Rating: 
Summary: TRULY FOR THE SERIOUS CHEF!
Review: A friend gave me this book and when I saw the title, my response was, "Who the heck is Jacques Pepin?" Does he sing, does he dance, what does he DO? Well, excuse me, easy to see I am not a Cordon Bleu chef! I simply do not have the time, but if I did, this would be a great book. My life seems to exist around crock pots, slow cookers and anything that can be tossed in the oven while I enjoy a moment of tranquility at the end of the day.Jacques Pepin now smiles down on me from my kitchen shelf and reminds me of how great French cuisine could be if time was on my side. There are oodles of tips and techniques here and those alone make the book well worth the price. From garnishing and carving to an elegant melon swan, this book does have some great tips and illlustrations, aside from mouth watering recipes. This book would make an excellent gift for my son-in-law whose culinary skills are tackled with a passion. He roasts and bastes, sautes and whips like a chef possessed. His carving skills, however, are rather elementary. He is the only person I ever knew who could carve a Christmas turkey with a chain-saw and never miss a beat. Oh well, we all have our little quirks and idiosyncrasies!
Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful bread recipes
Review: After living overseas and in SanFranciso, I moved to the Southwest and was unable to buy the European breads I was used to eating; then I discovered this book. The bread recipes are very simple to prepare, and my family and friends just love them. If you love wonderful bread and don't have alot of time to bake, these are the recipes for you!
Rating:
Summary: Freedom
Review: As a budding foodie, I have watched this excellent PBS series many times. This last run through I noticed something that completely freed my perfectionist cooking tendencies. It's just amazing watching Pepin at work. He's excellent but certainly not always precise or perfectionist. A little of this, a bit of that, or a pan a little too hot has all shown me that good cooking is like what a great artist told me once. "Being a good artist has nothing to do with perfection. It's just a long series of covering up your mistakes." Having the companion book to the series has helped me tremendously to lighten up and have fun. This book is filled with great recipes, many of which can be customized to your personal tastes. The photos are an excellent teaching tool and reference. Start with good quality ingredients, have everything prepared and ready to go, follow along in the book and have great time. This book has been worth every penny.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful book but...
Review: I bought the book after watching a few episodes from the series
on PBS. The book is loaded with great recipies and as usual,
loaded with technique. There are a lot of photos that help to illustrate the technique that he is teaching but very few photos of the finished product. Maybe the finished product and how it looks is best left to the cook's creativity but I rely upon the finished prduct photos for motivation. I'm still very happy that I bought the book. Rob
Rating:
Summary: Jacques Pepin's Greatest Hits. Familiar, but still Great
Review: Jaques Pepin may be unique among American culinary figures, as he is both a widely recognized master chef who is also a leading culinary educator to both professionals at the French Culinary Institute and to laymen through many books and PBS series. He is also closely connected to American culinary aristocracy by association with Julia Child, Craig Claiborne, and Pierre Franey, with whom he worked for many years. One small sign of his renown is that when he happened to appear on the Rocco DiSpirito reality show, 'The Restaurant', both Rocco and the executive chef of the restaurant literally fell over one another to show Jaques their regard for his work. This volume, 'Jaques Pepin Celebrates' is, in many ways, the album of a live show of his greatest hits, where recipes and techniques from many earlier books are reprised, with new arrangements. This means the value of the book to you will directly depend on how many other of Pepin's books you already have and how much you specifically like his take on cooking. In other words, how big a Jaques Pepin fan are you? The 26 episodes in the PBS series on which this book is based are based on menus for major holidays and other special occasions. The material in the book, however, is very wisely organized around the traditional French cuisine headings of 'Stocks and Soups', 'Eggs', 'Shellfish and Fish', 'Poultry and Game', 'Meat', 'Appetizers, Salads, Side Dishes', 'Breads', 'Pastries', and 'Cakes and Desserts'. There are simple recipes in this book, especially some of the famous French egg and salad recipes, but a large number of the recipes here are relatively complicated. That is not the same as being difficult. As Jaques very honestly states, the bread recipes in the book are relatively straightforward, but achieving a superior result is very difficult, because so much depends on subtleties in your flour, environmental conditions, and oven. Jaques is a better than average source of knowledge on bread baking and pastries, but I would suggest you read what he has to say on the matter and get books by baking specialists such as Nick Malgieri, Flo Braker, Sherry Yard, or Rose Levy Beranbaum to guide you through these subtleties. Unlike books by other major chefs such as Daniel Boulud on cooking for entertaining, Pepin's dishes are almost all standards of the French cuisine. There is very little here which was not cooked in France fifty or more years ago. This is entirely in keeping with this being a 'greatest hits' book. A consequence of this selection is that the book offers superior recipes for dishes such as cassolet, leg of lamb, pastry encrusted baked fish, roasted chicken, blinis with caviar, and galantines, mousses, and pates which are very familiar to a large number of people, especially to the foodies among your friends and acquaintances. Like other very good culinary writers such as James Beard, Julia Child, Shirley Corriher, and Tom Colicchio, you must weigh every word, as there is no telling when the next sentence will contain an important tip on culinary technique, such as the little device of rolling hard boiled eggs around in the pot after cooking to crack the shells then cover with cool water to improve ease of peeling the eggs when they cool down. This attention to detail that is so thrilling to find is also so disappointing when you find obvious little mistakes in well respected writers work. There are no disappointments here. With a list price of $40, this is Jaques' coffee table book that you can get to join your other big volumes from Eric Rippert, Thomas Keller, and Jeremiah Tower. In keeping with the celebratory theme, the menus include many wine recommendations, many of which are somewhat fussy, but for all of which Jaques freely allows any reasonable substitution of a wine with similar affinities. Not being a major wine fan, I found the wine suggestions very easy to overlook. Pepin is the gold standard for active American culinary writers. There is practically no room for arguing with his technique and recipes. So, the issue with this book comes down to how well you like French recipes and how many Pepin books do you already own. My personal opinion is that this is not his most valuable volume. For pure technique, I think the 'Complete Techniques' volume offers a lot more culinary wisdom for the money. And, I think the 'Julia and Jaques Cook at Home' volume offers much more entertainment for the money. So, I would rate this third after these volumes. This is no reflection on the PBS TV series, it is only an evaluation of the book. If you loved the series and wish to preserve these memories, get the book. It will not disappoint you. The book is certainly a lot better than his quick cooking, economic cooking, and healthy cooking titles, as these smack of being titles prepared to ride current trends in cookbooks. Although, Pepin does have special credentials for fast cooking recipes, as his partner, Pierre Franey was a long time expert on the subject. Highly recommended if you are a big Pepin fan, like to cook to entertain, or have no other books by Pepin.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful book but...
