Cuisine Rapide (Illustrated)

I have two copies of this book already. One at home and one at our vacation place. This is a gift. I own many dozens of cookbooks. This is one of my favorites for quickly prepared delicious food made of ingredients easy to find in any urban area . When we used to rent a home in France in the summers, I used to keep a copy there, too. It's an exceedingly useful addition to anyone's kitchen library.

There is something droll about seeing Pierre Franey, the former executive chef of La Pavillion, classically trained French native doing books of quick cooking. It suddenly started making sense to me when I read that Franey was employed as the head of the Howard Johnson's research and development kitchen in the 60's before going to his gig as a culinary columnist for the New York Times. The credentials of this chef, along with my interest in preparing good food quickly lead me to buy this book shortly after it was published in 1989.Franey is especially qualified to write recipes with this slant due to his long service at the New York Times column devoted to quick cooking.Like some modern writers on fast cooking such as Rachael Ray, I believe Franey does alter classic recipes such as pot a feu to get them done faster, but mostly selects those recipes which can be done in less time. There are some exceptions to this such as Pierre's recipe for Chile con carne, typically a long cooking dish. I have prepared this chile many times over the last 12 years and at one time I thought it was very good. Now, after being exposed to some of the more authentic, classic southwestern recipes, I find Pierre's recipe merely a good expedient. Pierre also does not limit himself to the cuisines of western EuropeOn the other side of the coin, I find that this book contains many bonus features on techniques which one would not expect to find in a book with this slant. For example, it covers the always challanging method for dealing with an artichoke and a method for charring the skin of a sweet pepper.This is a very good book for the novice, occasional cook, as it was for me when I first purchased it. The only warning I have is that being short does not always mean easy. A novice cook may find himself challanged by some of the preparations and find yourself taking much longer than an experienced chef.If you are a serious foodie who dotes on Paula Wolfert and Diana Kennedy, you can skip this volume.

I love this book, and I'm about to order one for my daughter. I've used the book for over five years and have tried about half the recipes. All are consistently good and are quick and fairly simple.