La Cuisine
Everyday French Home Cooking

Translated and with a foreword by Jane Sigal

A culinary bible featuring 1,000 recipes from the legendary woman who revolutionized French cooking by simplifying recipes for the home cook.

With the revival of interest in Julia Child, everyone is hungry for French food again. But why does French cuisine have to be so complicated? Well, it doesn't. Not according to Françoise Bernard.

Beginning in the 1960s, Bernard revolutionized French cooking by writing cookbooks aimed at the modern woman. Until that time, the only cookbooks available were full of fussy recipes handed down by the grand chefs of the past. Bernard set out to make classic dishes accessible to everyone, paring down to a recipe's true essence. She continued to publish and teach, building her forty-year career on the principle that good food can be simple, easy and economical.

This grand volume is the culmination of her work. Each recipe is labeled with degree of ease, prep/cooking time and cost. The book overflows with charmingly homey recipes that take you back to the basics: golden gratinéed onion soup, steak au poivre, coq au vin, tuna provençale, potatoes boulangère. This is the ultimate reference book, not just for those who love French cuisine, but for anyone who craves delicious food.

Normandy Gastronomique

Normandy, one of France's richest gastronomic provinces, boasts traditions of cheesemaking, cidermaking and fruit-growing, but its culinary specialties extend far beyond its world-famous Camembert and Calvados. In its lush pastures, bustling fishing ports and elegant resorts, the traveler will find a wealth of seafood, markets, haute modern cuisine and farmhouse cooking.

This book sets out the culinary traditions of Normandy's five regions: Seine-Maritime, Eure, Calvados, Manche and Orne. The emphasis is on what exists there today; whether an old tradition revived or an import given a Norman twist.

Jane Sigal includes special features on the making of a farmhouse cheese, the pressing of cider, even on the reputed copper cooking pots that originate from Manche. More than half the book is taken up with regional, classic and contemporary recipes, including legendary dishes such as teurgoule, the rustic, cinnamon-flecked rice pudding baked in an earthenware terrine and poulet vallée d'auge, chicken flavored with Calvados and butter-sautéed apples and enriched with the region's thick and slightly tart crème fraîche.

For the traveler, the Visitor's Guide directs the tourist to a wealth of restaurants, markets, museums and other places with a food interest.

With outstanding recipes, lively text and 200 evocative photos of the region, Normandy Gastronomique is the essential traveling companion, a celebration of the unique invention of the moment and the time-honored repertoire that together make up Norman cuisine.

Backroad Bistros, Farmhouse Fare

This unique collection of authentic, classic and unusual recipes from the four most popular regions of France will prove once and for all that French food can be simple and easy to prepare, and that the French people who cultivate, process and prepare it are warm, dedicated and devoted to their traditions.

Traveling back roads through the farms and villages of Normandy, Brittany, Burgundy and Provence, Jane Sigal makes connections between the nature of the land and the kind of food that is served. As she writes about snail farming, salt harvesting, olive oil making or raising free-range chickens, we hear from individual growers, small manufacturers, craftsmen and cooks about the pride they take in preserving the quality and standards of what they produce.

The recipes are regional classics that are still prepared by farmwives today, as well as more sophisticated, modern interpretations of those dishes using traditional regional ingredients. A warm salad of greens, chicken livers, croutons and eggs, for example, represents the best of Burgundy farm food, while a light tomato tart topped with fresh basil sauce uses typical Provençal produce in a nontraditional way.

But whether it is a Norman dish featuring native apples or cider, a Burgundian meal showcasing the famous poultry of Bresse, fresh fish from coastal Brittany or a salad redolent with Provençal olive oil and herbs, each of the nearly two hundred recipes in this book can be readily prepared by American home cooks with easily acquired ingredients.

Jane Sigal's evocative writing and on-site photography add a personal sense of immediacy and intimacy with the people, the land and most of all the food of the French countryside. And for those who cannot resist the urge to see and taste for themselves, a list of addresses for the restaurants, inns, shops and museums mentioned in Backroad Bistros, Farmhouse Fare will serve as a very special gastronomic guide.

Star Chefs on the Road

Food & Wine magazine, the guide for the adventurous eater, presents Star Chefs on the Road. This collection of stories, recipes and photographs features 10 of the world's most famous cooks as they travel the world in pursuit of new flavors and ideas to bring back home. Jacques Pepin on a culinary safari in Botswana and Zambia. Bobby Flay on a golf and food spree in Scotland. Wolfgang Puck at a homecoming in Austria. Writers including Jane Sigal, Pete Wells, Kate Sekules and Tad Friend follow chefs to destinations as far-flung as Patagonia, as romantic as Tuscany and as down-home as the Mississippi Delta, to report on their discoveries. For anyone who believes that the best way to experience a new place is to explore its cuisine, Star Chefs of the Road is a thrilling compendium.