Review: Jaundiced by excess of every trend, I checked this out of the new book section at the library because I've always admired Pepin. I can only tell you that there are at least 50 recipes here I just have to make. And while I long ago learned how to chop an onion, there are tips galore worth exploring. I didn't really want to buy this, so I started marking every page that had something to offer. When I got to 25 marks I decided "enough--succumb." Special find? A recipe for calamari and broccoli rabe that Jacques doesn't seem to realize would make a great pasta sauce.
Rating:
Summary: I thought I'd never need another cookbook
Review: Jaundiced by excess of every trend, I checked this out of the new book section at the library because I've always admired Pepin. I can only tell you that there are at least 50 recipes here I just have to make. And while I long ago learned how to chop an onion, there are tips galore worth exploring. I didn't really want to buy this, so I started marking every page that had something to offer. When I got to 25 marks I decided "enough--succumb." Special find? A recipe for calamari and broccoli rabe that Jacques doesn't seem to realize would make a great pasta sauce.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book...
Review: Lucky owners of Pepin's "The Art of Cooking, vol. 1, 2", La Technique" and "La Methode" (the latter two now in "Complete Techniques") will recognize many of the recipes and techniqes in "Jacques Pepin Celebrates". This is not a replacement for those (or other) books. It is, however, his most general book to date in terms of mixing techniques and recipes. An avid reader of Pepin will also recognize how some techniques and recipes have evolved and improved since the early 70s. Many techniques are illustrated with step-by-step photographs, while recipes are mostly made up of illustrative descriptions accompanied by a photo of the dish. Not only does Pepin tell you what to do and how to do it, he also tells you _why_ to do it from a rational and scientific perspective. This is something that is hard to find in most cookbooks. Some recipes also have different techniques or ingredients listed, or even several versions depending on what you want to do and how much time you have on your hands. For example, there are three different versions of how to make puff-pastry. Each recipe (appetizers, main courses and deserts) is included in a suggested menu, accompanied by suggested wines. Most of the wines are readily available anywhere in the US. There are also enjoyable tidbits of information and thoughts in between recipes by Jacques and his daughter, Claudine. "Jacques Pepin Celebrates" is a carefully planned and beautifully designed book. You will greatly enjoy it even if you own most of Pepin's previous books. If you only own one or two of them, this is almost a must!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book...
Review: Lucky owners of Pepin's "The Art of Cooking, vol. 1, 2", La Technique" and "La Methode" (the latter two now in "Complete Techniques") will recognize many of the recipes and techniqes in "Jacques Pepin Celebrates". This is not a replacement for those (or other) books. It is, however, his most general book to date in terms of mixing techniques and recipes. An avid reader of Pepin will also recognize how some techniques and recipes have evolved and improved since the early 70s. Many techniques are illustrated with step-by-step photographs, while recipes are mostly made up of illustrative descriptions accompanied by a photo of the dish. Not only does Pepin tell you what to do and how to do it, he also tells you _why_ to do it from a rational and scientific perspective. This is something that is hard to find in most cookbooks. Some recipes also have different techniques or ingredients listed, or even several versions depending on what you want to do and how much time you have on your hands. For example, there are three different versions of how to make puff-pastry. Each recipe (appetizers, main courses and deserts) is included in a suggested menu, accompanied by suggested wines. Most of the wines are readily available anywhere in the US. There are also enjoyable tidbits of information and thoughts in between recipes by Jacques and his daughter, Claudine. "Jacques Pepin Celebrates" is a carefully planned and beautifully designed book. You will greatly enjoy it even if you own most of Pepin's previous books. If you only own one or two of them, this is almost a must!
Rating:
Summary: Chef in training
Review: My uncle sent me this book out of the blue and when I received it I was thrilled. I have been cooking most of my life and over the last several years have become more adventurous. This book has many wonderful recipes of which there are ingredients I can't get at the local grocery store. It gives me a reason to shop gourmet. I have made it my goal to make every recipe in this book. I am especially looking forward to making the Stuffed Salmon in Flaky Dough. It looks quite impressive.
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