Fast Food My Way
by Jacques Pepin
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Book Reviews of Fast Food My Way
Book Review: resuscitated my menus, refreshed my imagination
Summary: 5 Stars
I saw the program and after years of making the same traditional laborious recipes (e.g. chicken pot pie), was surprised with fantastic techniques of making marvelous-looking and delicious-tasting dishes in much less time.
On the show you can see him seeming to make a dish according to some measurements while the reality seems to be that some ingredient charms him out of the corner of his eye, and like a magician he creates a dish that is original, beautiful, and once you make it, very tasty. I saw him preparing the salmon on the serving platter in a 200 degree oven, and whipping up a salsa using commercial salsa touched up with a few ingredients which all seemed quite spontaneous. When I happened to make it, I was missing his ingredients but chopped up what I had, which was avocado,mango, and commercial hot sweet Thai chile sauce -- and somehow it seemed to be just what the recipe intended.
Somehow the cooking style of the book makes you want to be as invigorated by the stuff that's just sitting around your kitchen as he is -- the antithesis of The Best Recipe/Cook's Illustrated method where focus seems to be on exacting technique, brand of ingredients, brand of equipment, and consistently perfect results.
Another recipe which my husband loves is a soup which goes against all my sauteing instincts. Make it in 5 minutes. Use a box grater to grate a couple of cups of vegetables (including a whole onion, which probably gives most of the flavor). Then throw this all into boiling water, maybe add some grits, throw in some chopped salad greens. Possibly grate some gruyere over the top when serving. Now this is a way of making soup which seems wrong to me at every turn, and yet it is wholesome and flavorful. and never requires a trip to the grocery store.
In his beginning section, "More ideas for quick dishes", he has all kinds of interesting quick dishes. He has quite a few desserts which are also incredibly simple, and not fussy, which I would consider everyday desserts, suitable for children. One is a graham cracker with a scoop of ricotta plus chopped dried fruit...
Another dish which impresses guests is the salmon tartare on a bed of dressed cauliflower. This is not a quick dish, but you can whip it up without investing in a bunch of unusual ingredients.
This cookbook also inspired me to pot a bunch of herbs into one large pot -- recipes do suggest a lot of these herbs (chives, thyme, tarragon). Their success over this past year is much higher than past attempts - though in the style of the book I haven't fussed over them at all.
Minimal cleanup is also a focus of cooking methods. Some of the main dishes can be prepared all in the same pot (and no sauteing, minimal chopping minimal measuring for some). Seems also to bring cooking back to the purpose of sharing a meal with family and friends.
Book Review: this food is GOOD
Summary: 5 Stars
if i might offer a couple of suggestions>>get this book from your local public library, watch a few episodes of FFMY (YouTube), start cooking>>see if you like what happens with your food.
using the library copy all this month, we've made maybe 12 recipes. the amount of flavor that arises from a relatively few ingredients in each dish is amazing. i will never have the knife skills of jacque, but i can chop an onion and a tomato, cube a potato (cubed potato with garlic and sage--best homefries i ever made; serve with a grilled ribeye or crispy chicken thighs from moreFFMW), buy fittycent worth of olives from the grocery store's olive bar, $.75 of macademia nut from the bulk food section, substitute (within reason) any fresh herb available and attempt nearly all of these recipes without going broke. FFMW TV show is INSPIRING. of the recipes we've attempted: 1 was disappointing, 2 were a bit befuddling, 8 (or so) were knock-em-out'o'da'park HOME RUNS. the opening chapters of both books with MORE quick dishes have rocked my world as well. this book and its sequel have, not to put too fine a point on it, revolutionized mealtime at our house. i hate this...but:):):):)...(insert emoticon of your dreams).
the library is about to get its copy back and amazon says my very own copy will be here within a day or so (we own vol.2 moreFFMW already). the complaint that i have is that this book, while nicely presented, is bound CRAPTACULOUSLY. absolute S@%#T!!! another book with recipes i like very much, rick bayless' "everyday mexican", is likewise falling apart after light use...is this the new trend? great book, great recipes, bad bad binding?
message(s):
1. use and support your public libraries. without curiosity liberty will die.
2. jacque pepin's recipes and techniques have EMBIGGENED my life
3. my wife and i agree that we are consistently eating "the best food, EVAHHH!!!!
4. spay and neuter your animals
5. thank you for your time
6. an easy start is "pork chops with zesty sauce" pg.164.
7. we love vol.2,"MoreFFMW", just as much.
8. life is SOOO much better when "gourmet night" isn't always a trough of baked beans garnished with a few dead dogs.
9. we would like to legally adopt jacque pepin; failing that, we request that he adopt us.
