Julia's ​Casual Dinners Seven ​glorious menus for informal occasions

Julia Child - The ​Way to Cook
From ​Publishers Weekly: Child's new magnum opus reminds us that she has almost single-handedly inspired the superb quality of modern larders. Without her unflagging commitment to good eating, it is doubtful that fresh duck foie gras would have been available for the saute included here. However, this wonderful book is hardly a paean to elitist fare, maintaining Child's unique perspective while reflecting attitudes about food that "have changed through these last years" and sharing much new knowledge. Recipes, divided into a master formula and variations, are grouped by technique; French classics stand fin-to-wing with American offerings (roast turkey). Dietary concerns are addressed with low-fat soups and a cottage cheese-enriched chicken liver mousse. Nevertheless, the author of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, who would "rather swoon over . . . one small serving of chocolate mousse . . . than indulge one . . . fat-free gelatin puddings," has not gone light. Six hundred handsome photographs underscore Child's technical genius. 110,000 first printing; BOMC main selection.

Julia Child - Cooking ​With Master Chefs
In ​this companion volume to the PBS series "Cooking with Master Chefs," Julia Child introduces sixteen of America's talented chefs from different parts of the country and interprets their recipes for the home cook. With the help of more than eighty color photographs we see the chefs at work in home kitchens and we learn the individual techniques that make their signature dishes so delicious -- and so workable. For example: -- from Charles Palmer (Aureole, New York), how to sear peppery venison steaks -- from Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger (Border Grill, Santa Monica), how to make a spicy vegetarian feast -- from Emeril Lagasse (Emeril's, New Orleans), how to produce an authentic crab boil and a shrimp etoufee -- from Andre Soltner (Lutece, New York), how to cook traditional family dishes from Alsace -- from Jeremiah Tower (Stars, San Francisco), three innovative ways with chicken -- from Lidia Bastianich (Felidia, New York), the secrets of pasta and risotto -- from Patrick Clark (Hay-Adams Hotel, Washington, D.C.), new ways with fish -- fresh salmon as a roulade, grouper crusty with horseradish -- from Michel Richard (Citrus, Los Angeles), how to work with chocolate -- a mousse-filled dome, deep-fried chocolate truffles -- from Amy Ferguson-Ota (The Ritz-Carlton, Hawaii), the special flavors of island produce -- breadfruit, ti leaves, green papayas, wok-seared ono -- from Robert Del Grande (Cafe Annie, Houston), how to cook with chiles -- from Nancy Silverton (Campanile, Los Angeles), the trick of a grape starter that works magic on her crusty loaves -- from Jan Birnbaum (Campton Place, San Francisco), how to home-smoke salmon and roast sassafras-encrusted lamb -- from Jean-Louis Palladin (Jean-Louis at The Watergate, Washington, D.C.), the technique of roasting duck breasts in a fireplace -- from Alice Waters (Chez Panisse, Berkeley), celebrating the winter harvest in vegetable dishes and salads -- from Jacques Pepin (chef-at-large), making puff pastry and a freestanding souffle Julia Child writes in her Introduction that she's never known a serious cook or chef who didn't say: "Every day I learn something new!" "That point of view," she says, "turns home cooking and the pleasures of the table into a wonderful adventure.' So, appetit, and enjoy the adventures that this wonderful book provides.

Rachel Allen - Home ​Cooking
Bestselling ​TV cook Rachel Allen feeds her family and yours with a collection of easy and delicious recipes that everyone will love, plus handy kitchen tips and tricks to make your life easier. In this, her sixth cookbook, Rachel shows how easy it is to feed your family great food, every day. From school run to bedtime, Rachel has suggestions that even the fussiest eater will love. Treat your loved-ones to nourishing, delicious food with this indispensable, inspirational recipe collection full of wise words, clever hints and tips and, above all, Rachel's irresistible recipes. CHAPTER BREAKDOWN -- Breakfast & Brunch -- Lunch -- Sunday Lunch -- Supper -- Snacks and treats -- Baby Food -- Desserts -- Sweets -- Basics -- Plus handy sections explaining meal planning, home freezing, healthy eating and much more! About the Author: Rachel Allen was brought up in Dublin and at the age of eighteen left to study at the prestigious Ballymaloe Cookery School. Today, she not only teaches at the school, she also writes regular features for national publications, presents highly acclaimed television programmes which have been broadcast internationally and in her spare time authors bestselling cookery books.

