I love this book! I have a cooking center in my third grade classroom, and this book is a wonderful resource for tying literature to cooking. The recipes are very "doable" for my students.

Have you ever wondered how to give your family everything when you don't even have time for yourself? This book deals with that problem with practical and humorous advice. This book addresses the issues of spouses and children in the kitchen. What to do with all the time you save by cooking ahead. All of the recipe directions are divided into logical working order. The authors truly understand the problems of coordinationg work, home and family. It is full of helpful ideas. The recipes are delicious. It is a classic

I received this book as a gift after retiring from a long career of nursing at Cook County Hospital. I enjoyed the way the author accurately described this hospital's atmosphere and the types of patients that we helped. Her unique stories were similiar to my own. I highly recommend it to all people who want to remember this grand institution.

Although we have yet to prepare any of the recipes, it was a joy just leafing through the book and seeing the recipes included. It is not a large book and is the first cookbook I read cover to cover as soon as it arrived. Memories of my mother's cooking flashed through my mind. It even includes a recipe for the first thing I remember cooking: Oatmeal cookies (although I did not include raisins). I heard the author on the Diane Rehm show and had to buy this book. It had at least a dozen recipes of dishes I had forgotten about, but tasted wonderful. I have learned that the best recipes are the simple ones. There is nothing fancy about these recipes.

I bought this book when it came out, in 1972. We entertained a great deal, and because I also worked full time, this fun book made putting on a large feast for a big gathering easy to do. People were always impressed that I could work and still put together a huge meal without being stressed! Amusingly written, the menues are both varied and unusual, and with the integrated preparation and cooking techniques which are described, really very easy to prepare. Each menu has a shopping list, with the price of the ingredients noted (a fun look back at prices, e.g. 5 lbs of boned lamb just $6.00, or a 12 ounce bottle of vegetable oil - 28 cents!), equipment required, then the step-by-step approach to putting the entire menu together in an hour. According to my handwritten notes on a few pages, some of the recipes were over-peppered, but I do know that they were quite good! The prices may change, but the flavours and techniques do not...a fun book for preparing a good meal for a crowd!

This cookbook should be on the shelf of every good cook on the Northwest coast, and not just those who are in boats. It focuses on locally available ingredients (shellfish, fish, berries, sea asparagus) and ease of preparation. The ingredients are ones you'll be likely to have on hand, and there are excellent photographs of the various shellfish, fish, berries and plants which can be found in the wild. Nearly every recipe is accompanied by a beautiful photograph of the prepared dish. All the dishes can be prepared in a ship's galley (extremely small kitchen). There are sections about provisioning, gathering shellfish, storage of salmon, using a diesel stove, and even how to cook salmon the traditional Indian way -- in a cedar frame over a beach fire. I've tried a number of the recipes and they are delicious!

This is a great book that reflects the excitment of this cooking school in the middle of Main Street Indiana. I purchased two! Marie has focused on easy yet elegant time-tested recipes that will soon be a staple in your home.

The recipient of this gift was delighted, as was I.

"The preparation of good food is merely another expression of art, one of the joys of civilized living." - Dione Lucas

Before Julia Child, there was Dione Lucas, an amazing woman who should have a biography about her life. M's Lucas was the first famous television cook, having her own show on CBS in 1949. She was a star student at the Cordon Bleu in the 1930s. She also did something else interesting in the 1930s - she was a hotel chef in Hamburg where she was often called upon to fix Adolph Hitler's favorite meal - stuffed squab*.

Along with Rosemary Hume, she founded Le Cordon Bleu in London. In 1942, with the blitz going on in London, she came to New York with her two young sons. (Rosemary Hume kept the school in London going even during the blitz.) There she taught adults as well as children the various intricacies of cooking in the Cordon Bleu way.

So what does all that have to do with this brillant book? In 1980, this book received the Hall of Fame Award by the James Beard Foundation. This book was written at a different time, when butter and cream were generously used and enjoyed. Most of us don't eat like that everyday but this book is great for feast day celebrations (birthdays, anniversaries or when you want to make something a little different.)

There is "Filet of Sole Veronique" with peeled white grapes. Yes, a time consuming dish to make but well worth the effort - and it is impressive. The "Potage Sange"is exquisite and light years away from what Campbell Soup company sells as potato soup.
The chocolate jelly roll cake is widely reguarded as the best dessert in this book, but I beg to differ - the lemon meringue pie is terrific. And of course, chocolate mousse - but none of the recipes are "bad" - I don't like the "crepes Suzette" but I just don't like them, irregardless of who makes them or who wrote the recipe.

If you want to make something more special, perhaps a special dinner or dessert for a loved one or yourself, this is a great addition to your cooking library. the instructions are clear and the ingredients are relatively easy to obtain. She even provides a glossary so you can look up such terms as "chaud froid sauce."
Buy this and surprise someone - maybe yourself - with something extra special for dinner.

*yes, stuffed squab (pigeons!) the recipe is in this book "Petits Poussins A La Hambourg") but she gives the information regarding Hitler in another cookbook of hers "Gourmet Cooking School Cookbook". Apparently Hitler gave up meats and rich pastries because he had stomach problems and not because he was any great animal lover. The symptoms attributed to Hitler sound remarkably to me (okay, I'm not a doctor, but I've had a gallbladder) similiar to gallstones.

This is a wonderful kitchen resource! My most-used cookbook. It is an A-Z encyclopedia of every food you can think of, as well as many I never heard of! It includes comprehensive coverage on growing/raising food, the different methods of storage applicable, creative and unique recipies for every food item. There are chapters on freezing, cold storage, root cellers, canning, drying, butchering. It is so exhaustive that there is much in it I personally do not care to know, such as how to skin and prepare squirrel, opposum, chevon, making head cheese, cooking with frogs, heart and pig's feet. I said it was exhaustive! But it also has great stuff for grinding and cooking with whole grains, whole foods, natural sweetenings, making yogurt and cheese, natural leavenings, etc. I will be buying a copy to give to my daughter when she is older. This book is a homesteader's dream come true.