From Julia Child's Kitchen

Rating:
Summary: The Best Cookbook Julia Ever Wrote
Review: As a child I enjoyed watching Julia Child on TV and as I read From Julia Child's Kitchen it's in her own voice that I am hearing her words. The text is so clearly written that anyone, at any cookling ability level can easily follow her instructions. The pictures were a bit disappointing being small, older and all black and white, but besides that the book is a gem. If you are looking for just a collection of recipes - look elsewhere - but if you want a course in master cookery from a master chef - this is the book for you!

Rating:
Summary: A Cooking Class and Classic
Review: As a child I enjoyed watching Julia Child on TV and as I read From Julia Child's Kitchen it's in her own voice that I am hearing her words. The text is so clearly written that anyone, at any cookling ability level can easily follow her instructions. The pictures were a bit disappointing being small, older and all black and white, but besides that the book is a gem. If you are looking for just a collection of recipes - look elsewhere - but if you want a course in master cookery from a master chef - this is the book for you!

Rating:
Summary: The Best Cookbook Julia Ever Wrote
Review: As an avid collector of cookbooks ( I may be 12, but I've already purchased about 300 books ), it is hard to choose a favorite among them. This book, however, ranks at the top.I love " From Julia Child's Kitchen " in that it features almost every recipe she's every created, tons of photos, and lots and lots of interesting text. You really don't need any other Julia Child cookbooks except this one ( okay, so " Mastering the Art of French Cooking " is an exception ). I think everyone who has a stove should have this book!

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Short Course on French Cooking
Review: I bought this book for my sophomore year in college (years ago). It is wonderful, providing simultaneously lessons on basic cooking techniques and great recipes to enjoy.

Two recipes you will need to try or forever regret it: leek and potato soup, and chocolate mousse (freeze it!). You will be famous and popular if you serve these dishes to your friends.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Short Course on French Cooking
Review: I bought this book for my sophomore year in college (years ago). It is wonderful, providing simultaneously lessons on basic cooking techniques and great recipes to enjoy.

Two recipes you will need to try or forever regret it: leek and potato soup, and chocolate mousse (freeze it!). You will be famous and popular if you serve these dishes to your friends.

Rating:
Summary: One of the great cookbooks of all time
Review: If you know nothing about cooking, this is the book to buy first, and the fact that it's so hard to find is a damn shame. Julia is who she is for a good reason. The recipes (and more) in here -- the original Caesar Salad (given to Julia by Cesar Cardini's daughter), the last words in puff pastry and chocolate mousse recipes, a discourse on the ethics of cooking lobster, advice on metric measurements (written in the '70s when there was hope for the US to convert, but relevant now in the era of Internet recipes), and even a comparison of French and American butchering practices make this more than just your average TV cookbook (it was the companion to the color French Chef series).

To any cookbook interested in Western cooking of any sort, this should be a part of your library. It doesn't cover everything, but if you can't learn to cook from this book you can't cook period. Julia has written many a cookbook (even Baking With Julia, though written by Dorie Greenspan, still has Julia's spirit in it apart from the TV connection), and most all are great, but this is the one Julia book every serious chef should own.

Rating:
Summary: Julia's cooking techniques and stories told in her own voice
Review: Of all of Julia Child's cookbooks (most of which I own), I find this one to be by far her best. As a devoted fan of the author even since I saw her on PBS as a child, I've always appreciated her mixture of technique and detail with continuous narrative.

From Julia's Kitchen reads as well as it cooks. She speaks in her own voice, seemingly without the interference of colleagues or editors, leading us through her favorite recipies. As always, she complains about the difficulties of finding true French ingredients, such as sorrel or creme fraiche, in the US. However, the effects of progress can be seen as the food processor makes its first apprearance in her pastry recipe.

Although tied in to her concurrent PBS show, it's more complete and cohesive than The French Chef Cookbook without the increasingly blatant commercialness of later works.

Rating:
Summary: THE book to teach you the essentials
Review: This book is really refreshingly simple compared to all the incredibly complicated recipes one seems to find lately (most of which don't taste too good). When I first bought it I was a little disappointed as it contained a lot of talk and few recipes. However on trying the recipes I fell in love with Julia's detailed instructions, they make difficult things easy. It was my first time making chocolate mousse and cheese souffle and they both turned out perfect. I give it 4 stars rather than 5 because I would have liked more variety.

Rating:
Summary: For cooking novices, Julia's best book
Review: This unassuming book, a companion to Julia Child's original WGBH TV series, doesn't have many recipes, certainly isn't comprehensive, and has only pathetic, tiny, black and white illustrations. But it's loaded with detailed explanations of the basics--what to do, why to do it that way, what will happen if you do it the wrong way and (sometimes) how to fix things that have gone wrong. The book is really almost a programmed learning text on cooking, although it isn't presented as such. I don't know of a better cookbook for novices, who can soon follow it to create really impressive dishes that will earn accolades, and help keep up their interest in cooking. Not all the recipes are classics. Some are the author's innovations, but make the point that, by combining basic techniques, interesting new dishes can be done. For example, the two sauce "Lasagne a la Francais" is unlike any Lasagna you've ever had--but wonderful--and makes perfect sense once you've been through the earlier recipes in the book on whose techniques it builds. If I were looking for a book for someone who didn't really know how to cook, but wanted to learn, this is the one I'd get.

Rating:
Summary: For cooking novices, Julia's best book
Review: This unassuming book, a companion to Julia Child's original WGBH TV series, doesn't have many recipes, certainly isn't comprehensive, and has only pathetic, tiny, black and white illustrations. But it's loaded with detailed explanations of the basics--what to do, why to do it that way, what will happen if you do it the wrong way and (sometimes) how to fix things that have gone wrong. The book is really almost a programmed learning text on cooking, although it isn't presented as such. I don't know of a better cookbook for novices, who can soon follow it to create really impressive dishes that will earn accolades, and help keep up their interest in cooking. Not all the recipes are classics. Some are the author's innovations, but make the point that, by combining basic techniques, interesting new dishes can be done. For example, the two sauce "Lasagne a la Francais" is unlike any Lasagna you've ever had--but wonderful--and makes perfect sense once you've been through the earlier recipes in the book on whose techniques it builds. If I were looking for a book for someone who didn't really know how to cook, but wanted to learn, this is the one I'd get.