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| Simple to Spectacular: How to Take One Basic Recipe to Four Levels of Sophistication | 
 enlarge | Authors: Jean Georges Vongerichten, Mark Bittman
Publisher: Broadway
Category: Book
List Price: $45.00
Buy Used: $11.86
You Save: $33.14 (74%)
New (20) Used (43) Collectible (2) from $11.86
Avg. Customer Rating:  21 reviews
Sales Rank: 49113
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 432
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3.6
Dimensions (in): 10.1 x 8.1 x 1.3
ISBN: 0767903609
Dewey Decimal Number: 641.5
EAN: 9780767903608
ASIN: 0767903609
Publication Date: October 10, 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Nice and clean, SHIPS SAME DAY
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| Customer Reviews:
 Excellent Master Class on Everyday Dishes. Buy it! May 23, 2005
16 out of 17 found this review helpful
`Simple to Spectacular' is the second of two collaborations by the dynamic duo of chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten and New York Times columnist and cookbook writer, Mark Bittman. The first, `Cooking at Home with chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten' is very good. This book is even better. To my seven (7) categories of modern cookbooks, I would add an eighth category for this and a select few other books such as Tom Colicchio's `How to Think Like a Chef', Paul Bertolli's `Cooking by Hand', and `Jeremiah Tower Cooks'. These are all `master class' texts on cooking techniques. If cooking is not your hobby or you are not a professional cook, your money would probably be much better spend on one of the `big' cookbooks such as the `Joy of Cooking' or on books by one of the fast cooking gurus such as Rachael Ray.
I have often thought that learning cooking is a lot like learning chess. There are lots of general strategies and tips, but you really cannot master the game until you actually play lots of games and see how the strategies play out in many different situations. One of the cleverest techniques for teaching chess is the method of playing through successively more difficult games in which the same rule(s) are applied with increasing sophistication. This book promises to do exactly the same thing with cooking, per its subtitle, `How to Take One Basic Recipe to Four Levels of Sophistication'.
One of the very few disappointments in this book is that it doesn't really follow this agenda. For each recipe title, it certainly begins with a very simple example and at least one of the later recipes certainly is more complicated with more expensive ingredients, but in practically no cases is there a clearly defined progression where the later recipe simply adds either ingredients or techniques to the earlier, simpler recipe. But this is simply not a big thing, as recipes, like chess game paradigms, simply do not evolve linearly. Another inconsequential deviation from the advertised plan is that there are often more than four variations on the same recipe and sometimes as many as six.
One of the unadvertised virtues of this book is that many of the most basic preparations are amazingly simple, and this is from a very important French influenced chef. Two of my favorite examples are the recipes for quick chicken stock and the `Best scrambled eggs' recipe.
I concede that many expert chefs, including those who teach other chefs recommend very long simmer times for their chicken stocks. In this book, Vongerichten and Bittman are recommending a single hour's cooking, using easily acquired chicken legs and just a few common vegetables, with practically no knife work. I am certain that a stock simmered for 12 hours may have some virtues that a one hour stock does not have, especially in the amount of gelatin picked up from the connective tissues, but you got to love this express recipe.
Similarly, some people such as James Beard have given us recipes for scrambled eggs done in double boilers which, according to our authors, can take up to 40 minutes to complete. Now, having done Beard's recipe myself, I know his method is less prone to error and is probably great if you are cooking for a dozen people, but the Vongerichten/Bittman recipe will have your pillowy soft scrambled eggs on the table in 10 minutes flat. If you never quite understood the difference between scrambled eggs and omelets, this book is worth its price for these recipes alone. After the plain eggs comes a recipe for eggs with tomato and basil, eggs with cream cheese, smoked salmon and sorrel, eggs with crispy potatoes and prosciutto, and eggs with caviar.
In addition to the section on `Eggs, Crepes, and Savory Tarts', there is are chapters on:
Soups, with variations on squash soup and gazpacho.
Salads, with variations on Frisee and Mesclun salads.
Pasta, Noodles, and Rice with variations on fresh pasta, cannelloni, sauces, spaetzle and sticky rice.
Vegetables, with variations on stuffed tomatoes, mashed potatoes, sauteed veggies, and tomato confit.
Seafood, with halibut, slow cooked salmon, red snapper, beurre noisette, raw tuna, shrimp, and poached lobster.
Poultry, with roast chicken and sauteed chicken.
Meat, with steak dishes, braised ribs, veal stew, roasted pork, venison and rabbit
Seasonings and sauces, which is simply the typical chapter on pantry preparations.
Desserts, with sorbet, ice cream, creme brulee, poached pears, and tarts.
Except for the recipes of rabbit and venison and the occasional caviar and foie gras, virtually all of these recipes are for dishes which are popular today and which the casual Food Network / Public Television / Today Show TV chef audience would be more than happy to try and wish to learn how to do better and with more variations. Some may argue that spaetzle is just a little obscure, but it happens to be very similar to gnocchi, and even easier to make, as long as you have the right kind of collander or spaetzle maker.
