Live, Love, Eat!: The Best of Wolfgang Puck (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Wolfgang Puck's enthusiasm for good food could light up several small cities, and you'll find the proof on the pages of Live, Love, Eat! The Best of Wolfgang Puck. In 150 of his favorite recipes Wolfgang Puck demonstrates why and how flavorful food and fun can't be separated from each other--certainly not in his kitchen.

Consider the ubiquitous guacamole recipe. Puck calls his version California Guacamole. His ingredients are few, the flavors marshaling around roasted whole garlic, which adds to the whole an underlying sweet and mellow deliciousness. It's an act of elevation and restoration for one of the grand treats of the Southwest. Puck is a master of the respectful tweaking of familiar recipes and ingredients in favor of rejuvenation and flavor. The lowly chicken comes to mind. Chicken pot pie becomes Chicken Pot Pie Soup, Puck replacing the traditional crust with delicate dumplings. With Spicy Chicken Pizza (the chicken is marinated in lime juice, olive oil, garlic, cilantro, and minced jalapeño chilies) Puck takes this Neapolitan standard on a side trip to Mexico. Viener Backhendl, Austrian fried chicken, meets Asia by way of panko, Japanese-style bread crumbs. And so on.

Live, Love, Eat! has chapters devoted to appetizers, soups, salads, pizza and pasta, seafood, poultry, meat, accompaniments, and desserts. This is a richly illustrated book showing what results look like and how they get there. A final chapter, "Basics," is worth the price of admission. --Schuyler Ingle --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Puck, winner of three James Beard awards, founder of Spago and Chinois, offers such favorite recipes as Pumpkin Ravioli and Pan-Roasted Chicken Breasts Stuffed with Bell Peppers with Sweet Green Onion Sauce in this distilled collection. California cuisine is the word, with Italian (Fettucine Wolf-fredo with Grilled Chicken) and fusion (Spicy Asian Beef Burgers with Shitake Mushrooms and Wolfgang's Vegetable Spring Rolls) alongside Puck's native Viennese (Minced Veal or Pork with Chanterelles, Paprika Cream Sauce, and Noodles). Comfort food like All-American Chicken Pot Pie and Creamy Mashed Potatoes with Caramelized Onions abounds but fat watchers beware My Favorite Tomato Sauce calls for one and a half sticks of butter. Many recipes predictably rely on chicken broth (Fettucine Wolf-Fredo, and Corn Chowder with Littleneck Clams and Jalapeno Cream). There are appetizers such as Hot Spinach-Artichoke Dip and salads like Greek Shrimp Salad. Overcomplication is Puck's flaw, but his talent is making classics look new, like Beef Stew with Winter Vegetables and Red Wine or Crispy Shrimp with Chinese Noodles and Spicy Garlic Sauce. Desserts include Wolfgang's Tarte Tatin and Decadent Warm Chocolate Cupcakes with Molten Centers.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Gramercy (September 5, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0517228688
• ISBN-13: 978-0517228685
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #129,766 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars WOW - Easy to Follow and Great Tasting Recipes, February 19, 2003

By	Beth Holcolm (Portland, OR USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Live, Love, Eat!: The Best of Wolfgang Puck (Hardcover)

I am a stay-at-home mom, so I look for cookbooks that are easy to follow. Even though my girlfriend recommended this book, I was hesitant to buy it because I figured Wolfgang's food would be much too hard and fancy to make. But she was right, the recipes were easy and had really cool step-by-step photos. I have made his Chicken Pot Pie, Fettuccine Wolf-fredo, and Potato Salad so far, and they were all outstanding. My husband said jokingly that he is going to kiss Wolfgang for making his wife into a good cook. I definitely think this book should be in every home kitchen.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Easy Ways to Cook at Home Like a Great Chef, May 3, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Live, Love, Eat!: The Best of Wolfgang Puck (Hardcover)

I eat at Wolfgang Puck's Cafe in Evanston a lot, and have been to the Spago in Chicago for a special occasion. I love the food at both places. But I never thought I could cook Wolfgang's great food at home until I picked up this book and saw how simple he makes it. His instructions are really easy, and he includes step-by-step photos to show you exactly how. And the finished food pictures look mouthwatering and aren't fussed up like lots of cookbooks. I've made several of his chicken dishes, all delicious, and some incredible soups. My family went crazy over the bacon-wrapped meatloaf and his garlic mashed potatoes. The cheesecakes are the best ever. And his chocolate cupcakes with the warm melting centers are [super].

