My Favorite Books

This was a wonderful book! I learned so much about how Le Cordon Bleu in Paris works. Kathleen Flinn is an entertaining writer and her stories are great! I particularly liked the story about the dish she prepared that her Chef said needed more salt…then, trying to give it to a homeless person, he tasted it and said it needed more salt!

What can I say about Peter Mayle’s classic book? We absolutely adore Provence and will likely end up living there after a few years living in Paris! We’ve watched the BBC videos based on this book so many times we have much of it memorized “My taste buds, previously dormant until then, exploded with delight”, “He’s breathing my air” and “Anyway is the right way”. If you haven’t read this hilarious book you are missing something that shouldn’t be missed

This a VERY handy reference book to have in your kitchen library!  There are three sections in the book:

1. Flavor= Taste + mouthfeel + aroma + “the X factor”: Learning to recognize teh language of food
2. Great cooking = maximizing flavor + pleasure by tapping body + heart + mind + spirit: Communicating via the language of food
3. Flavor matchmaking: The charts

The first section talks about what’s perceived by the taste buds (sweet, salty, sour and biter), mouth (temperature, texture, piquancy, astringency), the nose(pungency, chemesthesis) and the mind (“the X factor”: Visual, emotional, mental, spirtual)  There are many great tips and advice with the “why” so you can understand it vs just learning it by rote.  For example,

On every forkful – regardless of what’s on the fork – there has to be salt, acid, and heat…However, unless you are serving a pepper-crusted dish, or a lemon or vinegar dish, your seasong should never by detected.

Oh.. this review could get really long! 90% of the book is about the charts. They are really easy to use. Just lookup something you want to use and it tells you characteristics like season, taste,weight, volume, tips etc. Bolded items are recommended by experts. The bigger the bold font, the more experts recommended it. For example:
DILL
Season: spring-autumn
Taste: sour,sweet
Weight: light, soft-leaved
Volume: moderately loud
Tips: Always use dill fresh, not cooked

beets
cabbage
carrots
cilantro
CUCUMBERS
EGGS and EG DISHES
FISH, esp. whole
parsley
… (you get the idea)…