Product Description

In 1956, Miles Davis’s legendary quintet went into the studio for a series of marathon recording sessions. The resulting albums, including Workin’ with the Miles Davis Quintet, are among the most influential in the jazz canon. Just over 30 years later, chef Charlie Trotter began staging his own nightly sessions, bringing the art of improvisation into the kitchen of his Chicago restaurant. Trotter continues to take inspiration from the jazz greats, using his mastery of tastes and textures to fashion brilliant, daring culinary compositions out of an ensemble of the finest ingredients.

Trotter’s award-winning PBS cooking show, The Kitchen Sessions, first presented the chef’s artistry to home cooks around the country, and now he’s back with a new 26-part series. In the companion volume, Trotter presents more than 80 recipes, arranged by ingredient themes that are fundamental to his cooking. Trotter sounds off the bass notes of root vegetables and squash in such dishes as Salsify Wrapped with Serrano Ham and Phyllo with Pears and Roasted Endive, and Zucchini and Duck Confit Gratin with Hazelnut Vinaigrette. He celebrates the summer bounty of corn and tomatoes through Halibut with Red Wine–Corn Sauce and Grits, and Tomato Tarts with White Anchovies and Caper Vinaigrette. For the last course, Trotter puts the spotlight on cheese desserts such as Honey Mascarpone Cannoli with Pine Nuts and Mint, and then presents a generous selection of chocolate- and fruit-based desserts. Workin' captures one of the world's most innovative chefs at the top of his form. Never have the results been more beautiful to behold and accessible to the avid home cook.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #759264 in Books
• Published on: 2004-09-01
• Released on: 2004-09-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Building on flavor themes with the precision of an architect or musician, Trotter is back with his second book of "Kitchen Sessions," after the resounding success of his first, which won a James Beard Book Award in 2000. Recipes combine the exotic with the ordinary (Beef and Barley Soup with Roasted Red Kuri Squash) or the exotic with the extraordinary (Salmon Roe-Potato Blini with Tobiko Wasabi Crème Fraiche and Osetra Caviar)—but all of them are quite amazing. Trotter organizes his recipes by the foundation layers that form each dish’s base flavor and main ingredient (onions, potatoes, fennel, corn, etc.). Some dishes, like Halibut with Red Wine-Corn Sauce and Yellow Corn Grits, fit into this structure successfully. Others, like Garlic Confit and Morel Ravioli with Red Wine-Olive Sauce, could easily fit into several sections. But even with the occasional recipe misfit, the book’s organization encourages cooks to think conceptually about food and flavors, a goal that few cookbooks achieve. The recipes are long and complex, often with five or more parts that are assembled on the plate: this is restaurant food, not ordinary home cooking. (Though Trotter gives an occasional substitution suggestion, he never explains exactly how to prepare the alternatives, nor does he make any suggestions on how to streamline dishes for home use.) A few techniques, like poaching salmon and tomatoes in olive oil, will delight advanced home cooks. And Jason Smith’s wine notes, included at the end of each recipe, are spot-on. All in all, Trotter has put together a difficult but alluring cookbook, one which fans of his restaurants (including a New York location scheduled to open in spring 2005) and his television show will relish.
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Review
Anyone who wants to understand American cuisine as it enters the 21st century must eat at Charlie Trotter'¬?s. . . . No restaurant in America comes closer to delivering a flawless total dining experience.-Wine Spectator, honoring Charlie Trotter'¬?s as America'¬?s Best Restaurant

From the Publisher
* The companion volume to the new PBS cooking show The Kitchen Sessions with Charlie Trotter, airing nationally beginning in April 2004.

* The first Kitchen Sessions with Charlie Trotter won the James Beard Award in 2000 for Best National T.V. Cooking Show, and the companion volume (60,000 copies sold) was named James Beard book of the year in the Chefs & Restaurants category.

* Illustrated with more than 40 full-color food photographs and extensive location photography.

Customer Reviews

Great Dishes. Great Inspiration. Small Practical Value
`Workin' More Kitchen Sessions With Charlie Trotter' is based on Charlie Trotter's latest PBS series where, according to Trotter `friend and colleague' Rochelle Smith, Trotter imitates Jazz greats by improvising savory dishes based on twelve (12) central ingredients, plus a series on desserts. Like so many celebrity chef cookbooks, the chef whose name is on the cover generally provides the ideas and may actually create the dishes in the kitchen, but it is the support team which actually writes the recipes, edits copy, tests, the recipes, and does just about every other activity involved in creating a book. As Trotter himself prepared these recipes on TV, we can be certain that he certainly had a lot to do with actually coming up with the recipes, so his creative contribution to the book is assured.

Trotter is easily one of the most creative and influential writing chefs in the country, along with Thomas Keller, Alfred Portale, Daniel Boulud, and Tom Colicchio. Unlike culinary businessmen such as Wolfgang Puck and trendsetter restaurateurs such as Alice Waters, these chefs create new cuisine and explain to all of us less talented what it is really like to be a creative chef in a fine dining establishment. With all of that, why am I so disappointed with this book?