Laura Shapiro - Julia ​Child - a Life
With ​a swooping voice, an irrepressible sense of humor, and a passion for good food, Julia Child ushered in the nation’s culinary renaissance. In Julia Child, award-winning food writer Laura Shapiro tells the story of Child’s unlikely career path, from California party girl to coolheaded chief clerk in a World War II spy station to bewildered amateur cook and finally to the Cordon Bleu in Paris, the school that inspired her calling. A food lover who was quintessentially American, right down to her little-known recipe for classic tuna fish casserole, Shapiro’s Julia Child personifies her own most famous lesson: that learning how to cook means learning how to live.

Julia Child - Alex Prud'homme - My ​Life in France
In ​her own words, here is the captivating story of Julia Child's years in France, where she fell in love with French food and found "her true calling". From the moment the ship docked in Le Havre in the fall of 1948 and Julia watched the well-muscled stevedores unloading the cargo to the first perfectly soigne meal that she and her husband, Paul, savored in Rouen en route to Paris, where he was to work for the USIS, Julia had an awakening that changed her life. Soon this tall, outspoken gal from Pasadena, California, who didn't speak a word of French and knew nothing about the country, was steeped in the language, chatting with purveyors in the local markets, and enrolled in the Cordon Bleu. After managing to get her degree despite the machinations of the disagreeable directrice of the school, Julia started teaching cooking classes herself, then teamed up with two fellow gourmettes, Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle, to help them with a book they were trying to write on French cooking for Americans. Throwing herself heart and soul into making it a unique and thorough teaching book, only to suffer several rounds of painful rejection, is part of the behind-the-scenes drama that Julia reveals with her inimitable gusto and disarming honesty. This memoir is laced with wonderful stories about the French character, particularly in the world of food, and the way of life that Julia embraced so wholeheartedly. Above all, she reveals the kind of spirit and determination, the sheer love of cooking, and the drive to share that with her fellow Americans that made her the extraordinary success she became. Le voici. Et bon appetit!

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall - Daniel Stevens - The ​River Cottage Bread Handbook
The ​River Cottage farm, established by British food personality Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall to promote high-quality, local, and sustainable food, has inspired a television series, restaurants and classes, and a hit series of books. In this new addition to the award-winning collection, River Cottage baking instructor Daniel Stevens shares his irrepressible enthusiasm and knowledge to help you bake better bread. From familiar classics such as ciabatta and pizza dough, to new challenges like potato bread, rye loaves, tortillas, naan, croissants, doughnuts, and bagels, each easy-to-follow recipe is accompanied by full-color, step-by-step photos. There's even an in-depth chapter on building your own backyard wood-fired oven.

Julia Child - Julia ​Child & Company
All ​the glorious dishes she cooks for company on her new television series. Detailed recipes for everything she demonstrates or even mentions, plus priceless information on how she plans and markets. And throughout, a fresh delicious array of culinary reflections, suggestions and inspirations.

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall - Every ​Day
Putting ​food on the table for the family quickly and economically doesn't mean you have to compromise on quality. This book shows how Hugh's approach to food can be adapted to suit any growing, working family, or busy young singles and couples for that matter. Breakfast, baking, lunchboxes, quick suppers, healthy snacks, eating on the move and weekend cooking for the week ahead - all these, and more, will be covered in River Cottage Every Day. As Hugh says: 'I make no prior assumptions about where you shop, what you may or may not know about growing vegetables or keeping livestock, whether you can tell the difference between a swede and turnip, or know what to do with a belly of pork and a breast of lamb. Instead, I'll show you easy and confidence-inspiring ways with cuts of meat, types of fish and other ingredients you may not have tried before. And I'll offer you new approaches that I hope will breath new life to familiar staples, like rice, spuds, beans, and your daily bread. Above all, I intend to tempt you irresistibly towards a better life with food, with a whole raft of recipes that I think you will love. I hope some of them will become your absolute favourites, and the favourites of your dear friends and beloved family. I hope that the dishes you like best will infiltrate and influence your cooking, giving you increased confidence and fresh ideas. In short, I hope that before long, cooking simple and delicious food from the best seasonal ingredients becomes second nature and first priority for you, not just once in a while, but every day.'

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall - Veg ​Every Day
'Call ​me power-crazed, but I'm trying to change your life here. The object of the exercise is to persuade you to eat more vegetables. Many more vegatables. And I hope to do so not by shouting from a soapbox, but through sheer temptation...'

