Win This New French Cookbook

How can anyone resist a cookbook with the words “French” and “Easy” in the title? I mean, after all the food trends that have come and gone lately…after nouvelle and molecular and modernist cuisine…after fusion, sustainable, locavore, organic and vegan…gluten-free and carbon-neutral and low-carb and no-carb…after all that good and noble politically correct food…doesn’t a warm soufflé or coq au vin or bouillabaisse or beef bourguignon just sound so appealing right now? 
 
Does to me.
 
When Richard Grausman wrote At Home with the French Classics in 1988, it received rave reviews and sold close to 100,000 copies. And now, just this month, Workman Publishing has brought out a revised and updated edition with the new title French Classics Made Easy. The back of the book says it offers “a simpler, better way of French cooking” and I sure can’t find anything wrong with that.

If you have the original, you may not need the new. But if you don’t, this is an extremely inviting book, with 250 recipes made from ingredients readily available at the local supermarket. Recipe titles are all in English, followed by complete French translations. Many are illustrated with step-by-step techniques. The instructions are so clear and the measurements so fail-safe, in fact, that the recipes are used in culinary classrooms across the country. “If a high-school student can whip up poached salmon with beurre blanc, so can you,” the author says.
 
When possible, Richard has cut the amount of butter, cream, egg yolks, salt and sugar--without compromising the essential nature of the dish. No recipe made it into the book without passing test after test: Is it really delicious? Is it too rich? Too sweet? Too heavy? Too costly? Does it take too long to prepare? If the answer was yes, then he ditched it--or adapted it until it was more in tune with today’s concerns for taste, time, health and calorie counts.
 
So how do the new and old versions of the book differ? In the new one, for example, a few recipes were omitted such as lotte (monkfish), which is now endangered. He also left out Veau Orloff, “because the cut of veal I used is sooooooo expensive today, no one would make it.” For the most part, however, it’s not so much the recipes that have changed but more all the terrific content surrounding them.
 
So who is Richard Grausman anyway? He’s a Cordon Bleu-trained chef and was that famed cooking school’s first ambassador, teaching under their auspices all over the U.S., in Paris and on the French Riviera from 1969-1985. One of America’s foremost culinary instructors, he’s been working to make French cooking accessible to home cooks, chefs and culinary students for more than 40 years. He’s also a writer: his recipes and stories have appeared in scores of publications including the New York Times, Food & Wine Magazine and House Beautiful.
 
Lately, however, his energy has been focused heavily on the Careers through Culinary Arts Program (C-CAP), the non-profit organization he founded in 1990. C-CAP works with high school teachers and their underserved students in seven states and, with the help of some 600 industry professionals, has trained more than 12,000 students. C-CAP has also awarded $34 million in scholarships and donated $2.7 million worth of supplies and equipment to classrooms.  The program and one of its teachers in Philadelphia was highlighted in the Emmy-nominated documentary Pressure Cooker.
 
The new book has a clean, easy-to-follow design. It has a nice chunky feel and a glossy wipe-able cover. It has no photos but I don’t think you’ll miss them. Plus, short snappy sidebars will bring you up to speed: the best skillets to use, how to prepare a lobster for grilling, how to truffle a chicken, what to look for if you’re thinking of buying a professional-style range and much, much more.
 
“It’s my hope that this will be a new book for a generation or two of new, young cooks and readers who haven't known the flavors of the classics,” Richard told me. “And I’ve heard from people who are happy to have this edition to replace their well-worn original.”  All royalties will go to help C-CAP.
 
OK, on to the free stuff! The fine folks at Workman Publishing are giving away three free copies of French Classics Made Easy to the readers of Provence Post. Simply leave a comment (by clicking comments below) and we’ll pick the winners next week. Make sure to let us know how to reach you. Otherwise, you can buy the book on Amazon by clicking here.
 
Bon App and Bon Chance!