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A Return to Cooking
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$ 22.06
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| Retail Value |
$ 25.95 |
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$ 3.89 (15%) |
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| Item Number |
1554879 |
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Item Description...
Product Description
The greatest work by one of the world's most renowned chefs---returns in paperback.
Spontaneous meals at home with friends form the foundation of this dazzling collection of recipes that are easy enough for novices yet so inspired they could be restaurant-worthy. The result of a rare sabbatical from this famed chef's 4-star kitchen, A Return to Cooking is "an unprecedented look at the creative process of one of the world's best chefs" (Anthony Bourdain) as Eric Ripert prepares simple meals for friends in different locations, using ingredients at hand.
Expect to be enchanted by Eric's lack of pretense and his irrepressible joie---a chef who likes American mayonnaise and alphabet pasta, but can also lecture on subjects as diverse as the power of vinaigrette and the merits of Tabasco, shallots, and coconut milk. And every bit as fascinating is the bird's-eye view of the magic that occurs when decades of cooking experience coalesce with the forces of a chef's intuition.
Outline Review
Eric Ripert, chef and part owner of New York's Le Bernadin, discovered that as his chef star rose he drifted far, far away from cooking. A Return to Cooking is his response to this sorry predicament, the result of a self-imposed challenge: to gather together disparate souls--a painter (Valentino Cortazar), a writer (Michael Ruhlman, author of The Making of a Chef and The Soul of a Chef), photographers (Shimon and Tammar Rothstein), and a personal assistant (Andrea Glick, who would write and test the spontaneously created recipes)--and simply cook.The settings (and fresh food ingredients) are spectacular. Sag Harbor in summer. Puerto Rico in winter. California's Napa Valley in spring. Vermont in fall. Rent a house, shop for food, and make the meals happen. For anyone who has ever wanted to understand how a great cook looks at ingredients and settles on a plan, A Return to Cooking is it. In Puerto Rico the reader is treated to Caramelized Pineapple Crepes with Crme Friche; Shrimp with Fresh Coconut Milk, Calabaza, and Avocado; and Seared Tuna with Escabeche of Pear Tomatoes. What Ripert does with food, the Rothsteins do with photos, Cortazar does with paints, and Ruhlman does with words. The stimulating recipes rise out of a young lifetime of experience. This is a big, lush book (330 pages, 150 recipes, nearly 400 color photos and illustrations) dense with information, technique, and flavor. For anyone who has wandered far from the kitchen and the pleasures inherent in cooking, A Return to Cooking will bring you right back home. --Schuyler Ingle
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Item Specifications...
Pages 330
Dimensions: Length: 0.75" Width: 9.25" Height: 10.5"
Weight: 3.3 lbs.
Binding Softcover
Release Date May 1, 2009
ISBN 1579653936
EAN 9781579653934
UPC 791243653930
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Availability 1 units.
Availability accurate as of May 27, 2012 02:27.
Usually ships within one to two business days from La Vergne, TN.
Orders shipping to an address other than a confirmed Credit Card / Paypal Billing address may incur and additional processing delay.
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Reviews - What do our customers think?
 | Interesting vacation log for artists and a cook Aug 18, 2009 |
| I bought this because I like Eric Ripert, but the is the second of his books that is very odd. The difference is that this one is odd by design. An artist, 2 photographers, a food writer/chef, and Ripert embark on a series of trips and cook/eat/paint/write/photograph there. The back to the kitchen concept is cute, many of the recipes are decent, but none are fantastic and none are especially relevant to the settings. We mostly learn of Ripert's likes and dislikes (he likes cured lemons and several other pantry items that probably are not in your pantry). In short, this book is not bad, but it's not a real home run on any level either. | | |  | Superb book, but not for everyday use. Jul 30, 2009 |
While some of the recipes in this book would be fine as "everyday" food, most of them are not. Most home cooks aren't going to have ingredients like truffles or osetra caviar on hand, nor would they be able to afford them. They also probably wouldn't have the time or patience to make homemade lemon confit or pique (the Puerto Rican spicy liquid seasoning).
As a big fan of Eric Ripert, I may be a little biased. I'm completely enamored of his clean style of cooking. Most of his dishes make their impact with subtle flavors, with an emphasis on seasonal ingredients.
In this book he still uses a harmonious blend of local, seasonal ingredients, but he creates recipes with big, bold flavors that really come together to deliver a dramatic flavor impact. The boldness of these dishes is not your standard Eric Ripert fare. This book is all about him finding his passion for cooking real food again.
If you've owned any of Chef Ripert's other books, you will notice the differences between this one and the others. The others were all based on dishes served at his NYC restaurant, Le Bernardin. This book is a very interesting tour around various locations, with Chef Ripert making up dishes on the fly for his friends out of mostly local, seasonal ingredients. It's a big departure from his other books, but in a good way.
Yes, most of the recipes aren't practical for home cooking. But there are some that could definitely be duplicated at home. Not all of them use high-end, expensive ingredients or difficult techniques. After all, this book was written while Chef Ripert was on vacation with friends.
The photos in the book are striking. I don't particularly like the artwork that is featured prominently throughout the book, but that just because it doesn't happen to appeal to my taste. I know some people love the paintings. Personally, I much prefer the photographs of the dishes! The photos of the ingredients used are nice, too.
