BOOK REVIEW: Le Livre Blanc by Anne-Sophie Pic

      It's a widely documented fact that women are of the vast minority in professional kitchens. For some reason men have always dominated the population, though every once in a while, a female chef rises above the testosterone in a fit of gastronomic brilliance and culinary talent. Names such as Elena Arzak, Alice Waters, Carme Ruscadella and Anne-Sophie Pic come first to mind on lists of prominent female chefs.

     Of those four, only Anne-Sophie had yet to release a cookbook, in English, until this Fall when she debuted her cookbook Le Livre Blanc, sharing the iconic recipes of her 3-Michelin restaurant Maison Pic in Valence, France. While the book offers some background of the family business (the Pic family is one of the most decorated of chef bloodlines, along with the Troisgros family and the Adria brothers if we're talking accolades and not generations) it is clear that this book is written as a document upon which Anne-Sophie is able to tell her story of how she took over her family's restaurant at a young age and returned it to 3-Michelin star status.

     Allow me to get this next point out of the way early; you will very likely never cook out of this book. In fact, I would assume Chef Pic had already made that decision for you when she decided to print the book on shiny silver pages and encased it in stark white covers. Accept the fact that if you spill so much as a dot of tomato sauce on this book, you will be painfully, shamefully reminded of the time you ruined such a nice book with a single act of clumsiness.

      Moving past aesthetics, the recipes themselves have a difficulty gradient that absolutely corresponds with the restaurant's pedigree in the world of cuisine. Full respect to Mme. Pic; she simplifies nothing and provides the exact recipes used at her restaurant. That being said, expect to use plenty of ingredients you've likely never heard of before. The immersion circulator may or may not replace your spouse/significant other as a prominent figure in your life after all the use it will get in this book. I'm surprised Maison Pic isn't receiving commission from Polyscience on future purchases of circulators by readers of this book.

      So let's assume you have all the equipment you need to use this book to some semblance of it's full potential. The good news is that the ingredients are all given in weight; a trend I love seeing in today's cookbooks. I minor gripe; similar to Noma and Coi, the book is separated with the photos of the plates at the beginning of the book, and then all of the recipes at the end. I understand the desire to produce a “coffee table” style book, where the feature is the wonderful photography of the book (and it is wonderful; photos of dishes and ingredients draw on still life inspirations), but at the same time, any book that consolidates recipes in a single section separate from the photos is going to take a hit in functionality.

      Knowing, and having said all of the above, Le Livre Blanc excels at what it was meant to be; a visually appealing (see: gorgeous, adj.) coffee table-style book. Yes, the recipes included offer an unusually steep difficulty gradient, and you will need to invest some money in equipment to make a lot of the the components achievable, but if you can acknowledge that this is an exercise in vanity publishing, sharing the cuisine of one of the most storied restaurants in France, one is able to recognize the true value of Le Livre Blanc.

Review by Kevin Jeung
Former employee at The Cookbook Store, most recently returned from a stint at Mugaritz in Spain and soon off to Chicago to work at Grace restaurant.

BOOK REVIEW: Daniel: My French Cuisine by Daniel Boulud, Sylvie Bigar, Bill Buford and Thomas Schauer

Let us put this in perspective, shall we; over the entire history of cuisine, hundreds of chefs have become known by only their last names. Escoffier, Keller, Trotter, Ramsay, Passard, Pepin... the list goes on. Now let us consider how many chefs have become familiar to most of us on a first-name basis. The list shortens; Ferran, Rene, Emeril, Marco and Daniel. I like to think there is a correlation to these names and why they are referred to in such a way. Ferran (Adria) and Rene (Redzepi) revolutionized, modernized and inspired the way food is seen today. Emeril (Lagasse) brought food to the general people with charisma and flair. Marco (Pierre White) is widely regarded as the very first of the “rock star chef” generation. And Daniel (Boulud) was the French-born chef who came to the biggest city in North America and built a bastion of restaurants that blended old-school French technique with a bold, youthful, New York state of mind.

Thought Monsieur Boulud has published many cookbooks, spanning decades of his career in restaurants, he has (perhaps purposefully) neglected to create his piece de resistance in the form of a cookbook dedicated to the masterful, critically acclaimed and Michelin starred food prepared at Daniel's namesake restaurant in New York and flagship of his global restaurant empire. Perhaps, like any great restauranteur, he was waiting for the opportune moment. Perhaps he was waiting for the year when Daniel faded from the upper echelons of the San Pellegrino Top 50 Best Restaurants list, or the year that the New York Times relieved him of his perfect 4-Star status. Perhaps he was waiting for the perfect moment to remind the world of the greatness he has achieved and of the legacy he holds. On the 20^th Anniversary of Restaurant Daniel, Daniel Boulud finally releases his magnum opus upon the world; a day many young cooks, such as myself, have waited patiently for, for a very long time.

