Product Description

Renowned chef, author, and television personality Rick Bayless has prepared gourmet meals for his share of celebrities. But when asked about his most memorable cooking experiences, he immediately answers, "with my family and friends, at my home or theirs-whether around the block or around the globe." Lanie Bayless has grown up cooking and eating with her chef-dad in their restaurant, at their home, and in other people's homes from Oklahoma City to Tokyo-with stops in Mexico, Morocco, France, Thailand, and Peru along the way. But her perspective is different from his. He's the celebrated chef with decades of cooking and traveling experience, and she's a teenager with ideas of her own.

Rick & Lanie's Excellent Kitchen Adventures is a lively, multigenerational dialogue between two not-always-like-minded cooks. Each brings a unique outlook to the wide variety of flavors, cooking techniques, ingredients, and travel experiences they shared during the four years they worked on this book.

For Rick, sharing a meal is one of the most powerful catalysts for common understanding between parents and kids, friends and families, and people from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds. This unique cookbook of more than 100 international classics (as well as down-home American favorites) offers simple, step-by-step recipes that will draw everyone to the table. Here the wisdom and experience of a famous chef are transformed into the everyday advice of an at-home dad. AUTHOR BIO: RICK BAYLESS is the chef-proprietor of Chicago's hugely successful Frontera Grill and its elegant neighbor, Topolobampo. He has been named Chef of the Year by the prestigious IACP and the James Beard Foundation. He is the author of four best-selling cookbooks and has produced and starred in two public television series, the second of which is in its fourth season.

LANIE BAYLESS grew up in a restaurant-literally. She has a room just above the Frontera Grill's kitchen. Lanie learned a lot of what she knows about food and cooking from her parents.

CHRISTOPHER HIRSHEIMER is the photographer of Authentic Vietnamese Cooking, The New Irish Table, and Fried & True.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #786332 in Books
• Published on: 2004-10-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 232 pages

Amazon.com Review
How, you might ask, can there be any rationale for combining Mexican, Moroccan, French, Thai, and Oklahoma down-home recipes in one cookbook? The answer is family. The Rick Bayless family in this case, he of the PBS cookings, of Chicago's Frontera Grill fame, and author of the enlightening Authentic Mexican, Rick Bayless's Mexican Kitchen, and Mexico One Plate at a Time.

Rick and Lanie's Excellent Kitchen Adventures is the combined kitchen and culinary wisdom of a father/chef and daughter/teenager who has grown up in restaurants (much as her dad grew up in a barbecue restaurant in Oklahoma) and has traveled with her parents throughout the world, meeting chefs, exploring markets, tasting exotic treats. Some of those treats were rejected in ways only children can reject foods. Others came home and were folded into the foods a family calls its own and serves again and again. So, the first thing to keep in mind about Rick and Lanie's Excellent Kitchen Adventures is that it is family-tested as well as home kitchen tested.

There are two voices in this book: Rick's (a modulated voice of authority) and Lanie's (the teenage voice of reality). And there are five basic sections that reflect the travels and broad culinary interests of the Bayless Family: Mexico, France, Morocco, Thailand, and Oklahoma. You'll find Huevos Rancheros in Mexico and Dutch Babies in France; Chicken Pie in Oklahoma, and Beef or Lamb Kebabs in Morocco. The Red Curry with Duck (Pork or Chicken) brought home from Thailand looks like a winner. These are do-together recipes, as in work together in the kitchen. Bayless sets apart the do-ahead tasks, then presents the recipe instruction in simple blocks. This dance has been well-choreographed. And what's a dance without a little music. You'll find suggestions for playlists while cooking, as well as suggestions for special treats to find while you are shopping in ethnic markets, things you might otherwise overlook. And then there are the stories. You can taste this cooking experience, and you can read about the life experience, through both the father's and the daughter's lens, of traveling and cooking together. It's the together part that makes this cookbook so special and so encouraging. --Schuyler Ingle

