Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home

In Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home, two legendary cooks invite us into their kitchen and show us the basics of good home cooking.Julia Child and Jacques Ppin are synonymous with good food, and in these pages they demonstrate techniques (on which they dont always agree), discuss ingredients, improvise, balance flavors to round out a meal, and conjure up new dishes from leftovers. Center stage are carefully spelled-out recipes flanked by Julias and Jacquess commentsthe accumulated wisdom of two lifetimes of honing their cooking skills. Nothing is written in stone, they imply. And that is one of the most important lessons for every good cook.

So sharpen your knives and join in the fun as you learn to make:

Appetizers: from traditional and instant gravlax to your own sausage in brioche and a country pt
Soups: from New England chicken chowder and onion soup gratine to Mediterranean seafood stew and that creamy essence of mussels, billi-bi
Eggs: omelets and tortillas; scrambled, poached, and coddled eggs; eggs as a liaison for sauces and as the puffing power for souffls
Salads and Sandwiches: basic green and near-Nioise salads; a crusty round seafood-stuffed bread, a lobster roll, and a pan bagnat
Potatoes: baked, mashed, hash-browned, scalloped, souffld, and French-fried
Vegetables: the favorites from artichokes to tomatoes, blanched, steamed, sauted, braised, glazed, and gratined
Fish: familiar varieties whole and filleted (with step-by-step instructions for preparing your own), steamed en papillote, grilled, seared, roasted, and poached, plus a classic sole meunire and the essentials of lobster cookery
Poultry: the perfect roast chicken (Julias way and Jacquess way); holiday turkey, Julias deconstructed and Jacquess galantine; their two novel approaches to duck
Meat: the right technique for each cut of meat (along with lessons in cutting up), from steaks and hamburger to boeuf bourguignon and roast leg of lamb
Desserts: crme caramel, profiteroles, chocolate roulade, free-form apple tartas you make them youll learn all the important building blocks for handling dough, cooking custards, preparing fillings and frostings
And much, much more . . .

Throughout this richly illustrated book youll see Julias and Jacquess hands at work, and youll sense the pleasure the two are having cooking together, tasting, exchanging ideas, and raising a glass to savor the fruits of their labor. Again and again they demonstrate that cooking is endlessly fascinating and challenging and, while ultimately personal, it is a joy to be shared.