Pedaling Through Provence Cookbook [Paperback]

Sarah Leah Chase (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 10, 1995

There's no better way to get to know the land, the people, and the food-especially the food-of Provence than on a bicycle. It's an experience that Sarah Leah Chase, author of Nantucket Open-House Cookbook and Cold-Weather Cooking and, since college, a bicycle tour Guide for Butterfield & Robinson, celebrates in Pedaling Through Provence Cookbook. Like its sister book, Pedaling Through Burgundy, this personal cookbook contains a select but dazzling selection of recipes and is illustrated throughout in full color. Peppered with anecdotes, travel writing, cooking tips, and wine notes, it brings to life the sunny, olive-oil-based cuisine of Southern France: Sweet Potato Aoli, Roasted Eggplant Soup with Rouille, five lamb dishes including Roast Rack of Lamb with Lavender Honey and Herbes de Provence, and Bountiful Berry Clafoutis.

36,000 copies in print.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

A poetic love song to Provence. Sarah Leah Chase's approach is accessible and enthusiastic, as she offers us a full-flavored, technicolor tapestry of all that this blessed land has to offer.(Patricia Wells, author of The Food Lover's Guide to France and Bistro Cooking)

PEDALING THROUGH PROVENCE is a food lover's dream, a marriage of sun-blessed cuisine and Mediterranean charms. And for imaginative cookbook author Sarah Leah Chase, it is a source of culinary magic, from the fragrant fields of wild herbs that she celebrates in Roast Rack of Lamb with Lavender Honey to the market-day memories simmered into a Soupe au Pistou. PEDALING THROUGH PROVENCE is her personal collection of mor ethan 95 Provencal recipes, inspired by countryside travels a bicyclette.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Workman Publishing Company (January 10, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0761102337
• ISBN-13: 978-0761102335
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #694,476 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A culturally adept, culinary delight!, June 18, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Pedaling Through Provence Cookbook (Paperback)

This book will absorb you into the culture, the setting, and the food, in a way that you will feel you were there yourself. Sarah Leah Chase is great at giving proper cooking tips to ensure success with her recipes. I've tried many myself, and I've loved them all so far. It's not only pleasant to follow her clear instructions, but it's a learning experience in itself. Every recipe is introduced with a specific time and place of her life experienced in Southern France. I have learned about the culture, the people, the "paysage". Every time I finish one of her recipes, I feel like marking the place on my "to visit" vacation list. You will fall in love, not only with the food, but with its quality of a rounded learning experience as well.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful prose, but sometimes short on directions, February 17, 1999

By 

L. Miller "Laurie" (Lyons, Colorado) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Pedaling Through Provence Cookbook (Paperback)

What a beautiful book, for beautiful cuisine. I have tried many of the recipes, and although they taste good, I have found a few 'glitches' -- for instance, everything sticks to the pan, or the recipe calls for ingredients but then the directions never say when to use them!

I am now living in Maussane - one of the towns mentioned in the book - it is nice to have the names of the restaurants so I can taste first-hand without having to cook!

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Our "most-oft-used" cookbook, May 21, 2003

By 

James Jr A. Batson "Active Reader" (No. Andover, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Pedaling Through Provence Cookbook (Paperback)

Bottom line: this is absolutely worth having.

If you look at the food stains on all our cookbooks, this one will have the most food stains on it -- meaning it's the one we refer to the most. The recipes are very provencal, emphasizing fresh ingredients, well matched and well prepared.

But there are some pleasant contrasts to many other provencal cookbooks. Chase doesn't go overboard on obscure meats that you can't easily find in the US (or can't make for finicky dinner guests). Though not in any way designed to be a "health cookbook," the recipes are mostly all just fine when it comes to the health component. Like Jacques Pepin, it's light on saturated fats, but doesn't unnecessarily work to eliminate lovely things like olive oil & butter when needed to make things taste good.

Plus, it's the kind of cookbook that is full of little things that add huge amounts. Example: I have a dozen recipes in other books for Pissaladiere. But in Chase's, she adds a anchoiade spread under the onion topping that makes all the difference, and gets guests asking "What's that flavor in this? It's so good!"

The only time I read the prose (about biking) was when I bought the book. Lovely to read, nice context in which to place a cookbook. But in the end, buy this for the cooking contents.