Mastering Simplicity: A Life in the Kitchen (Hardcover)

~ (Author), Jennifer Leuzzi (Author) "When I began to think about collecting my recipes into a book, I wondered how I could find the words to talk about something that..." (more)
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Delouvrier, former executive chef at Lespinasse, doesn't skimp on the duck fat or creme fraeche in his chronological tome, which details his rise from hotel school in Toulouse to the four-star kitchen of the now defunct Lespinasse in New York City. Along the way there are charming anecdotes about boyhood weekends on his grandparents' farm, learning the ropes as a lowly worker in the bustling kitchen of Paris's Cafe de la Paix, and becoming the chef de cuisine at New York's Maurice Restaurant. Delouvrier's recipes are not as accessible as his prose, however. The Cassoulet, for example, has 23 steps and over two dozen ingredients; and the Bouillabaisse has separate recipes for the stock, rouille and croutons. Even the seemingly simple Marie Louise's Rice Pudding demands nearly two hours of one's time, although the end result is, admittedly, stellar. Also, although it is interesting to see how Delouvrier's recipes develop over his 40-year career (from Coq au Vin to Stewed Chicken with Cream and Tarragon to Stuffed Chicken with Truffles Poached in Bouillon), the evolution is not nearly as dramatic as one might expect.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

Delouvrier, former executive chef at Lespinasse, doesn't skimp on the duck fat or creme fraiche in his chronological tome, which details his rise from hotel school in Toulouse to the four-star kitchen of the now defunct Lespinasse in New York City. Along the way there are charming anecdotes about boyhood weekends on his grandparents' farm, learning the ropes as a lowly worker in the bustling kitchen of Paris's Cafe de la Paix, and becoming the chef de cuisine at New York's Maurice Restaurant. Delouvrier's recipes are not as accessible as his prose, however. The Cassoulet, for example, has 23 steps and over two-dozen ingredients; and the Bouillabaisse has separate recipes for the stock, rouille and croutons. Even the seemingly simple Marie Louise's Rice Pudding demands nearly two hours of one's time, although the end result is, admittedly, stellar. Also, although it is interesting to see how Delouvrier's recipes develop over his 4o-year career (from Coq au Vin to Stewed Chicken with Cream and Tarragon to Stuffed Chicken with Truffles Poached in Bouillon), the evolution is not nearly as dramatic as one might expect. (Oct.) (Publishers Weekly, September 29, 2003)

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Wiley (October 20, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471413593
• ISBN-13: 978-0471413592
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 8.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #600,416 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Another Life in the French Kitchen, January 7, 2004

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

`Mastering Simplicity' by Christian Delouvrier is a combination celebrity chef memoir and restaurant cookbook with the intended spin of making simple the apparent complexity in the canon of standard French cuisine. On the one hand, the book succeeds in presenting a well-written and interestingly presented sequence of classic French or French style recipes. On the other, it fails in presenting its primary contention that it can simplify French cooking. As the author and his cowriters admit in more than one recipe, this is long with lots of ingredients, but you can do it if you just break it down into its (many) individual steps. All the author has succeeded in doing is to show that the complexity can be broken down into a lot of steps and that what may look simple to a talented professional chef who has been in the business for over thirty years, still looks daunting to the amateur. The observation by Daniel Boulud on the difference between amateurs and professionals still holds. Professionals simply see things differently by virtue of having done the same preparations thousands of times over.

Since Delouvrier fails in making his primary contention, which can set his book apart from all the others, what is the value of the material otherwise? As always, it all depends on what you are looking for.

The book is organized in almost exactly the same style as Daniel Boulud's `Café Boulud Cookbook' with seven chapters of recipes instead of Boulud's four. The chapters are chronological, each dealing with a different stage in the author's career, beginning with his fairly straightforward versions of dishes from la cuisine Bourgeoise such as cassoulet and coq au vin through the author's interpretation of haute cuisine dishes at his very expensive Manhattan venues. The chapters are:

Family Cooking, Boulogne-SurGesse, France
Hotel School and the Early Years, Toulouse, France
Café de la Paix, Paris, France
Journet Through Discovery (Montreal)
Les Celebrites, New York City
LesPinasse and Four Stars, New York City
Basic Recipes (Pantry preparations)

The book does have the author's reminiscences which are entertaining and have a strong family resemblence to memoirs written by several other French chefs.

So the question remains, `Why should I buy this book'.

First, I think the recipes are very good, with the ones in the first four chapters being much more accessible to the amateur than the fifth and sixth recipe. The pantry recipes are interesting in that they show the chef is doing high end French technique. Stock recipes, with a few little twists, may have come right out of the Culinary Institute of America.

Second, the recipes in the first two chapters include some regional specialities outside of Provence and Lyon. The recipes in the last three chapters do include some Oriental influences, but not much.

Third, almost all the recipes are for entrees. Not too much space spent on desserts or salads. The mix of meat, fowl, fin, and shellfish is about right, with very few recipes for rabbit or other game style protein.

Fourth, the headnotes offer interesting comments on the source and nature of the material and the preparation. Good, but not dramatically better than other books.

If you already own a copy of Julia Child's `Mastering the Art of French Cooking' and Jaques Pepin's books on technique, the basis for buying this book narrows down to getting the book to see this chef's take on things plus some recipes from Gascony.

There are no wine pairings, which I don't miss. The photography is competant. There are no ingredient sources listed, but then, there are not a lot of rare ingredients. Just lots of them and some relatively expensive ingredients.

If you want a book like this, I would recommend one first look at Boulud's book cited above. If you really like that kind of book and want more, then I recommend this book to you.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very good chef, February 11, 2006

By	James Peter Walsh (roseburg, oregon United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a book written by a very professional chef who does not seek the limelight in any way. I have not studied the book in great detail but the minute i saw it I bought it without hesitation. Sure enough it was filled with anecdotes and a review of his years in various restaurants . I was also happy to see recipes for things like fish stock. Does anyone make fish stock anymore? If you want to learn the complicated and the simple this is the book for you.

4.0 out of 5 stars great book, March 25, 2007

By	Damian Baucom-slavin "blackrose4evr" (LVNV) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

typical cookbook for cooks who have background in the field. The book breaks down the recipe in a simple manner, but at times a new cook may have a hard time following.