As much as I love this book, I just can't bring myself to deduct any points from the star total because of the paintings which feature so prominently. I would have preferred the book without them, but they certainly don't take much, if anything away from this phenomenal book.
The book is also extremely interesting to just read and enjoy. The stories and anecdotes about Chef Ripert, his trip, his friends, and the food and ingredients are absolutely delightful to read.
I wouldn't advise buying this book if you want to get recipes for everyday dinners, because it's not likely to fulfil that role for you. But if you're a professional chef or a foodie, you will probably adore this book as much as I do. If you're a fan of Chef Ripert, you will almost surely want to grab this book! | | | | Fantastic look into the heart and soul of a world-class chef and cook May 21, 2009 |
I've only had "A Return to Cooking" for a very short time and it is already one of my favorite kitchen references. You really get to see a great culinary mind at work as they move from season to season and venue to venue, trolling the local markets for goodies and *poof* improvising spectacular food. In many cases, he worked with ingredients which he had not ever heard of prior to the morning before cooking them.
The asides and sotto voce comments that are sprinkled about are worth the purchase all on the own, never mind the incredible recipes. "A cook is an instrument of nature", goes one memorable line. That sums it up pretty well. | | | | It's still a "chef's" book, but not inaccessibly so. Best for seafood. Oct 23, 2006 |
This may be Ripert's return to the kitchen (ie., this is arguably not "restaurant" food), but it's still demanding of money, time, and skill (probably in that order). I say money and time first because he uses top-notch and/or esoteric ingredients, which will require some investment and shopping (eg: live pibales: I never heard of them anywhere else before or since. Even the book says they are very difficult to find: Ripert special orders them from a supplier for $65 a pound. No substitution is mentioned, and the description of them is too limited to make a guess at an acceptable sub. Perhaps there simply is none...). But that's to be expected from any top-tier chef's book, so it's certainly no reason to knock this down.
I'll leave it as established that the recipes are delicious and mouth-watering, etc., and intend to focus this review on who might consider this cookbook and whether or not I'd recommend it.
Admittedly, I spent more time gazing longingly at this book than cooking from it. But, when I have cooked from it, I have always learned something about technique or ingredients, and for that, I rate this book 5 starts. The expense and general highly-demanding nature are irrelevant to rating, as I see it, because you can tell what you're getting into when you consider any book with this many artists and this size of pages involved.
Like any chef's book, you have to be willing to take what you can use: if you can't commit yourself to preparing all the elaborate components of a dish, try making the sauce, or using the cooking method. I've learned a lot of new sauces here, and I look to this almost every time I have a piece of fish in the fridge.
To me, the most interesting part of his grand project is how he brings his background to bear on the different cuisines and traditions of the location (my favorite chapter is in Puerto Rice). The flavor combinations alone are eye-opening, and satisfyingly so.
The artwork, photography, and other writings are, well, there, and how much you like them is up to your own taste. In that respect, you can approximate the book by its cover. I really like the paintings, and how they look like woodcuts, but sometimes the personalities can teeter on the precious or smug side (Though who can blame them: take a year off to paint/cook/eat and travel? I'd feel pretty special too.). I actually do not think I would want to have been part of this particular entourage.
I would most strongly recommend this to anyone who wanted to expand his/her repertoire of fish and seafood recipes: you will find ideas here that are not duplicated elsewhere, and seafood is why Ripert is famous.
If fish/seafood are not strong points of interest, but you are generally a good, well-budgeted and well-supplied cook, you'll probably enjoy this, but I wouldn't say it's an essential addition to your working library.
If you don't cook fish or seafood, I would buy something else.
Also, if you don't live near good, extensively stocked grocery stores (especially fish markets and butcher's who can supply you with things like veal cheeks), I don't think this would have much value as a usable cookbook. Unlike game or foie gras, fish doesn't seem like a strong mail-order candidate. Once you deduct recipes requiring specialty items, you're left with things ike "Figs Wrapped in Bacon" (and not in some ingenious Thomas Keller way; it's quite straightforward).
Obviously, if you're a novice cook, or looking for fast/simple/cheap recipes, you're probably not even viewing this item. In case you are, I recommend you immediately look elsewhere and avoid this book entirely.
Nonetheless, even if you're eating through a feeding tube, or never intend to cook a single thing in your life, but you really like looking at pictures of food, or reading about how people feel about food, you'll probably love this. As an attractive coffee table/daydream cookbook, it's one of the best. | | |  | excellent coffee table book, yet practical Mar 26, 2004 |
| The book is beautiful: layout, photography, the food itself. As others have noted, the recipes are very good for a home cook: impressive, but not so complex as to deter a dedicated cook. Why 4 and not 5 stars? Because I think Ruhlman is merely an average writer. He spends too much time cozying up to M. Ripert. In browsing the book, I found several grammar errors (minor irritance, but in a book of this quality, I find disappointing). Ruhlman is no Reichl or Grimes -- but I think he tries to be. I think Ruhlman picks fascinating topics (I enjoyed Soul of a Chef immensely); it's just that, for me, his writing is a distraction from the content. | | | Write your own review about A Return to Cooking
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