Thomas Keller chef proprieter of the French Laundry in the Napa Valley--the most exciting
place to eat in the United States wrote Ruth Reichl in The New York Times--is a wizard a
purist a man obsessed with getting it right. And this his first cookbook is every bit as
satisfying as a French Laundry meal itself: a series of small impeccable highly refined
intensely focused courses. Most dazzling is how simple Keller's methods are: squeegeeing the
moisture from the skin on fish so it sautes beautifully poaching eggs in a deep pot of water
for perfect shape the initial steeping in the shell that makes cooking raw lobster out of the
shell a cinch using vinegar as a flavor enhancer the repeated washing of bones for stock for
the cleanest clearest tastes. From innovative soup techniques to the proper way to cook green
vegetables to secrets of great fish cookery to the creation of breathtaking desserts from
beurre monte to foie gras au torchon to a wild and thoroughly unexpected take on coffee and
doughnuts The French Laundry Cookbook captures through recipes essays profiles and
extraordinary photography one of America's great restaurants its great chef and the food
that makes both unique. One hundred and fifty superlative recipes are exact recipes from the
French Laundry kitchen--no shortcuts have been taken no critical steps ignored all have been
thoroughly tested in home kitchens. If you can't get to the French Laundry you can now
re-create at home the very experience Wine Spectator described as as close to dining perfection
as it gets.