Book Review: Worked better (for me) in conjunction with the (5 star) PBS DVD series
Summary: 4 Stars
I picked up this book because a friend recommended it, and because I knew of Pepin as a contemporary of Julia Child, so I figured I couldn't go too far wrong. However (as the editorial review so discerningly mentions) some of the recipe titles and ingredient lists didn't seem promising to a first year cook who was stuck in "reheat takeout/deli food in microwave" mode until recently. and the food photography didn't help in most cases, either - eveyrhing seemed to be taken at an odd angle with a fish-eye lens. So I put FFMW up on a shelf in the back room, figuring that I might someday find it more in line with what I was looking for in a cookbook.
Then I happened on a PBS cable channel rebroadcasting a FFMW episode late one and I tuned in to see Pepin in action. Well, it was a revelation. Pepin was a true class act, and just seeing him in action was a culinary education. He was interesting, informative, modest and witty, and he put a 4 course dinner effortlessly and without fuss. Plus, the dishes he prepared looked fantastic. I watched another episode the next week, and the same thing happened again.
So I went back to my bookshelf, pulled FFMW down, gave it a serious look, and realized (smack palm to forehead) that once I had actually seen Pepin cook (as most purchasers of the book would have), then every thing in it made sense and was quite useful and compelling. The value had always been there.But as a beginning cook (and an American unfamiliar with this style of cooking) I had needed Pepin's "voice" to make it work for me. That's probably my failing, not Pepin's or his editorial staff, but I have to review my experience with the book, not what *should* have been if I were more seasoned in the kitchen.
Since then I have made several dishes from the book (and twice put together an entire menu on my weekend) and I can attest that this is a great culinary resource for people who want to eat well - but who can't deal with MTV style celebrity chefs like Rachel and Giada. I've ordered the two DVDs and am looking forward to seeing more of Mr. Pepin in action.
Book Review: Fast, yes, but also incredibly delicious
Summary: 5 Stars
I began buying cookbooks in the 60's, with Julia Child's first book -- how's that for sheer dumb luck? My kitchen library now consists of hundreds of them, but this is my first review -- that's how impressed I am. I'll skip right to the point now: What have I made that I would recommend (My pet peeve is a review that consists mainly of generalities without the specifics).
The supreme of chicken with balsamic vinegar is ridiculous in its simplicity, yet packs a gustatory wallop! The corn/pea side dish is perfect with it. Just for fun I made the entire "Instantly Delicious" menu -- not as quickly as Jacques does it, but still do-able in a short time, and everything was excellent, although I felt it necessary to "spike" the soup with additional herbs -- a little too bland for my taste. The recipe for broiled lamb chops and spinach is perfection. The chicken bouillabaisse is a great cold-weather dish (although having spent the summer in Aix, it's a far cry from its namesake -- oh well, let's just think apples to oranges -- they're both good.) The chicken breasts with garlic and parsley are worth doing, but I prefer the balsamic version. The halibut on fresh polenta with pepper oil (part of the "Instantly Delicious" menu) was quite good -- found the fresh polenta an eye-opener. And that silly little cubed potatoes with garlic and sage recipe was nothing short of dumbfounding. I'm making the poached tilapia with herbed cream sauce tonight, and if it isn't delectable I'll be shocked! I've recently purchased "Bouchon", both Union Square books, two Portale's, two of Vongerichten's, four of Michael Chirarello's -- all excellent, but this is the book that I'm having the most fun with!
Book Review: Fast Food Fun!
Summary: 5 Stars
My mom got my brother and I this book for Christmas, and I must say that now I am a true believer of the "Fast Food" method. I have tried about 5 dishes from this book, and I am intrigued by cooking the many other recipes listed. What is really nice about this cookbook is the suggested menu pairings in the beginning of the book. For someone who does not know much about cooking, I appreciated this because too often, I get cookbooks that list the recipes but when it comes to planning a full meal, I do not know what should go with what. The menus in the book served as an inspiration for planning my own menus. Another nice quality is that Mr. Pepin has very clear instructions for his recipes, many of which contain supplemental materials covering useful topics such as how to warm up dinner plates quickly and the most humane way of killing a lobster (if you must.) There are also many time saving ideas if you are home late from work but want something satisfying. He also explains how to speed up the process of cooking things that take long (like using both microwave and conventional ovens for baked potatoes or using a pressure cooker for meats that would take a long time to cook.) Although I agree that some of these dishes may require a little more work for a two-income family (like the lobster salad with tarragon), I have found quite a few favorites that are on their way to becoming my staple recipes during the week (Chicken with Parsley and Garlic, Peasant Soup, Tomato and Mozzarella Fans, Cubed Potatoes with Garlic and Sage, Pears in Honeyed Wine.) I also can't wait to cook the Oven-Baked Salmon with Sun Dried Tomato and Salsa Mayonaise! What a fun book! Thank you, Mom!