Julia Child - Julia's ​Menus For Special Occasions
Here ​are Julia's six exceptional menus for special or hard-to-plan-for occasions Everything you need to know to make a potentially intimidating social occasion as easy as pie. You can pacify the hungry hordes at a cocktail party with a fabulous spread, painlessly feed a crowd with a wonderful cassoulet, or dazzle dieting guests with a genuinely low-calorie feast. It's all here. The six menus vary from light, summery fare to luscious banquets: Birthday Dinner (featuring roast duck with cracklings and ending with an apricor-filled torte) Lo-Cal Banquet (including Angosoda cocktail, chicken bouillabaisse with rouille, and caramel-crowned steam-baked apples) Cocktail Party (puff pastry tarts, Peking wings, oysters, clams, buttered radishes, and more) Cassoulet for a Crowd (a consomme au Porto and a cassoulet of beans baked with goose, lamb, and sausages, followed by cool pineapple slices) A Vegetarian Caper (spaghetti squash tossed with eggplant persillade and a gateau of crepes layered with veggies and cheese) Buffet Dinner (savory appetizers followed by potato gnocchi, old-fashioned country ham, and fresh vegetables a la Grecque, and as a finale an orange Bavarian torte and sliced strawberries with orange liqueur) Julia's inimitable voice guides the home cook through recipes step-by-step, helping compile shopping lists and making suggestions for leftovers after the party's done. With 120 full-color photographs This book and its companion--Julia's Delicious Little Dinners feature the finest recipes from Julia Child & Company and Julia Child & More Company

Julia Child - Julia's ​Delicious Little Dinners
Straight ​from the Kitchen of Julia Child, here is a game plan for giving a perfect dinner party--in fact, six perfect little dinner parties. Whether it's a full-dress party or an old-fashioned chicken dinner, now anyone can entertain without tears or tension. The six superb menus in this book: Dinner for the Boss (featuring a standing rib roast and ending with bourbon-soaked chocolate truffles) Country Dinner (Mediterranean hors d'oeuvres, leek and rabbit pie, and ice cream-filled meringues) Butterflied Pork for a Party (preceded by celery root remoulade and finishing with a gateau Mont-Saint-Michel) Rack of Lamb for a Very Special Occasion (with artichoke scoops garnished with shellfish, and fresh strawberries and hazelnut cornucopias for a sweet ending) Summer Dinner (individual chicken liver aspics, poached salmon steaks, and a savarin au rhum) Old-Fashioned Chicken Dinner (with a chocolate bombe for dessert) Each dinner is imaginative, often playful, and beautifully orchestrated. You'll learn everything you need to know about ingredients, cooking techniques, planning ahead, and improvising leftovers so that each menu becomes a lesson in the art of preparing a small, elegant dinner that anyone can be proud of. With 119 full-color photographs This book and its companion--Julia's Menus for Special Occasions feature the finest recipes from Julia Child & Company and Julia Child & More Company

Bob Spitz - Dearie
Now, ​in Bob Spitz’s definitive, wonderfully affectionate biography, the Julia we know and love comes vividly — and surprisingly — to life. In Dearie, Spitz employs the same skill he brought to his best-selling, critically acclaimed book The Beatles, providing a clear-eyed portrait of one of the most fascinating and influential Americans of our time — a woman known to all, yet known by only a few. At its heart, Dearie is a story about a woman’s search for her own unique expression. Julia Child was a directionless, gawky young woman who ran off halfway around the world to join a spy agency during World War II. She eventually settled in Paris, where she learned to cook and collaborated on the writing of what would become Mastering the Art of French Cooking, a book that changed the food culture of America. She was already fifty when The French Chef went on the air — at a time in our history when women weren’t making those leaps. Julia became the first educational TV star, virtually launching PBS as we know it today; her marriage to Paul Child formed a decades-long love story that was romantic, touching, and quite extraordinary. A fearless, ambitious, supremely confident woman, Julia took on all the pretensions that embellished tony French cuisine and fricasseed them to a fare-thee-well, paving the way for everything that has happened since in American cooking, from TV dinners and Big Macs to sea urchin foam and the Food Channel. Julia Child’s story, however, is more than the tale of a talented woman and her sumptuous craft. It is also a saga of America’s coming of age and growing sophistication, from the Depression Era to the turbulent sixties and the excesses of the eighties to the greening of the American kitchen. Julia had an effect on and was equally affected by the baby boom, the sexual revolution, and the start of the women’s liberation movement.

Lori Bailey Cunningham - The ​Mandala Book
The ​Mandala Book is a visual symphony, filled with 500 stunning mandalic images from nature and civilization. Drawing from history, science, religion, and art, Lori Bailey Cunningham leads a journey that spans from prehistoric petroglyphs to Carl Jung, from tiny particles of matter to entire galaxies. She explains the concepts of mandalas, showing how they are at the root of life itself.

