| | |  | Monitors & TVs | Home » » » Bistro Cooking | | | | | | | 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. | | | Features: | |
• ISBN13: 9780894806230
• Condition: USED - Very Good
• Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
| | | Product Details: | | | Author:
| Patricia Wells | | Paperback:
| 291 pages | | Publisher:
| Workman Publishing Company | | Publication Date:
| January 11, 1989 | | ISBN:
| 0894806238 | | Package Length:
| 9.2 inches | | Package Width:
| 7.2 inches | | Package Height:
| 0.8 inches | | Package Weight:
| 1.2 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 38 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
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My go-to cookbook: everyday and special occasionsSep 04, 2010
I received this as a gift many years ago and didn't pick it up for a few years at first -- I assumed it was just another specialty cookbook without much relevance to the type of cooking I wanted to do. But after I started cooking from it I've never looked back. The recipes are simple, delicious, and nearly fail-proof: I finally succeeded in making pastry crust using the recipes in this book. Some have become my favorite dinner party standbys, like the roasted tomatoes provencales and tarte tatin.
This is an excellent cookbook. The recipes are well-written and easy to follow (I think, although I'm a moderately proficient cook). They don't require much special equipment or fussiness -- after all, this is bistro fare.
Un trésor!Sep 01, 2010
Love this book. The vinegar chicken is a family favorite, as is the Gratin Dauphinois. The instructions are clear and concise, and the recipes make French food accessible.
0 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 Love this bookJul 21, 2010
Patricia Wells is my favorite cookbook writer!
All the recipes are easy and tasty. I have all her books and have yet to cook something that I don't love.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
IndispensableMar 04, 2010
Honestly, for the average home cook, having this is more useful than having Mastering the Art of French Cooking (I am a BIG Julia Child fan, but generally I just don't have the time to make her recipes, wonderful as they are). The vast majority of the recipes here are both uncomplicated and inexpensive. (There are a few exceptions, of course, but it's very easy to tell which ones they are.) There's a whole chapter of potato recipes--what can be better than that? We usually have a few extra copies on hand to give as gifts after dinner parties. If we cook out of this book, our guests invariably want the recipes, and it's easier to give them a copy than it is to write them out, especially as used paperback copies can be had ridiculously cheaply. No serious cook should be without this book (or her book on trattoria cooking, which performs the same function for everyday Italian cooking).
4 of 5 found the following review helpful:
Bistro Cooking, A Love AffairOct 19, 2009
Julie Child taught you to cook French food. In Bistro Cooking, Patricia Wells teaches you to fall in love with it.
I bought this book on a whim about 20 years ago when I was starting out on my own, and today I credit it with teaching me to cook. This book caused me not just to like, but to love, French cooking, which I had previously regarded as either too tyrannical or just not that interesting. Thanks to this magnificent little volume, French cooking is now a very easy and natural part of my life.
This book absolutely oozes charm, and Mrs. Wells' enthusiasm and joy on the pages of it are infectious. One of the best things she does is to just plain motivate you to get in the kitchen and start cooking. The spirit of this book is light-hearted and fun, but make no mistake, Mrs. Wells' knowledge of French food, and of cooking in general, is anything but light. Bistro Cooking is the reference I turn to again and again when I want an honest-to-goodness recipe for a dish such as a roast chicken, a potato gratin, a chocolate cake or a fruit tart. (The chocolate mousse on page 244 is the most divine thing I have ever tasted.) The recipes are authentic, tried and true, and cannot be beat.
What is it that makes this book so special? Maybe it is the vintage-looking black and white photos, the charming illustrations or the quaint French menus. Maybe it is the total do-ability of the recipes, for surely there is not a reason in the world why you couldn't make any of them? It's not really a question of whether you CAN make the recipes in this book, it is a question of whether you can RESIST making them. Maybe it is all the helpful advice that is so comfortably offered throughout that gives one the sense that they would acquire more practical culinary know-how by using Bistro Cooking than they would if they were to enroll in cooking school for a year. Maybe it is the feeling you get when you sit down in your favorite chair and open the book that you are stepping right through its pages into another time and place. Yes, I admit that armchair travelers such as myself will love it, but they will also love knowing that Mrs. Wells is an absolute authority on French food and that the recipes in this book are so good they should be considered the standard by which other recipes for the same dishes ought to be judged. Or maybe it's the feeling you get from reading her description of a dish that the recipe that follows for it is not just a formula for making very good food but surely for happiness itself. Maybe it's everything.
I can promise you this: This is a cookbook unlike any you have ever owned and if you acquire it, it will occupy a very special place, not only on your bookshelf, but in your life and in your heart.
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