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(More customer reviews)`Workin' More Kitchen Sessions With Charlie Trotter' is based on Charlie Trotter's latest PBS series where, according to Trotter `friend and colleague' Rochelle Smith, Trotter imitates Jazz greats by improvising savory dishes based on twelve (12) central ingredients, plus a series on desserts. Like so many celebrity chef cookbooks, the chef whose name is on the cover generally provides the ideas and may actually create the dishes in the kitchen, but it is the support team which actually writes the recipes, edits copy, tests, the recipes, and does just about every other activity involved in creating a book. As Trotter himself prepared these recipes on TV, we can be certain that he certainly had a lot to do with actually coming up with the recipes, so his creative contribution to the book is assured.
Trotter is easily one of the most creative and influential writing chefs in the country, along with Thomas Keller, Alfred Portale, Daniel Boulud, and Tom Colicchio. Unlike culinary businessmen such as Wolfgang Puck and trendsetter restaurateurs such as Alice Waters, these chefs create new cuisine and explain to all of us less talented what it is really like to be a creative chef in a fine dining establishment. With all of that, why am I so disappointed with this book?
For starters, it is important for me to say that I am convinced that virtually all the recipes in this book are about as original as they come and I am sure that they are about as tasty as the finest ingredients and the best culinary minds and hands can make them. There is not a single conventional spaghetti, paella, risotto, roasted chicken, crepe, omelet, Panini, or crostini recipe in the book. Virtually the only recognized name dish in the book is a cassoulet, but this is done in a very unconventional way. There are some soufflés and a paella inspired recipe here and there but nothing you will find in Tony Bourdain's excellent send off of bistro dishes. Thus, like John Coltrane's famous renditions of `My Favorite Things', these dishes simply have never been seen before, and it is quite possible Trotter will never make them again.
Here lies the germ of the problem. If these dishes are one off improvisations by a world class chef, what in the world give us any assurance that these dishes have any value whatsoever to the practical home cook? The problem is compounded by a few very pedestrian problems with the design of the book. For starters, the headnotes to each dish are in a small type with a very light ink. It was literally difficult for me to read these paragraphs. Second, the very imaginative organization of the recipes by a principle ingredient was largely meaningless, as almost every dish could have been made a set piece for any one of half a dozen ingredients. My favorite example is a truly fantastic looking dish made of a lamb tenderloin with a peanut sauce, ginger, scallions, onion, carrot, parsnip, bell peppers, and so on, with a touch of mizuna, tatsoi, and basil. If I were looking for something to do with a head of frisee or romaine or Boston lettuce and I was paging through the section on greens, this recipe would do absolutely nothing for me. Third, while the photographs of the completed dishes were as good or better than I've seen in most books, the `atmosphere' snaps were done in a very dark green shade where one's eyesight would have to be a lot better than mine to make the effort to appreciate what Herr Trotter was doing when the picture was taken. Fourth, this is obviously a book meant more for the coffee table than for laying open on the kitchen table. This may not be a serious complaint, as Thomas Keller has given us an even larger `Bouchon'; however, Keller's book is literally packed with familiar recipes which virtually all of us can reproduce to good effect. Trotter's book has no such recipes. Fifth, I think the author(s) really short-changed us in the pantry recipes. I am very suspicious of the stock recipes as their procedures are very short and they instruct us to chop vegetables and simmer these for up to six hours. Virtually every other expert I have seen puts whole or simply peeled and halved vegetables in a stock pot and simmers vegetables from one to three hours. I think Trotter's stock recipes in the hands of an amateur who does not have $100 chinois strainers on hand are recipes for very cloudy stocks.
Some of the clues that tell me that these are not recipes for mere mortals are the instructions to do a brunoise dice of seeded tomatoes. According to my trusty Larousse Gastronomique, a brunoise is a `minute dice'; generally giving cubes an eighth of an inch on a side. I challenge you to successfully brunoise the flesh of a tomato! A second case is when the instructions ask you to do a chiffonade of onions that have been baked for an hour. Trotter may be able to do this without a lot of thought but I am simply not up to these prep tasks.
These are simply not practical recipes for amateurs. There is a lot of inspiration here and there is a lot of very good use of American ingredients. This is purely a book for professionals and serious foodies. I will come back to this book for inspiration when I have the urge to create a recipe for artichokes, corn, fennel, greens, legumes, mushrooms, onions, potatoes, root vegetables, squash, tomatoes, or cheese, but I will pass on it when I want to do my next 100 family meals.
Like Trotter's book `Raw', I give this three stars not for the lack of great culinary skill behind the recipes but as a warning to look twice before laying out $40 for this book. Keller's `Bouchon' is a much better value for the money.
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