Old Southern Cookery: Recipes from America’s First Regional Cookbook Adapted for Today’s Kitchen gives new life to a beloved book that has spanned two centuries. Using the historic recipes from Mary Randolph’s 1824 bestselling cookbook, The Virginia House-Wife or Methodical Cook (considered by many culinary historians to be the first real American cookbook––and all describe it as the first regional cookbook), the authors have chosen the best of the original recipes to show how homecooks can prepare the food using contemporary methods. In translating these historiccooking methods to today’s kitchen techniques, headnotes contain pertinent historicfacts about such things as butchery, firewood cooking, spices used, European origins ofcertain recipes, dishes brought by slaves to the New World, and even how our cookingutensils have evolved through two centuries.
In this debut memoir, a James Beard Award–winning writer, whose childhood idea of fine dining was Howard Johnson’s, tells how he became one of Paris’s most influential food critics Until Alec Lobrano landed a job in the glamorous Paris office of Women’s Wear Daily, his main experience of French cuisine was the occasional supermarket éclair. An interview with the owner of a renowned cheese shop for his first article nearly proves a disaster because he speaks no French. As he goes on to cover celebrities and couturiers and improves his mastery of the language, he gradually learns what it means to be truly French. He attends a cocktail party with Yves St. Laurent and has dinner with Giorgio Armani. Over a superb lunch, it’s his landlady who ultimately provides him with a lasting touchstone for how to judge food: “you must understand the intentions of the cook.” At the city’s brasseries and bistros, he discovers real French cooking. Through a series of vivid encounters with culinary figures from Paul Bocuse to Julia Child to Ruth Reichl, Lobrano hones his palate and finds his voice. Soon the timid boy from Connecticut is at the epicenter of the Parisian dining revolution and the restaurant critic of one of the largest newspapers in the France. A mouthwatering testament to the healing power of food, My Place at the Table is a moving coming-of-age story of how a gay man emerges from a wounding childhood, discovers himself, and finds love. Published here for the first time is Lobrano’s “little black book,” an insider’s guide to his thirty all-time-favorite Paris restaurants.
If you’re passionate about eating well, you couldn’t ask for a better travel companion than Alexander Lobrano’s charming, friendly, and authoritative Hungry for Paris, the fully revised and updated guide to this renowned culinary scene. Having written about Paris for almost every major food and travel magazine since moving there in 1986, Lobrano shares his personal selection of the city’s best restaurants, from bistros featuring the hottest young chefs to the secret spots Parisians love. In lively prose that is not only informative but a pleasure to read, Lobrano reveals the ambience, clientele, history, and most delicious dishes of each establishment—alongside helpful maps and beautiful photographs that will surely whet your appetite for Paris. Praise for Hungry for Paris “Hungry for Paris is required reading and features [Alexander Lobrano’s] favorite 109 restaurants reviewed in a fun and witty way. . . . A native of Boston, Lobrano moved to Paris in 1986 and never looked back. He served as the European correspondent for Gourmet from 1999 until it closed in 2009 (also known as the greatest job ever that will never be a job again). . . . He also updates his website frequently with restaurant reviews, all letter graded.”—Food Republic “Written with . . . flair and . . . acerbity is the new, second edition of Alexander Lobrano’s Hungry for Paris, which includes rigorous reviews of what the author considers to be the city’s 109 best restaurants [and] a helpful list of famous Parisian restaurants to be avoided.”—The Wall Street Journal “A wonderful guide to eating in Paris.”—Alice Waters “Nobody else has such an intimate knowledge of what is going on in the Paris food world right this minute. Happily, Alexander Lobrano has written it all down in this wonderful book.”—Ruth Reichl “Delightful . . . the sort of guide you read before you go to Paris—to get in the mood and pick up a few tips, a little style.”—Los Angeles Times “No one is ‘on the ground’ in Paris more than Alec Lobrano. . . . This book will certainly make you hungry for Paris. But even if you aren’t in Paris, his tales of French dining will seduce you into feeling like you are here, sitting in your favorite bistro or sharing a carafe of wine with a witty friend at a neighborhood hotspot.”—David Lebovitz, author of The Sweet Life in Paris “Hungry for Paris is like a cozy bistro on a chilly day: It makes you feel welcome.”—The Washington Post “This book will make readers more than merely hungry for the culinary riches of Paris; it will make them ravenous for a dining companion with Monsieur Lobrano’s particular warmth, wry charm, and refreshingly pure joie de vivre.”—Julia Glass “[Lobrano is] a wonderful man and writer who might know more about Paris restaurants than any other person I’ve ever met.”—Elissa Altman, author of Poor Man’s Feast
