Amazon.com Review
If envy is an issue with which you struggle daily, you may want to avoid
Great Kitchens, a lavishly illustrated walk-through of 26 fabulous kitchens in the homes of some of America's best chefs. This is a Taunton Press publication--the same people who bring us
Fine Woodworking,
Fine Homebuilding, and
Wooden Boat, among others--so rest assured the production values are high enough to raise the stakes for everyone else in the business.
The one thing all of these kitchens have in common is that they didn't start out this way. There are kitchens put into Victorian houses, 1920s farm houses, swim schools (no kidding: Mary Sue Milliken of Border Grill in Los Angeles, and her architect husband, Josh Schweitzer, bought a small swim school and put home and kitchen where locker rooms and showers could once be found), old bars, upscale apartments, ancient stone houses. These are kitchens, then, that have been thought about by people who work with food, and know what they want at home.
Built-in wood-burning ovens and hearths seem to be a big deal. So, too, are custom wok stoves. Seattle chef Tom Douglas put his enormous prep island on industrial casters. He also put his herbs and spices into cans that attach to bar magnets on what would be wasted wall space. He chose the domestic version of an industrial stove because it is better insulated and doesn't heat up the kitchen. And like several chefs in the book, he swears by his commercial Hobart dishwasher with its 90-second cycle.
Great Kitchens is a multifunction book. You can leave it open on a coffee table as a piece of publishing art. You can use it to launch your daydreams. But most of all, you can use it to learn from the mistakes and successes of others, and gain insight from a lot of very practical information.
Most over-the-top built-in appliance? Terrance Brennan's bread-warming drawer. But in this book, it makes perfect sense. --Schuyler Ingle
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Foodies will enjoy a voyeuristic thrill seeing, in this cookbook/home design hybrid, the kitchen of Cecilia Chang (founder of San Francisco's Mandarin restaurant as well as others) with its built-in wok, or the cooking oasis of Lidia Bastianich (Felidia, Becco and Frico Bar in New York City) with its etched-glass d?cor. The authors (food -aficionado Whitaker; architect Mahoney; and Jordan, editor of Professional Remodeler magazine) highlight 26 kitchens and include discussions with their owners on what they love about their homes and about cooking in general. The chef profiles tend to be predictable (it's no surprise, for example, that Alice Waters has a commitment to organic farming); the most interesting parts focus on what the chefs did to their kitchens and how they did itAand often what they wish they had done differently. When Anne Quatrano and Clifford Harrison (of Bacchanalia in Atlanta) moved from a tiny apartment in Manhattan to Atlanta, Ga., they reveled in the additional space and designed a 24-by-24-foot kitchen with a 22-foot ceiling, but they still regret not adding a second sink. On the other hand, the chefs' recipes, such as Crispy Vegetable Stir-Fry from Ken Hom and Smoked Chile Salsa from Mary Sue Milliken, feel tacked onAtheir contributors certainly expended more energy on their envy-inducing kitchens than on these recipes. (Oct.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
