`Crave' by the `award winning' executive chef of the Los Angles restaurant Bastide, Ludo Lefebvre elicits anticipation from its oversized format, its high price, and the very hip, tattooed pic of the author on the front cover. I am happy to say that the book delivers on it's expectations with a better than average restaurant cookbook.
Like Eric Rippert's book `Le Bernardin Cookbook', this is the kind of book which cries out for half stars, as I am quite happy to give it four and a half stars, yet there are some reasons the average cookbook purchaser may wish to pass on it. Fortunately, these reasons are few.
First, as with every good high-end restaurant cookbook, the recipes are simply not the kind you may be willing to make on a busy Tuesday or even on an average Sunday. This is because while there are relatively quick recipes in the book, there are just as many longish recipes requiring some arcane ingredients. So, you can't dip into this book the way you can a good book of Italian recipes such as Mario Batali's `Molto Italy' and come up with a good, relatively inexpensive, relatively quick AND interesting recipe.
Second, as I have already stated, the book is oversized and just a bit overpriced for the number of recipes.
Third, I sense that while Monsieur Lefebvre has very serious chops, with all the promise of an up and coming Jacques Pepin in the field of culinary education, he and his handlers may be just a little full of themselves in their presentation of the author. One example is my quoted fact that Ludo is an `award winning' chef, yet they give no information on what award it is he won. He was nominated for a lesser James Beard award, but he did not win. But, as I was told by a very wise man many years ago, if all the books with pretensions were removed from the library, our libraries would have very few books indeed!
On the positive side, this is a culinary work with an excellent point of view and agenda that it executes almost flawlessly. The point of view is almost anti-scientific, insisting that the chef concentrate almost exclusively on their own five senses. This is a theme which runs through practically all cooking literature from Wolfgang Puck to Mario Batali to Jamie Oliver and everyone in between, but not the scientific wonks such as Alton Brown and Shirley Corriher. The extreme position for this point of view is in the author's description of one of his mentors, Alain Passard, who refused to even let his line cooks use thermometers to gage doneness. Passard insisted that sight and sound and touch should be enough. And, not only is it enough, it is probably preferable for a very busy line cook to use their trained senses, as this method is both much faster than poking food with an `instant read' thermometer and less damaging to the food itself.
The book begins with a brief history of the author's culinary education and career in France, which sounds a lot like that of many other French chefs, including Monsieur Pepin. Lefebvre did not cook for the French President, but he was the personal chef to the French minister of defense during his year of obligatory military service. His career also confirms the picture of long years as an apprentice, commis, and line cook before one is even considered to be a sous chef or major specialist such as a saucier.
The book is divided up into five chapters; each headed by one of the five recognized senses of sight, touch, smell, hearing, and taste. I believe the division of recipes among these five senses is mostly arbitrary, as every dish must involve all five senses. To be sure, some methods such as sauteeing involve direct experience far more than, for example braising, where all the action is going on in an oven, within a Dutch oven or bistro pan. But, the book does not suffer too much from this bit of artificiality.
As a book of recipes from a `haute cuisine' restaurant, I expect unusual recipes and ingredients and I am not surprised on this count, but I am very pleasantly surprised to see how many recipes are variations on common everyday dishes such as tortilla espagnole (Spanish potato frittata) and pain perdu (French toast). I am also pleased with the range of ingredients. Many are unusual, but they appear in only a few recipes and they are the types of things where they are interesting enough so that you will probably not mind tracking them down on the Internet.
Speaking of which, Monsieur Lefebvre gives a really extensive sources list with a feature I have seen nowhere else. For each merchant, the name of a real live person with whom you can establish a contact is given.
Lefebvre's recipes for stock pantry items such as stocks, spice powders, puff pastry, confits and marmalades are not overly fussy. In fact, I think his recipe for brioche for his French toast is a lot simpler than you will find in a book by a bread-baking specialist. I would suggest you consult such a book for brioche.
While I have seen this suggestion in a few other books, Lefebvre is the first author to fully incorporate the suggestion of resting cooked protein then briefly reheating it before service to bring it up to temperature. This makes so much sense that I am surprised I don't see it more often, but I also realize that it is a lot easier for a professional chef with a salamander at their station to do it than for an amateur with nothing but a conventional oven. Lefebvre also has a special technique for applying spices and herbs. He applies then at or near the end of cooking. This makes sense with fresh herbs, but I'm not sure it works for all recipes or for dried herbs.
