Techniques are developed and elaborated where necessary, and in graded steps. For example, a basic white (Bechamel) sauce can be embellished with cheese (Mornay).
   
   The Cordon Bleu is known as a conservative bastion in the world of cooking. As such, I felt that some of the recipes are for dishes better placed in a museum than served at home, much less a restaurant. (A summer salad made with tomatoes, boiled carrots and cauliflower. Not my choice to serve at a dinner party. But the accompanying fresh mayonnaise recipe is fantastic!) And yet, even these add to the charm of the collection as a whole.
   
   Le Cordon Bleu at Home is a one stop volume for classic French cooking, and is a great stepping stone for more advanced cookbooks, many of which assume a thorough knowledge of French techniques (e.g. the Charlie Trotter series).



3. I would echo another reviewer who suggested that Julia Child's "The Way To Cook" is the ultimate learn-to-cook book, and her "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" is the ultimate learn-to-cook-French book, but this is a good introduction, too. I've been using this cookbook for years, even before I went through a Cordon Bleu culinary program here in the U.S. I'd also recommend getting the Cordon Bleu Practicial Techniques Book, which is excellent and has step-by-step photos of a lot of the techniques talked about in this book. My favorite practical book is probably La Varenne Practique. I've made about half of the recipes; if you follow the directions carefully, you usually learn something new and it's cheaper than going to Paris!



4. I found the recipes to be wonderful. It is organized by simple menus to complex menus. Try to make a different menu very week. It is great way to learn.
   
   However, the pages of my book are falling out. The binding on the book is not the best in the world. As long as I don't loose my pages, I am still doing well.
   
   peace



5. I'm a self-taught cook at home. I found books that has step-by-step pictures for each recipe are very easy to learn. This book has only one picture for approximately each 6 or 7 recipies! At the end, it has pictures for general subject like "how to make dough", etc. But these pictures are hard to see because they're very small. Also they do not show the dishes after they have been completely cooked.
   
   I prefer "Le Cordon Bleu's complete cooking techniques". It has more than one picture for each recipe. However, it has much fewer recipies. Besides, those recipies are very basic.