|
Grand gifts for gastronomes
REVIEWS BY SYBIL PRATT Visions of sugarplums are not what's dancing in the heads of fantasizing foodies (or we simpler folk who just love fabulous food). Rather, it's visions of getting a reservation at elBulli, the Mecca of food Meccas that receives more than 2 million requests a year for a possible 8,000 seats, or ordering up a storm at Per Se without worrying about the bill. But that takes a lot more moolah than I've got left, so for the foodies and feasters on your holiday hit list (yourself included), may I recommend a money-saving, time-saving, yet gourmet-gratifying (these vaunted vittles aren't found on Main Street) solution: Armchair Eating-Cooking-and-Looking. To aid and abet this end, there's a bounty of big, beautiful cookbooks by some of the biggest chefs in our galaxy.
By Ferran Adrià Phaidon, $49.95 600 pages, ISBN 9780714848839
By Thomas Keller Artisan, $75 296 pages, ISBN 9781579653514
by David Waltuck Taunton, $50 320 pages, ISBN 9781561589616
by Jean-François Piège Flammarion, $65 200 pages, ISBN 9782080300584
By Ina Garten Clarkson Potter, $35 272 pages, ISBN 9781400054350
|
Ferran Adrià, who presides over the awesome, awe-inspiring, apotheosized, above-mentioned elBulli, gives us A Day at elBulli, and it's a wow!, with 800 photos that evoke an unusual intimacy: you see Adrià thinking, tasting, creating; you see his staff cooking with liquid nitrogen, making his signature foams, setting the table, plating the ethereal edibles that make up his 30-course tasting menu. There are recipes, sort of, but don't even think about it, just soak up the experience—$49.95 never took you so far.
Next, we'll head to Per Se in New York or The French Laundry in the Napa Valley, where the revered Thomas Keller's new heating methods are showcased and now revealed in his new book, Under Pressure: Cooking Sous Vide. It's a gorgeous, large-format, color photo-filled introduction to what Harold McGee calls "a lasting contribution to fine cooking, a technique that makes it possible to cook foods more consistently and delicately than ever before." The recipes here are detailed, the techniques parsed, but unless you have the special equipment (Keller thinks you may have it soon), you'll have to settle for this exciting armchair experience. A must for serious followers of cutting-edge cuisine.
Chanterelle, by David Waltuck, the chef/owner of this serenely sublime, enduringly elegant New York destination, tells the restaurant's story (writing with Andrew Friedman) and offers more than 150 recipes you can savor at home. David's unique dishes blend French inspiration with an American sensibility; they're simple but never plain, created with what Adam Gopnik, in his foreword, calls "a distaste for fancy cooking combined with a respect for haute cuisine." This is a another big, beautiful book with the requisite temptingly edible photos. If you don't feel up to turning them out in your own kitchen, just page though and dream.
Paris? Why not, and while we're there, a sortie to the splendid, sumptuous Hotel Crillon and to Les Amassadeurs, its super-magnifique, marbled, mirrored, chandelier-lit restaurant, is de rigueur. Jean-François Piège, the brilliant young chef who holds sway there, opens the closed doors of the Crillon's kitchen and then takes us home with him to share in the more casual fare he dishes up to friends and family in his debut cookbook, At the Crillon and at Home, with forewords by Alain Ducasse and Thomas Keller. More than 80 recipes and 334 color illustrations may get you into the kitchen or just enhance your epicurean reveries.
Now, get out of that armchair! Ina Garten's newest and possibly best, Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics, was put on this earth to cook from. Ina's signature magic is manifest in these marvelously makeable, brand-new recipes (nearly 100). What she means by "basics," is looking at old ideas and finding the best ways to unlock their true flavors, so that the end product is more delicious than ever. And it's a really good-looking package, too.