Tomes offer taste of latest developments in French cuisine

Nation's Restaurant News, July 22, 2002 by Michael Schrader

French cuisine has been the pacesetter for culinary excellence in America since Julia Child published "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" in 1961. These tomes show new developments.

THE PARIS COOKBOOK, Patricia Wells, 320 pages, HarperCollins: New York, $30.

Wells is the restaurant critic for the International Herald Tribune and author of several books, including "Patricia Wells at Home in Provence."

She and her husband moved to Paris in 1980, and although they intended to stay only two years, they wound up making the City of Light their home. As she plains: "Paris seemed to be the perfect spot for my little sabbatical, the ideal city to use as my testing and tasting ground for what I call my Ph.D. in food."

Her current cookbook is a culinary exploration of t e city. Enhanced by black an white illustrations, it is both a fine cookbook, which contains 150 recipes, and a useful gastronomic guide that provides addresses and telephone numbers or the restaurants, bistros an other places where the dishes she mentions originated. The recipes here cover all facets of the city's dynamic food scene, from the cuisine of Paris' top chefs to bistro favorites to the prized dishes of home cooks.

The recipes include salads, vegetables, soups, fish and shellfish, poultry, meats and desserts. The ingredients are familiar; how they are combined makes them special. Examples are spinach, bacon, and avocado and tomato salad from Le Bistro Mazarin, caramelize cauliflower soup with foie gras from Tante Louise's and sea scallops with warm vinaigrette from La Cagouille.

This is a must for every Francophile.

VEGETABLES, Guy Martin, 183 pages, ici la Press: Woodbury, Conn., $36

The author is chef of the Grand Vefour, a three-star restaurant at the Palais Royal in Paris.

His first cookbook, a celebration of vegetables as main dishes, is a beautifully illustrated tome that ties in well with the increased concern about healthful cooking. It offers more than 200 original recipes, arranged according to the seasons and grouped as starters, soups, main meals and desserts.

Representative dishes are stuffed baby bell peppers, endives with avocado cream, and vegetables in aspic and red wine.

COOKING UP A PROVENCE VACATION, Lovern Roc King, 118 pages, 1st Books Library: Bloomington, Ind., $7.95.

The author, professor emeritus of intercultural communications at The Evergreen State College in Washington state, has written a manual on living abroad.

She now offers an interesting insider's guide for selecting weeklong cooking class in Provence, examining in detail eight lasses with different approaches and providing a list of 43 other schools in Provence.