I Know How to Cook

If I could only have 2 general cookbooks it'd be Better Homes & Gardens for American and this one for a fascinating European perspective. The design is perfect -- amusing illustrations and a pleasure actually to use because of the quality binding and paper. The recipes and kitchen ideas are very different from the American I've always known, and it was a lot of fun to discover them. And I adore its historical background, even though this is an updated edition -- I can pretend I'm living in Paris in the 1930s! Two notes -- I actually purchased the British edition, which perhaps avoids the problems Americans are mentioning with measurements (though it requires owning a decent kitchen scale). Also, I think that any problems with blandness would be due to how many foods in American big grocery stores are less flavorful than those purchased directly from farmers as is more common in France, and also the fact that French butter, salt, etc. is more flavorful -- so you do need to pay attention and taste what you come up with, and only try say a vegetable recipe when you have found fabulous vegetables.

The most fascinating people on earth are the ordinary ones. You know, the ones who get up in the morning, go to their ordinary job, come home to their ordinary families at their ordinary homes and, out of their ordinary-ness, make extraordinary lives. We know these people, we ARE these people. This cook book tells you how other ordinary people like yourself cook halfway around the world. In reading this one can imagine the new bride full of fear that her food will be compared to his maman's and at the same time, she is full of hope that he will learn to love what she makes for him out of her love. One can imagine a young man trying out a recipe or two, trying to remember what exactly his beloved's favorite meal was called. Across the imagination also comes the portrait of the person past their prime in life, knowing how to cook by heart, but opening their treasured book to the favorite spotted and splashed pages and tasting meals from the past on the palette of the mind. This is the French person's equivalent of "Joy of Cooking" or "Betty Crocker's Home Cooking". These are the ordinary sorts of foods that an ordinary Frenchman would cook and eat for their ordinary breakfast, dinner and supper. What makes this book extra-ordinary for English speaking cooks is the glimpse into the everyday life of another culture, one where chestnut soup is popular enough to have variations and there are specific recipes for both rabbit AND hare! Every recipe that I checked out was constructed with care and, except for the measurements not being averaged for Imperial measurements, perfectly able to be used in an North American kitchen. This book will hold a place on my 'most frequently used cookbooks' shelf as an inspiration and invitation to taste someone else's ordinary life.

First of all, let me get it right out there - this book is weak on technique. It goes with the assumption that you know the basics of French cooking (most of which can be learned via a variety of sources, Julia Child being one of them). It does, however, have an extraordinary range of recipes and information. Am I going to make or attempt each one? Pas de tout, but I'm going to have a great time cooking most of them. The beginning of the book covers some good essentials - Seasonal Foods, Flavorings, a Glossary of commonly used terms, and most importantly, sauces. Sauces are elemental in French cuisine and if you want to know your beurre blanc, sauce bercy, bechamel and sauce poulette, this is the book for you. Recipes are arranged by genre (Hors d'Oeuvres, Soup, Fish, Meat, Poultry, Game et al) with an extraordinary section devoted to Milk, Eggs and Cheese. Even drinks are covered in Section 15 (Candies, Preserves and Drinks) Need some menu planning suggestions from world renowned chefs? There's a section for that as well. How about general menu planning for seasonal cooking? It's here as well, in Ginette's Kitchen advice, as is general information on table settings, flower arrangements and serving order. There's a lot of information to be found in this book and I consider it to be a valuable acquisition for the collection of any lover of French culture and/or French cuisine.

Let me preface this by mentioning that I already own and use a number of well-known titles on French cooking, although these books are more along the lines of haute cuisine restaurant cooking. Among my cook book library you will find Jacques Pepin, Paula Wolfert, Elizabeth David, and Michel Roux to mention a few, and I utilize their expertise frequently. Having said this, I really enjoy having "I Know How to Cook" as a resource that has allowed me to "fill in the blanks" of my french cooking choices. Many of the recipes are easier, yet not simplistic or overly minimalized. As the editor asserts, it is the spirit of French cooking to create maximum flavor out of a small set of the freshest ingredients available. In addition, the recipes are written with both economic and dietary considerations in mind. If you enjoy French cooking, it is a worthwhile resource to have this book; it expansively covers so much material that I was pleasantly surprised when I first opened it, and am still excitedly planning ahead for meals yet to be cooked. Of particular note (not to mention the over 1,400 easy-to-follow recipes that don't take all day) is the section of menus by celebrated chefs (40+ pages), and the menu planning section based upon seasons of the year.

If you want to cook french like Julia Child all of a sudden because you saw that movie, you're never going to be able to cook, anyway, so don't bother. Go buy "Mastering the Art", put it on your bookshelf where it looks nice and warm up a Hot Pocket. But if you want to actually learn how to cook, or if you already cook and love Marcella Hazan but wish there was a french version so you could learn about how french people really cook and eat, "I Know How to Cook" is for you. It's immediately accessible but incredibly deep -- good for learning, good for mastering, good for getting a different, broader, more useful sense of french cooking than I'd always been presented. I cook constantly, I've had this book for a week, and it already feels as familiar as any cookbook I've used. I've cooked out of it every night, and I'm enjoying it and learning tons about techniques and french cuisine. And the results are great. Seriously, I can't say enough about this book. Again, no disrespect to "Mastering the Art" -- it's great, but that's restaurant cooking that doesn't make sense for me or, I would guess, most people most of the time. "I Know How to Cook" is a book for everyday use, and also, it's beautiful -- just great to look at and really easy to read -- the layout is awesome and the chapters make a ton of sense. And there's -- I swear to you -- 20 pages that are just preparing *eggs*. Not like, things with eggs, just *eggs*. Three simple recipes a page, for 20 pages. Like, that should tell you the whole story right there about this book -- simple, but incredibly deep. It's a great book for getting good at the simple things, or learning how the french put those simple things together. Because, cooking an egg, man -- that's *cooking*. It's the Othello of cooking, know what I'm saying? If you do know what I'm saying, you'll totally love "I Know How to Cook". Buy it.