Michael's Cookbook [Hardcover]

Michael McCarty (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1989

One of the hottest and most innovative restaurants in the country, Michael's Restaurant in Santa Monica, California, combines French technique with American ingredients. This cookbook captures the essence of the dining experience at Michael's and translates it into quick recipes for small dinner parties. 125 color photos.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This coolly seductive cookbook and piece de resistance pictures food as exquisite minimalist morsels. Chef/owner of Michael's restaurant in Santa Monica, Calif., the French-trained McCarty (he earned a diploma from the Cordon Bleu and certificates from L'Ecole Hotelier and L'Academie du Vin in Paris) is known not only for his 1979 inauguration of "California cuisine," but also for his use of modern art at table. "French cuisine and techniques and American ingredients and traditions may be my starting points," concedes the cook, and his recipes here--from simple shoestring potatoes to "Michael's raw oyster presentation" and grilled saddle of veal with white truffles--are proof of the pudding. Yet decor in the dining room--and on the page--also provides food for thought. Scattering miniature Stellas, Frankenthalers and Hockneys throughout the volume, and employing bird's-eye-view photos of pastas and cream-based soups as virtual design ornaments, McCarty and Kolpas lay out sophisticated fare with restraint, yet aplomb.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Two talented young chefs share their cooking philosophies and their recipes. McCarty, one of the chefs attributed with popularizing "California cuisine," aims for elegant simplicity; his is party food, with ingredients like truffles, foie gras, lobster, and caviar (not to mention baby vegetables). The text is illustrated by some 100 color photographs of the food and of the artwork in Michael's Restaurant. His food may be delicious, but it is hardly for the everyday cook. White, an enthusiastic proponent of New England's culinary heritage and bounty, has written a far more ambitious, more substantial work. In addition to 300 recipes for both such traditional fare as New England Fish Chowder and new dishes like his Salad of Lobster, Foie Gras, and Papaya, he includes pages of information on ingredients and preparation, diagrams of techniques, and detailed head notes. The sections on fish and shellfish, for example, provide a complete guide to the New England catch. In short, his book will inspire and inform cooks at all levels.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 246 pages
• Publisher: Macmillan Pub Co; First Edition edition (October 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0025831119
• ISBN-13: 978-0025831117
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,552,368 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars An Outstanding Cookbook!, January 16, 2011

By 

James G. Johnson (Laguna Beach, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Michael's Cookbook (Hardcover)

As the owner of more than 380 cookbooks, this is one of the 15 or so to which I turn the most frequently. Michael's is an outstanding restaurant in Santa Monica with consistently great food. The recipes in this book are clear, easily followed, and deliver the exact same results as those that are enjoyed at the restaurant. Most require ingredients that are readily available in a well-stocked grocery store (truffles, foie gras and rabbit are a bit more difficult to find). Amazingly, most of the recipes do not require special equipment or honed cooking expertise. I have made more than 30 of the recipes, many for dinner parties, and have never been disappointed with the results. Neither have my guests. The "basic marinade" is a simple concoction of ordinary ingredients -- onion, carrots, parsley, basil, white pepper and olive oil -- but the results are extraordinary on pork, poultry, lamb, beef and veal.