and we're off!

  

In the last post, I pictured the book in it's
mint green cover, but once removed this beautiful
salmon hardback cover is unveiled.

            Well it has begun, my copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking came in the mail on Saturday and, after calming our Aussie - Jack - who freaked out due to the sound of the doorbell (ha), I settled onto our couch and started paging through over 500 recipes and 684 pages. Needless to say, it took me quite a while!
  

Here's an example of a recipe:
Unlike today's recipes, the ingredients are listed
to the left of the step in which they are needed.
See what I mean... confusing!

            It's overwhelming at first when you venture into such a large book, let alone when the book is full of foreign recipes AND on top of being unfamiliar, the way the recipes are laid out is confusing. To combat that, I started by reading the whole introduction and everything that preceded Chapter 1 (for perhaps the first time in my life) and thus, I learned quickly that this would require patience.

            Once I got the hang of how this lovely cookbook is set up, I realized that it is truly a beautiful work. The book is filled with drawings of techniques and diagrams, charts, and comments abounding with classic Wit! Never does Julia Child or her co-authors make the reader feel less than up to the task.

Mastering the Art of French Cooking is littered with hand-drawn images like this one.

"We have not given estimates for the time of preparation,
as some people take half an hour to slice three pounds
of mushrooms while others take five minutes." (Forward xxvi)

               So, after a day of scouring the pages I settled on three simple recipes to lend me some practice at deciphering the way Julia thinks. Our first Julia inspired meal consisted of the following: "Artichauts Au Naturel" (pg 424), "Pomme De Terre Sautèes" (pg 526), and "Suprêmes De Volaille À Brun" (pg 270). Overall, everything was great! It was different than what we were used to but so delicious!!

Artichokes, Potatoes and Chicken all done "Julia Child style"!

Bon Appetit!