The Way to Cook

Julia Child

Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, Sep 28, 1993 - Cooking - 528 pages

In this magnificent new cookbook, illustrated with full color throughout, Julia Child give us her magnum opus--the distillation of a lifetime of cooking. And she has an important message for Americans today. . .

--to the health-conscious: make a habit of good home cooking so that you know you are working with the best and freshest ingredients and you can be in control of what goes into every dish
--to the new generation of cooks who have not grown up in the old traditions: learn the basics and understand what you are doing so cooking can be easier, faster, and more enjoyable
--to the more experienced cook: have fun improvising and creating your own versions of traditional dishes
--and to all of us: above all, enjoy the pleasures of the table.

In this spirit, Julia has conceived her most creative and instructive cookbook, blending classic techniques with free-style American cooking and with added emphasis on lightness, freshness, and simpler preparations. Breaking with conventional organization, she structures the chapters (from Soups to Cakes & Cookies) around master recipes, giving all the reassuring details that she is so good at and grouping the recipes according to method; these are followed--in shorthand form--by innumerable variations that are easily made once the basics are understood.

For example, make her simple but impeccably prepared sauté of chicken, and before long you're easily whipping up Chicken with Mushrooms and Cream, Chicken Provençale, Chicken Pipérade, or Chicken Marengo. Or master her perfect broiled butterflied chicken, and next time Deviled Rabbit or Split Cornish Game Hens Broiled with Cheese will be on your menu.

In all, there are more than 800 recipes, including the variations--from a treasure trove of poultry and fish recipes and a vast array of fresh vegetables prepared in new ways to bread doughs (that can be turned into pizzas and calzones and hamburger buns) and delicious indulgences, such as Caramel Apple Mountain or a Queen of Sheba Chocolate Almond Cake with Chocolate Leaves. And if you want to know how a finished dish should look or how to angle your knife or to fashion a pretty rosette on that cake, there are more than 600 color photographs to entice and instruct you along the way.

A one-of-a-kind, brilliant, and inspiring book from the incomparable Julia, which is bound to rekindle interest in the satisfactions of good home cooking.

What people are saying

Review: The Way to Cook

User Review  - Charlotte Grayson - Goodreads

My first cookbook given to me by my aunt. Despite having dozens of new cookbooks, I still use the quiche and bread making chapters. A classic, and in Julia's wonderful voice!

Review: The Way to Cook

User Review  - Maggie Martos - Goodreads

The number one cookbook on my shelf, and my daughter's favorite too!

About the author

Julia Child was born in Pasadena, California on August 15, 1912. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from Smith College in 1934 and served with the Office of Strategic Services in East Asia during World War II. After the war, Child lived in Paris for six years, attending the famous Cordon Bleu cooking school. After graduating from cooking school, Child opened her own culinary institute called, L'Ecole des Trois Gourmandes with her friends Simone Bech and Louisette Bertholle. She achieved critical acclaim with her first cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking which was first published in 1961 and is still in print today and helped to popularized French cuisine in America. Starting in 1963, Child hosted the first of many award winning cooking series on PBS, where she was best known for her exuberant personality and flamboyant cooking style. Her other books include The French Chef Cookbook; From Julia Child's Kitchen; and The Way to Cook. She also filmed an instructional video series on cooking and wrote columns for various magazines and newspapers. She died of kidney failure on August 13, 2004 at the age of 91.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Way to Cook; Alfred A. Knopf
• Author: Julia Child
• Edition: illustrated, reprint
• Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 1993
• ISBN: 0679747656, 9780679747659
• Length: 528 pages
• Subjects: Cooking / General; Cooking / Methods / Quick & Easy; Cooking / Reference