Bistro Cooking: 200 Recipes Inspired by the Small Family Restaurants of France Celebrate a Return to Generous, Full-flavored Cooking [Paperback]

Patricia Wells (Author), Judy Kleiber Jones (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1989

Bistro is warm. Bistro is family. Bistro is simple, hearty, generous cuisine-robust soups and country omelets, wine-scented stews and bubbling gratins, and desserts from a grandmother's kitchen. Researched and written by Patricia Wells, author of The Food Lover's Guide to Paris and The Food Lover's Guide to France, together with over 220,000 copies in print, here is a celebration of the no-nonsense, inexpensive, soul-satisfying cuisine of the neighborhood restaurants of France.

BISTRO COOKING contains over 200 scrumptious bistro recipes made lighter and quicker for the way we cook today. Warm Poached Sausage with Potato Salad. Benoit's Mussel Soup. Guy Savoy's Fall Leg of Lamb. Beef Stew with Wild Mushrooms and Orange, Chicken Basquaise, Pasta with Lemon, Ham, and Black Olives, L'Ami Louis' Potato Cake, Provencal Roast Tomatoes, Pears in Red Wine, and Golden Cream and Apple Tart.

Throughout, lively notes and sidebars capture the world of bistro owners in the kitchen, les grands chefs, and more. Selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club. Winner of the 1989 IACP Seagram Food and Beverage Award. Over 166,000 copies in print.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In this warm look into the world of French bistro food, eminent food writer Patricia Wells reveals her love for this simple, robust cuisine in a collection of recipes garnered from France's best bistros. From Warm Potato Salad with Herbed Vinaigrette to Lamb Stew in White Wine to Pear Clafoutis, Wells admits her preference for hearty, homey bistro dishes. Through clearly written recipes, Wells encourages cooks to buy the best ingredients and turn them into fragrant, warming dishes. Each recipe has a note telling where it came from and alluding to its flavor. Pithy quotes throughout the book relate to bistro style--in cooking, serving, and eating--and historical quotations give a cultural connotation. Wine choices reach deep into the heart of France, from a crisp white from Provence such as a Chateau Simone with lamb, to a good Côtes du Rhone (Cru du Coudelet) with guinea hen. From the introduction to the last dessert recipe (for Prunes in Red Wine), Bistro Cooking is sure to please not just the novice in the kitchen, but the experienced cook as well. --Susan Loomis, Amazon.co.uk --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

From Library Journal

Bistro cooking is currently the rage, and the author of The Food Lover's Guide to Paris (Workman, 1988. 2d ed.) and . . . to France (Workman, 1987) is just the person to write about it. Wells has collected recipes from bistros all over France, as well as adapting classics and creating some new dishes of her own. This is real food, simple but not without sophistication, usually uncomplicated, and always delicious: Watercress and Potato Soup, L'Ami Louis's famed Roast Chicken, a Tarte Tatin of pears. With a text that is a pleasure to read, as always, and 200 recipes for what is really "French home cooking at its best," Wells's latest is highly recommended.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 291 pages
• Publisher: Workman Pub Co (November 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 089480622X
• ISBN-13: 978-0894806223
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (44 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,248,141 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Patricia Wells is a journalist, author, and teacher who runs a popular cooking school--At Home with Patricia Wells--in Paris and Provence. Salad As A Meal is her twelfth book. She won the James Beard Award for The Provence Cookbook, Patricia Wells at Home in Provence, and Simply French. Also nominated for Beard Awards were Vegetable Harvest and The Paris Cookbook. With her husband, Walter, she is also the author of We've Always Had Paris . . . and Provence. The French government has honored her as a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, recognizing her contribution to French culture. A former New York Times reporter, she is the only foreigner and only woman to serve as restaurant critic for a major French publication, L'Express. For more than twenty-five years she was the global restaurant critic for the International Herald Tribune.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

79 of 80 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Little Cookbook That Could!, January 13, 2000

By 

keiyam1 "keiyam1" (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bistro Cooking (Paperback)

I received this book as a present nearly 10 years ago. In my library of over 200 cookbooks, this is the absolute champion when it comes to simple, very "French bistro" dishes to prepare for family & friends. Recipes are easy to follow and use easy to find ingredients, and I have yet to flub a dish out of this book. The pie/tart shell recipes included in the basics section, in particular, are definite staples to any cooking-lover's repertoire (I have them memorized -- I've made them so many times). I frequently give this book to friends who "want to learn how to cook".

43 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely the best, July 6, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Bistro Cooking (Paperback)

My wife and I own many cookbooks, but none has come close to giving us the pleasure we have found in so many of the recipes in Bistro Cooking. We are both rank amateurs in the kitchen, but we have been able to handle virtually every recipe we've tried in this book (I did give up after three attempts at the potato pie from L'Ami Louis). The book includes Ms. Wells' favorite recipes from France's great bistros. Mind-blowing potato gratins, delicious fish recipes, hearty stews, unbelievable roast chicken, a strange but fantastic dish of poached eggs served with a simple red wine sauce, winning desserts, it really goes on and on. Ms. Wells is a great writer, very entertaining, and the book is full of wonderful tips. Even seven years or so after we bought our copy of Bistro Cooking, it's always a special day at our home when we make something from this cookbook.

36 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must have addition to your cooking library!, October 1, 2001

By 

Jo-Anne Barnard "Jo-Anne Barnard" (Washington, DC metropolitan area) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bistro Cooking (Paperback)

If you only own five cookbooks, this should be one of them. The recipes are pure pleasure -- comfort food at its finest. I have taken years of French cooking lessons and still turn to this book every time I want to make a simple meal for my husband & I to enjoy after work. If the only recipe you tried were the one for Mme. Caretet's potato gratin, it would be worth the purchase of the book. Everyone that tries them says they are the best potatoes they have ever had. But don't stop there -- the book presents you with a wealth of eating adventures.