From Publishers Weekly
Of the myriad lessons to be found here, the most resounding is this: to be the teenage daughter of an internationally known chef is a very good thing. Proud papa Bayless takes his family to Mexico, the land that launched his culinary success via cookbooks (Mexico: One Plate at a Time, etc.) and a PBS series; to his Oklahoma barbecuing roots; and farther afield, to France, Morocco and Thailand. Both writers prepare each recipe, though rarely together, and commentary from the two highlights the pleasures of cooking from the opposite perspectives of seasoned master and joyful rookie. W.C. Fields disliked performing with children for fear of being upstaged, and Mr. Bayless might be wise to take heed. His travelogues are at best ho-hum next to Lanie's, which brim with brutal honesty. "Morocco is a spectacle of wind-swept deserts," he proclaims, while for Lanie, "It was kind of like everywhere else we visited. Except that you had to wash your hands in front of everyone." Recipes for Kebabs and Paella arise from this trip. In Thailand it's Red Curry with Duck and Street Vendor Pad Thai. Dad and daughter tackle Red Mole with Chicken in Oaxaca, assuring readers that multiple ingredients don't always make for a complex challenge. "I really don't know what the big deal is," says Lanie. Photos.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal
Grade 7 Up - A glossy, beautifully designed book by the star of a PBS cooking series and his teenage daughter. The volume is organized by region, with almost every continent covered. Each section begins with a few personal stories from the authors. Rick tends toward an infectious enthusiasm and a sense of elegant simplicity; Lanie is often refreshingly honest (she's a big fan of air conditioning in Mexico and the Fashion Channel when she's visiting Paris). The recipes range from ultrasimple, such as "The Simplest Fried Beans" to elaborate, such as "Chinese Celebration Hot Pot," which involves several exotic ingredients and numerous steps. Throughout, there is an approachable tone that is helped by Lanie's notes on her experiences with the recipes and her various likes and dislikes, some of them typically adolescent (no strong cheese, for instance). "Do This First" boxes will keep novice cooks organized. Nutritional information is not included, and Lanie's fairly regular use of current slang may quickly date this book (and grate on some adult ears). Overall, though, this is a volume filled with delicious recipes that are not necessarily all easy - but are always described in a way that is easy to follow. Recommended for Bayless fans, of course, and also for more sophisticated kids who like to cook with friends and/or parents. - Lauralyn Persson, Wilmette Public Library, IL
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Customer Reviews

A spicy blend of travel, sass and cooking
Mix family dynamics, personality, food, and travel, and dish up an entertaining, humorous and, yes, useful father/daughter cookbook venture. Rick, chef/owner of the Mexican restaurant, Frontero, and his daughter, Lanie, 13 (younger when they began the project), eat and cook their way from Mexico to Thailand, by way of Oklahoma, France and Morocco, with side trips to Spain, Japan and Hong Kong. The occasions are family vacations or celebrations and the cooking is done in relaxed settings with friends. Each chapter begins with essays by each of them describing the travel and food experience, from shopping and cooking to bad roads and old memories. Rick's tend to be more rhapsodic and reminiscent; Lanie's are sassy, direct, and funny. Each chapter also includes "five cool CDs" to play while cooking, like Johnny Cash for barbeque and Kahled for Moroccan food.

Each attractively designed, well-organized recipe starts with a brief intro from both authors. Rick's include cultural background and cooking tips; Lanie's are conversational and opinionated. For example, Rick describes choosing exactly the right peppers and accompaniments to a tapas of Spanish Ham Salad. And Lanie says: "This tastes exactly like an Italian sub without the bread."

It's a teaching book with "do this first" boxes included in each recipe and thorough step-by-step directions. Lanie (who likes steak tartare but isn't crazy about raw tomatoes) often describes the experience of cooking, the taste sensations, and her personal ratings. The dishes, from breakfast to dessert, are mostly simple classics: Huevos Rancheros; Bangkok-Style Chicken Satay; Moroccan Meatballs (cumin) in Tomato Sauce; Tartiflette (French potato and cheese supper); Hickory House (his parents' barbecue restaurant) Deviled Eggs; Pad Thai; Potato-Leek Soup with Bacon; Profiteroles; Chocolate Truffles. There are a few more complex, or at least time-consuming dishes too, like Crispy Meringue Shells with Ice Cream and Fruit Salsa (France), an Oaxacan Red Mole, and Chinese Pot Sticker Dumplings. Color photographs throughout accent the recipes, the ingredients and the people.

This is a book for anyone who'd like to cook with their kid (Lanie has cooked all of these recipes) or enjoys a wide variety of thoughtful classic recipes, or just likes to laugh while reading about food, families and travel.

Great Family Cooking and Travel Book. Great Read and Eats
`Rick & Lanie's Excellent Kitchen Adventures' by Rick Bayless and his daughter is the third kids oriented cookbook I have reviewed and I am very pleased that I gave the earlier two books by Emeril Lagasse and Rachael Ray only four stars, as this volume by Bayless and daughter has really shown us how such a book should be done.

To be sure, Bayless and daughter have done the book where the child is a mid-teenaged daughter who has been around the cooking all her life of a world-class teaching chef. Therefore, the book does not address all the important safety issues involved when you put kids into the most dangerous room in the house. But, this is definitely a book with which a cooking minded teenager could connect. That is, if the kid is a good reader, this is the book you want to give them.

The book is made doubly interesting in that the Bayless family are great travelers and have a long and interesting history of family in the food service industry. This sets up one of the two main themes of the book by setting each chapter in a different location around the world, some of which are very familiar to the Bayless clan and some of which are being seen for the first time.

