Julia's Kitchen Wisdom: Essential Techniques And Recipes From A Lifetime Of Cooking (2000) - Plot & Excerpts
Julia Child describes the focus of the book thus (Page ix): So often you can be in the midst of cooking and you just can't remember whether that leg of lamb should roast in a 325 degree or a 350 degree oven. . .This book aims to give quick snappy answers to many of these questions."Chapters within this book include: Soup and sauces; Salads and dressings; Vegetables; Meats, poultry, and fish; Egg cookery; Breads, crepes, and tartes; Cakes and cookies; Kitchen equipment and definitions.Examples of coverage. Main salads for meals. The first example is Salada Nicoise. A recipe is provided. More interesting? Child supplies variations on the basic recipe, such as cold meat roast salad, Syrian lamb salad, and Pheasant (or duck or chicken or turkey) served in salad.The chapter on meats, poultry, and fish features discussion of different cooking techniques, such as sautéing, broiling, roasting, stewing (braising and poaching). Interesting concept. Child notes Beef bourguignon as a basic recipe. Then, she discusses variations on this master recipe, such as Coq au vin and Ossobuco.This book is straightforward, the recipes are quite doable, and there is a lot of useful information. A nice work by Julia Child.
Hardy har har. I love Julia Child, I really do. I think her "Mastering the Art..." cookbooks belong in a museum, let alone in the kitchens of people everywhere. However, let's not kid ourselves that ANY of this is simple or basic. For pete's sake her recipe for making hard boiled eggs is almost a page long! That being said, she is still adorable and her love affair with food is definitely admirable, if not contagious.So this book is not the "cooking for dummies" that I thought it might be, but that is just a marketing problem. Julia's little tips come alive in this book, you get the sense that you are once again little, watching t.v. in the rec room and have stumbled upon this hilariously large enthusiastic woman playing with geese carcass. Her words are truly hers, and if you love her, you'll love this book. "[This book:] is aimed at those who are tolerably familiar with culinary language..." p.ix
What do You think about Julia's Kitchen Wisdom: Essential Techniques And Recipes From A Lifetime Of Cooking (2000)?
Loved the simplicity of this book. Julia provides some easier "Master Recipes" but reminds us that once you know a recipe, you don't necessarily need to glance at it every time you prepare a dish.I highlighted a lot of "master recipes' and some beautiful take homes that only Julia:Once you have mastered a technique you hardly need look at a recipe again, and can take off on your own.When you have a few cake formulas and filling ideas in your repertoire, you will find that it’s pretty much an assembly job—you can mix and match a different way every time. Please note that there’s only one cookie recipe—no more room!Overall it was a good, quick read that read like a novel and less like a cookbook. It provided recipes and kitchen wisdom and wit.
—Nichole
A small book, a little over 100 pages, packed with 'a lifetime of cooking' expertise of Julia Child. The book arose from Julia's looseleaf notebook she kept in her kitchen. A Cliff Notes, as it were.The book assumes the reader knows his/her way around a stove and has a reasonably furnished kitchen. What is does is present a 'master receipe' and several different ways to change it to be something else that is wonderful. More than once, Julia tells the reader to consult a larger cookbook for more details. I enjoyed the book because it is a consise gathering of receipes and methods that work.
—CJ
