Bistro Cooking - by Patricia Wells (Paperback)

About the Book

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.

Book Synopsis

Bistro is warm. Bistro is family. Bistro is simple, hearty, generous cuisine-robust soups and country omelets, wine-scented stews and bubbling gratins, and desserts from a grandmother's kitchen. Researched and written by Patricia Wells, author of The Food Lover's Guide to Paris and The Food Lover's Guide to France, together with over 220,000 copies in print, here is a celebration of the no-nonsense, inexpensive, soul-satisfying cuisine of the neighborhood restaurants of France.

BISTRO COOKING contains over 200 scrumptious bistro recipes made lighter and quicker for the way we cook today. Warm Poached Sausage with Potato Salad. Benoit's Mussel Soup. Guy Savoy's Fall Leg of Lamb. Beef Stew with Wild Mushrooms and Orange, Chicken Basquaise, Pasta with Lemon, Ham, and Black Olives, L'Ami Louis' Potato Cake, Provencal Roast Tomatoes, Pears in Red Wine, and Golden Cream and Apple Tart.

Throughout, lively notes and sidebars capture the world of bistro owners in the kitchen, les grands chefs, and more. Selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club. Winner of the 1989 IACP Seagram Food and Beverage Award. Over 166,000 copies in print.

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

Review Quotes

"She really taught me modern, simplified French cooking. I discovered that book when I was really just getting serious about cooking. It was the time, it was the place, it was her voice. She understood French cooking and could tell me, an American, how to make it taste like it tastes in Paris, and I love that."
--Melissa Clark--Melissa Clark, WNYC