New Cookbooks

The Complete Robuchon (in English)

Every now and then, I feel the need to buy a cook book - though in reality I hardly ever read one. It's like my collection of high heels, just in case I need one, I prefer to have them in the waiting.

And sometimes I buy a cook book because I like its pictures, sometimes because I fantasize about cooking its dishes (e.g. my African collection of recipes). And ça m'est arrivé to buy a cook book because it was written by a big name - as if he's not rich enough already and I had to contribute to his wealth.

Recently I bought a Chinese cook book written by Huang Ching-He because 1) she's pretty 2) BBC endorsed her and 3) the photos were nice. Though after discovering that her roots were Taiwanese and therefore Fukianese, I lost a little of my enthusiasm. If you go by my Fukianese mom's culinary skills, you'll understand why (Dad, don't you go snitch on me!). I only swear by Cantonese cuisine, I'm afraid.

But I'm sure that my "The Complete Robuchon" had to be a good buy. If the dishes at L'Atelier in Paris were any indication, the man's a genius in the kitchen. The cook book doesn't have any pictures, but from the quick glimpse I had of it, it contains most of the French dishes that one would need to know how to make - sort of a deluxe version of Hub's favourite Ginette Mathiot ("Je sais cuisiner").

I would have preferred the French version, but the English version was cheaper (well it's the crisis, I have to save where I can...). In my experience (e.g. after Ducasse in English), French would be more comprehensible when the cooking's from a French chef. With regard to the ingredients and the cooking techniques, of course. Now I have to find some space in the bookshelf for the books, the DVDs have taken up most of the space...