Bistro Cooking
by Patricia Wells
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Book Reviews of Bistro Cooking
Book Review: Bistro Cooking, A Love Affair
Summary: 5 Stars
Julie Child taught you to cook French food. In Bistro Cooking, Patricia Wells teaches you to fall in love with it.
I bought this book on a whim about 20 years ago when I was starting out on my own, and today I credit it with teaching me to cook. This book caused me not just to like, but to love, French cooking, which I had previously regarded as either too tyrannical or just not that interesting. Thanks to this magnificent little volume, French cooking is now a very easy and natural part of my life.
This book absolutely oozes charm, and Mrs. Wells' enthusiasm and joy on the pages of it are infectious. One of the best things she does is to just plain motivate you to get in the kitchen and start cooking. The spirit of this book is light-hearted and fun, but make no mistake, Mrs. Wells' knowledge of French food, and of cooking in general, is anything but light. Bistro Cooking is the reference I turn to again and again when I want an honest-to-goodness recipe for a dish such as a roast chicken, a potato gratin, a chocolate cake or a fruit tart. (The chocolate mousse on page 244 is the most divine thing I have ever tasted.) The recipes are authentic, tried and true, and cannot be beat.
What is it that makes this book so special? Maybe it is the vintage-looking black and white photos, the charming illustrations or the quaint French menus. Maybe it is the total do-ability of the recipes, for surely there is not a reason in the world why you couldn't make any of them? It's not really a question of whether you CAN make the recipes in this book, it is a question of whether you can RESIST making them. Maybe it is all the helpful advice that is so comfortably offered throughout that gives one the sense that they would acquire more practical culinary know-how by using Bistro Cooking than they would if they were to enroll in cooking school for a year. Maybe it is the feeling you get when you sit down in your favorite chair and open the book that you are stepping right through its pages into another time and place. Yes, I admit that armchair travelers such as myself will love it, but they will also love knowing that Mrs. Wells is an absolute authority on French food and that the recipes in this book are so good they should be considered the standard by which other recipes for the same dishes ought to be judged. Or maybe it's the feeling you get from reading her description of a dish that the recipe that follows for it is not just a formula for making very good food but surely for happiness itself. Maybe it's everything.
I can promise you this: This is a cookbook unlike any you have ever owned and if you acquire it, it will occupy a very special place, not only on your bookshelf, but in your life and in your heart.
Book Review: How can one do so much with such basic ingredients and simple recipes?
Summary: 5 Stars
This cookbook contains a collection of recipes inspired by and taken from a wide array of French bistros. Patricia Wells has assembled a terrific array of cookbooks, but this may be her best. With a few exceptions, these recipes take what I consider to be basic ingredients and turn them into a wide array of delicious, easy to prepare dishes. There are a few recipes that call for things that are uncommon to the American palate (e.g. rabbit), but overall this cookbook contains a huge number of easy to make, accessable recipes that will be enjoyed by Americans. The book is divided into 12 sections covering salads, desserts, pasta, soups, etc. It is also a regional tour through France with a diverse selection of recipes from big city bistros and small town or rural restaurants. Each recipe has a paragraph or two describing the bistro from which it was taken and some discussion of regional cuisine. One thing that I REALLY liked about this cookbook is that it will give you ideas for other concoctions. That is, as I was trying some of the recipes, I was constantly thinking `using A with B' is a great idea. For example, there is a great recipe for poached eggs in a wine sauce. A great idea! Another (minor but important) thing that I liked about this book was that it was bound so that it could be propped open on the kitchen counter. There are also flaps on the front and back cover that can block the page open so that you don't have to go fishing through the book if it does flip closed. This is a cookbook that we return to again and again, definitely worth the money.Book Review: A great trove of the best in old-fashioned French cooking
Summary: 5 Stars
Patricia Wells' "Bistro Cooking" is a jewel box crammed with with priceless gems, but these are treasures to be worn (eaten) everyday (okay, metaphor is already wearing thin). But Wells' idea here is give the interested cook access to those great meals originally sampled on that trip to France where the food was one of the most memorable parts of the experience. And this isn't about Michelin-starred-restaurant dining which most of us can't really afford. This is that fatty, creamy, lip-smacking stuff that isn't, for the most part, all that difficult to reproduce at home.
There is a great recipe here for pot-au-feu, and how about the daube de boeuf aux cepes et a l'orange? And the great vegetable dishes? Double celery soup? Leek tart? Gratin grand-mere with potato, red pepper and zucchini? And don't get me started on the desserts!
There's also a very useful section on basics like how to make a variety of pastries; mayonnaise; chicken stock, etc. This has all been done in other forms before, but author Wells has pulled together a particularly inspired and useful collection of unmatchable French meals. Definitely an important addition to the cookbook collection of anyone who takes traditional food seriously.
Book Review: a favorite
Summary: 5 Stars
This is one of my favorite cookbooks and I think I've prepared more dishes out of it than just about any other I own. In fact, it's so good I bought it twice! When I moved it somehow disappeared and as soon as I realized it I ordered another copy. The recipes are all little classics purloined from the bistro/cafe settings of france. And while not a regional survey the author does a nice job of incorporating various gastronomical locales other than Paris/Lyon for which this style of cooking is most famous. I would also note that it's not the glitzy coffee table book that Patricia Wells has become associated with later in her career (she is a professional writer, not a chef) but it does contain some evocative B&W photos of pre-war bistro scenes. No color photos of either the dishes or the scenery; the value here is recipes and lots of them, from entree to side dish (several wonderful gratins) to salads, soups, etc. The best of Wells' books and highly recommended.Book Review: Indispensable
Summary: 5 Stars
Honestly, for the average home cook, having this is more useful than having Mastering the Art of French Cooking (I am a BIG Julia Child fan, but generally I just don't have the time to make her recipes, wonderful as they are). The vast majority of the recipes here are both uncomplicated and inexpensive. (There are a few exceptions, of course, but it's very easy to tell which ones they are.) There's a whole chapter of potato recipes--what can be better than that? We usually have a few extra copies on hand to give as gifts after dinner parties. If we cook out of this book, our guests invariably want the recipes, and it's easier to give them a copy than it is to write them out, especially as used paperback copies can be had ridiculously cheaply. No serious cook should be without this book (or her book on trattoria cooking, which performs the same function for everyday Italian cooking).