A culinary tour of some of the most alluring inns, food producers, restaurants, and winemakers of France, with more than seventy-five recipes updating classic regional dishes. Every food lover's ultimate dream is to tour the countryside of France, stopping off at luxurious inns with world-class restaurants and sampling fresh produce from local markets. Imagine having as your guide a savvy bon vivant, someone who lives for the pleasures of the table and knows just where to ferret out all the delicacies in each town. This book delivers just that. Each chapter covers a different region, from Normandy to Provence, and includes recommendations for a handful of the area's most excellent, off-the-beaten-path restaurants, along with recipes. Uniting all of the places in the book is an embrace of the farm-to-table ethos that has swept France's new generation of chefs and fueled such movements as Le Fooding. The more than seventy-five recipes sprinkled throughout exemplify contemporary riffs on quintessential regional specialties. For instance, from Normandy, there is Curried Pork in Cider Sauce; from Provence, Tartare of Salt Cod with Sesame-Chickpea Puree; from the Rhone, Pink Praline Tart. Hungry for France will inspire you to transform your cooking at home as well as to plan the trip of a lifetime.
A No-Fuss Guide to the Delicious Art of Pâtisserie Unleash your inner pastry chef with Molly Wilkinson’s approachable recipes for all of your French favorites. Trained at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, Molly takes the most essential techniques and makes them easy for home bakers, resulting in a collection of simple, key recipes that open up the world of pastry. With friendly, detailed directions and brilliant shortcuts, you can skip the pastry shop and enjoy delicious homemade creations. Master base recipes like 30-minute puff pastry, decadent chocolate ganache and fail-safe citrus curds, and you’re on your way to making dozens of iconic French treats. You’ll feel like a pro when whipping up gorgeous trays of madeleines and decorating a stunning array of cream puffs and éclairs. Along with classics like The Frenchman’s Chocolate Mousse, Profiteroles and Classic Mille-Feuilles, learn to assemble exquisite showstoppers such as Croquembouche and Caramel Mousse Tartelettes with Poached Pears in Ginger. This go-to guide shows you all the tips and tricks you need to impress your guests and have fun with French pastry.
Entertaining at home in gracious French style. Born from her experience of everyday living in France, Sharon Santoni reveals the gracious, easy French way of entertaining guests at her countryside home, year-round. Personal stories evoke the spirit of the French lifestyle, while gorgeous photos make us feel right at home. Santoni creates lush bouquets from her garden and utilizes resources from surrounding nature to lay gorgeous tables both indoors and outdoors. Venues range from a Sunday morning breakfast on the patio, to a ladies lunch in her lush garden, a formal dinner in her dining room, and a picnic by the river. Santoni also shares 15 favorite recipes utilizing seasonal foods. Find inspiration for your tables throughout the seasons, and discover the simple pleasure of entertaining friends and family. Sharon Santoni writes the popular blog My French Country Home. She is the author of My Stylish French Girlfriends (Gibbs Smith). She resides in Normandy, France.
Transplanted Canadian, New Yorker writer and author of Paris to the Moon, Gopnik is publishing this major new work of narrative non-fiction alongside his 2011 Massey Lecture. An illuminating, beguiling tour of the morals and manners of our present food manias, in search of eating's deeper truths, asking "Where do we go from here?" Never before have so many North Americans cared so much about food. But much of our attention to it tends towards grim calculation (what protein is best? how much?); social preening ("I can always score the last reservation at xxxxx"); or graphic machismo ("watch me eat this now"). Gopnik shows we are not the first food fetishists but we are losing sight of a timeless truth, "the table comes first": what goes on around the table matters as much to life as what we put on the table: families come together (or break apart) over the table, conversations across the simplest or grandest board can change the world, pain and romance unfold around it--all this is more essential to our lives than the provenance of any zucchini or the road it travelled to reach us. Whatever dilemmas we may face as omnivores, how not what we eat ultimately defines our society. Gathering people and places drawn from a quarter century's reporting in North America and France, The Table Comes First marks the beginning a new conversation about the way we eat now.