For starters, it is important for me to say that I am convinced that virtually all the recipes in this book are about as original as they come and I am sure that they are about as tasty as the finest ingredients and the best culinary minds and hands can make them. There is not a single conventional spaghetti, paella, risotto, roasted chicken, crepe, omelet, Panini, or crostini recipe in the book. Virtually the only recognized name dish in the book is a cassoulet, but this is done in a very unconventional way. There are some soufflés and a paella inspired recipe here and there but nothing you will find in Tony Bourdain's excellent send off of bistro dishes. Thus, like John Coltrane's famous renditions of `My Favorite Things', these dishes simply have never been seen before, and it is quite possible Trotter will never make them again.

Here lies the germ of the problem. If these dishes are one off improvisations by a world class chef, what in the world give us any assurance that these dishes have any value whatsoever to the practical home cook? The problem is compounded by a few very pedestrian problems with the design of the book. For starters, the headnotes to each dish are in a small type with a very light ink. It was literally difficult for me to read these paragraphs. Second, the very imaginative organization of the recipes by a principle ingredient was largely meaningless, as almost every dish could have been made a set piece for any one of half a dozen ingredients. My favorite example is a truly fantastic looking dish made of a lamb tenderloin with a peanut sauce, ginger, scallions, onion, carrot, parsnip, bell peppers, and so on, with a touch of mizuna, tatsoi, and basil. If I were looking for something to do with a head of frisee or romaine or Boston lettuce and I was paging through the section on greens, this recipe would do absolutely nothing for me. Third, while the photographs of the completed dishes were as good or better than I've seen in most books, the `atmosphere' snaps were done in a very dark green shade where one's eyesight would have to be a lot better than mine to make the effort to appreciate what Herr Trotter was doing when the picture was taken. Fourth, this is obviously a book meant more for the coffee table than for laying open on the kitchen table. This may not be a serious complaint, as Thomas Keller has given us an even larger `Bouchon'; however, Keller's book is literally packed with familiar recipes which virtually all of us can reproduce to good effect. Trotter's book has no such recipes. Fifth, I think the author(s) really short-changed us in the pantry recipes. I am very suspicious of the stock recipes as their procedures are very short and they instruct us to chop vegetables and simmer these for up to six hours. Virtually every other expert I have seen puts whole or simply peeled and halved vegetables in a stock pot and simmers vegetables from one to three hours. I think Trotter's stock recipes in the hands of an amateur who does not have $100 chinois strainers on hand are recipes for very cloudy stocks.

Some of the clues that tell me that these are not recipes for mere mortals are the instructions to do a brunoise dice of seeded tomatoes. According to my trusty Larousse Gastronomique, a brunoise is a `minute dice'; generally giving cubes an eighth of an inch on a side. I challenge you to successfully brunoise the flesh of a tomato! A second case is when the instructions ask you to do a chiffonade of onions that have been baked for an hour. Trotter may be able to do this without a lot of thought but I am simply not up to these prep tasks.

These are simply not practical recipes for amateurs. There is a lot of inspiration here and there is a lot of very good use of American ingredients. This is purely a book for professionals and serious foodies. I will come back to this book for inspiration when I have the urge to create a recipe for artichokes, corn, fennel, greens, legumes, mushrooms, onions, potatoes, root vegetables, squash, tomatoes, or cheese, but I will pass on it when I want to do my next 100 family meals.

Like Trotter's book `Raw', I give this three stars not for the lack of great culinary skill behind the recipes but as a warning to look twice before laying out $40 for this book. Keller's `Bouchon' is a much better value for the money.

Cooking outside of the box; a great read and fabulous food
I've been reading and cooking from this book for a couple of weeks now, and thrilling myself (and my resident taste-tester spouse) with the results. I've learned something new from every recipe, and it has helped loosen up my own creative cooking juices and get me out of the "old standby" rut. Trotter takes standard techniques and turns them on their head. "Leek confit" soup swims around oil-poached salmon, and a Thai-style curry sauce takes on a new meaning when it is used in a braise of short ribs and served over herby, crusty roasted root vegetables. No, this cookbook is not for someone looking to whip up a meal in 20 minutes or less with what they have in the fridge. But there are lots of other cookbooks for that. These recipes are challenging but very doable for anyone who has a good foundation in cooking, access to quality ingredients, and who is eager to spend some time in the kitchen. All of the dishes I've tried have rated high on the "wow" scale. I look forward to learning new riffs on old standards from this masterful chef.

It's Simply Amazing
Kitchen Sessions was my all time favorite cookbook. It was the equivalent of that perfect cd where you want to put every track on repeat and never get sick of listening to any one song. You may not listen to it for a while, but everytime you go back, it never disappoints you. I used the recipes in the first book time and time again to repeated success and appreciation of loved ones. Workin' gives that same excitement and feeling. I have gone through the book cover to cover many times already, and now have the delicious dilemna of not being able to decide which recipe to try first! What's especially exciting about Workin' is that like the original, this one is also organized by foodstuff, but instead of fish or meats...vegetables! They have a potato section, a legume section...squash...tomatoes...cheese and dessert too!

I am not doing the book justice, but here's a highest recommendation for this newest book from my favorite chef: Workin' More Kitchen Sessions with Charlie Trotter for the incredible recipes provided, but also because of the skills you learn. Is there anything better?