Tru: A Cookbook from the Legendary Chicago Restaurant

Great book good photos and great technical skills and also easy to read and use in the ktichen

I just ate at Tru for the second time and it was as amazing as the first time - actually this has become my favorite restaurant in the world (sorry Thomas Keller). I was excited to see the Tru cookbook and hoped that, like the stellar French Laundry cookbook, I might be able to use it to cook some of my favorites from Tru. I have read through the entire cookbook a few times and as culinary reading it is wonderful. Sadly in the past few days I have tried three recipes and had three failures. I am an accomplished home chef, not professional by any means but I am a heck of a recipe follower and can usually make any recipe from any cookbook. Unfortunately here it seems that some detail is missing from the recipes or that they are badly written. I'm planning on using this book for inspiration (there's so much of it in here) but will not be following any recipes verbatim. I'd say this was a worthwhile addition to your kitchen library for the reading pleasure alone but be warned that the recipes may not have the results you expect.

In this book, you can truly taste the love that the chefs at Tru bring to the table. My husband took me here on our our engagement night and I received this book for our 6 month anniversary. I was blown away by the experience itself at the restaurant and this book touches on everything that intrigued me while I was there. You can truly see the passion that these chefs bring into the restaurant and the care and time they take in making dinner a very memorable one. I believe that this book will help me further my education in cooking and add on to my already burning passion for food. Highly recommend the book. You will get a better understanding and appreciation for the restaurant. If you haven't visited Tru already, an unforgettable experience awaits you...

`Tru' by Rick Tramonto, pastry partner Gale Gand and writer Mary Goodbody is a book purely for foodies and professionals. The sure signs of this are the fact that the recipes are presented almost exactly as they are done in the restaurant, with all the special ingredients and equipment a home cook is not likely to have available such as foaming canisters, caviar, truffles, and presentation dishes which are custom made for the Tru restaurant. This does not mean this is a poor book. It only means that its audience is limited. It is more limited than even Thomas Keller's two restaurant books in that the `French Laundry' cookbook gives more insights into the phenomenology of eating and very high end food handling and preparation techniques. The new `Bouchon' cookbook gives a similar master class in technique along with a nearly definitive reference on Bistro dishes. Tramonto's book is primarily a biography of his five (5) year old restaurant in Chicago and a synopsis of Tramonto and Gand's professional career together. As Gale Gand is actually the more famous of the two due to her Food Network show `Sweet Dreams' and her light, very accessible small books on simple desserts, it is genuinely interesting to us Food Network junkies to know the background behind some of her TV recipe stories. In the course of the authors' acknowledgments, background chapters, and recipe headnotes, Tramonto seems to mention just about every major culinary figure on the planet if they in any way contributed to his business plan, culinary inspiration, or specific recipe. While this may seem like gratuitous name dropping, I actually find this a definite asset to an essay on culinary excellence. This is also just another sign that this book is written for professionals and foodies. Two years ago, references to the Troisgras brothers and to Michel Bras would leave me cold. Now, I can take Tramonto's Michel Bras inspired recipe and compare it with Bras' recipes in his own book. There is some subtly gratuitous selfbackpatting as when the author cites instructions to the wait staff to inhibit breakage, as a single broken piece of dishware will incur a sizable replacement cost. Tramonto is clearly aiming for the kind of recognition given to a very small group of American chefs headed by Thomas Keller and Charlie Trotter. A quick look at the recipe chapters tells you this at a glance. These are Hors d'oeuvres'; `Amuse-Bouche'; Cold Appetizers; Hot Appetizers; Foie Gras; Soups; Fish and Seafood; Meat and Poultry; Game; The Cheese Course; Dessert Amuse Bouche; Desserts; Petits Fours; and Basic Recipes. This selection is a clear indication that the name of the game at Tru is `Tasting Menus', a relatively large number of small dishes all chosen to go together by the chefs. I assure you Tramonto's recipes have a richer, more distinctive taste than preparations of similar dishes at your local country club dining room. If I had any doubt that this was possible, I lost those doubts whe