Customer Reviews

Welcome to Michael's: Great Food, Great People, Great Party!

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I don't like to cook. At least in the past I didn't like to cook. But as I've gotten older and haven't had to cook for children anymore and with the advent of Top Chef, the television program that I love, I'm actually becoming curious about learning. So far all I do is study cookbooks and occasionally take a heartfelt stab at trying a recipe or two. It's a start.

Welcome to Michael's is an interesting cookbook because it's not just filled with scrumptious recipes, Michael also talks about the ingredients-the actual food that makes a dish great, rather than so-so. I found I had a new understanding about ingredients, their smell, freshness, color, crispness and the like. It makes a difference.

Michael's instructions were easy-to-follow and the photographs were not only beautiful, but contribute to helping the preparer `do it right.' Not all of the ingredients were those generally found in a kitchen (at least mine) but the end result (taste and appearance) make that extra trip to the market worthwhile.

My favorite recipes are: Jumbo Asparagus with a Seven-Minute Egg and Black Truffles. Oh, the black truffles! The Deep-Fried Soft-Shell Crabs with Ponzu Sauce and Asian Slaw (I didn't make but my mouth is watering) is a must make. The Grilled Copper River Sockeye Salmon with Fava Bean, White Corn, and Wild Mushroom Succotash is going to become my signature dish, I just know it. Now the Roast Chicken with Herb Butter is mouth-watering good. Everyone at the table loved it. A dessert to die for is the Flourless Chocolate Cake and the Cinnamon Rolls will be my downfall. Tomorrow morning I'm treating myself to Michael's Eggs Benedict, and I know I will be in heaven. Bring on that Hollandaise Sauce!

Welcome to Michael's just might help me with an attitude adjustment about cooking. I've already tried several of the recipes and have marked more for further attention.

Armchair Interviews says: Welcome to Michael's is a cookbook for everyone!

The best thing about this book is that it opens your mind and gets you out of rut. I am a depressingly constant amateur and yet still found many of these recipes as simple as they were unique. The grilled marinated quail was a huge hit for a nice family dinner. And it seemed as though I had spent a day cooking and a lifetime in culinary school by the results. It took less than an hour to make the quail with side dishes. There aren't any time estimates with the recipes so you either have to be good at estimating or have all day. Recipes come with "tips" and recommendations on accompaniments, a lifesaver for the newly culinary. I now know how to open raw oysters! Some of the ingredients are a little hard to find: pan seared squab with huckleberries, onion confit and wild rice. I'm not going to lie- I didn't know what squab is nor where to find huckleberries. But it sounds delicious right? That being said, most of the recipes are "down to earth elegance". I highly recommend this book if you are like me and want to be a unique cook for an appreciative family, but don't have the time to go to chief school. Or google 'squab'.

Michael's book oozes with his tenacity for food. What makes each menu item taste even better are the accompanying anecdotes describing the nature and origin of the dish.

I purchased it for my mother for Christmas, and she has called or e-mailed me frequently to share a Michael insight or memory, as she has followed his career with enthusiasm and even attended a workshop of his at Michigan State University.

While this book is not your standard measurements and prepartions cook book, what you get out of it is more than dinner. You get inspiration, and the smiling face of Michael McCarty.


Cheers,

Kelsey

I,m very happy with the purchase of this book. It was sent promptly and was in excellent condition! I'll be eating dinner at Michaels in Santa Monica in February for my birthday! I can't wait, I'm sure it will be everything I expect it to be.

Every few weeks, I meet friends at Michael's Restaurant. That's the sort of thing you do when you're a sole proprietor of a media shop in Manhattan --- you go where the Kool Kids go, just to remind them that you're alive.

And then you have lunch.

If that sounds like an inverted set of priorities, you're not a New Yorker. We get the reality: Michael's is two establishments in one. The first is a media cafeteria for the extremely powerful and their court jesters. The other is a damn good restaurant. Everybody talks about the cafeteria. The restaurant is noted mostly in passing. Both are misunderstood.

The powerhouse lunchroom is misunderstood because it is exclusive without being snooty. Michael's has white tablecloths and huge flower arrangements and walls covered with Hockneys and Diebenkorns, and it is annoyingly expensive and getting more so with every menu change, but you can go there, even if you're Nobody. You may not get to sit in the fabled front room. But over time, as you get to know the staff and/or make something of yourself, your lot may improve. This is in dramatic contrast to another exclusive lunchroom, the now-departed Mortimer's, where innocents routinely entered an empty dining room only to have the owner peer dismissively over his glasses and announce that his establishment was full.

The restaurant is misunderstood because so many people go there to rub shoulders with peers and would-be peers that they barely notice the food. It is possible to eat well here, but this is not a clientele that likes to chow down. If ever a restaurant should have a compost heap, it's Michael's.

Neither misunderstanding is fatal. Michael's has been a popular restaurant in Santa Monica for 30 years and has owned the power lunch business in Manhattan for almost two decades. That is not a record we will see broken in our lifetimes, and while it takes a village to raise a restaurant, most of the credit should go to the founder, Michael McCarty.

McCarty is such an exuberant guy --- "Party on, dude!" is his signature line --- that he's the restaurant's biggest misunderstanding of all. Alice Waters usually gets the major ink for inventing New American Cuisine, but McCarty was right there with her. And he has the credentials to prove it. After a privileged childhood of parties at summer resorts and ski retreats and an apprenticeship as a teenage gourmet at New York's better restaurants, he rushed off to Europe. He returned with a Certificate d'Aptitude Professionelle from the Ecole Hoteliere de Paris, a Grand Diplome from the Cordon Bleu, and a diploma from the Academy du Vin --- and a vision.

His vision was simple. He would streamline the eternally elegant recipes of France and prepare them using the freshest ingredients in America, then he'd serve his food in a room that was lovely but relaxed. As he puts it: "My cooking is presented simply, dramatically, with none of the fussiness you find in many fancy kitchens. Even those dishes that contain butter and cream, I use the light hand that modern sensibilities demand."

What McCarty does not say: He's a Rabelaisian spirit, maybe even Falstaffian. Truffles? Pile them on! Fois gras? Thicker! So let's be clear: This is not your everyday cookbook. It's got some great twists on old favorites --- like the salad of goat cheese, beets and lettuce dressed with a white wine-dijon vinaigrette --- but for every grilled chicken with tarragon butter there's a recipe for grilled chicken with duck foie gras and morels. If you're not billing your life to your employer, you may have to restrain yourself here.

But this cookbook has charms beyond food. It's also a summary of Michael McCarty's philosophy. Given his success, his obvious happiness and his uncanny ability to make the most neurotic people on the planet feel at home, that philosophy merits your attention. And, for good measure, some of the regulars offer their Michael's stories, which are often as funny and irreverent as the owner.

A leader in the California Cuisine movement shares his tastes, preferences, technique and enthusiasm in a handsomely illustrated, well-written book of recipes and recommendations.