Blue... blue.... this book is blue (popular french song)...

books:


	• Ducasse Flavors of France Alain Ducasse, Linda Dannenberg Artisan, 2006 - 264 pages average customer review:based on 8 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

ducasse the only wild cook from france

the only person in france to decide to cook what he want without the roules of french cooking, and a great lover of mediterranean food he has the determination to propose the fusion of french cuisine and mediterranean flavors in montecarlo firte and then in paris, aGENIUS

Great Chef, Beautiful Cookbook, Beginners need not apply

I purchased this book on sale for $24.95, however I would have paid the list price of $60 because I feel it is worth it.

The photography is absolutely stunning. If you are familiar with Roger Verge's "Entertaining in the New French Style", the photographer is the same.

Recipes I have tried with success:
Dark Chocolate Tart with Rich Pastry Dough Crust
Pear Tart: Raw and Caramelized
Jasmine Pots de Creme

Criticisms
-Many of the recipes require ingredients unavailable in this country.
-Many times, the pictures do not quite match up with the recipes, which is very frustrating when looking for visual clues.

Overall, this book is for serious chefs or those who want to look like serious chefs by putting this book on their coffee table. Many of the recipes are simple: the filling for the chocolate tart only contains 4 ingredients, but this makes them all the more challenging: there is nothing easy about the recipes.

for more information click here

for more information click here

Coffee Table Cookbook

Big, bold and beautiful describe this volume.

From one of the greatest French chefs, too much of this fare is unavailable to the home gourmet. However, savory and well done is this book with its exceptional photos and stylish intros to setup this exquisite cuisine.

Some of the soups and simple seafood dishes are about all anyone except the pros could attempt due to lack of ingredients and guts to go after some of these rather complicated recipes.

Great chef, average cookbook.

There is no denying Alain Ducasse is the chef of the moment. However, this book was somewhat of a disappointment. The recipes are interesting, the photography decent. But the problem lies in the ingredients. Too many recipes call for ingredients that are flat out impossible to find - and he offers no alternatives. It is one thing to ask for truffles, caviar, or duck confit. It is another to require specific mediterranean fish that are not found in this country, or obscure wild game and offal that cannot be had. Substituting chicken, or even quail or pheasant just doesn't cut it.

for more information click here

Blue... blue.... this book is blue (popular french song)...

Blue are the pages of this book ... blue like the sea in Monaco where the three Michelin stars shine on Louis XV first Alain Ducasse restaurant. Three other stars were offered by Michelin to the same Alain Ducasse for his second restaurant in Paris in 1998. He became the only chef in the world to be granted with 6 stars by famous Michelin France Red Guide Book. Everything is beautiful in this book. Linda Danneberg explains how she installed a photographic studio in the barn close to the third restaurant "La Bastide de Moustiers". There, on the straw from the Alpes de Haute-Provence, she helped Pierre Hussenot, photographer, to install freshly made preparations under the sun of Midi (and projectors). I did not try the recipes. This is why I will not comment them. They are detailed in plain english. Comments on Alain Ducasse 9-days-a-week lifestyle bring value to this book. It is not only a collection of recipes. It is a comprehensive deep analyis of success-factors from the king of chefs. This book is a monument as his model.

for more information click here

reviews: page 1, 2

Brash, driven, and dazzlingly inventive, fourteen-star chef Alain Ducasse is a larger-than-life figure. At thirty-three, he was the youngest chef ever to be awarded three Michelin stars; and in 2005 he became the first chef in the world to win three stars for three restaurants, with a staggering total of fourteen stars spread across eight restaurants in three countries. He has mentored a generation of younger chefs who have introduced his cooking around the world and he has, quite simply, changed the face of traditional French cooking.

In this, his first American cookbook, M. Ducasse shares the principles and techniques of his uniquely elemental cuisine. At its core are clarity of taste, precision in execution, and respect for the food itself, which to Ducasse means retaining its essential flavor. That respect for true taste results in a multitude of simple but striking techniques. Ducasse uses as much of each ingredient as he can?the skins, the shells, the baking juices, the pan drippings, the heads, the cooking broth, all the by-products of the process?in order to capture the truest taste. He incorporates different preparations of the same ingredient into a given dish, each revealing an individual aspect of its flavor?sliced raw artichokes, braised whole artichokes, and paper-thin slices of fried artichoke, for example, might be featured together. The brilliance of his food?apparent in recipes made with no more than two ingredients enhanced by a simple aromatic element, with seasoning reduced to a few grains of salt?explains why he is "the country's star chef" (Wine Spectator) and "the Escoffier of our time" (Le Point).

Ducasse Flavors of France documents, in more than one hundred lavishly photographed recipes, the influences?Mediterranean, Provençal, and classical French?that permeate this extaordinary cuisine. Many of the recipes are simple, others complex, but all can be perfectly accomplished with a little time and patience.With its "alluringly simple dishes, like buttery fork-mashed potatoes, peppered slices of sauteed pumpkin, swordfish with citrus, exquisite chocolate tartlets, and a homey pear and honey cake made with big chunks of pear" (The New York Times), this is the most accessible Ducasse cookbook published. Yet there are still recipes to challenge ambitious cooks and great tips that will make all cooks better in the kitchen.

for more information click here

hot