Julia's Delicious Little Dinners: Six perfect small dinner parties to share with family and friends. [Hardcover]

Julia Child (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 29, 1998

Straight from the Kitchen of Julia Child, here is a game plan for giving a perfect dinner party--in fact, six perfect little dinner parties

Whether it's a full-dress party or an old-fashioned chicken dinner, now anyone can entertain without tears or tension.

The six superb menus in this book:
Dinner for the Boss (featuring a standing rib roast and ending with bourbon-soaked chocolate truffles)

Country Dinner (Mediterranean hors d'oeuvres, leek and rabbit pie, and ice cream-filled meringues)

Butterflied Pork for a Party (preceded by celery root remoulade and finishing with a gateau Mont-Saint-Michel)

Rack of Lamb for a Very Special Occasion (with artichoke scoops garnished with shellfish, and fresh strawberries and hazelnut cornucopias for a sweet ending)

Summer Dinner (individual chicken liver aspics, poached salmon steaks, and a savarin au rhum)

Old-Fashioned Chicken Dinner (with a chocolate bombe for dessert)

Each dinner is imaginative, often playful, and beautifully orchestrated. You'll learn everything you need to know about ingredients, cooking techniques, planning ahead, and improvising leftovers so that each menu becomes a lesson in the art of preparing a small, elegant dinner that anyone can be proud of.

With 119 full-color photographs


This book and its companion--Julia's Menus for Special Occasions feature the finest recipes from Julia Child & Company and  Julia Child & More Company

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Having a dinner party? Want to kick it old school? Julia Child's Julia's Delicious Little Dinners might just be the cookbook to help it all come together. Built around six dinners for six, this is not one of Julia Child's encyclopedic volumes on cooking. Instead, it's a lesson in menu planning--Julia lays out menus for different occasions, seasons, and tastes, carefully describing the entire process of planning a meal. Whether you're cooking roast beef for the boss or having rabbit and leek pie with friends, this book is ready to assist with whimsical suggestions on wine, presentation, and the pacing of courses. With an abundance of large pieces of meat and quaint little garnishes, the fare here leans toward the traditional. Julia's inclusion of dishes like Chicken Livers in Aspic seems refreshingly archaic in this era of "fusion cuisine." Nonetheless, the beautiful and very helpful technical photographs (depicting everything from butchering beef rib roasts to cleaning a leek) will dispel any doubt that this is a contemporary cookbook for the adept home cook. --David Kalil

From the Inside Flap

Straight from the Kitchen of Julia Child, here is a game plan for giving a perfect dinner party--in fact, six perfect little dinner parties

Whether it's a full-dress party or an old-fashioned chicken dinner, now anyone can entertain without tears or tension.

The six superb menus in this book:
Dinner for the Boss (featuring a standing rib roast and ending with bourbon-soaked chocolate truffles)

Country Dinner (Mediterranean hors d'oeuvres, leek and rabbit pie, and ice cream-filled meringues)

Butterflied Pork for a Party (preceded by celery root remoulade and finishing with a gateau Mont-Saint-Michel)

Rack of Lamb for a Very Special Occasion (with artichoke scoops garnished with shellfish, and fresh strawberries and hazelnut cornucopias for a sweet ending)

Summer Dinner (individual chicken liver aspics, poached salmon steaks, and a savarin au rhum)

Old-Fashioned Chicken Dinner (with a chocolate bombe for dessert)

Each dinner is imaginative, often playful, and beautifully orchestrated. You'll learn everything you need to know about ingredients, cooking techniques, planning ahead, and improvising leftovers so that each menu becomes a lesson in the art of preparing a small, elegant dinner that anyone can be proud of.

With 119 full-color photographs


This book and its companion--Julia's Menus for Special Occasions feature the finest recipes from Julia Child & Company and  Julia Child & More Company

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 112 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1 edition (September 29, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375403361
• ISBN-13: 978-0375403361
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,207,567 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Julia Child was born in Pasadena, California. She was graduated from Smith College and worked for the OSS during World War II in Ceylon and China, where she met Paul Child. After they married they lived in Paris, where she studied at the Cordon Bleu and taught cooking with Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle, with whom she wrote the first volume of Mastering the Art of French Cooking (1961). In 1963, Boston's WGBH launched The French Chef television series, which made her a national celebrity, earning her the Peabody Award in 1965 and an Emmy in 1966. Several public television shows and numerous cookbooks followed. She died in 2004.

(Photo credit: (C) Michael P. McLaughlin)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Chocolate Bombe and more..., December 29, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Julia's Delicious Little Dinners: Six perfect small dinner parties to share with family and friends. (Hardcover)

Julia does a great job in this book of recipes pulled from a larger, earlier version of meals for six. I've only tried two of the recipes for a dinner party, but both were huge successes. The Chocolate Bombe was the hugest hit--rich, delicious and beautiful as well. My friends were amazed when they saw the cake and said it looked like it was straight out of a restaurant. Mrs. Child isn't lying when she says that it's dramatic, but the funny thing is that I didn't find the recipes that complicated per se, just a bit time consuming. Once you get used to the pace of things, it goes faster.

I'd highly recommend this book, as the other recipes look equally delicious and worth the effort. Using this cookbook makes me feel like I've been in the kitchen for years (and I haven't). You probably can't go wrong with anything in the cookbook!

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not into lamb, September 10, 2009

By 

Debra A. Henderson (Houston, TX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Julia's Delicious Little Dinners: Six perfect small dinner parties to share with family and friends. (Hardcover)

I thought this would be great to plan dinners for friends. Unfortunately, three of the six menus had entrees that I don't care for -- lamb, lamb & rabbit stew. The vegetables were basically buy it fresh & saute in butter. I did like the cucumber recipe & plan to try a couple of the desserts.

5.0 out of 5 stars Julia's Delicious Little Dinners, January 21, 2012

By 

ronda.clearlystampin - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Julia's Delicious Little Dinners: Six perfect small dinner parties to share with family and friends. (Hardcover)

Wonderful cookbook, item exactly as described. Gave it to my daughter as a gift & she not only loves it, but is planning one of the dinners. Can't wait to taste it!