While most will see the name Daniel Boulud printed on the front page of the book, the intriguing and exciting news is shared just below it. Daniel Boulud commissioned his good friend Bill Buford to write the many essays and passages strewn throughout the book. Bill Buford, as many of you know, is one of the most accomplished food writers ever. His prose propelled his book Heat onto many must-read lists not only for cooks, but other interested parties as well. The fact that Boulud can so easily convince one of the foremost writers in the culinary field to write his book speaks volumes about his charisma, influence and camaraderie amongst peers.

The book is divided into three sections; the first highlighting dishes directly from the kitchens at Daniel, the second featuring deliciously old-school French dishes that no one ever makes anymore (think Canard a la Presse, Poularde en Vessie, Turbot Souffle), and the third offers simpler recipes designed to be cooked at home. While I pored over the restaurant recipes, drinking up as many new techniques and concepts as I could, the section featuring classic French dishes really grabbed my attention. We're not talking about French Onion Soup or Quiche Lorraine here either; Buford declares in the preceding passages, the history and procedure of each dish and immediately one realizes that these recipes aren't ever meant to be replicated, but are described so as to convey the difficulty of re-creating dinosaur-era French classics. Though, if one is game to debone an entire turbot, replace the spine with lobster tails, pipe a mousse on top and roast it in the oven, I would certainly like a dinner invite.

Fittingly, the very first recipe in the book is for Peekytoe Crab, Celery and Apple. This dish may, above so many other signature, iconic and memorable dishes, be the most representative of the cooking at Daniel. Clean plates, elegance and a strong backbone of French technique. Recipes are difficult, yes, but when it comes to a chef such as Daniel Boulud, I would rather have the true recipes, no matter how difficult or complicated, over simplified farces of such great cuisine. The photography is stunning, and in addition to each recipe including a full size photo, various stills of the team at Daniel, friends of the house or even just beautiful raw ingredients are used with generosity.

So to end this review with the cliche “Good things come to those to wait” would be redundant, I think. But how else to describe the release of such a quality piece of work? Just as he is in his kitchen, Boulud has produced a book radiating elegance, class and prestige. No detail has been overlooked and the additions of the classic French recipes as well as the simpler home recipes really push Daniel: My French Cuisine above and beyond what I'm sure anyone (except perhaps Mr. Boulud himself) was expecting. Make some room on your bookshelves next to The French Laundry Cookbook and Eleven Madison Park, because they deserve to inherit such a prestigious and legendary neighbour.

Review by Kevin Jeung
Former employee at The Cookbook Store, most recently returned from a stint at Mugaritz in Spain and soon off to Chicago to work at Grace restaurant.

BOOK REVIEW: D.O.M: Rediscovering Brazilian Ingredients by Alex Atala

NOTE: We will be hosting Alex Atala Tuesday October 15th 6:30pm, with Chef Daniel Patterson from Coi, San Francisco, California. Tickets available from The Cookbook Store, 416-920 2665 or, via PayPal at www.cook-book.com
This is an off site event at George Ignatieff Theatre, 15 Devonshire Place.  

              Every once in a while a cookbook comes along and completely pulls the rug out from under you. Sometimes these surprises are good, and sometimes they can be less than stellar. Upon hearing of Alex Atala’s plan to publish a book chronicling the recipes of his restaurant D.O.M. (short for “Dominus, Optimus, Maximus) in Sao Paulo, needless to say that I was intrigued and excited for its eventual release. To be truthful, I had never really paid any attention to South America as a whole when it came to food and dining; yes I had heard of D.O.M., but my interests were more angled towards America and Europe at the time. My first day in Spain, I was lucky enough to meet Chef Atala himself at the San Sebastian Gastronomika festival. I was woefully jetlagged at the time, so I’m sure I didn’t make the most luminous of first impressions on Mr. Atala, but I do recall the impression he left on me. Alex Atala is a driven man; he is passionate, charismatic and impressive in his ideals and patriotism for the magic of his native Brazil. 

