Customer Reviews

Breakfast, Lunch, Tea: The Many Little Meals of Rose Bakery

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

What a charming and wonderful book this is! From the lemon, rice and polenta cake to the Pistachio cake using a bit of wheat flour and ground almonds and pistachios, to the Eccles Cakes (cookies that use pie dough as cases) filled with raisins, spices, lemon zest and brown sugar to the lamb shank with cumin, eggplant and chickpeas, it's all wonderful. I've tried several other recipes, and, although I've only had this book for a few months, it's covered with smudges and bent pages.

I love this book!

I noticed the book Breakfast, Lunch, Tea by Rose Carrarini being mentioned in the Lifestyle magazine that came with Sunday The New York Times newspaper. The idea of little meals caught my eye. Over the years I have handpicked cookbooks into my small collection, but I'm constantly on the market for something that I might like or might not have imagined. The latter appeared in the form of this book. I ordered the book, opened it on a random page and - it took my breath away, literally, with its structure, beauty (needless to say - Phaidon press)and a promise of finer things, food included. I opened it on a back flap, which quoted Rose Carrarini saying "Life can be improved by great food." Oh yes - they are my kind of people! The Carrarinis prefer and prepare their food simple and natural, preferably, but not necessarily organic. They put vegetables above meat or fish with ambition to blur the line between home and restaurant cooking; they have put together menus, and based on them, a cookbook that is too filled even to be read in many sittings. Rather, it is to be enjoyed by tiny morsels that make your lunch, snack or day. A thousand thanks for this masterpiece!

This is a delightful book that operates on a number of levels. First the exquisite photographs capture the beauty of the mundane doings of the Rose Bakery. From the simplicity of a zested lemon to the ruddy faces of the apple suppliers to the delivery truck to the ooh so chic clientèle, the pictures transport the reader to this Paris cafe.

Then there is the author's story, a tale of a woman who loves food and people. With no formal training and a belief in natural, fresh and unpretentious dishes, Rose Carranini built the wildly successful business. Her sense of purpose and commitment to quality and sustainability is impressive and her affection for her patrons is palpable.

Finally, the recipes themselves are superb. Basically, there are two types of people: those who follow recipes to a tee and those who view recipes as a guide or starting point for their own creativity. The author advocates the flexible approach. She encourages the cooks to use their favorite ingredients and substitutions, cautioning that it is the method as opposed to the ingredients that is crucial to the ultimate success of the recipe. She correctly points out that cookie cutter results are impossible when using natural ingredients...the juiciness of a piece of fruit, the humidity,the weather, the rainfall or lack thereof, the temperature of the room all impact the final result. The amateur cook should not be deterred. While some of the recipes are a bit labor intensive, they all are fairly easy. Additionally there are plenty for vegans and vegetarians.

The author embodies the joy of cooking. Food should be fun not fake. Her secrets are all revealed...always buy fresh, seasonal and local; use organic and sustainable when possible and remember the most important ingredient is love.

I have noly cooked a few recipes from this book, but there is a carrot salad in here that is one of the best things I have EVER eaten. I don't like carrot salad; I would never order it in a restaurant. But this is am amazing recipe.

I've made it 10 times in the last year--every party we serve it at people love it and ask for the recipe.

I'm sure there will be other recipes just as good--if I can only get past the carrot salad...

I love this book.
Admittedly I am a sucker for beautiful presentation, but this book is beautiful far beyond its visual appeal. Each recipe is the pinnacle of its kind. The pancake recipe, for example, outshines any I've ever tried. The salads are spectacular and have been the talk of many a collaborative dinner party. I haven't yet come across a dish I even slightly dislike. The recipes are accurate, as well. The quantities and cooking temperatures/times yield the perfect product. I can only assume that this accuracy comes from years of meticulous testing and tasting. The effort is well appreciated and results in recipes that are not only perfect every time, but are destined to become the classics you reach for time and again. The recipes, photgraphs, the quality of the binding and printing, the book in its entirety is simply wonderful.

