Customer Reviews

My French Kitchen: A Book of 120 Treasured Recipes

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It's full of beautiful pictures of provincial homes, open markets, antique doorknockers and iron work, cooking utensils... and the cutest little pig with a dirty snout. She also includes charming little narratives to go along with the recipes and shares childhood memories associated with the food she loves. It is worth buying for the wonderful photos alone.

There is a recipe for a flourless chocolate almond cake that I will attempt at the first opportunity, and one for coq au vin, which I think sounds marvelous for a chilly weekend meal in October. I'm in love!

Okay, we've read Chocolat. We've read Blackberry Wine, and we've read Five Quarters of the Orange. And from the beginning it's been obvious that foodie/author Joanne Harris is a frustrated cookbook writer. We've drooled at her descriptions of the magic and pleasure, the texture and taste, the power and the glory of special foods. Well, she's finally done it: Harris has collaborated with a real cookbook author, Fran Warde, and created a collection of family recipes. The onion soup and the `slow' fudge sauce are, so far, my favorites, but I've still got about 115 more of the 120 recipes to test.
Wonderful.

This book is beautiful.

You'll love looking at the photographs. But, what you will love more, especially if you love the combination of chocolate and nuts, is the "Gateau Charles", which is a flourless chocolate cake. I bake this cake [at least] once a week, for I like to eat a slice, daily. The cake is easy to prepare. (The recipe calls for the use of 70% chocolate. My suggestion, if you're in the United States, and if you can get your hands on it [the company is located in northern California], is to use the Scharfenberger brand of chocolate. No, I don't work for them; I'm just a "foodie".)

I cannot say enough wonderful things about this cookbook. People have mentioned the beautiful photos and yes, they are certainly there. The writing helps to weave a spell about the recipes. You are not just making a soup, but the soup her aunt used to make when...

The recipes will knock your socks off. The roasted tomato tart is worth the price of the book. My book club was blown away by the bluberry tart. A gluten intolerant guest was thrilled with Gateau Lawrence. (Flourless chocolate. Easy, intense, and will make you a legend among your friends). The soups are excellent too. Oh yes, and the cabbage pie (galette) I made just because it sounded so weird, that was wonderful too. The recipes seem to 'work' if you know what I mean. You may choose to reduce the butter and make adjustments, but they turn out beautifully as written.

One complaint and it is an issue of layout, not content. The recipe introductions are, for some mind boggling reason, printed in very light grey and can be hard to see. Probably the layout design person was in their early 20's with perfect vision! Pretty is nice, but books are meant to be read people!

I'm going to get her other cookbook too, while it's still in hard cover. Buy this. You will use the recipes and love them!

This is a very beautiful book. Get a cup of cafe au lait and read this book. You will feel like you took a mini-vacation to France, and visited Ms. Harris's French Kitchen. Beautifully photographed, and so many good recipes to try. Highly recommended! It would make a wonderful gift for anyone interested in France or cooking.

Who Can Resist a cookbook written by the author of Chocolat?
Come on...I couldn't resist. The book is a sumptous delight with loads of pictures of French food and French life. I sat down with a French press and read the book from cover to cover before deciding what to cook. The recipes and the writing are unpretentious and yet elegant--just as good French food should be. A great find.

This is an excellent cookbook. Even if you haven't read Joanne Harris' great books, this cookbook is filled with great simple-yet-elegant recipes and wonderful photos along the way.

My French Kitchen / 0-06-082094-2

I absolutely love Joanne Harris' writing and I absolutely love cookbooks, so it seemed like a perfect confluence of interests when I received this gorgeous book for Christmas. I couldn't wait to sit down and thumb through the recipes.

I was a little disappointed that there isn't more 'writing' in this book - it is, for the most part, simply another cookbook. There are a few heartwarming recollections scattered at the beginning of each section, but this isn't the Joanne Harris version of The Book Lover's Cookbook. I'm not sure why I was expecting it to be, but I was a tiny bit disappointed that the book doesn't include references or passages from Harris' books linked to the appropriate recipe, especially since her food-oriented writing style seems so suited to a cookbook collection. Oh well.

Unfortunately, I should have read the title with a little more literalism. I live in the southwest USA, and I'm afraid that even the biggest organic marketplace in the area doesn't provide fish as fresh as Harris' book recommends, and her many recipes for exotic meats are not likely to be tested in my kitchen any time soon - I have a hard enough time finding grass-fed beef, let alone wild rabbit and duck! The exotic French wines, gourmet cheeses, and heirloom vegetables also aren't located at my organic market. In addition, the addition of wine in most recipes causes a unique problem for me, personally, as I have a great deal of trouble digesting alcohol in almost any form. Ultimately, in my cultural insularity I simply forgot to realize that a *French* cookbook may likely contain wine in most of the included recipes!

In a way, it's really a shame that this book isn't more useful to me. The pictures are lovely and mouth-watering, and the recipe instructions are very simple. I'm not in the least bit upset with Ms. Harris - it's hardly her fault that her French recipes call for French ingredients that can't be located in my corner of the world and/or can't be digested by my own unique biological makeup. I just thought it might be useful to post a review here letting other people know. If you have access to fresh fish, duck, rabbit, French wine, heirloom vegetables, and gourmet cheeses, this is definitely a fantastic cookbook to utilize your bounty!

~ Ana Mardoll

Nice design and beautiful pictures to present most of the best and traditional recipes of french cooking...I'm french and I offered it especially to share it with my best american friends: now they can try the recipes by themself and enjoy simple good ones at home :-)

I bought this book a few days ago because i was suddenly really into wanting to make french cuisine.
I loved the front cover and after a quick flip through i was convinced to buy it.
I'm so glad i did!
The pictures are gorgeous and the writing is even better. The ingredient list is not long at all. Being a french recipe book, i expected long drawn out recipe lists and complicated procedures. But not at all!

The first thing i made was the coq au vin. Everyone loved it. I paired it with the sauteed potatoes (also in the book). Everyone loved them too! Since then ive made the warm potato salad and even changed the normal potatoes for sweet potato and it came out wonderfully. I even have substituted the white wine vinegar for lemon juice and it tasted amazing. So the people that have made reviews stating that the ingredients are hard to find, they can easily be substituted for something else!

The next things on my list to make from the DELICIOUS book are the flourless chocolate cake and blueberry tart!

On another note, the "why french women dont get fat cook book" is a GREAT accompaniment to this. Not for a diet book, but for the graet recipes and inspiration.

Buy the book and enjoy!!!
:)