My Family Table: A Passionate Plea for Home Cooking [Hardcover]

John Besh (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2011

"Of the recently published books by gourmet chefs on home cooking (e.g., Jean-Georges Vongerichten's Home Cooking with Jean-Georges and Rick Tramonto's Steak with Friends), James Beard Award-winning Louisiana chef John Besh's latest is easily the most beautiful. This stunning volume is filled with intimate photographs of the Besh family in the kitchen, at the table, and outdoors with friends. Recipes like Risotto of Almost Anything and Whole Roasted Sole with Brown Butter reinforce Besh's Jamie Oliver-like argument that practical home cooking does not require reliance on processed products. Includes some excellent holiday recipes. Highly recommended." --Library Journal

Renowned chef and James Beard award-winner John Besh invites us into his home and shows us how we can put good, fresh, healthy food on the table for our families every day.

In My Family Table, the Iron Chef champion makes a case for the importance of home-cooked meals. "If I can help make a difference by cooking simply and sharing what I love to cook, I can possibly help us all use our passions and skills to make our lives better at almost every meal."

From organizing your kitchen and stocking your pantry to demystifying fish cookery, John Besh shares his favorite recipes he cooks with his family every day. Master recipes Risotto of Almost Anything and Creamy Any Vegetable Soup show you how to make the food without worrying about having the right ingredients or mastering complicated techniques. Filled with mouthwatering photographs of each recipe as well as showing John in his kitchen with his wife and four sons, My Family Table captures the spontaneity, intimacy, and fun of home-cooking and will inspire the nation back to the family table.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

John Besh is a chef and a native son dedicated to the culinary riches of southern Louisiana. In his restaurants, entrepreneurial pursuits, and public activities, he preserves and promotes ingredients, techniques, and heritage one mouthwatering dish at a time.

Besh grew up in southern Louisiana and has set the benchmark for fine dining in New Orleans. Each of his eight acclaimed restaurants (August, Besh Steak, Luke, La Provence, American Sector, The Soda Shop, Domenica and Luke San Antonio) celebrates the bounty and traditions of the region.

From the outset of his career, Besh's talent and drive have earned kudos: Food and Wine magazine named him one of the "Top 10 Best New Chefs in America," and his flagship restaurant, August, was featured in Gourmet magazine's "Guide to America's Best Restaurants" and "America's Top 50 Restaurants." Besh won the James Beard Award for Best Chef of the Southeast in 2006 and received Food Arts' Silver Spoon Award in 2009 for revitalizing the culinary legacy of New Orleans.

Besh's devotion to local ingredients and cuisine also extends to his entrepreneurial projects, including the creation of Besh Restaurant Group Catering; a line of gourmet products; the publication of his first cookbook, My New Orleans (Andrews McMeel Publishing, October 2009); and a follow-up cookbook, My Family Table (Andrews McMeel Publishing, November 2011).

Besh is a frequent guest chef on NBC's Today Show and has appeared on top programs on The Food Network and the Sundance Channel.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing (November 1, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1449407870
• ISBN-13: 978-1449407872
• Product Dimensions: 11.2 x 9.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,915 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #29 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Culinary Arts & Techniques
  • #35 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Regional & International > U.S. Regional

More About the Author

John Besh is a chef and a native son dedicated to the culinary riches of southern Louisiana. In his restaurants, entrepreneurial pursuits, and public activities, he preserves and promotes ingredients, techniques, and heritage one mouth-watering dish at a time.

Besh grew up in southern Louisiana and has set the benchmark for fine dining in New Orleans - a town whose identity is bound to its food. Each of his eight acclaimed restaurants (August, Besh Steak, Lüke, La Provence, American Sector, The Soda Shop, Domenica and Lüke San Antonio) celebrates the bounty and traditions of the region.

From the outset of his career, Besh's talent and drive have earned him continuous kudos: Food & Wine named him one of the "Top 10 Best New Chefs in America" and his flagship restaurant August has featured on the late great Gourmet magazine's "Guide to America's Best Restaurants" and "America's Top 50 Restaurants." Local publications keeping close tabs on the dining scene, like The Times-Picayune and New Orleans City Business, have applauded all his other restaurants as they have won the hearts and palates of discriminating diners. He won the James Beard Award for Best Chef of the Southeast in 2006, and was awarded Food Arts' Silver Spoon Award in 2009 for revitalizing the culinary legacy of New Orleans. John Besh is a frequent guest chef on the NBC Today Show and has appeared on top programs on The Food Network and the Sundance Channel.

Besh's devotion to local ingredients and cuisine also extends to his entrepreneurial projects, including the creation of Besh Restaurant Group Catering; the launch of a line of gourmet products; the publication of his first cookbook, My New Orleans (Andrews McMeel Publishing, October 2009) and the follow-up cookbook, My Family Table (Andrews McMeel Publishing, November 2011).

