PATRICIA WELLS AT HOME IN PROVENCE: Recipes Inspired By Her Farmhouse In France [Paperback]

Patricia Wells (Author), Robert Freson (Photographer)

Book Description

Release date: October 19, 1999

For the past fifteen years, Patricia Wells has been carrying on a love affair with a region of France, a centuries-old farmhouse, and a cuisine. Provence is uniquely blessed with natural beauty as well as some of the world's most appealing foods and liveliest wines Wells's culinary skills have transformed the signature ingredients of this quintessential French countryside into recipes so satisfying and so exciting that they will instantly become part of your daily repertoire.

Here are over 175 recipes from Wells's farmhouse kitchen, including whole chapters on salads, vegetables, pasta, and bread There are simple but imaginative "palate openers," such as Tuna Tapenade and Curried Zucchini Blossoms, and soul-satisfying soups, with such delights as Monkfish Bouillabaisse with Aroli, Wells's own brilliant interpretation of a Provencal classic. When it comes to meat and poultry, Wells offers earthy daubes, the slow-simmered stews so beloved by the French, and such melt-in-your-mouth delicacies as Butter-Roasted Herbed Chicken You will savor Wells's fish and shellfish creations with recipes like Seared Pancetta-Wrapped Cod. And no meal would be complete without a delight from the treasure trove of desserts here, including Cherry-Almond Tart and Winemaker's Grape Cake.

Illustrated with famed photographer Robert Fréson's captivating pictures, Patricia Wells at Home in Provence is a book you'll want to revisit time and again.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Tomato clafoutis, herb-cured filet of beef Carpaccio, garlic family soup, Catalan tuna daube: these and 171 other recipes pour off the pages of this sumptuous coffee-table cookbook by the author of Bistro Cooking and Simply French. Wells concentrates on coaxing the utmost flavor out of simple, fresh food, and her French recipes are not all swimming in cream, oils, and fats: the filet, for example, profits not from a heavy sauce but from being wrapped for two days in tarragon, parsley, basil, thyme, and salt. In a couple of places Wells even commits the heresy, for a French-style chef, of switching a red wine used to simmer meat to a white wine. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Patricia Wells. Scribner, $40 (352p) ISBN 0-684-81569-9 Relaxed and unfailingly enticing, this superb collection of 175 recipes will make readers feel as comfortable in their kitchens as its accomplished author is at Chanteduc, her 18th-century farmhouse in northern Provence. Wells (Bistro Cooking; Simply French) is not the first to underscore the appeal of simple, fresh food, but she coaxes new tiers of flavor from many of the dishes here by her creative arrangements of basic ingredients. Instead of the standard cherry clafoutis, for example, she offers Tomato Clafoutis as appetizer or Chanteduc Clafoutis, made with mixed fruits, for dessert. Herb-Cured Filet of Beef Carpaccio, in which the filet, wrapped for two days in tarragon, parsley, basil, thyme and salt, attains a savory goodness with surprising ease. The True Salad Fan's Salad, composed of finely chopped tops of very young root vegetables (carrot, radish, beet, celery, etc.) with vinaigrette, and Garlic Family Soup (with leeks, onions, shallots and a head of garlic) fairly vibrate with an abundance of flavor. Catalan Tuna Daube marries anchovies, capers, onion, lemon zest, tomatoes and cubes of tuna steak in a memorable union. La Broufade is another outstanding daube, but with beef simmered in white wine instead of the usual red. Wells is sensible in her use of oils and fats, calling, for example, for whole milk and cream in judicious amounts. The diner's delight flows from the wisely prepared ingredients; the cook gets the added pleasure of reading Wells's warm, intelligent prose?and serving up excellence. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Scribner; First Fireside Edition edition (October 19, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684863286
• ISBN-13: 978-0684863283
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 1.1 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #121,832 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

56 of 57 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Simple, Intermediate French Cooking September 15, 2002

By "radelstein"

Format:Paperback

This cookbook is full of country food. Most of the flavors come from herbs and olive oil and the recipes call for very fresh ingredients, so they are fun right from the beginning. If you live near a farmer's market, these recipes will do justice to the produce there.

The recipes are laid out well, with measurements given in both metric and imperial notation, and there are plenty of substitutions listed for the more obscure ingredients. Be warned, though. . . this is not a beginner's cookbook. Each recipe uses a lot of ingredients and assumes a) that you know what all the ingredients are (lamb's lettuce? orange flower water? sheep cheese?) and b) that you know to prepare each ingredient to the point where it joins the rest of the recipe (grating zest, stemming thyme, cutting basil into chiffonade). The recipes also benefit from close reading and planning beforehand. For this reason, even though the style is "country food," I mostly end up using this book for somewhat fancier dinners.

Once you've started, though, the resulting food is truly superb. No one has ever complained when fed a dish from this book. The Tomato Clafoutis is a summer standard at my place. I served the Winemaker's Grape Cake at a party today, and it was gone in fifteen minutes. There is also a nice section at the back for sauces, relishes, homemade liquors and pantry items called for in the main body of the book. These recipes are simple and keep for a while, so if you are in a place where you can't nip out to the local French-Arab market for preserved lemons, you can put your own up for when you need them.

