The Art of Simple Food: A Cookbook of Notes, Lessons, and Recipes to Revolutionize Your Cooking

Ken Elliott: Great book with lots of great recipes, terrible binding. I have cookbooks that are much older that are in perfect shape. The binding for Simple Food has pages falling pout after a year and a half.

Canada on Mar 12, 2022

Legally Bored: I’m using this book as a cooking course to improve my skills as a home cook. It’s so useful. The first several chapters take you through the basic principles and techniques to do different kinds of basic home cookery and I’m learning a lot. Especially useful if you didn’t grow up with a parent who did much home cooking (and definitely didn’t teach you anything!)
The recipes aren’t complicated, and you learn how delicious simple food is, prepared well.

United Kingdom on Dec 22, 2021

Tim and Deb: Love this book. It teaches all the basics which I need and builds on that. Recipes are good! A little too much oil sometimes though!

Canada on Jul 13, 2019

R. Calvert: I've known about Alice Waters for years and always wanted to read and cook her food - but I really don't get on with American weights and measures. I mean I've only just mastered metric. So finding this beautifully written, wonderfully produced book with metric weights and measures was incredibly exciting.

Its one of those books that is as good to read in bed as it is to use in the kitchen. Inspirational and practical in equal measure.

There is no photography which seems to trouble some reviewers, but the book's so wonderfully written that images and flavours flood in with every recipe.

United Kingdom on Nov 27, 2013

Maggie D: I am an avid cook, with well over 35 years of experience of cooking every day. I have masses of cookery books, many of which are rarely looked at. But THIS one is a 'go to' regular, as I can never remember pie-crust proportions, and welcome inspiration on what to do with, say, duck legs (braise them, and serve with peas). It is honest, clear, in impeccable taste. Like Alice herself! A cherished memory is of eating in Chez Panisse 15 years ago, and using this book brings back some of the magic. I am so excited that she is bringing out another volume in October this year (2013). You won't regret buying this if you want to read, dream and cook. If you want glossy pictures and lots of modern quirky recipes that are new just for the sake of it, look elsewhere. If you want reliability, great taste, and a gentle, authoritative friend in the kitchen, then go ahead and buy!

United Kingdom on Aug 30, 2013

B. Marold: `The Art of Simple Food' by the one and only Alice Waters is a rare treat for foodie readers, and an even rarer treat for those who wish to master the craft of cooking effortlessly. I can think of very, very few cookbooks which succeed as well as this one at teaching good, creative cooking at home. Those very few are the last two books by Jacques Pepin, `Chez Jacques' and `Fast Food, My Way', a few of Nigel Slater's books, especially `The Kitchen Diaries', and Waters' mentor's book, Richard Olney's `Simple French Food'.
As with Pepin's works, my initial reaction to any important culinary figure's producing a `fast' or `easy' cookbook is suspicion that they are trying to cash in on the popularity of Rachael Ray's 30 minute meal mantra or Sandra Lee's `semi-homemade' fast and easy rubrics. And, like Pepin's books, this book is the real deal, giving superb, original insights on SIMPLE cooking at home. One of the very first things to realize, as Olney stated it in his book, `simple' is not the same as `fast' or `easy'. The notion of `simple' food is itself complicated enough to require seven pages in his introduction to thoroughly explain. In a nutshell, it excludes complicated...

United States on Oct 12, 2007

Joseph Adler: It's hard to write a review of a cookbook that you've only had for two days-- you have to actually try the recipes to know if they will work. (I have several beautiful cookbooks by famous chefs that omit important directions, or give wrong quantities of food.) However, I felt strongly enough about this book that I wanted to write an early review.

For those of you who don't know, Alice Waters's restaurant, Chez Panisse, is probably the most important American restaurant in the past forty years. Waters pioneered the use of high quality, local ingredients. The restaurant itself is delightful; they've served some of the best food I've ever eaten. In the Bay area, where I live, farmers and artisans at local markets often proudly claim that their food is served at her restaurant.

Waters begins the book by extolling her philosophy: buy local, high quality ingredients, and cook them simply. (Of course, simple for a professional chef is different than simple for a home chef. I consider 6 ingredients to be pretty complicated, especially if they are all fresh ingredients.) She then proceeds to give very explicit directions on how to cook things: roasts, vegetables, baked goods,...

United States on Oct 04, 2007