If I were in Paris now, you could find me having lunch at Rose Bakery, 46 rue des Martyrs.

It's my favorite restaurant in Paris --- and I've never been there.

But I have Rose Carrarini's book, and it conveys so much of the spirit of her establishment that I know I'd love to be at Rose Bakery --- not just for her food, but for the ambiance, the people who work there, the regular customers and, above all, the idea that drives it.

Home cooking.

An unreal idea, huh? But there it is. "My intention was always to dissolve the distinction between home and restaurant cooking," Rose says. And so she works from a Bible with just three commandments: "simple" and "natural" and "homemade."

The restaurant --- a one-time storage room for fruit carts --- is just as elemental. Concrete-and-metal tables on a bare concrete floor. White walls. No display window. Open kitchen. Staff in white aprons. And a single splash of color: a large abstract painting on a back wall.

Rose's Bakery is also a shop. The packaging is plain. There's not even a web site.

And yet, I'm told, this total anomaly --- an English bakery in the capital of France --- is beloved by foodies and cool kids alike. "Le meilleur brunch de France," says Le Figaro.

What makes it great?

Rose tells a story that says a lot. It's about a meal she had at the Hyakumizon restaurant in Tokyo. She was served a dish of carrots. "No sauce," she recalls. "No garnish...The taste was intense and exquisite, and was mostly of the carrot itself. Possibly blanched, cooked, cooked again in a dashi and flashed under a grill, this was one of the most humble yet delicious dishes we have ever had the privilege of tasting. Whatever the technique the chef had used, I was convinced that you don't need any fuss or flourish, as it's the flavour of the dish that counts."

She learned that lesson well. Rose Bakery now produces 90 per cent of the food and products it sells. And the proprietors are sticklers for freshness --- today's leftovers will never be tomorrow's special. As her husband and partner, Jean-Charles, explains, "At nine-thirty we start cooking until midday, when we open. We don't have any storage fridges, so everything has to be eaten that day. We normally sell everything, which often means that we sell out by 2.30."

This oversized hard cover cookbook is equally fresh. There are full-page photographs of the bakery's butchers and apple suppliers and even a regular customer, who looks to be one very happy nine-year-old schoolgirl. To flip through the book is, I suspect, very much like a visit to the Bakery.

The recipes? Traditional. And that's the point. Rose is big on breakfast --- "my favorite meal" --- so she starts with recipes for fruit salad, rhubarb and orange, scones, muesli and pancakes (classic or with ricotta). Lunch starts with soup (green bean and almond, spiced chickpea and lemon, celeriac and porcini), moves through salads and tarts and risotto, and closes with just a few animal-based entrees, like braised lamb shanks with cumin, eggplant and chickpeas. And then it's on to cakes and pastries, the stuff of afternoon tea.

There's nothing here that's esoteric. The hardest part of duplicating these recipes is in the shopping --- finding organic produce that can stand up to simple preparation.

My husband brought this book home a couple of months ago. He founded via Laura Zarubin (I'm almost always hungry)'s website. I've made several of the recipes and have been more than happy with their simplicity in preparation and final taste. I especially like that she provides different hot and cold salads using hearty grains such as quinoa.
The photos provide a lovely look at the bakery and its life.

So many baking books are all about appearance, and only partly taste. This cookbook is full of fabulous modern cafe basics that are simple and quick to cook, with tips on varying them depending on taste or the current contents of your fridge or pantry.

I've got lots of pretty books on my cookbook shelf, but this one gets used regularly.

So far I have made pancakes and gingerbread cookies using the book's recipes and had success with both. Very easy to follow instructions. The book also has a nice layout with beautiful photographs which are, to me, almost as important as the recipes.

I love this book! Beautiful photography and the recipes range from really simple to medium difficulty.
It's about the food, not calories or time spent. I've made about 6 items so far and each is an excellent blend of tastes.