GALAXY GUIDES INDEPENDENT RESTAURANT REVIEWS

ADELAIDE - South Australia DARWIN - Northern Territory - end 2009 BRISBANE - Queensland HOBART - Tasmania - July 2009 MELBOURNE - Victoria PERTH - Western Australia SYNDEY - New South Wales

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	MY FRENCH VUE BISTRO COOKING AT HOME Shannon Bennett Photographs by Simon Griffiths Published by Simon & Schuster Australia, H/B $54.99 We really detest cookbooks written by high profile chefs who so dumb down their recipes as to make them unrecognisable to anything that might be eaten in their restaurants. Bennett doesn't find the need to do that and this second book is really terrific. Not as beautiful, we have to say as My Vue, which expands the wonderful graphics of their really fabulous web site and restaurant, but this is a book stuffed with great ideas and recipes — technique is simply explained, dishes like Confit of Ocean Trout with Ginger Jus p113 so simply presented and a technique that isn't without complications, so clearly explained. We love that! We think a chef who knows how to do something has the responsibility when they choose to share their knowledge to do it in a way that is honest, but most importantly achievable. One of the reasons for having restaurants is to be able to eat something you can’t cook at home, and certainly most home cooks would struggle to reproduce the complexities of Bennett’s restaurant menu. My French Vue is a good book with some terrific recipes and some well explained techniques.
	TRUFFLES Elizabeth Luard Photographs by John Heseltine Published by Frances Lincoln, H/B $49.95 There are hundreds of books about truffles but this new slim and stylish volume takes on the truffles of the world. Finally there is more than a vague reference to ’desert truffles’ still bought back to Jordan from Iraq by taxi driver’s who risk their lives for $80 to get them. China where a thick slice of foie gras and lashings of truffle is a reminder of what France used to serve. Australia even gets a mention. Best the recipes are simple classics, some from my favourite authors including Alice B. Toklas’ Truffle Turnovers. To our great approval even the hot Italian recipes use butter. Butter and truffles have a symbiotic relationship that extracts the flavour like no other cooking medium. A good read and great recipe section and makes a fabulous gift for a truffle virgin (or addict) to ’black gold’. If you are interested to know more about the white truffles of Iraq the books written by the Burtons mention them and so to many other travellers of the same period.
	RENOIR’S TABLE Jean–Bernard Naudin Text Jean–Michel Charbonnier and François Truchi, recipes Jacqueline Saulnier, preface Pierre Troisgros Published by Pavilion Books Limited, can be ordered in Adelaide H/B approx $70 Art and food are irrevocably linked and Renoir’:s Table is a really beautiful publication as much for enjoying the Renoir’s art and the beautiful photographs that just embellish the overall experience. Recipes only occupy about one third of the book and a simple (and some not so simple) classic French cooking that uses so many of the ingredients readily available to us from our local markets. The fascinating text draws you into the life and food that surrounded Renoir, the restaurants he frequented and the dining experiences he shared with his contemporaries. A stylish publication right through to it’s beautiful cover.
	BREAKFAST LUNCH TEA – ROSE BAKERY Rose Carrarini Published by PHAIDON, H/B $49.95 Before Christmas there are always countless books for review deliberately timed for the Christmas market and for some reason this excellent book remained un-read. Rose Carrarini is the chef owner of the Parisienne Rose Bakery and has virtually written the handbook for café owners wishing to do something a little more. Produce driven her relationship with her baker, apple grower and staff are quintessential to the success of her business. Most refreshing is Rose herself and the generosity of her recipes and her matter of fact joy in doing things well, all best summed up when she writes ’ALL ABOUT ME.’ ’I am not a trained chef. Everything I have achieved has been a result of learning from other chefs, responding to customers’ desires, reading lots and most of all, knowing so strongly what I want from foods…..their intrinsic health benefits, their taste and look, and ultimately, my choice of some foods and rejection of others. I have always been extremely picky, selecting this tomato and not that one, this well-reared chicken and not the other and so on. ’ Refreshing honesty, lack of fame seeking and clear evidence of practicing what she preaches with some very good baking sections.