The Cook's Atelier: Recipes, Techniques, and Stories from Our French Cooking School

by Marjorie Taylor, Kendall Smith Franchini, Anson Smart (Photographer)

Overview

2019 IACP Cookbook Award for Food Photography & Styling
2019 IACP Cookbook Award for Design

The debut cookbook from The Cook’s Atelier—the international culinary destination and cooking school in Burgundy—is a beautifully photographed resource on classic French cuisine and an atmospheric chronicle of a family’s life in a charming French village.

Mother and daughter American expats Marjorie Taylor and Kendall Smith Franchini always dreamed of living in France. With a lot of hard work and a dash of fate, they realized this dream and cofounded The Cook’s Atelier, a celebrated French cooking school in the storybook town of Beaune, located in the heart of the Burgundy wine region. Combining their professional backgrounds in food and wine, they attract visitors from near and far with their approachable, convivial style of cooking.

Featuring more than 100 market-inspired recipes and 300 exceptional photographs, this comprehensive reference is an extension of their cooking school, providing a refreshingly simple take on French techniques and recipes that every cook should know—basic butchery, essential stocks and sauces, pastry, dessert creams and sauces, and preserving, to name a few. Seasonal menus build on this foundation, collecting recipes that showcase their fresh, vegetable-focused versions of timeless French dishes, such as:

• Green Garlic Soufflé
• Watermelon and Vineyard Peach Salad
• Little Croques Madames
• Sole Meunière with Beurre Blanc and Parsleyed Potatoes
• Seared Duck Breast with Celery Root Puree and Chanterelles
• Madeleines
• Plum Tarte Tatin
• Almond-Cherry Galette

Stories of food and life in the village and the unique atmosphere of the atelier accent this personal cookbook. We can almost hear the clanking of the copper pots, the hiss of the vintage espresso machine, and the merriment around the table, as we meet some of the region’s best small farmers and artisanal producers and experience how Marjorie and Kendall’s family works together to create this special place.

More than a practical introduction to classic French cooking, this richly illustrated volume is also a distinctively designed celebration of the French art of joie de vivre and an inspirational primer on adopting elements of the French lifestyle, no matter where you live.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781419728952
Publisher:	ABRAMS
Publication date:	04/10/2018
Pages:	400
Sales rank:	101,634
Product dimensions:	9.30(w) x 11.10(h) x 2.00(d)

About the Author

Marjorie Taylor and Kendall Smith Franchini are the mother-daughter duo and cofounders of The Cook’s Atelier, a French cooking school, culinary boutique, and wine shop in Beaune, France. This international culinary destination in the heart of French wine country has been featured in many publications, including Travel & Leisure, Fodor’s, Food & Wine, Condé Nast Traveler, and more.

Editorial Reviews

★ 03/19/2018
Mother and daughter Taylor and Franchini—originally from Phoenix, Ariz.—offer classic French recipes based on their cooking school of the book’s title in the Burgundy region. Seasonal dishes such as small galettes with leeks and goat cheese and green garlic soufflé are interspersed with profiles of local artisans, including pharmacist-turned-shepherd Yan Lagouge, whose sheep and goats provide milk for soft cheeses and yogurt. The descriptions and instructions are clear and practical (“The frisee wilts slightly when drizzled with a warmed vinaigrette and topped with a poached farm egg”). Menus are seasonal and thematic: a collection of dishes meant to be eaten by a roaring fire in damp weather includes baked endive gratin, while dinner in a vineyard (which the authors managed to pull off, but acknowledge was probably a once-in-a-lifetime event due to complicated logistics) ends with a buttery cake made moist with peaches and raspberries. Background information is as thoughtfully composed as the recipes: Sections on tools, basic methods and “rituals,” and a brief section on clarified butter and compound butters are helpful. The authors are remarkably adept at conveying what makes their adopted home so special, and their seductive book is likely to have readers fantasizing about their own escapes to France. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

If you want to master a new skill, a cooking school's book is a good place to start. Especially when it's from this French one of the same name, which is where I imagine Julia Child would have gone if she were going to school now. It has promising recipes, inviting photos, heartwarming stories and tips that will make you a better home cook.

Tasting Table

"A welcoming 400-page beauty filled with evocative photographs and approachable recipes, it’s a volume you’ll revisit time and again."

Fine Cooking Editors

"In this, their first cookbook, they’ve brought their collective teaching experience to the page, guiding the reader through classic French recipes like plum tarte tatin, watermelon and vineyard peach salad, and baby leek galettes with goat cheese and wild garlic."

Departures

"This 400-page cookbook isn't just straight inspiration: It's a thorough reference to their Burgundy larder, with guidance on cooking essentials, seasonal menus composed of more than 100 recipes, kitchen rituals, and techniques they insist any cook can master."

Conde Nast Traveler

"The Cook’s Atelier shares the classic techniques they teach: It's French cooking made easy, interspersed with a glimpse into life in regional France."

Fathom