bon appetit!

Nearly a month ago (after multiple trips to the bookstore spent furtively scibbling down notes), I broke down and purchased the Bouchon cookbook from Amazon. Since then, I've been cooking furiously out of it. I haven't decided yet, but this cookbook may come close to rivaling Zuni Cafe's in terms of my usage. Since I don't have much time to cook on the weekday, I've fallen into the practice of cooking multiple stages of our weekday dinners on Sundays, to be finished the day we eat them. (it's like I'm my own sous-chef!) Who knew how revelatory fine herbes could be, tossed into in a simple butter lettuce salad with chopped shallots? So far, I've been practicing moules marinieres, vichyssoise, sorrel soup, sauteed skate wing with grenoble sauce, toulouse sausage with lentils de puy braised in red wine, ice cream and various salads. (I'm testing a gesiurs confit recipe out of Zuni's book tonight) Tomorrow, I will explore a new mignonette sauce (that is, different than Zuni's) for my oysters on the half-shell, and sometime during the week, frisee lardons. Next weekend, perhaps I'll make a quiche or gnocchi parisienne, and when the weather cools, I'll might even venture into duck confit. But tonight, dinner is bavette steak frites topped with caramelized shallots, served on a warm watercress salad.

Don't get me wrong - I still love the French Laundry and its cookbook, but this book is a hell of a lot more useful. The recipes aren't necessarily easier - Keller's just as fastidious about technique - but the ingredients are a bit more economical (and available) to acquire. However, for a bistro cookbook, one recipe is missing - cassoulet. But I think I just might have that one covered.