– Customer review on 22/07/2010

It was nice to have a book with old fashioned (but not dated cooking) I have made her crepes with huge success as well as her omelettes. There aren't pictures in it (which I like) but everything is explained so well you can picture it anyway. I don't regret buying this book.

– Customer review on 30/12/2011

The content of this book is as expected - a copy of the original, and so none of the glamour food photos that we expect in modern cook books. This is fine. What really disappointed me In the paperback version, which I bought online, is the exceptionally poor quality of the paper the book is printed on. The paper of the book is similar to the paper of a child's cheap coloring-in book, that is, very coarse and it has the look and feel of paper that is disposable.
This is very disappointing and makes the book feel very cheap and nasty. I bought this book as a gift and it was shrink-wrapped, so I was unaware of the poor quality of the book until the gift was opened.

– Customer review on 06/03/2011

Like the famous Julie of "Julie and Julia", a lot of us aspiring amateur cooks tried to work through this book in the 70's. We made a lot of the recipes, including a memorable "Dacquoise" meringue and praline cake for grad school parties. (We eked out a seminar dinner budget to cover the speaker and two or three guests at a restaurant and turned it into dinner for 30 or so by cooking at a faculty member's house. This was our main cookbook for many of those dinners.)

The basics on vegetables are here--maybe a bit plain by today's standards, or sometimes overly complicated (who is going to fight with an artichoke or make a moussaka a la turque steamed in a lining of eggplant skin in a timbale mould) but most of the recipes are well worth the effort.

Book One has main dishes and a few desserts, soups, of course and vegetables. Book Two has more ambitious baking (the infamous Dacquoise) and even baguettes, which still don't come out quite right as American flour has a different ash content and American ovens don't produce steam like professional ovens. The pastry section is particularly good in both; you can learn to make a pate sable or a kind of sugar-cookie like crust that is dead useful for tarts. I've also used the Creme Bavaroise many a time; a lot of work, beating gelatin, cream and carefully unmolding what looks like a simple mousse in a decorative ring mould but is a very elegant dessert that serves quite a few, especially sliced, and plated with fresh berries and a drizzle of sauce. It adapts to many flavors (passion fruit, strawberry, chocolate, mocha) and is one of my favorite classics that you just don't see anymore. The Reine de Saba cake (chocolate almond, under-baked in the center and with a ganache glaze) is equally elegant and again, serves a number of people when sliced and plated elegantly.

This book has the only French Onion Soup recipe I really like. A lot of work (you have to peel and slice a hellacious pile of onions, oh the tears) and when I had this book the first time, there were NO food processors. Even so, with the food processor, it takes a lot of time to cook down and brown those onions and you need REALLY good broth but the result is by far the best onion soup there is. Just writing about it makes me want to go slice onions this very minute.

I can't imagine being without these books, and the packaging is nice, as the originals were two different sized volumes and sit kind of funny on the shelf.

I suppose I should mention that even if you aren't going to make most of these dishes (who can find veal these days?) the book is excellent reading on culinary arts.