Tag: cookbook

Hilaire Walden

27 February 2022

Some chefs love the limelight, some prefer to stay in the background, focusing on cooking and writing. Hilaire Walden is clearly one of them. 

She is author of some 40 books and she has written for prestigious magazines and newspapers about food, cooking and restaurants. She wrote The Great Big Cookie Book, The Book of Tapas and Spanish Cooking, the Book of French Provincial Cooking, The Singapore Cookbook, Quick After Work Summer Vegetarian Cookbook, The Book of Fish and Shellfish and more recently I Love My Barbecue. Indeed, a broad culinary spectrum!

The Loire

One of our favourites is Loire Gastronomique. In this book she follows the course of the French river and describes the various regions, local products, local recipes and of course the wines that go with it. Cheese, cookies, pies, everything. The Loire region is known as the Garden of France. In this garden you’ll find wonderful castles (Azay-le-Rideau, Chambord, Chinon), great wine (Muscadet, Sancerre, Pouilly-Fumé) and beautiful food (asparagus, lots of fruit, artichokes and of course Lentille Verte du Puy). The book is inspiring and it will make you dream of a walk along the Loire, with a view on Amboise and a glass Crémant de Loire in your hand.

Recipes

One of the benefits of Hilaire Walden’s recipes is that they are always correct. Sounds odd, but as we all know, unfortunately, often recipes are simply not complete or correct.
If you prepare a dish for the first time, simply follow her instructions and you’re fine.

She started publishing books around 1980, so perhaps your favourite book will be second hand, but don’t worry, it will not be outdated.

Hilaire Walden
Hilaire Walden - Loire Gastronomique

In the Kitchen with Alain Passard

10 January 2022

It’s not often that we enjoy reading a cookbook from cover to cover. In the Kitchen with Alain Passard: Inside the World (and Mind) of a Master Chef is such an exception.
During a period of three years, illustrator Christophe Blain followed three-star Michelin chef Alain Passard through his kitchens and gardens. The result is a wonderful, funny, graphic cookbook that shows not only beautiful, colourful food and the way it’s prepared, but above all it shows the world and kitchen of a chef.

Vegetables

Around 1998 Alain Passard decided to focus on preparing and serving vegetables in his Parisian restaurant, L’Arpege. He set up two organic gardens, making sure he can cook with excellent, seasonal ingredients. Nowadays L’Arpege offers a inspiring menu with vegetables at the centre, but also room for lobster, chicken and duck. Take some time to browse his website and enjoy the wonderful pictures and combinations. Impressive, isn’t it?

Drawings

Unfortunately dining at L’Arpege is a well above our budget, so once in a while we open this wonderful book (published in 2013) and smile when reading the illustrated dialog between the Chef and the Illustrator. As if you can hear them talk about a dish that is being prepared by the Chef!
The drawings are simple, subtle, lively and colourful. They perfectly visualise the dining room, the reaction of the guests when tasting the dish, the movements of the Chef, his kitchen staff and the waiters.

Recipes

Then we start preparing one of the 15 recipes, for instance his Potato Paillasse with Sage and young Garlic or his combination of carrots, cinnamon and basil. We’re probably not even close to the dish as served at L’Arpege, but we’re enjoying it immensely.

Alain Passard speeches after having received the Johannes van Dam Prize 2019 © cadwu
Alain Passard speeches after having received the Johannes van Dam Prize 2019 © cadwu