Product Description

Chosen Cookbook of the Year (1989) by USA Today and selected as an Editor's Choice for the year's top books by Publishers Weekly, Patricia Wells's Bistro Cooking celebrates the return to warm, generous cuisine. Here are over 200 recipes inspired by the neighborhood restaurants of France--adapted and tested for the American table. 2-color photos and illustrations throughout.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7493 in Books
• Published on: 1989-01-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 291 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780894806230
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Amazon.com Review
In this warm look into the world of French bistro food, eminent food writer Patricia Wells reveals her love for this simple, robust cuisine in a collection of recipes garnered from France's best bistros. From Warm Potato Salad with Herbed Vinaigrette to Lamb Stew in White Wine to Pear Clafoutis, Wells admits her preference for hearty, homey bistro dishes. Through clearly written recipes, Wells encourages cooks to buy the best ingredients and turn them into fragrant, warming dishes. Each recipe has a note telling where it came from and alluding to its flavor. Pithy quotes throughout the book relate to bistro style--in cooking, serving, and eating--and historical quotations give a cultural connotation. Wine choices reach deep into the heart of France, from a crisp white from Provence such as a Chateau Simone with lamb, to a good Côtes du Rhone (Cru du Coudelet) with guinea hen. From the introduction to the last dessert recipe (for Prunes in Red Wine), Bistro Cooking is sure to please not just the novice in the kitchen, but the experienced cook as well. --Susan Loomis, Amazon.co.uk

From Library Journal
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.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From the Back Cover
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

Customer Reviews

The Little Cookbook That Could!
I received this book as a present nearly 10 years ago. In my library of over 200 cookbooks, this is the absolute champion when it comes to simple, very "French bistro" dishes to prepare for family & friends. Recipes are easy to follow and use easy to find ingredients, and I have yet to flub a dish out of this book. The pie/tart shell recipes included in the basics section, in particular, are definite staples to any cooking-lover's repertoire (I have them memorized -- I've made them so many times). I frequently give this book to friends who "want to learn how to cook".

Absolutely the best
My wife and I own many cookbooks, but none has come close to giving us the pleasure we have found in so many of the recipes in Bistro Cooking. We are both rank amateurs in the kitchen, but we have been able to handle virtually every recipe we've tried in this book (I did give up after three attempts at the potato pie from L'Ami Louis). The book includes Ms. Wells' favorite recipes from France's great bistros. Mind-blowing potato gratins, delicious fish recipes, hearty stews, unbelievable roast chicken, a strange but fantastic dish of poached eggs served with a simple red wine sauce, winning desserts, it really goes on and on. Ms. Wells is a great writer, very entertaining, and the book is full of wonderful tips. Even seven years or so after we bought our copy of Bistro Cooking, it's always a special day at our home when we make something from this cookbook.

A must have addition to your cooking library!
If you only own five cookbooks, this should be one of them. The recipes are pure pleasure -- comfort food at its finest. I have taken years of French cooking lessons and still turn to this book every time I want to make a simple meal for my husband & I to enjoy after work. If the only recipe you tried were the one for Mme. Caretet's potato gratin, it would be worth the purchase of the book. Everyone that tries them says they are the best potatoes they have ever had. But don't stop there -- the book presents you with a wealth of eating adventures.