A former U.S. Marine, Besh is proud to have partnered with Baton Rouge-based emergency reconstruction specialists Arkel International, for which he creates high quality ready-to-eat meals for distribution to thousands of emergency response teams and sustained strategic operations in the U.S. and around the world; the novel initiative promotes the Gulf Coast's food culture as it elevates the Louisiana economy. In recognition of such far-reaching contributions, the Louisiana Restaurant Association named him Restaurateur of the Year in 2008.

His sense of culinary and cultural stewardship and responsibility led him to create the John Besh Foundation in 2011, and the Chefs Move! scholarship program, which awards a scholarship to a minority student in New Orleans who has shown promise in the culinary arts. Another initiative of the Foundation is a micro-loan program to local farmers.

Whether served as far afield as North Africa or the Middle East, or by his own hands in one of his New Orleans restaurants, a meal created by John Besh is a thoughtful, flavorful, meaningful delight.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

52 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THE family cookbook for the first part of this millennium, November 7, 2011

By 

Jesse Kornbluth "Head Butler" (New York) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: My Family Table: A Passionate Plea for Home Cooking (Hardcover)

We gave away 50 cookbooks the other week.

Now I see we could also have given away "The Joy of Cooking."

What? Eighteen million copies of "The Joy of Cooking" have been sold since it was published in 1936. (Correction: Irma Rombauer, a widow, was the first to publish it --- to self-publish it --- in 1931.) There is no more classic cookbook in America. Even restaurants use it. What could possibly replace it?

For the America of the 2010s: "My Family Table: A Passionate Plea for Home Cooking," by John Besh.

Besh, for those who have not had dinner in New Orleans recently, is the movie-star-handsome Louisiana homeboy who has, at a tender age, built a six-restaurant empire. He was a Marine who kept up with foodie journals as he led troops in the first Gulf War. He is still married to his first wife. He has four kids.

After Katrina, Besh was everywhere, talking up his city. He produced a terrific cookbook: "My New Orleans." Then he started to simplify. And to listen to his wife (never a bad idea), who said, "Yeah, but what about our kids?"

So, at last, a family-friendly cookbook, short on cooking time, shorter on preservatives and junk food substitutes. A book for the way we live now? Some chapter titles: "Sunday Supper," "School Nights," "Breakfast with My Boys," "Barbeque Wisdom" and "Fried Chicken (& Other Classics)."
Here are ten reasons to fall in love with this book:

1) The first recipe is "Risotto Almost Anything."

2) The second recipe is "Creamy Any Vegetable Soup."

3) The third recipe is "Simple Meat Ragout for Any Pasta."

4) The fourth recipe is "The Perfect Frittata."

5) The fifth recipe is "Curried Anything."

Getting the idea? Simple fare. Simply presented as master recipes, 140 in all.

6) Good advice. In a Roast Chicken recipe: "Pan drippings are pure gold. Any time you strain the liquid from the vegetables [from the roasting pan], you'll have equal proportions of fat and natural juice. Refrigerate that for a day, and the fat will solidify and rise to the top. Remove the chicken fat and save it separately to use for making a roux or sautéing vegetables. The strained juices make a natural sauce for roast chicken, or add them to a soup for a great hit of flavor."

7) He's not scared of butter. In a recipe for mashed potatoes that serves ten people: an entire pound.

8) For Chicken Fricassee, he rejects skinless and boneless birds: "Not only is the flavor brought out by browning with the skin on, but the bone is the source of so much of the deep flavor of the fricassee."

9) In an American cookbook, a recipe for pho, the Vietnamese soup.

10) The final recipe is for Lemon Ice Box Pie.

In the acknowledgments, Besh writes: "If asked what my last meal would be, I'd reply, "Any Sunday supper at home, cooked with love, for people I love."

With this cookbook, what other answer is possible

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The true meaning of food, November 7, 2011

By 

Mark "Mark" (Florida panhandle) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: My Family Table: A Passionate Plea for Home Cooking (Hardcover)

John Besh reminds us that the ultimate pleasure from a dining experience is the people with whom you share the meal. Chef Besh reminds us to make the memories of a lifetime around the family table.

The recipes are really good and easy to follow. But, take the book as it was intended: A guide to bring your family together with a wonderful meal, great conversation, and memories of a lifetime

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars EXCELLENT!, December 8, 2011

By 

hotpink - See all my reviews

This review is from: My Family Table: A Passionate Plea for Home Cooking (Hardcover)

As an owner of 350 plus cookbooks, it takes a lot to to impress me in a cookbook..that being said, I am simply blown away with this book. So much care, time and passion went into these recipes, that you almost feel that you are one with the book. It's like reading a novel, only to realize it never has to end. Beautiful, awesome and inspiring. Thank you, Mr. Besh.