I have heard Ina Garten and some others say that all you really need are to know about a dozen recipes well. I disagree with this number. If I repeat any dish more than once a month or even repeat an ingredient (other than for breakfast) more than once a week, I get complaints. The only dinner exceptions to this rule are for corn and tomatoes when they are in season locally. Therefore, this book is a really great source of recipes that are easy, popular, and highly adaptable.
While I am not a professional dietitian or nutritionist, my sense is that the recipes are also extraordinarily healthy. A perfect example is the egg, smoked salmon, and cream cheese recipe used to replace the high carb, high calorie bagel, lox, and cream cheese.
This book is easily among my top five favorite cookbooks for foodies.
Good ideas for beginners and more advanced cooks July 12, 2004
10 out of 12 found this review helpful
I cook a fair bit (many different cuisines). I am on the lookout for simple, tasty recipes ---I have two kids 2 and 5, so I no longer have time to try the fancier recipes of this book.However, the simpler recipes alone are worth the price of the book. They give some insight into how a famous chef might cook for himself when pressed for time. For example, I've baked salmon hundreds of times over the years but the recipe in this book (the one with crushed capers) has enough minor twists I would never dream of myself---cooking at 350 degrees, with the skin side up, for example--- that lead to much better flavor.
The chicken with sherry vinegar is another example---credited to famous chef Paul Bocuse, but requires only half an hour, and uses no fancy ingredients. Several subtle touches lift it from the ordinary and show that chicken can sometimes be the best of all meats. All my family members, including the 2 year old, wiped their plates clean by soaking up the juices with bread! The frenchtoast with bananas is another good and quick recipe. To sum up, this is not an encyclopedic cookbook. It shows you how to do a few things well. It was a useful addition to my kitchen shelf. It might also be a good first cookbook for the starter cook who desires a few top-class results with minimal effort.
I never had hope for cooking until this book. March 17, 2004
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
As someone who has subsisted largely on frozen dinners and prepared salads for most of my life, I'm shocked at the way this book has made really, really good food accessible and exciting. I'm obsessed with this book. You can go from zero to smoked salmon crepes, oeufs au caviar, braised hailbut and asparagus with mushrooms and cream sauce in a week. The book's recipes are simple, mostly quick to prepare, mostly easy to execute and very adaptable. The authors encourage you to substitute, and provide good bases from which you can improvise. It's inspiring, a book you can grow with.
Brought new life to my cooking! June 23, 2003
17 out of 17 found this review helpful
My fiance and I throw a lot of dinner parties. I've loved cooking for years, and have mastered a number of great dishes that my friends love - and usually keep asking for. Constantly in search of new 'greats' - I've bought shelves of cookbooks trying to find great recipes that I could then modify to make my own. If only I'd found this book first - I would have saved myself hundreds of dollars!This book is incredible - it starts with one basic (but great) recipe for something (like sauteed red snapper, for instance) then gives you 3 additional recipes, each becoming more complex. For instance, sauteed red snapper becomes potato crusted red snapper with a mustard/wine sauce, then spice and nut crusted red snapper, and finally pistachio crusted red snapper with pistachio oil and sauteed spinach. The best part is that this isn't just a book of recipies. The author always explains in detail what you're doing, and why. He points out the really important part of these dishes, to ensure you know where to be careful. Plus, because it's written showing how you can constantly modify recipes for new creations, it opens a *big* door for you to constantly modify and be creative. I've never seen another cookbook like it. Pros:
-Recipies are amazing!
-Even better, you learn how to modify them all in order to create fantastic new recipies.
-Besides the recipies, there's a lot you can learn about cooking in general - there is a wealth of knowledge in here. Cons:
-I don't have any... this book is just remarkable.
Amateur cook finds a cookbook that he can enjoy. August 14, 2002
14 out of 14 found this review helpful
My father is the cook in the family -- I only follow in his humble footsteps. This book, however, is unbelievable for both the professional and amateur cook. My father and I both have copies, and while he can make the more exotic dishes, my less adventurous versions are just as good.In "Simple to Spectacular", Vongerichten and Bittman have constructed a genius concept: take a single recipe, and show it at various levels of complexity. So, you get egg recipes that start with "the Best Scrambled Eggs" and going up to "Scrambled Eggs with Caviar and Creme Fraiche." This idea is marvelous, because it allows amateur cooks, like myself, to see how you can use a basic concept and build on it to create something sophisticated and different. This is a perfect book for a young cook who is interested in really learning how to make good and great food. In spite of the sumptuous egg dish on the cover, this would work great for college students, or recent grads as they struggle to move beyond macaroni and cheese and pizza as staples of their diet.
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