The French Laundry Cookbook
by Thomas Keller
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Book Reviews of The French Laundry Cookbook
Book Review: Great Coffee table book.
Summary: 4 Stars
Let me make things clear early in this review. I think this is a great book, but most people who aren't professional cooks will have trouble preparing the recipes verbatim. That's part of why I say it's a great coffee table book.
The other reason I deem it to the den is that it has some great reading that isn't solely about food preparation, rather stories about suppliers of meats and vegetables that Keller uses in his world famous kitchen.
I'm a pretty experienced cook (not chef) and I've cooked about 5 recipes in this book. What I've chosen to do is take certain parts of a recipe and focus on that or use techniques that he recommends and use them to embellish dishes. For instance, he gives a great explanation on getting pan seared fish skin really crispy that has suited me very well. Also, I've used his technique for liver and onions to spruce up my version.
One recipe that is not very difficult, and adds a new twist to a rib-eye steak is the "Yabba Dabba Doo". I highly recommend the novice chef to try that one, since it takes the familiar and (excuse the banality) "kicks it up another notch".
In summation: if you like to peruse wonderful pictures and read about the nuances of food preparation, this is the book for you. If you're a novice chef that wants to emulate Keller's dishes in a sinch, forget about it. Put the $40 or so dollars towards his other book, Bouchon, which is much more approachable and just as good. The recipes are "bistro style" (i.e. they don't involve 5 people working on them simultaneously and an MFA in food artistry) like his haute cuisine at the Laundry.
Book Review: An amazing book - great ideas with just a few weird spots
Summary: 4 Stars
As an amateur chef, I'm always looking for ways to improve my technique and do things that are truly unique - this book at least DOUBLED my knowledge of gourmet technique and ideas. In an era of lots of stupid, flashy "fusion" cooking and "star" chefs who think an unusual combination of exotic ingredients is enough to be good, it's wonderful to see this kind of painstaking attention, dedication, and devotion that this book shows. If you revere great technicians like Pepin, Child, Claiborne, Soltner, Perrier, Boulud, and Beard over Wolfgang "duck on a pizza - wow" Puck, hate trendy-cutesy dish descriptions like "infusion" and "melange", consider "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" Vols I-II holy writ, can't imagine anyone NOT owning The Joy Of Cooking (and NOT the new edition, please!), have ever reduced stock to demi-glace or made a foil collar, or rejoiced in discovering the *right* way to dice an onion (e-mail me and I'll share! ;-) - this book will astound you. His ideas - extracting clorophyll from parsley to use as a coloring 'gel' and garnish, e.g. - are amazing. I'll agree with reviewer Lizzy, though, some of it is a little pretentious or just plain weird ("The Importance of Offal" chapter didn't do it for me, and I'm sorry, but I will NEVER, ever cook a stuffed pig's head!)I see this book less as a practical cookbook for the home chef (it is NOT) and more as a stimulating source of really cutting-edge ideas you probably have *not* thought of but may just try!
Book Review: Beautiful, beautiful book!
Summary: 5 Stars
In case you haven't heard, The French Laundry cookbook's recipes range from pretty darn complex to "nearly-impossible-to-make-by-anyone-except-master-chefs-with-three-assistants". However, none of that matters. This is still my favorite cookbook in my collection because it's one of the most beautifully put together and well written cookbooks, scratch that, BOOKS, I've ever seen. The layout is gorgeous, it's full of incredible pictures and all of the short essays written by Thomas Keller (or a few other people) are well written and interesting, be it on an experience he had butchering rabbits to descriptions of plate decorations to the stories behind all the people who grow the vegetables, catch the fish and raise the lamb that goes into the dishes. I can't emphasize how beautiful this book is, it's truly a coffee table book as much as a cookbook. The dishes themselves are, as I said, all startlingly complex and many hav exotic ingredient. But they have been adapted for home cooks and even though I have yet to try any full recipes, there is a fair amount that seems to be within my reach of doing somewhat successfully, and I'm a teenager who's been cooking seriously for less than a year. I did try the garlic chips that accompany some other dishes and they were delicious by themselves, crispy, garlicky and wonderful. Still, even if you don't make one whole recipe, this is still a great book full of facinating stories, wonderful analysis of ingredients and, as I cannot say enough, incredible, incredible photography. I love this book.Book Review: As beautiful as the food itself
Summary: 5 Stars
In a way I am not surprised at the incredibly quality of this book. It acurately reflects the "excellence" philosophy and artistic bent of the chef himself. The celebrity cookbook is now a fixture (although I have my doubts on just how much non-chef Hollywood types actually spend over the the stove). Heller and the story of the French Laundry are featured in books by Ruhlman, an enthusiastic fan/author who was wisely chosen for the prose portions of the book. This resembles more a journey than a guide - one slowly enters an alien world of beauty, icy technique, exacting standards and unusual combinations.
Taste is only one component of Heller who has a holistic approach. He is as concerned with WHY we cook, the conditions under which we cook as much as ambience, presentation and particularly, customer satisfaction. The photographs are as close to food pornography as one can get - sensuous, enticing, evocative - who says food is not an aphrodesiac? One has the feeling that nothing is here by mistake and nothing has been mistakenly omitted.
CAUTION**** These are not recipes for amateurs!! Many are in several steps and the author assumes a working knowledge that many do not possess. But there are great suggestions throughout, tricks of the trade you might say, that will benefit anyone. It sounds worn and slightly ridiculous, but this cookbook (and his newest) are a must for anyone seriously concerned with cuisine. My grade - A+
Book Review: If you want to try these recipes at home...
Summary: 4 Stars
... you may want to check out the Carol Cooks Keller blog--- carolcookskeller dot blogspot dot com. In 2007-2008, this young woman cooked her way through this book, although she had young kids, a busy life, friends and neighbors to enjoy, and all the rest. She managed to do this by spreading the elaborate steps of the recipes through the week, doing a bit each day. For a cooking 'hobbyist' like me, that sounds fun--just like a motorcycle mechanic fools around with his bike all the time, or a woodworker likes to slip out to the shop to do a little work. So although this cookbook is not about everyday cooking, but instead a mad adventure with something new, her writings did inspire me to order this cookbook and start with the Gruyere Cheese Gougeres (pardon lack of accents!). Final hint: Carol's near-to-final October 17, 2008 entry lists the recipes from this cookbook that she recommends as Great First Steps. She also includes her Top Ten Favorites from the book. By the way, I have absolutely no connection with this blogger, nor did I read her postings in "real time", as she was writing it. Jus' sayin'-- if you REALLY want to get a feel for what it's like to cook these French Laundry recipes, Carol jotted down her step by step experience of every single recipe, as she cooked them, month by month, and included many helpful photos, comments from friends who tasted the food, and did a great job documenting both great successes, along with some total failures.