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(Paperback)
200 recipes inspired by the small family restaurants of France celebrate a return to generous, full-flavored cooking. Bistro is warm, bistro is family. Bistro is robust soups and rustic salads, wine-scented stews, bubbling gratins, and desserts from a grandmother's kitchen. Bistro is everyday china and elbows on the table and second helpings. It is best friends over for no particular reason. Bistro is earthy, not fuss; easy, not painstaking. And BISTRO COOKING presents no-nonsense, inexpensive, soul-satisfying cuisine inspired by the neighborhood restaurants of France.
With 200 recipes, plus menus and quotes, BISTRO COOKING features not only bistro owners in the kitchen, but French housewives, farmers, winemakers, breadbakers, and many others who contribute to bistro as a way of life.
"Patricia Wells' wonderful naturalness, openness, and honesty are in perfect harmony with the simple, delicious fare she celebrates in BISTRO COOKING . . . her enthusiasm and joy are reflected on every page of this fine book, and happily we are all the beneficiaries." -JACQUES PEPIN
MENU
LEFT BANK BISTRO; TABLE FOR TWO
Familiar bistro fare, a menu designed to celebrate romance, love, or simply the fact that you're alive and well. With this, try a Saint-Veran or a Macon-Villages.
Saucisson Chaud Pommes a L'Huile
Warm Poached Sausage with Potato Salad
Canard aux Olives Chez Allard
Chez Allard's Roast Duck with Olives
Tarte aux Pommes a la CrSme
Golden Cream and Apple Tart
Here are 200 recipes inspired by the neighborhood restaurants of France, adapted and tested for the American table.
Bistro cooking is currently the rage, and the author of The Food Lover's Guide to Paris (Workman, 1988. 2d ed.) and . . . to France (Workman, 1987) is just the person to write about it. Wells has collected recipes from bistros all over France, as well as adapting classics and creating some new dishes of her own. This is real food, simple but not without sophistication, usually uncomplicated, and always delicious: Watercress and Potato Soup, L'Ami Louis's famed Roast Chicken, a Tarte Tatin of pears. With a text that is a pleasure to read, as always, and 200 recipes for what is really ``French home cooking at its best,'' Wells's latest is highly recommended.
More Reviews and RecommendationsPatricia Wells is the author of The Food Lover’s Guide to Paris, The Food Lover’s Guide to France, Bistro Cooking, Simply French, and Trattoria.
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August 11, 2009: I did not find a recipe that I wanted to cook, perhaps because I already had numerous similar recipes. So if you do not have bistro type recipes, then I think you could find a number of easy to prepare meals that would be tasty. The book is easy to use and well organized. Give it a try.
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July 24, 2001: Patricia Wells' recipes are clear, straightforward, easy to prepare and taste delicious. These recipes are from the very best bistros in all parts of France; authentic and very tasty. The best dishes include: roast Provencal tomatoes, simple potato gratins, a magnificent seven-hour braised leg of lamb, the simplest mussel dish ever, and a very versatile rabbit and mustard sauce.