Ad Hoc at Home
Product Description
Thomas Keller shares family-style recipes that you can make any or every day.
In the book every home cook has been waiting for, the revered Thomas Keller turns his imagination to the American comfort foods closest to his heart—flaky biscuits, chicken pot pies, New England clam bakes, and cherry pies so delicious and redolent of childhood that they give Proust’s madeleines a run for their money. Keller, whose restaurants The French Laundry i… More >>
5 Responses to “Ad Hoc at Home”
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I love ‘family style’ cooking, but I don’t have a big family around all the time, nor do I run a restaurant. Instead, I usually cook for a party of two.
And here’s where my critizism with this book comes in: Practically all recipes are given for at least 6 eaters, sometimes 6-8 or even 8-10 servings.
While reading this book, I found it extremely tiresome, that, in order to put the book to practical use, I would need to break down every single recipe. For example, brining chicken is an excellent idea to start with, but a recipe for about two gallons of brine, enough for 4-5 birds? That’s nowhere near my reality. Plus, the brine doesn’t keep very well, so you’re supposed to use it in a timely manner. Brined chicken for two weeks in a row? I don’t think so.
There’s another aspect that bothered me, maybe this book is just ‘too American’ for me. There’s nothing wrong with a bit of ‘human interest’, but for my taste, he goes way over the line here. For example, a recipe that is introduced as ‘the last meal my father had before he died and I’m so glad I could cook it for him’ doesn’t really stimulate my appetite. With all due respect to the author’s personal feelings, but if I want stories like that, I’ll buy a biography, not a cookbook.
I have no doubt that this is a good book for some, but I eventually decided to return it.
Rating: 3 / 5
Lots of lovely pictures which are very helpful when I’m makeing a new recipe. It’s a little larger and heavier than I anticipated.
Rating: 4 / 5
…that the staggeringly talented Mr. Keller could speak in a language that even an average cook could understand! The recipes I’ve tried so far make sense, and taste great as well. I can’t wait to make more.
Rating: 5 / 5
This book was the only thing I asked for for my birthday. I love cookbooks, have many, and use quite a lot of those. My batterie de cuisine is extensive, and I am not ashamed of my repertoire. The book finally arrived today, and I sat down and read it. The first thing that struck me was the size of the book. This book is much too big to put in the kitchen and follow the recipe. And it is very heavy. It is sized as a coffee table book.
Then I began to read the book. It starts by suggesting that only the most expensive equipment will be good enough. I know the prices of Mr. Keller’s recommendations. Then I moved on to the recipes. They do broaden the mind. But this may be Mr. Keller’s idea of home cooking, or cooking for the home, but I doubt it is anyone else’s. Many of these recipes would take all day, and perhaps more, to make. Much less to serve a whole meal made from 3 or more recipes. Sandwiches begin with homemade bread. Fried chicken needs to be brined for 12 hours. Chicken pot pie has cooked chicken in it, presumably made before the recipe starts. Many ingredients need to be sent for, or looked for in very rare specialty shops. Now, that is fine, and has a place, but this is not a cookbook for every day. And in today’s society, it’s not really for cooking even on the weekend. It’s made for sitting on the coffee table, and being read. This to me is sad. I probably will try a number of the recipes, just to see if they are worth all the extra work, if the recipe is used in its entirety. But I do expect to adopt some of the ideas included in some of the recipes in my general cooking routine.
I was expecting to be totally inspired by this book, and I am not. These are not home cooking recipes. This is very fancy, high end restaurant cooking trying to disguise itself as home cooking and failing miserably.
Rating: 3 / 5
Most of the recipes look great and don’t require a high degree of skill, but I really wish there were more pictures. Not only do the pictures “tell” me how to present the dish and what to expect, but they also inspire me to make them in the first place.
Rating: 4 / 5