                A former DJ, party animal and self-proclaimed drug addict, Atala, like many cooks, found solace in the work of a kitchen. Having trained for years around Europe, he returned home with the techniques of Alain Passard and other great chefs in his arsenal. Opening D.O.M. was not intended to be his contribution to the San Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants list; Atala realized that what the Amazon may lack in conventional ingredients, it made up for with a catalogue of flavours and textures that were unheard of in the rest of the world. Histories of native peoples and their indigenous foods lay at his feet, a secret to everyone but him.  Whether his current efforts of philanthropy and support of Amazonian culture is repentance for his excessive previous life, we may never know, but Atala has risen to become one of the foremost authorities on his beloved Amazon; a position that offers stipends from government and immense support from his colleagues. 

                As for the book itself, one may assume (correctly, I must admit) that the recipes follow in the trend of the Noma and Mugaritz books that preceded it in terms of offering generally inaccessible recipes. Fortunately, and surprisingly, the vast majority of recipes in this book are shockingly simple (though I must add that I would think twice before attempting the recipe for Ant and Pineapple). Very few recipes require more than 4 sub-recipes and the sub-recipes are almost always 4-6 ingredients in length. Frankly, the longest recipe in the book is still shorter than Andoni  Aduriz’s nightmare recipe for Vegetable Carpaccio (trust me; I lived it for a month). Cynics may scoff at the inclusion of ant salt and the book’s dependence on the cassava root (understandable, seeing as it is the main source of food for the entire continent) but when recipes are so easy to replicate and interpret, the effectiveness of a cookbook grows exponentially. The recipe for oyster mayo, for example, replaces the expected egg yolk with a briny oyster, thereby changing the entire complexity of the recipe, yet still yielding a silky, rich and creamy result.

                Understand that even though there are quite a few ingredients that may seem difficult to find, for the most part they can be sourced with some well-placed phone calls or substituted with a similarly flavoured ingredient. Indigenous Amazonian ingredients are preceded by informative passages detailing the origins of the ingredient as well as its characteristics and flavour profile (useful, if you are unable to find priprioca in dead-of-winter Toronto. Even widely known ingredients like okra and corn have their Amazonian back stories revealed in a successful effort by Atala to produce a cookbook that uses exciting new ingredients and combines them with old-school familiar elements like braising and sauce-making. The reader isn’t expected to be able to exactly replicate the recipes, but by understanding the techniques and thought process of these dishes, Atala is hoping to expand cooking horizons and divert some attention to the truly amazing things that are cooking up in South America.

Review by Kevin Jeung
Former employee at The Cookbook Store and most recently returned from a stint at Mugaritz in Spain

BOOK REVIEW: Coi: the stories and recipes by Daniel Patterson

NOTE: We will be hosting Daniel Patterson Tuesday October 15th with Chef Alex Atala of D.O.M. in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Tickets available from The Cookbook Store. www.cook-book.com
This is an off site event at George Ignatieff Theatre, 15 Devonshire Place. 

   In an age when it seems every restaurant and chef is producing a cookbook a couple of years after opening, it’s refreshing for a chef to take some time before providing us with a written account of his time as a chef and his life at the restaurant. It doesn’t hurt either that he’s an accomplished and published writer. Daniel Patterson opened Coi (rhymes with “foie”, which ironically is banned in California; the state where Coi is situated) in 2007 at a time where really high end fine dining was sparse on that side of the country. Manresa and The French Laundry were doing their thing and we can’t mention Californian restaurants without Alice Waters’ little place in Berkeley, but San Francisco itself was relatively quiet when it came to cuisine. Patterson is widely credited as catalyzing the movement towards what we understand today as “California cuisine”. Today San Francisco is regarded as one of the best food cities in the world; boasting names such as Benu, Saison, Quince and the young brilliance that is State Bird Provisions.

                The Coi cookbook is publisher Phaidon's first to feature a North American restaurant. Notorious for producing cookbooks that are perhaps a little light on functionality, yet possessing maxed-out aesthetic, Phaidon stays the course in their latest addition to the coffee table market of chef cookbooks. The gorgeous photography that has come to be expected of restaurant cookbooks is present in full force within the stark white covers of the Coi cookbook. Photos resonate with stylistic nuances of the Noma cookbook; images of nature and abstract shots are as plentiful as those of the actual food.

                Patterson defines his food as the result of his constant pursuit of delicious flavour. Lately it seems to be a trend to try to center a dish on the use of a new or interesting technique as opposed to building a dish around a flavour profile. By focusing on the deliciousness of his food, Patterson produces clean flavours that beautifully showcase the quality of the product he has access to in California. Yes, the “famous” Popcorn Grits recipe is included, preceded by an anecdote detailing its creation (each recipe comes with a personal explanation about its concept and history by Patterson).

