[.ca] Culinary Artistry (ISBN 0471287857)

From Amazon.com:
If you really find food fascinating--the idea of food, working with food, and the eating of food--then Culinary Artistry should be on your bookshelf. There are two books at work here. One is What Chefs Have to Say About the Foods They Create. The other is Fun with Food Spread Sheets. A cynic might suggest that after putting together Becoming a Chef, the authors had so much leftover interview material that Culinary Artistry was but the natural outcome. The chef's point of view, however, would be to make use of everything passing through the kitchen, to throw nothing away. In other words, if Becoming a Chef is an entrée, then Culinary Artistry is the special of the day. The book is divided into sections that discuss and reach out to chefs to join in that discussion of such ideas as the chef as artist, dealing with sensory perception in food, composing with flavors, putting a dish together, putting together an entire menu, and standing back to admire the growth of a personal cuisine. This is thoughtful material. It is not how-to material. These guided conversations are made practical for the home cook by charts such as which foods are in season and when, the basic flavors of foods (bananas are sweet; anchovies are salty), food matches made in heaven (lamb chops with aioli or ginger or shallots), seasoning matches made in heaven (dill and salmon), flavors of the world (Armenia means parsley and yogurt), common accompaniments to entrées (beef and potatoes), and, most fun of all, the desert-island lists of many of the chefs quoted so extensively throughout the text. Many recipes accompany the text. How this will affect any individual's own culinary art, be that professional or personal, remains unclear. It may be as private an experience as reading. For the uninitiated, this book will prove that there's a lot more going on with food and restaurants and chefs than they may ever have imagined. --Schuyler Ingle

A brilliant book.:
"Culinary Artistry" came to my attention as an Amazon.com recommendation which mentioned that if I enjoyed the authors' book "The New American Chef" (which I did, very much), that I might also enjoy this book. Amazon got it right in spades: "Culinary Artistry" is yet another breakthrough approach to thinking about food by these authors. Cuisines, menus, dishes and flavors are both constructed and deconstructed, providing the experienced cook with a blueprint for successful experimentation. This book is an invaluable resource to anyone confident enough in the kitchen to want to innovate, yet smart enough to know that it's important to know the "rules" before you try to break them successfully. This is an absolutely brilliant book, one that I have referred to almost daily since it's been in my possession.

Excellent reference for culinary students:
I used this book as a reference for my hot foods classes in culinary school. It is well written and gives you many, many hints on how fully cultivate your talents in the kitchen. This book is a must buy for any culinary student. I also used the following for my baking classes in culinary school: Study Guide for Baking: Key Review Questions and Answers with Explanations by Melissa Heilman Study Guide for Advanced Baking: Key Review Questions and Answers with Explanations by Melissa Heilman These last two books helped me to prepare for the types of questions seen on my baking and advanced baking classes. With the help of these two books, I got a 94 average. Some of my friends in other culinary schools told me about these last two books and how it helped them to reduce their study time and get excellent grades. The first book Culinary Artistry is an awesome book no culinary student should be without. I recommend these 3 books as must buys.

This Book Really Intices You to Think!:
This is a fabulous book, filled cover to cover with creativity. It really helps you to get into there, use your brain and creativity to produce fabulous dishes. It would be an excellent book for culinary students.

Culinary Artistry deserves 10 STARS!:
Culinary Artistry deserves 10 stars for being the most important book in my kitchen!! When I'm stumped to make a new dish, I can open to any page of this book and come up with a new idea for any season, any occasion. This book fosters creativity like no other book I've ever read. Every other professional chef I know considers Culinary Artistry their secret weapon at the restaurant when coming up with a special menu or just a special for the night. I can't say enough about what a revolutionary book this is for people who know the fundamentals of cooking but are always striving to develop their knowledge, technique and cuisine. I learn something new every time I open this incredible book.

"Inspiring"..."A godsend.":
"FLAVOR MATCHMAKING: Some cooks look to books not for precise ingredients and specific instructions, but for inspiration. I've got a book for those cooks. It's the loftily named CULINARY ARTISTRY by Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page (1996), also the authors of the better known BECOMING A CHEF. It's not a cookbook per se. Nor is it a treatise on the techniques every cook ought to know. And it's certainly not a collection of culinary prose. It's more a style manual for those who need to find out if a certain something will go with another certain something. The most relevant information is found in the aptly named section 'Matches Made In Heaven.' Arranged alphabetically, the list comprises about 328 ingredients and seasonings and, for each ingredient listed, the authors provide several complementary flavors. It may not come as any surprise that the entries under beef ribs read ginger, horseradish, mustard, potatoes, tomatoes. But it is incredibly liberating, when in a chicken rut, to alight on the appropriate page and find 57 compatible ingredients for a plain old hen. When the vegetable bin is overflowing with leafy greens or I'm flummoxed over a side dish for a dinner party, I consider it a godsend to flip through the pages and decide on mustard with the greens and walnuts with the watercress. And it's inspiring to be reminded in the midst of Thanksgiving chaos that perhaps that pear dish needs a sprinkling of black pepper rather than a drizzle of honey. As with any reference work, it's not the entire book I value so much as a particular page or two in a desperate moment. The balance of the book's 426 pages are chapters on composing a dish and a menu, complete with advice from restaurant chefs. I confess I haven't read the book cover to cover. And I doubt I ever will. But it's nevertheless the one book that regularly makes the commute from office desk to kitchen counter." ...