Product Description

Book buyers and diners alike have marveled at the incredible food that emerges from the kitchen of Charlie Trotter's world-renowned Chicago restaurant and have bought over 150,000 copies of his cookbooks. Now, readers can step behind the scenes and take a lesson from the master himself. A fine-cuisine cooking class for the home chef, Kitchen Sessions is the companion volume to Trotter's thirteen-part public television cooking series. Each episode is a personalized introduction to an essential ingredient - from salmon to chocolate - complete with a wide range of glorious recipes, 120 in all. Kitchen Sessions demystifies the professional techniques and tricks behind Trotter's show-stopping recipes, making them accessible for home cooks.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #228341 in Books
• Published on: 1999-01-01
• Released on: 1999-01-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 240 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780898159974
• Condition: USED - VERY GOOD
• Notes:
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Amazon.com Review
In The Kitchen Sessions, chef and restaurateur Charlie Trotter makes his unique way with food available to home cooks in dishes somewhat less esoteric than those in his other cookbooks.

Trotter compares his cooking with jazz improvisation. His Portobello Mushroom Vinaigrette, for example, bursts from the Salsify and Pickled Mushroom Salad like a high, clear note that lingers, then falls back into other flavors in this riff on salad. Like good jazz, his dishes offer original contrasts and harmonies. As with music, they speak to the intellect and the spirit as well as the senses.

This book offers more recipes than the TV version of The Kitchen Sessions. Here, you get six dishes under each topic of the 13-show series, while Trotter demonstrated only two on camera, in episodes dedicated to soups, salads, salmon, pasta, pork, poultry, and more. A simple choice would be Indian Curry-Braised Catfish. It involves a caramelized sauté of onions, ginger, apple, pepper, and Indian spices, all combined with an Apricot Curry sauce. The fish is simmered in this mixture and served over basmati rice.

Cooks with a reasonable degree of skill can follow even the most involved recipes, because the individual steps and ingredients required are familiar. With some patience, it's easy enough to re-create Trotter's Bing Cherry Brown Sundae with Bittersweet Chocolate-Kona Coffee Sauce, baking the cherry-studded brownies and the ultrarich ice cream, simmering the three sauces, and whipping fresh cream with cinnamon, then poaching fresh cherries in one of the sauces. Timewise, it's a project, but oh, the results!

Color photos and pencil sketches help you understand and construct many dishes. A glossary helps you understand culinary terms like chiffonade--herbs or greens cut into fine ribbons. All that's missing is the fun of seeing Trotter come out and perform a handstand, as he sometimes does at his Chicago restaurant. Cook from this book, and your lucky guests will feel that's what you have done for them. --Dana Jacobi

From Publishers Weekly
The popular Chicago restaurateur is back, and if the format here is somewhat smaller and the price lower than that of Charlie Trotter's Seafood and ...Vegetables, his culinary style hasn't changed. A companion to next year's 13-part public TV series, these 79 recipes reflect Trotter's signature flair for combining tastes with irrepressible zeal. While not beyond the grasp of most home cooks, the complexity of many dishes, such as Pinwheel of Scallop with Cumin-Scented Fettuccine and Heirloom Tomato Sauce or Roasted Cornish Game Hen with Potato Pave and Gingered Mustard Sauternes Sauce, can be daunting. International flavors abound, from Catfish Tempura with Lemongrass-Jalapeno-Ponzu Dipping Sauce to the French-accented Lobster en Barigoule. Trotter stresses that ingredients are interchangeable, but when he notes that Duck Breast Salad with Wilted Greens, Warm Goat Cheese and Walnut Vinaigrette works well with beef, he doesn't suggest what cut of beef to use or how to prepare it. Still, with such recipes as Mediterranean-Inspired Beef Tenderloin with Quinoa and Red Wine-Black Olive Vinaigrette (which calls for the meat to be larded with eggplant, poblano chile, red bell pepper and anchovies), Trotter continues to create intriguing meals. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Trotter's first PBS series will start in early 1999, and no doubt the many fans of his best-selling cookbooks (Charlie Trotter's Desserts, LJ 10/15/98, etc.) can hardly wait. Here is the companion volume to The Kitchen Sessions, a name chosen to conjure up the spontaneity of a jazz session, with the creativity directed toward food rather than music. With that in mind, Trotter suggests variations and alternative ingredients in the headnotes for most of the recipes, which are grouped into 13 chapters by either ingredient or menu category. In addition to the four recipes prepared on each show, there are two bonus recipes per chapter. Although the recipes are hardly uncomplicated, they are less involved than the dishes from Trotter's Chicago restaurant, showcased in his previous books. For most collections.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Another Inspirational Book by Chef Trotter
The Kitchen Series with Charlie Trotter is an inspirational book. The photos are glossy, beautiful, textural, and alluring. The recipes are innovative and they work.

I made one of the more elaborate recipes (Chicken Dumplings with a Stir-Fry of Shiitake Mushrooms, Water Chestnuts, and Mung Bean Sprouts in a Ginger-Soy-Hijiki Sauce) for a group of eight. It took a lot of time to prepare, but the reward came when my guests practically fainted from the gorgeous flavors.

Another recipe met with stunning reviews from my guests (Pumpkin Soup with Pheasant Breast and Fried Ginger), although I did serve it as a main course, and not as a soup.

Recipes are broken out into groups: Soup; Salad; Lobster; Scallop; Catfish; Salmon; Tuna; Pasta; Poultry; Pork; Duck; Beef; Dessert; including a Pantry section explaining how to make herb oils and other sauces used throughout the book.

I also purchased the Kitchen Sessions video set and became glued to the TV when I watched them. The videos are exciting and Chef Trotter's enthusiasm will send you off into your own kitchen to try it for yourself.

Revising my review
On January 7, 2000, I reviewed this book and wrote that I had trouble with two of the recipes that I tried. I decided to give this book another try, and had great success with the following recipes, since they were more straightforward and didn't require flipping to the back of the book for sub recipes. The grilled swordfish and somen noodle salad was delicious, mussels and linguini in garlic-mussel broth was excellent, roasted pork tenderloin with red cabbage-- yummy, and poached salmon with noodles, fennel and apple outstanding! I'm giving this book a revised rating of four stars and am trotting off to my bookstore to check out some of Charlie Trotter's other cookbooks.

Passion for Food
The Kitchen Sessions With Charlie Trotter was given to me as a gift. The initial thumb through brought chills down my spine-I can never do this! Instead of reading the recipes(first-as I usually do), I actually read the forward and statements by Trotter. There, I found the lessons! Trotter's perspective on food challenge you to use the book as a blueprint, not a tablet from on high. This was the first cookbook I've read that has a wide angle focus on the joy and fun of food.