Simca's Cuisine

Presents recipes and preparation guidelines for the creation of gourmet, French dishes, and menus suitable for casual, formal, and special occasions

Simone "Simca" Beck is known to millions of Americans as Julia Child's French partner in the creation of the two classic volumes of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Simca's Cuisine offers up her own delectable recipes - the ones she most treasured form a lifetime of cooking creativity that made her one of the great cuisinières of her day. Here are recipes that were inspired by old French family specialties found in her mother's and grandmother's well-thumbed notebooks; recipes that grew out of Simca's life in the provinces (particularly Normandy, Alsace, and Provence), where she gardened, cooked, dined out, and entertained - simple delights and fabulous concoctions all set down with a beautiful clarity. Skillfully adapting French ways to American needs, Simca's Cuisine presents over one hundred recipes in thirty-one alluring menus designed for every sort of occasion, from the informal "earthy dinner for high-spirited friends" - centered around a cassoulet with duck and hot sausages - to the ornate "spectacular dinner with champagne" that begins with salmon or striped bass in brioche. (6 X 9, 368 pages, illustrations)