                A gripe I do have with this book is that the publishers have chosen to mirror the recipe format of the Noma cookbook and separate the book into two halves, photos and anecdotes in the front and recipes in the back. While this is admittedly a book few will cook from, the functionality of the book takes a big hit when the user needs to use two bookmarks and many page turns in order to attempt a recipe. While there is a fair amount of special (read: expensive) equipment needed to complete components to each recipe, there are many sub-recipes one can extract to use in other ways. While we aren’t likely to replicate a perfectly formed beet rose (a task that requires the focus of a legion of cooks at Coi and numerous hours), the recipe for Carrots Roasted in Coffee makes for a stellar side at a dinner party (especially since the carrots can all be done in batches and held in the warm grounds).

                As the critic, I suppose it is my responsibility to provide a clear and concise review that answers the question of whether or not you should buy this book. The big question I’m sure many of you want to ask me is whether you should purchase Coi, or the other big California release this year, Manresa. Truthfully, it is difficult to make an argument against the Manresa cookbook; the restaurant’s been open for decades and has a treasure trove of winning recipes to share with the world. I will say, however, that while Manresa boasts solid technique and clean flavours, Patterson’s cuisine boasts a creative edge that yearns to push the heights of deliciousness.

Review by Kevin Jeung
Former employee at The Cookbook Store and most recently returned from a stint at Mugaritz in Spain

Check out Josh's review of Coi the restaurant

BOOK REVIEW: Faviken by Magnus Nilsson

  You know, at one point the line “If you build it, they will come.” referred to a baseball field in an Iowa cornfield.

Nowadays the same phrase serves as a motto for some of the best restaurants on the planet.

Years ago a young, talented chef brought a restaurant to national acclaim working out of a former laundry house in Yountville, California. Some years later, a wildly creative chef changed cooking forever, holding the distinction of best restaurant in the world via an old bed and breakfast in Roses, Spain. Now a young, wickedly talented chef is bringing diners from all over the world to the harsh Swedish countryside to dine on marrow scooped from whole steer femurs and meticulously prepared local produce. Such is the mysticism of the remote estate called Faviken, whose stove Chef Magnus Nilsson calls home.

                Nilsson spent years under Pascal Barbot at the 3-Michelin Star L’Astrance in Paris. It is apparent that the creative genius of the French master has been passed on to his Scandinavian apprentice. Rather than be content to follow the well-paved tracks of those who came earlier, Chef Nilsson questions the road that leads forward and forges a path through the rugged, wild Swedish jamtland. Where the vast majority of the world treasures the tender, young flesh of veal, Nilsson acknowledges that older cows have more flavour and logically, the tastiest cows are the old dairy cows that are no longer capable of producing milk. To tenderize such old and tough meat, he hangs and dry-ages his beef for up to 9 months in order to produce fantastic flavours with the tenderness of a younger animal.

                Who DOES that?!

                The chef who makes his life even more hellish than it already is to increase the quality of product and experience is a rare breed. To constantly risk reputation in favour of possibly delivering the experience of a lifetime is a rare feat. Yet here is this young Swedish chef who insists on roasting whole femurs for marrow and occupies two of his cooks with the task of perfectly roasting a single sea scallop over juniper embers. He serves 16 lucky diners per night, many of whom have travelled a long way to eat in his humble hunting shack in the frigid countryside.

                While you, the reader, are unlikely to prepare any of the recipes included in the book (unless you happen to raise dairy cows in Northern Swedish pastures, in which case, why, yes “A Very Fresh Lump of Cheese” is indeed within your culinary grasp!) the literature and photography are more than enough to foster future kitchen-facilitated adventures. To read an entire page on the rapture of Norweigian butter is more than to drool over the blonde-tinted coagulate of butter fats; it’s an acknowledgement that there is more to even the simplest of ingredients than one can even begin to fathom. At Faviken’s roots is that simple idea of appreciating the ingredients for what they are; he churns ice cream tableside with milk and cream that were still moo-ing when the sun rose that morning.  Simply observing the way in which Nilsson questions the conventional way of doing things is inspiring. His inability to accept “well that’s how it has always been done.” as a legitimate answer evokes equal measures of dash and maniacal genius.  Even fellow chefs have realized the potential and outstanding work of this young chef; Sean Brock of Husk declared him one of the “chefs to watch” at last year’s Cook It Raw event in Japan (think of Cook It Raw like FAO Schwartz-meets-League of Extraordinary Gentlemen for chefs).