The five venues are a combination of the obvious and the unexpected. The first is (big surprise) a trip to the southern highlands of Mexico and the Oaxaca valley which is one of Bayless' favorite parts of his favorite country. This chapter is spiced up by a side trip to Peru and an essay in ceviche recipes. The second location, small town Oklahoma may be a big surprise to most of us until Bayless tells us the story of his parents who ran a very successful barbecue restaurant in Capitol Hill, Oklahoma. The highlight of this chapter is Bayless' attempt to write out his parents' recipes from the `Hickory House' restaurant with very mixed results when his family gathered together to make the recipes from paper rather than from memory. The third destination is France, almost as predictable as the trip to Mexico. This chapter is spiced up with culinary side trips to Italy and Ireland. The fourth venue, Morocco and southern Spain is not to surprising to foodies, as the Moroccan cuisine is one of the most distinctive centers of Mediterranean cuisine next to Italy and Provence, especially after the attention paid to it by Paula Wolfert's books. The fifth venue, Thailand, with side trips to Japan and Hong Kong are only a surprise in that Thai cuisine is about as different from Mexico as you can get. There is not even the distant connection in play between Japan and the West Coast of Latin America that fertilized the development of ceviche.

The main format of each chapter is that Rick introduces each locale with a relatively long narrative of why this venue was chosen and the family's general reaction to both the familiar and the unfamiliar. This is followed by a similarly long take on the same location and events by Lanie. And, Lanie provides a very clear counterpoint to her father's take on things. She clearly did not show the same enthusiasm for raw fish and goat barbacoa, a classic dish of southern Mexico. Both speakers do a great favor to the reader in picturing all the ups AND downs of their travels. One of the most surprising events was the failure of a world class chef and his food experienced family to recreate his parents' recipes from Bayless interpretations of these dishes. On the other hand, one of the most gratifying experiences is when Lanie makes a very difficult mole with no help from dad, and the result is very successful.

Each recipe is also presented with a headnote from Rick, followed by Lanie's take on the same recipe. An important aspect of all these recipes is that, on the one hand, none of the recipes are simplified for the adolescent amateur. On the other hand, the recipes are not pictured as the very best exemplar of the dish. The `Hickory House' cole slaw recipes are a perfect case in point. The recipes are not important because they are the greatest cole slaw recipes around, they are important to a family which produced a great chef who writes about them as part of his legacy. Therefore, this is a cookbook that is meant as much or more for reading as for cooking. But that doesn't mean the recipes here are not worth your effort.

There are a lot of recipes for classic comfort food here. In addition to the cole slaws, there are great recipes for biscuits, chocolate cake, guacamole, pasta with both marinara sauce and pasta with a pesto sauce, crepes, truffles, gazpacho, paella, potstickers, poached salmon, and potato leek soup.

This is by far my first choice for a first cookbook to be given to a teenager or near teenager with an interest and a talent for cooking. Bayless and clan are far more successful in conveying a passion for cooking than most of the cute moves by other writers. I think Lagasse and Ray are just a little less successful in that they are writing with a voice for very young readers, except that this material will be interpreted by adults for the youngsters. Thus, the material will not hold the adult's interest long enough to involve the kids. Ray and Lagasse have done good books, but Bayless has done something better.

Highly recommended for all foodies, teenage and above.

Unique Cookbook to Share & Enjoy
How many kids get to grow up, travel and publish a cookbook? We the purchasers get to enjoy this achievement.

Famous Mexican chef Rick Bayless teams up with his teenage daughter Lanie to provide a 230 page beauty filled with their trips to Peru, Oklahoma, Mexico, Morocco, Thailand and France. In each destination they each relate their highlights and lowlights of the trip. Lanie's are so cool, e.g. "Eating in Peru basically means eating potatoes ... my dad bought two of EACH One, 'Research,' he kinda barked at me--I mean all I did was ask politely WHAT he was doing. He didn't even seem to care that it took an hour."

This is getting some great cooking basics, plus intro to this family's favorite recipes, and exposure to other culture's culinary creations. Both Rick and Lanie comment on each, so you get both perspectives: gourmet chef and teenage daughter. There are sidebars which provide great tips and even suggests for CD listening as well as what to buy when in a Mexican grocery, how to grow three popular herbs indoors. Great, unique, well thought out fun stuff to read and cook with. There is also a limited mail-order source listing for ingredients, music and cooking supplies.

Some great recipes which most family will dig into include: Lime Zest Ice Cream with Mexican Caramel; Vegetarian [or not] Soft Tacos with Guacamole; The World's Greatest Chili; Grilled Pizza with Goat Cheese, Green Salsa and Bacon; Chinese Potsticker Dumplings; Moroccan Meatballs in Tomato Sauce.

All this done beautifully with prose and great photos and layout. Fine addition to one's own collection and/or for giving.