From the owner-chef at L.A.'s La Toque restaurant, a selection of recipes for food that the publishers describe, accurately enough, as fresh and sophisticated American-French cuisine. It's decidedly upscale, conceived and executed with flair, for cooks who go for ``elegant'' entertaining and don't mind the costs or the preliminary preparation (several recipes, for example, call for veal broth, a French restaurant staple less ubiquitous in home kitchens here). Salads include one of hot eels and one using three different duck preparations; there are first courses of cream- sauced fish; main dishes include venison with wine-poached pears, breast of duck with apples and Calvados, and boneless rabbit with morels. Frank's Brillat-Savarin cheese with fresh truffle debuted at a Baron de Rothchild $650-a-plate Best-of-Ten-Decades dinner; and for dessert there's an acknowledged ``demanding'' chocolate gÇnoise/chocolate mousse called ``the zigzag.'' Haute. (Line drawings throughout.)
Pub Date: April 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-671-50617-X
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1992
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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