Crave: The Feast of the Five Senses - Hardcover

Lefebvre, Ludovic; Booe, Martin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060012854 ISBN 13: 9780060012854

Publisher: William Morrow & Co, 2005

Synopsis

For top chef Ludo Lefebvre, cooking is a sensual process that involves all five senses at every stage of preparation. In Crave, Lefebvre offers more than one hundred original, elegant, and unbelievably delicious recipes that teach us the joy -- and skill -- of cooking with the senses.

In dishes such as his signature Glazed Langoustines with Ceylon Cinnamon, he shows that through our senses we can bring creativity and a sense of playfulness to cooking while still preserving the great traditions behind cuisine. Lefebvre brings a whole new level to the sense of taste with groundbreaking techniques for contrasting and balancing spices; he shows how to choose meat and produce and how to test food through touch; he teaches the difference between the sound of butter and oil that's ready for cooking and the sound of burning; he offers visual cues that can enhance technique and presentation; and he introduces recipes that tantalize the powerful sense of smell to heighten both the flavor and experience of a dish.

Along with his desire to put delightful recipes into the hands of the home chef, Lefebvre wants us to expand our perception and understanding of the cooking process. "I want people to cook with love. I want them to be aware of what they're doing," says Lefebvre. "The act of cooking can be as much of a pleasure as eating, and if you really cook with your senses, you begin to find that cooking isn't work -- it's play."

These inspiring recipes will encourage you to slow down and become fully absorbed as you learn to cook with and for all five senses:

See: Oysters on the Half Shell with Red Beet Jelly and Shallot Cream
Touch: Fried Stuffed Tomato Beignets
Smell: Chicken Etouffée in Dried Verbena and Curry Leaves
Hear: Roast Beef with Long Pepper and Spiced French Fries
Taste: Lemon Sorbet with Saffron

With Lefebvre's highly original interpretation of French cuisine and his sensual, almost spiritual, approach to every culinary endeavor, Crave invites us to make home cooking a rich, sensual, and rewarding experience.

About this title

About the Author:

Ludo Lefebvre trained at Restaurant L'Espérance, Restaurant Pierre Gagnaire, Restaurant L'Arpège, and Le Grande Véfour -- all of them bearers of three Michelin stars -- before coming to Los Angeles to work at L'Orangerie in 1996. A year later, at the age of twenty-four, he was promoted to head chef, and he went on to make L'Orangerie one of the top-rated restaurants in California. Lefebvre was recently appointed executive chef at Bastide, "perhaps the city's premiere restaurant" (Los Angeles Times). He was nominated for the James Beard Foundation's 2001 Rising Star Chef award and has appeared on E! and the Food Network. He lives in Studio City, California, with his wife.

From Publishers Weekly:

Lefebvre, an intense young chef who trained in France before coming to the U.S. to cook at L'Orangerie in L.A., is passionate about the sensual cooking experience. His enthusiasm is infectious, and this volume stands as a convincing argument that cooking can be as exhilarating as surfing (which, he explains, is his second love), awakening the senses and making the cook feel more alive. His recipes, which range from basic to complex, are categorized by sense; there are chapters on sight, touch, smell, hearing and taste. Of course, Lefebvre explains, "there's a lot of crossover... what's the point of creating the most beautiful dish in the world if it has no flavor?" A simple Cream of Broccoli Soup in the sight chapter is an "exercise in preserving the color of vegetables." The smell chapter celebrates all that's aromatic with such recipes as White Sea Bass with Roasted Figs and Four Spices. Côte de Boeuf with brown sugar, herb salad, and Pommes Soufflés, an entry in the hearing chapter, sizzles fiercely as it's cooked. The intriguing recipes are only part of what's appealing about this book, which could help bring a vivacious spark to the most mundane of cooking routines.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: William Morrow & Co
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0060012854
• ISBN 13: 9780060012854
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 252