Nigella Lawson - Forever ​Summer
Fresh, ​innovative, versatile and delicious, it's sultry summer all year round and from around the world with Nigella. With all the style and class of her earlier books, and a whole new concept, this is an irresistible and wide-ranging book of summery recipes which can be eaten at any time - from scrumptious Italian antipasti and Greek mezze to Spanish cuisine, from barbecues to beach picnics, from Moroccan roast lamb to Mauritian prawn curry, from the traditional strawberries-and-cream feel of an English summer afternoon to Indian-summer evenings at home, from light lunches to seductive suppers; and with a selection of unusual ice creams and melt-in-the-mouth puddings to die for. And to top it all there's a fabulous selection of unusual ice creams and melt-in-the-mouth puddings - could you resist Nigella's Slut-red Raspberries in Chardonnay Jelly, heaven on a plate (one amazon reader declared she 'could jump into a swimming pool full of this') Relaxed, easy cooking, easy eating: the keynote is simplicity, freshness, enjoyment, and you can cook from it all year round. Ravishingly illustrated with full-colour photos throughout.

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall - Nick Fisher - The ​River Cottage Fish Book
More ​than just a cookbook, this extensive volume provides a complete understanding of fish, from their natural habitats and life cycles to what sauce they go best with. An extensive introductory section explains the various options for procuring good fish and provides information on fish farming, aquaculture, issues involving sustainability and harvesting, and buying and catching fish in an ethical manner. Every manner of fish cooking is covered as well, including pickling, salting, barbecuing, frying, potting, stewing, smoking, and more, with each technique accompanied by a classic recipe, among them sashimi and battered cod. This is a complete guide to fish designed for amateur cooks, seafood lovers, and adherents of the slow food movement alike.

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall - Pam Corbin - The ​River Cottage Preserves Handbook
The ​River Cottage farm, established by British food personality Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall to promote high-quality, seasonal, and sustainable food, has inspired a television series, restaurants and classes, and a hit series of books. In this new addition to the award-winning collection, River Cottage master preserver Pam Corbin helps you transform the abundance of your garden (and your friends' and neighbors' gardens) into everything from simple Strawberry Jam to scrumptious new combinations like Honeyed Hazelnuts, Nasturtium "Capers,"Onion Marmalade, Spiced Brandy Plums, Elixir of Sage, plus a pantryful of other jams, jellies, butters, curds, pickles, chutneys, cordials, liqueurs, vinegars, and sauces.

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall - Fizz Carr - The ​River Cottage Family Cookbook
A ​distinctly educational cooking primer for the whole family with more than 100 recipes that can be made by children. The latest addition to the best-selling RIVER COTTAGE cookbook series inspires the entire family to venture into the kitchen to prepare delicious, wholesome food together. THE RIVER COTTAGE FAMILY COOKBOOK features a comprehensive repertoire of more than 100 recipes and kitchen projects that cooks of all ages will enjoy: making butter, curing bacon, planting a kitchen garden, and more. This complete cookbook will show kids how quality ingredients are produced, while teaching lifelong lessons about meaningful cooking and eating. "Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is a brilliant, argumentative British cook and food writer . . . [His] recipes happen to be terrific, for meat and other things: His chocolate-chip cookie recipe in THE RIVER COTTAGE FAMILY COOKBOOK finally released my children from years of sub-standard attempts." --Cynthia Zarin, GourmetReviews "[A] smart mix of Utopian fantasy and culinary reality."-Washington Post

Julia Child - From ​Julia Child's kitchen
"Be ​a fearless cook! Try out new ideas and new recipes, but always buy the freshest and finest ingredients, whatever they may be. Furnish your kitchen with the most solid and workmanlike equipment you can find. Keep your knives ever sharp and--toujours bon appetit!" Introduction - Julia Child

Rachel Allen - Easy ​Meals
In ​her new book, bestselling TV cook, Rachel Allen shares her ultimate fast and easy family recipes. You can always trust Rachel to help you get a delicious and doable dinner on the table. Whether the cupboards are bare or you just want a fabulous meal without the fuss (or the washing up) you’ll find the answers here. Any situation, any problem, these are recipes you can come back to time and time again for delicious dinner solutions. After all, making home cooking both simple and enjoyable is what Rachel does best. Easy Meals contains 180 family friendly recipes for any night of the week. And even better, as well as being mouth-wateringly delicious they are simple enough for even the most novice of cooks. This book is full of ideas and recipes that you can rely on to help you tackle the most common meal-time problems; when your fridge is empty, when you’re short on time, that use 5 ingredients or less or can be cooked in one pot, even delicious dinners you can serve up without so much as turning on the oven. Finally! A cookbook that truly understands the way your life works. Easy Meals is an essential kitchen companion.

Julia Child - In ​Julia's Kitchen with Master Chefs
Unearthing ​the secrets of 26 great cooks from across the country, Julia Child translates them for the home cook and provides 150 splendid recipes which take full advantage of the exciting new flavors of American cooking today. A companion to the popular PBS series. 110 color photos.