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Twelve Recipes

ebook
2 of 2 copies available
2 of 2 copies available

Winner of the 2015 International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) Cookbook Award

Forewords by Alice Waters and Michael Pollan

In this dazzling, full color cookbook and kitchen manual filled with lush photographs and beautiful drawings, the chef of Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse offers basic techniques and essential recipes that will transform anyone into a confident home cook.

When his oldest son was leaving for college, Cal Peternell, the chef of San Francisco’s legendary Chez Panisse, realized that, although he regularly made dinners for his family, he’d never taught them the basics of cooking. Based on the life-altering course of instruction he prepared and honed through many phone calls with his son, Twelve Recipes is the ultimate introduction to the kitchen. Peternell focuses on the core foods and dishes that comprise a successful home cook’s arsenal, each building skill upon skill—from toast, eggs, and beans, to vinaigrettes, pasta with tomato, and rice, to vegetables, soup, meats, and cake.

Twelve Recipes will help home cooks develop a core repertoire of skills and increase their culinary confidence. Peternell tells you what basic ingredients and tools you need for a particular recipe, and then adds variations to expand your understanding. Each tip, instruction, and recipe connects with others to weave into a larger story that illuminates the connection between food and life. A deeply personal book, it was written by the chef alone and it glows with warmth and humor as he mulls over such mundane items as toast and rice to offer surprising new insights about foods that only seem exceedingly ordinary. It’s a book you’re as likely to keep by your bedside as your stovetop. With Peternell as your guide, the journey is pure pleasure and the destination is delicious.

Twelve Recipes features gorgeous color photos and inset illustrations by Peternell’s wife and sons (all artists), and forewords by celebrated chef Alice Waters and New York Times columnist and bestselling author Michael Pollan.

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      October 20, 2014
      Chef Peternell, chef at Chez Panisse, offers an informal crash course in the “big 12” recipes “at the heart of home cooking.” His inspiration comes from his family kitchen and the realization that his son, attempting to cook while away at college, hadn’t absorbed cooking know-how through osmosis. While Peternell assembles this collection of recipes, tips, and loving reflections as a gift to his son, he creates more than a handbook for beginning cooks. In this survey of cooking basics, Peternell inspires home cooks to “break some rules” and let intuition be their guide. Chapters present ingredient-focused discussions along with several foundation recipes and variations. The eggs chapter instructs how to properly fry, hard-boil, devil, poach, and scramble, and follows with recipes for omelets and frittatas. A chapter on beans discusses legume varieties, storage, and preparation, including recipes for bean soups. Other chapters focus on pasta, rice, polenta, potatoes, chicken, sauces, and cake. Many suggested recipes are woven into the book’s narration while others are presented in a traditional format. There’s advice on tasting, timing, and using leftovers. Illustrations are by family members, and there’s plenty of anecdotes drawn from Peternell’s own home table. Essays have an inviting personal tone, and Peternell encourages cooks to use good sense, relax, and enjoy the unexpected pleasures that come with cooking for yourself and for others.

    • Library Journal

      Starred review from October 15, 2014

      When his college-bound son needed cooking advice, Chez Panisse chef Peternell provided it over the phone, narrating recipes that would eventually form the core of this delightful and instructive cookbook. In 13 chapters (covering eggs, beans, and salad dressings, for example), he teaches readers a fundamental cooking repertoire that includes rustic toasts and croutons, egg frittatas with myriad fillings, economical braises, easy sauces, and unfussy desserts. With practice, these can easily be made from memory and adjusted according to taste. For each recipe (and there are many more than the title suggests), Peternell provides lengthy written instructions that--like those from veteran food writers David Tanis (One Good Dish) and Nigel Slater (Ripe)--are best savored slowly. VERDICT Marked by Peternell's zeal for good, simple food, this title takes a very different approach from cooking handbooks that emphasize science or technical precision.

      Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

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  • Kindle Book
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Languages

  • English

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