Alinea
by Grant Achatz
|
List Price: Our Price: $35.18 You Save: $24.82 (41%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $29.95 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of Alinea
Book Review: OK for your coffee table... maybe...
Summary: 2 Stars
The namesake of this book is the celebrated Chicago restaurant that some foodies ooh & ah about. I'd say the book is pretty & contains some interesting photos. Though I'm all for outstanding gourmet delights & appealing presentations, I also like to recognize on sight what I'm about to eat.
That's why I have never in my life tasted the mysterious messes called tuna salad, chicken salad & egg salad in the US. Their ingredients are always squashed into unrecognizable jumbles of who-knows-what, glued together by excessive amounts of processed goo called mayonnaise but totally different from what true mayonnaise actually is (read a recipe for mayonnaise if you don't believe me).
The food illustrated in the Alinea book shares something with the horrid junk food I just mentioned, except that instead of looking disgusting it looks beautiful. It looks like jewelry or other artistic sculptural work. But it sure don't look like food, & resembles no food I've ever seen in any of the best 3-Star European restaurants I've been privileged to eat at (before I became strictly kosher).
This is no disparagement of Grant Achatz & his staff, as I'd imagine that his preparations may be delicious to the palate. But they'd certainly be still more delicious if he & his pals stopped fixating on appearances & devoted the wasted time to the food itself.
So, had I to do it all over again, I'd abstain from buying the book, & recommend that you do the same.
Book Review: The Line of Beauty
Summary: 5 Stars
"Alinea" is the official cookbook of Chicago chef Grant Achatz's renowned restaurant. After battling a severe case of tongue cancer, Achatz has made an astounding comeback. This cookbook is a personal- as well as culinary- triumph.
"Alinea" isn't the usual cookbook. Achatz tries to bring together different senses. For example, his lamb with fennel and lemon also has the ingredient of coffee aroma. The rabbit is served with prune, shallot, and burning leaves. Scent is as important as taste. There are unusual food combinations as well that Achatz manages to pull off- the cauliflower has 5 coatings,3 gels,and apple- cobia is served with radish,cedarwood.... and tobacco. There's a transparency of raspberry, rose petal, and yogurt- trout roe is combined with passionfruit, coconut, and hyssop. Turbot is served with celery--and chamomile. Lemongrass is the center of one recipe. Achatz redefines the "hot potato,cold potato" as well as peanut butter&jelly. There's an essay about the famous Black Truffle Explosion.
Achatz's postmodern cooking isn't for the ordinary cook. He says that one can adapt,using different equipment and ingredients--but it's not the same. One has to be a professional to make these dishes.
"Alinea" is cooking as art.
Book Review: Alinea is the best kitchen in the US-This book captures it
Summary: 5 Stars
I had the pleasure of dining at Alinea in June of 09. My son requested this as his graduation present from U Chicago Law School. I have eaten at the finest restaurants around the world and all I can say is Alinea is in a class by itself. I was given a short tour of the kitchen afterwards. It made me think of NASA. If you are a foodie this is Mecca. The book is an astonishingly beautiful coffee table class book. The size, photography, design, and production conjures up a fine art book. I have been a serious amateur chef for nearly 40 years and what is very clear is that this is not a book for beginners. It assumes a fairly high level of skill and familiarity with advanced practices. That said, this is a treasure trove of innovation and methods to challenge the skills and imagination of anyone who loves to cook. The only other book I think it compares to is The French Laundry Cookbook by Thomas Keller. Both of these chefs rank amongst the top innovators in the world of fine cuisine. If you really want to push yourself as a chef buy this book. If you simply want an astonishingly beautiful coffee table conversation piece buy this book. Whatever you do make sure dining at Alinea is on your "Bucket List."Book Review: Beautiful but bizzare and lacking
Summary: 2 Stars
This is probably one of the nicest cookbooks I've ever seen. But it is way "out there" - and I'm not just talking about the unique food that Grant Achatz describes. It's just that you need to spend a mint on new-fangled cooking devices and obscure food additives to do just about any recipe in here. My biggest peeve is that there is no "Sources" section in the book (or at least not that I could find) to help you get things like "Ultra Tex 3" starch. I needed to Google half of the items in the first recipe I read because the glossary wasn't quite there.
The whole thing comes off as a sort of "look at me - I'm too cool" sort of exercise in chemically-addled-gastronomy. It gives me the douche chills. Buy it for the pictures, and the ideas it shows... but not as a useful cookbook - unless your name happens to be Tetsuya or Ferran Adria.
I may try to make the deconstructed A1 sauce dish one of these days - if I find 12 free hours and a suitable substitute for an anti-griddle and immersion circulator (thinking frozen cookie sheet and hot tub). Chances are I'll fail, though. But I may try my own A1 Deconstruction using more high-falutin' methods.
Book Review: Buy it if you want to dive deep into avant garde
Summary: 5 Stars
I just received the book....Pictures are amazing and the dishes just out of this world.... Certainly not for the home cook or the gourmet ...This is serious work so if you would like to replicate whole dishes it would be a challenge just gathering resources and equipment.... I am actively more involved into Avant Garde cooking ( no its not called molecular gastronomy) so this just took me in places mentally.... Reading other reviews i failed to understand what the reviewers were expecting out of Alinea...I expected a little less and actually got way more than i thought it would...
Again this is a special book... And its a shame that some cannot understand it ,but its a special book with a designated audience.... For what it is, its very straight forward and a steal at that price.. Ferran Adria cookbooks are way more expensive but people tend to glorify him too... I do too but for different reasons also apart the culinary...
Do me a favour...Read the book... Then you will see how Grant Achatz is changing the world today....( among others too)...
Culinary history certainly....