A word to the wise, though. Spring for a hardbound edition. Although the paperback is lovely, the binding is terrible.... The spine glue is weak, and your pages will start falling out in clumps, starting with the two glossy photo sections. It started to fall apart the moment I opened the book, and it just can't hack the heavy kitchen use that cookbooks tend to get. Read more ›

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Inspirational! Down to Earth! Delicious! June 14, 1999

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

We spent 1 week in Provence this year, and have become so attached to it! Having coming back to California I've realized that with the strong climatic connections, we can adapt our life a bit and relive our experiences. This cookbook is wonderful - I now know why Patricia cooks for friends all of the time - I have made so many of her recipes we can hardly eat it all! I have visited our own farmers market and have found such pleasure re-enacting our visits to the markets in Provence. Especially easy for the working wife/mother are the fish wrapped in pancetta, and the Pasta with Roquefort/lemon zest/rosemary. I slow-roasted big red onions this weekend, and am preserving lemons, and planning on doing the salt-cured olives, plus trying the brioche recipe, and on and on and on!!! Thank you Patiricia for this book!

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Appealing to all of the senses August 13, 2004

By Lynn Harnett TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

In luscious pictures (by Robert Freson), recipes and anecdotes, "Patricia Wells At Home In Provence" contributes enthusiastically to America's love affair with the place. Seasonal freshness is paramount and Wells prefers her meats and fish whole and unboned. Organized by course, Recipes include tips for storage, techniques, accompaniments and wines.

Many recipes are simple - a "caviar" made with black olives and butter, Goat Cheese Gratin ("pizza without the crust"), raw Grated Beet Salad, Quick Chicken Lemon Soup, Potatoes Roasted in Sea Salt, Lemon-Thyme Lamb Chops.

Others require a bit more time - Beef and White Wine Daube From Arles with Anchovies and Capers, Chanteduc Rabbit with Garlic and Preserved Lemons, Sea Bass in Parchment with Warm Pistou.

One of the nicest aspects of Wells style is her penchant for describing techniques and the reasoning behind them - from the action of citrus in a seviche to filleting a fish to blanching olives or cutting up a rabbit.

A delightful treat for sensuous cooks.

24 of 28 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Rich, Rewarding Source of French / Mediteranean Recipes March 12, 2004

By B. Marold HALL OF FAMETOP 100 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

When I saw that Patricia Wells was having a new book published in Spring, I began, after several months of procrastinating, to review a series of her books, especially since the new book seems to overlap the book I am about to review in this MS.

Wells is high in the pantheon of distaff culinary journalist / teachers, on a par with Ann Willen and somewhat less well known than the great Julia Child and Elizabeth David. This book on `home cooking' in the Provence region of France falls, it seems, at the end of a series headed by the book `Simply French' which expounds on the cuisine of Joel Robuchon. This volume covers the high-end `haute cuisine' end of the spectrum. A recent book, `The Paris Cookbook' covers the less Olympian subject of cooking by Paris bistros, restaurants, and purveyors. This is closer to Child's classic subject, `la cuisine Bourgeoisie'. The subject of this review reflects cooking done by Wells herself in Provence, based on the influence of local sources and her own invention. It is a combination of Curnonsky's `la cuisine Regionale', and `la cuisine Improvisee'.

Since many, if not most of the insights into cooking in this book can be traced to the earlier book on Robuchon, it was harder to identify the value of this book in its own right. But, I think I can safely say that this volume stands on it's own two feet by combining the simplicity of home cooking with the healthy ingredients of the Mediterranean ingredients and the cachet of Provence, being an intersection of some of the best of both France and Italy.

My strongest visceral reaction to these recipes is the wealth of things to do with common, inexpensive ingredients such as potatoes, celery, carrots, and tomatoes. My next delight was the variety of bread recipes.... The star of this act was a version of brioche that is based on olive oil rather than butter. The reputation of butter has undergone something of a revival since this book was published in 1996, but if you have gotten into the habit of looking for ways to have olive oil to replace butter, this is a recipe for you.

Like all of her other books, this volume's organization follows that most classic of orders, with chapters on:

Appetizers, Salads, Soups, Vegetables, Pasta, Bread, Fish and Shellfish, Poultry and Game, Meat, Desserts, and Pantry.

As the Wells homestead is a fair distance from the Mediterranean, the coverage of fish and shellfish is a bit light, but this shortfall is more than made up by other chapters, especially the chapters on vegetables and pasta, which broadens ones range defined by classic southern Italian cuisine. The most interesting seafood discovery is Wells' combining mint and crabmeat. My Baltimorean friends are rolling their eyes already.

The star of the chapter on meats is the daube of either beef or lamb. This is a fascinating technique with a French name which, however, seems to be characteristic of northern Europe. German dishes like sauerbraten use the daube technique, but, to my knowledge, there is no daube style dish in any Italian cuisine. A daube is basically applied to a dish that has marinated for a long time, a day or more, in a sauer medium, either wine or vinegar. Browning and braising follows the marinade. The recipe may even call for a further day's resting to mix together the flavors.

As with her other books, this volume includes recommendations for wine to serve with each savory dish. Unlike the very specific suggestions in `Simply French', these are fairly generic, simple enough for the least enlightened of liqueur store clerks to interpret. For those who live and die by the very best choices of wine, specifics are included with the general suggestions.

As books on French provincial cooking go, this book is at the opposite end of the spectrum defined by Elizabeth David's classic in that all instructions and descriptions of ingredients are detailed and crystal clear. Virtually everything in all the dishes should be available at a good urban supermarket.

My only complaint, which I bring up only because Ms. Wells is a culinary teacher as well as a journalist, is the inaccuracy of conversion between pounds and kilograms. A kilogram is 2.2 pounds, but Ms. Wells consistently treats the conversion as two (2) pounds to the kilogram. Fortunately, such approximations do not appear in the baking recipes, where she is extra contentious about the accuracy of her metric to English conversions of weights and volumes.

I strongly recommend this book to anyone who loves French or Mediterranean cuisine and who needs a new source of recipes from these sources. I strongly recommend it to anyone who loves to read about food. I recommend it to anyone who cooks. There will be several simple recipes here for inexpensive ingredients that I know you will enjoy. Read more ›