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wolfgang Delivers More Than I Expect. Sound Cooking, January 22, 2004

By	B. Marold "Bruce W. Marold" (Bethlehem, PA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Live, Love, Eat!: The Best of Wolfgang Puck (Hardcover)

On the face of it, Wolfgang is unquestionably one of the best-known names in the world of culinary celebrities. To the great general public, he is probably the only name and face to outshine Emeril Legasse. But, the celebrity of both men seems to be based more on media exposure than on sound culinary achievements. While chefs such as Thomas Keller, Charlie Trotter, Daniel Boulud, and Tom Colicchio are less well known, their reputation with foodies is soundly based on culinary achievement, even if only known through their writings and reputation through media reviews. Puck's reputation to the world at large is based primarily on his position as caterer to the Academy Awards and other high visibility Hollywood events. He has a fairly large network of successful restaurants, including some middle end chain style establishments. I have always had the suspicion that he stole some thunder from Chez Panisse in the popularization of `California Cuisine', especially since Jeremiah Tower, the self-proclaimed inventor of this movement looks down his nose at Puck in his book `California Bites'. Similarly, Tower buddy Jim Villas, not known for having any California stripes, thinks little of LA's Puck while praising New Orleans' Lagasse. Lastly, Wolfgang has gone the budget route in lending his name to a low end line of cookware, competing with Martha Stewart's everyday ware rather than with Emeril's high-end All-Clad lines.

So does Wolfgang have real chops in the kitchen?

The evidence of this book is that his written cuisine is at least as good as Emeril's, his teaching approaches the quality of Jacques Pepin, and his creativity with the fusion of Latin American and Oriental cuisines with European concepts appear no less tasty than those of Norm Van Aken. The only thing the book lacks is that little twist most celebrity chefs give their books nowadays. The twist here is simply that it is from Wolfgang Puck.

The good things about this book are:

1. Listing of all recipe names in the Table of Contents. This feature automatically makes a good cookbook more valuable, especially a mid-sized celebrity chef book like this. This fits the best use of the book as a resource for finding dishes for entertaining to fit a particular theme or taste.

2. The emphasis on the sensory queues to the progress of cooking rather than on blind timings. All good chefs repeat this principle, but Wolfgang puts it front and center. This is a central skill of the professional chef whose work would be simply impossible if she worked by time with half a dozen dishes fired at a saute station at the height of service. It is also one of those professional tricks which should be learned by the home cook. The problem of the amateur is that while the recipe may have been written using a gas range and a zinc clad copper saute pan, the cook at home is probably using an electric range with a Teflon coated aluminum pan. And that is just one of the variables.

3. Puck's chapter on basics is first rate, including very useful pictures at all the right places. It covers all the usual techniques for artichoke surgery, but it also includes recipes for court bouillon, puff pastry, and fish stock. I am of two minds with material like this. There are books which include a few pages of worthwhile material and try to give the impression that this is all you need to know, when people such as Jaques Pepin and James Peterson have written whole books on this subject and have not exhausted the subject. So wouldn't the author have been better off devoting this space to more recipes? On balance, I think Wolfgang did us a service and his material here makes me want to seek out his earlier books to find more of the same material.

4. Wolfgang's recipes are a pretty fair mix of the traditional, such as the oft repeated Pasta Puttanesca and the chicken pot pie, to the trademark neuvo Pizza with smoked salmon and caviar.

On the negative size, Wolfgang's English writing seems to have the same Austrian accent as his speech. I'm really surprised that a publishing house such as Random House couldn't supply a copy editor to smooth out some of the more mangled wordings. Also, the subtitle of this volume is `The Best of Wolfgang Puck', but it doesn't make clear whether that means the best material from his earlier books, the best recipes from his restaurants, or the best material from his TV shows. This is a small matter, but it would have added value to the material.

As someone, like Wolfgang, of Austrian background, I am often disappointed that the second most prominent Austrian-American (after Arnold Schwarzenneger) who also happens to be a famous chef does not do a book of Austrian food. But, this book is no slouch. I would recommend it to anyone who has few cookbooks and is looking for an entertaining menu resource or simply for a wider variety of recipes. It is just slightly pricy at list price for 125 recipes, so look for it at a discount. For foodies, this book gives good value in honing one's pantry ingredients and prep skills.

As other reviewers have noted, these are not quick or easy recipes, but they are worthy of anyone with the time and interest in improving their cooking skills.