Jacques Pepin Fast Food My Way

The book is great, looks like new. I'm so happy with this purchase and can't wait to make some of the recipes.

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!

When I approached Jacques Pepin's new book `Fast Food My Way', I was prepared on at least two counts to find fault with the book. But Jacques always comes through with a book I love to read and love to cook. My first prejudice against the book was that `Fast Cooking' is one of the top two or three hot buttons for cookbooks these days, next to low carb cookbooks and entertaining cookbooks. I predict a `Fast Cooking Low Carb Barbecue for Entertaining' book to appear within the next year. And, like so many other authors, it may seem like Jacques is just jumping on the latest bandwagon. The second prejudice I had about the book is the fact that Jacques did an earlier book on quick cooking, `The Short-Cut Cook' published in 1990. I had similar prejudices about that book, but it came through with flying colors, especially since it has been and still is one of my favorite cookbooks. In a nutshell, this book can become your next go to cookbook because almost all of these recipes are genuinely easy for a modestly experienced cook and they are not only developed by a great master chef, they are the recipes that chef genuinely cooks at home on a regular basis. One also should have no concern that this is a rehash of his earlier book. It is not. There are a lot of similarities in the principles behind the selection of recipes, but that is only to the good. Jacques mixes a selection of the classics like cole slaw and Salad Caprese with unusual recipes such as Parsley and Pumpkin salad and Asian eggplant salad. In the older book, we got Salade Nicoise and hot Potato Salad mixed with potato and smoked bluefish and tangy rice stick salad. On average, the recipes in the new book are more original and easier to prepare than the recipes in the first volume. In both books, Jacques' recipes follow two trends common to most good fast cooking recipes, similar to what you see Rachael Ray do every day. First, the recipes do require a modest amount of skill and a fairly well equipped kitchen with stuff like a food mill, a mandoline or Japanese slicer, a stick blender, and a food processor. Second, most dishes use foods that cook quickly such as seafood, chicken breast, filets of beef or other lean steak cuts, and veal. All of these things are more expensive than the slower cooking roasts and braising meats. Jacques is exceptionally fond of smoked, marinated, and fresh fish recipes from the far North and from the Far East. He is very fond of Asian and Latin tastes such as cilantro and tropical fruits. But, all of this is overlaid on a solid grounding of French and Italian techniques such as the braise, the gratin, casseroles, pasta, tomatoes, potatoes, and fresh mushrooms. The book starts with several pages of menu selections that were the basis of the PBS series shows on which the book is based. This is followed by a goldmine of ideas modestly labeled `More ideas for quick dishes'. This is not a list of general suggestions, it is a collection of 25 mini-recipes, all o