Cooking with Les Dames d'Escoffier: At Home with the Women Who Shape the Way We Eat and Drink [Hardcover]

Marcella Rosene (Editor), Pat Mozersky (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 9, 2008

What if you could invite Alice Waters, M. F. K. Fisher, and Marcella Hazan into your kitchen as you make dinner? Imagine Julia Child looking over your shoulder as you prepare Julia's Lobster Newberg, or Gina Batali giving you her prized recipe for Batali Family Stuffed Artichokes? Les Dames d'Escoffier International (LDEI) is the premier association of female culinary professionals, started in 1973 in response to the all-male Les Amis d'Escoffier. In the organization's first national cookbook, the Dames share their most essential dishes--the ones they cook at home for family and friends. Here are such delights as Lidia Bastianich's hearth-warming Pork Rib Guazzetto, Susan Feniger's Roasted Black Cod with Horseradish Coulis and Farmers' Carrots, Anne Willan's elegant Twice-Baked Spinach Souffles, and Alice Medrich's Bittersweet Souffles with Nibby Cream. More than 125 recipes provide the range from appetizers to salads and soups, main courses (including vegetarian options) and sides to baking and desserts. Cooking with Les Dames d'Escoffier also offers up a wonderfully eclectic and informed array of foodie sidebars: the lowdown on screw-cap wines, how boxed phyllo dough can be a lifesaver, how to pair beverages and food, new ways to enjoy caviar, favorite kitchen tools, how to perfectly turn out a cake from its pan, and much more.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Les Dames d'Escoffier is a professional organization of women chefs, food writers, caterers, purveyors, and others that was established in 1973 and today has more than 1300 members, many of them culinary stars. Their first cookbook includes dozens of recipes ranging from Grilled Gazpacho Salad with Shrimp to Black Cod with Horseradish Coulis. Despite its rather pretentious subtitle and references to each contributor as a "Dame"—as in "New York City Dame Lidia Bastianich"—the book has the feel of an upscale community cookbook, though the recipes, of course, are generally more sophisticated. With helpful tips, beverage suggestions, and make-ahead notes; for larger collections.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

The women who star in the nation’s restaurant kitchens and who produce and edit the country’s cookbooks, food magazines, newspapers, and television programs have organized for mutual support and advancement of their profession’s highest goals. Many of these women, such as Julia Child and Joanne Weir, are household names, so any cookbook to which they contribute is bound to be a gold mine of recipes and popular with all sorts of cooks. Many styles and traditions appear here, but all focus on fresh and seasonal ingredients. Lighter recipes, such as bacon-and-egg breakfast-for-dinner salad, attract the more refined home cook. Lidia Bastianich supplies a hearty pasta sauce based on pork ribs. Prosciutto-wrapped turkey breast stuffed with basil and Brie makes a great summer grill presentation. Food scientist Shirley Corriher outlines a very detailed method for producing a rich, soft-center chocolate cake. Something for everyone here. --Mark Knoblauch

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Sasquatch Books (September 9, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1570615306
• ISBN-13: 978-1570615306
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 1.6 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #595,197 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Kitchen-Changing Cookbook, November 11, 2008

By 

Bette Mcintire - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cooking with Les Dames d'Escoffier: At Home with the Women Who Shape the Way We Eat and Drink (Hardcover)

I've done the best cooking of my life since I got COOKING WITH LES DAMES D'ESCOFFIER. With this cookbook you invite LES DAMES, women everyone should know, into your kitchen. You begin with their favorite recipes chosen out of an abundant melting pot of great recipes. Then as you cook, they are "tapping you on your shoulder" with just those tips you need to make the recipe turn out great--from the "dip and sweep" method of measuring flour to the perfect finishing touches to make your dish look divine--a garnish of sauteed spinach, a drizzle of olive oil, or a glaze of rose water and confectioners' sugar. With the detailed directions for these obviously thoroughly tested recipes, what looks complicated is amazingly easy, and downright enjoyable in the doing and in the dining. The sidebars with cooking lore as well as shopping and serving advice from LES DAMES add to your culinary experience. If you're like me, you'll leave your kitchen eager to return to try something new or to make again your new favorite. And, this cookbook, a new favorite gift to give my friends, with its inviting layout and beautiful photographs--and did I mention the flavorful content?

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Les Dammes D'Escoffier, November 12, 2008

By 

A. Afifi (Seattle) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cooking with Les Dames d'Escoffier: At Home with the Women Who Shape the Way We Eat and Drink (Hardcover)

Since I purchased the book a few weeks ago, I tried a few of the recipes. The book is very well written and it is very easy to follow. The recipes that I made were amazing and I'm looking forward to trying the others. I purchased a few more as Christmas presents. I am sure my friends will enjoy it as much as I have.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best organized Cookbook ever!, June 19, 2009

By 

S. Mccarthy "Fijimac" (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Cooking with Les Dames d'Escoffier: At Home with the Women Who Shape the Way We Eat and Drink (Hardcover)

This cookbook is amazingly well written with clear instructions. With so many well known and accomplished women of food having contributed recipes, it can seem intimidating, but Marcella Rosen did a great job at making this accessible for the average cook.
I have tried many of the recipes and they are fabulous! This is a cookbook to give to friends who love food. It is a buy, buy, buy.