                So in the end, I’d like to bring you back to the underlying theme of this review; that nowadays people are more than willing to travel long distances and pay money for a world-class meal. Can you imagine even 10 years ago trying to open a restaurant like Faviken in desolate Sweden? Faviken is a sign of the times; and the times, they are a changin’. Maybe you won’t be aging vinegars in the trunk of an old tree, but the point is that chefs like Magnus Nilsson are proving it possible that food can change the way people think. Like a farmer in Iowa, Chef Nilsson has given up a life of conventionality to do something truly special. While he isn’t painting baselines and assembling bullpens, Nilsson has created his own field of dreams in a restaurant that defies logic and brings forth an experience worthy of “memories so thick, they’ll have to wipe them from their faces.”

Book Review by Kevin Jeung

MAGNUS NILSSON will be hosted by The Cookbook Store 
Thursday October 11th, 2012, 7pm   Off Site Event
Please call the store for tickets, 416-920-2665

BOOK REVIEW: Salumi: The Craft of Italian Dry Curing by Michael Ruhlman

 

                It seems like the world of food is undergoing a renaissance as it reflects back through the annals of history to find new pleasures. Home cooks are embracing larger projects like sourdough breads, pickling produce grown in their backyards and regular stock production. Perhaps most telling of our devotion and interest in the past is our relatively recent fascination with cured meats and charcuterie. Dinner party attendees are just as likely to discuss the virtues of a particularly impressive jamon iberico as they are the latest vintage of Chateau Margeaux. There’s something magical about taking the less-desirables of an animal and transforming them, through technique, finesse and skill, into something delicious. Charcuterie is the epitome of the term “greater than the sum of its parts”.

                I caught the salty-pig-part fever too; a few years back I was buying up bellies, jowls and back fat and jerry-rigging my parents’ basement cellar to provide that key balance of humidity and temperature that make charcuterie possible. The catalyst for my sudden involvement in the funky madness of pork preservation? A book written by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn by the name of “Charcuterie”. In an effort to bring old-world technique  into the home kitchen, they penned an excellent beginner’s guide to terrines, torchon, saucisson and more. While Italian salumi were given a modest amount of attention in their first book, it’s easily apparent that they chose to focus more on the French side of charcuterie. Perhaps as an acknowledgement of unfinished business, Ruhlman and Polcyn have returned to pay proper homage to Italy’s traditions of cured meats.

                Built upon the same structure and framework as the first book, Ruhlman and Polcyn detail the background histories of what they refer to as the “Big 8” of Italian cured meats. What they’ve done is make the wildly diverse and often intimidating world of salumi more accessible to the novice by breaking it into 8 subcategories based upon the 8 most common parts of the pig used and their most common methods of preservation.

                A welcome improvement over their previous book is the inclusion of colour photography along with the usual hand-illustrated drawings that accompany step-by-step instructions to crucial techniques such as removing pig skin from lardo and even breaking down an entire pig (the purchase of the whole beast is encouraged often throughout this book and the authors have even included a cost breakdown that demonstrates the economic intelligence of such a decision). Recipes are presented with gram-measurement accompaniment and the use of a scale is encouraged due to the slight but serious dangers of improperly prepared salumi.

                In addition to the classic recipes used to prepare the so-called “Big 8”, Ruhlman also includes recipes for the necessary accoutrements such as pickles, crostini and pickled mustard seeds; the idea being that upon finishing the book you should be fully capable of preparing an impressive and complete spread. For those who don’t own a Collonesisan marble casket, Ruhlman includes a simplified recipe that omits the use of heavy slabs of stone.

                While salumi still remains a waiting man’s game (and nothing Michael Ruhlman or Brian Polcyn can write is going to change that), it becomes vastly more accessible and less intimidating when presented in the way that it is here. Ruhlman and Polcyn are doing a great thing here in encouraging enthusiastic and ambitious cooks to embrace what used to be a method of making sure that an animal killed on Monday is still safe to eat on Sunday and is now simply a way of investing effort and time into making something delicious. Take it from a guy who’s already done it; nothing is as satisfying as taking that first cut into a perfectly-cared for hunk of pancetta. The way the flesh glistens as the air is perfumed with notes of rosemary and black pepper is hypnotic in its beauty. When the first slice lands on your tongue and the velveteen fat conjures at once sensations of rich spice and smooth sweetness in an effortless sigh, you’ll know your efforts to be validated, and then some.

There’s a reason, after all, why the good, old stuff never ever goes away.

This review is by Kevin Jeung.

Salumi: The Craft of Italian Dry Curing by Michael Ruhlman
Published by W. W. Norton, Hardcover, 288 pages