The Art of Aureole

I wonder if a lot of people assume that cookbooks are specifically written for the home cook? Some are and some are clearly not. Do people assume that an average person (not trained as a chef) could get a cook book from a four star restaurant and simply replicate the food at home with ease? Would that really make any sense? Shouldn't a restaurant of this caliber have a difficult cookbook? And wouldn't that be an injustice to simplify the cuisine on the assumption that most people don't have the equipment or the technique to execute the recipes? I feel that the answer is that yes there are people out there that work in the industry and thrive on cookbooks like this one. Myself included. Why does it seem odd that a number of cookbooks are geared towards cooks and chefs? There must be, what, thousands...if not millions of us out there cooking your dinner tonight. Where do we get some of our inspiration from? Cookbooks. I think the layout is very original. Part A. - a two page colour photo showing the dish. Part B. - a two page black and white recipe. If anybody cared to delve a litter deeper they might understand the rational behind the layout. Chef Palmer's food is layed out across the plate horizontally and others on angels. It's not vertical food. The layout of the recipes mimics the layout of the food. I've cooked out of this cookbook, albeit at my bistro, and the recipes do work and do taste great. It's the closet I can get, short of working at Aureole, to Chef Palmer's cuisine. It's a treasure of culinary tricks and techniques that take years to formulate and perfect.

I will agree with the other reviewers that this is not, by any means, a great cookbook. Really, I've seen this as a 'coffee table cookbook' since the day I first saw it. I think the layout of this book is absolutely gorgeous and it's well worth just flipping through to see the wide array of beautiful food inside. While I doubt I'd ever try the recipies in it, I do think one could glean lots of fun tidbits of information to try in one's own way.

This cookbook, in my opinion is a great book for any chef or aspiring chefs out their. This is a great inspirational book for plate presentations due to the buitiful full colored pictures throughout the book. Also some great ideas such as "Pan-Roasted Sea Scallops and Truffle-Braised Pork Cheeks with WatercressCoulis." The only thing I will agree on with the other reviews is that the format of the writing is on a angle so it makes it a little harder to read, but yet still easy to follow. Some people forgot that their is a art to culinary and this book shows that perfectly. In my words i would have to simply say "Inovative."