The Kitchen Sessions
My aunt and uncle got me Charlie Trotter's The Kitchen Sessions for Christmas. All of my family loves to cook, so food-related gifts are plentiful around the holidays. And while I had a few cookbooks on my wish list, this one was completely off my radar.
The book is designed to be a companion to the TV series, presumably on the Food Network and presumably of the same name. I've obviously never seen it, but it sounds kind of neat. Each show, Trotter is presented with a bunch of "random" ingredients (one always wonders about that kind of thing, though) and just makes something with them. Iron Chef Solitaire or something. He was inspired to the idea by the improv nature of jazz sessions, and the title deliberately harkens to those.
But if he spends any time on the show talking about his thought process, it's not included in the book. Instead, for each recipe he offers casual variations in the headnote ("This could also be made with xxx instead of yyy"). So while he encourages an improvisational cooking style in the introduction, it doesn't carry through to the rest of the book.
Still, the recipes look good, and there are some neat ideas in there. I suspect that the book's real purpose is to provide a list of the recipes construced on the TV show, which is presumably where one gets to see him thinking out loud.
- The Vanishing Cookbook
One of the most practical sessions I attended at IACP in Chicago was The Vanishing Cookbook. The panelists included Tanya Steel, Editor in Chief of Epicurious.com, Rick Rodgers, noted cookbook author and award-winning cooking instructor and Pam Chirls,...
- Jacques Pepin: Fast Food My Way
Watching cooking shows on TV is one of my favorite pastimes. It's entertainment, sure, but I also learn a lot. My all-time favorite television chef is Jacques Pepin. I have many of his cookbooks and watch his television series religiously (let's...
- Lost Recipes Cookbook
There are two kinds of cookbooks. One kind often features beautiful photography, and has recipes written by famous chefs from even more famous restaurants. These cookbooks are likely to weigh a lot, and cost a lot. While amazing works of art, bound to...
- The Art Of Simple Food
In Mouth Wide Open, John Thorne admits that he often reviews cookbooks without testing the recipes. Heresy, he says. So many cookbooks don’t have reliable recipes; shouldn’t you check a few before suggesting the book? Probably. But taking...
- Eric Ripert
A couple of weeks ago, I went to see Eric Ripert, who is on book tour for A Return to Cooking. Ripert is the chef at Le Bernardin in New York City, which is a four-star restaurant. I had read an advance copy of the book, and had some issues with it....