My Last Supper: The Next Course: 50 More Great Chefs and Their Final Meals: Portraits, Interviews, and Recipes - Hardcover

Dunea, Melanie; White, Marco Pierre

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1605290769 ISBN 13: 9781605290768

Publisher: Rodale Books, 2011

Synopsis

In her first book, My Last Supper, Melanie Dunea transformed a pastime that has animated restaurants after hours for decades into a sumptuous photographic journey that provided a glimpse into the rarified world of top chefs. The book garnered national media and critical acclaim for the chic and beautiful package and the totally unique concept.
In My Last Supper: The NextCourse, Dunea expands her circle from the highest echelons of chefs to include the best-loved food personalities such as Emeril Lagasse, Rachael Ray, Joël Robuchon, Tom Colicchio, and Bobby Flay to ask them the question that drove the first volume: "What would you eat for your last meal on earth?"

A perfect gift for anyone who loves food, beautifully produced with gorgeous photography,
My Last Supper: The Next Course is so much more than a coffee table book—it's a fascinating glimpse into the world of people who eat, breathe, and sleep food. As the number of people who
consider themselves foodies has exploded, this book is sure to capture the audience who loved the first one and captivate those who are new to the scene.

About this title

About the Author:

MELANIE DUNEA is an award-winning portrait photographer, author, speaker, and TV host. She travels the world on assignment, reporting and photographing the most influential and powerful people in the public eye. Melanie is the author and photographer of five books. My Last Supper: The Next Course, was published as a follow up to My Last Supper. My Country: 50 Musicians on God, America & the Songs They Love, was published in October 2010. Precious was published in 2004, and A Journey of Smiles was published in 2007. Melanie is based in New York City.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

JOEL ROBUCHON

What would be your last meal on Earth?

A good bread. Bread is a symbol of birth, life, and death. It's the symbol of sharing, companionship, friends, and French people--you know, we love bread, bread with a nice dollop of salted butter. Bread is the most beautiful gesture of love. I remember from my childhood we would bake these very large loaves of bread. My mother would hold the bread against her chest and make the sign of the cross, because we were Catholic, and she'd cut the bread on her chest and give it to us, her children, and to her husband. It was our daily bread. She gave us her love and emptied herself giving us this bread. So, for me, it's not so much about the last meal; it's more Proust's madeleines, the nostalgia.

What would be the setting for the meal?

The place isn't that important. I think the most important thing is whom one is with. The time of year and the weather are not important, really, because even if it's the worst weather in the world, if I'm surrounded by people I love, that's the most beautiful ray of sunlight.

What would you drink with your meal?

Water, of course. But if I go in the pursuit of luxury, I would drink a glass of Bordeaux, because it's from my region. I'm from Bordeaux, from Poitou, so I have a weakness for Bordeaux wine. A Pape Clement because at one time I studied in the seminary to be a priest, which is why the Pape Clement wine is symbolic for me. It would be a vintage '45, the vintage of the century. There's '28, '45, '47--those are the three best years. But '45, it's perhaps the best, especially in Pape Clement. I have bottles of '45 at my home. I was born in 1945, so I bought '45s, and people gave me '45s.

Would there be music?

Ah, you know, I don't have an ear for music. But Mozart seems quite nice. Mozart's "Requiem" . . . for leaving, given the circumstances. Or, otherwise, something else I like very much is Vivaldi's "Four Seasons." It's more cheery. We are speaking of death, after all.

Who would be your dining companions?

I would like to be with my children, my grandchildren, my family, the people I love, of course. The goal of life is to find oneself a little bit in that family space, with the children, and to share with them. To leave life surrounded by the people that one loves, with one's children and children's children, I think that's the best one could hope for.

Who would prepare the meal?

I would make the bread. Bread is natural; it's like natural wine--it's like mankind ripening. Man lives like a wine that ferments, that ages to perfection little by little. This bread is life, after all. This bread that you put into an oven develops and afterward becomes crusty, which means everything! And then, of course, these odors, these odors that are extraordinary . . . I remember when my mother would take a chicken to roast- -you know, for Sunday--to the baker's, and the baker would cook the chicken in the middle of the breads so the chicken was embalmed with the smell of bread . . . It's very simple! Very simple, really, but so good.

About this edition

• Publisher: Rodale Books
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1605290769
• ISBN 13: 9781605290768
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 208