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Summary: Not My Favorite Trotter Book, But Hey It IS Trotter!
Review: I am in awe of Charlie Trotter's culinary expertise and artistry, and have bought every book he has published. If you are unfamiliar with his work, most of his recipes are not for the novice cook or anyone who does not enjoy spending time in the kitchen. This book however is a little different. I am the host of my own culinary website Italian Food Forever, and an avid cookbook collector and am always looking for another great book to add to my collection. When I want to cook a meal to impress, I generally pull out a Trotter recipe, and so I was curious to see what this book would contain since it's title "cooks at home" hints at simpler, more basic recipes than I associate with him. That is in fact what this book contains, and none of the recipes seem to be as complicated as those in his previous books that I have. I have tried a number of recipes from this book already, and to date, have not been disappointed with any. My greatest disappointment lies in the fact that this book contains only a few images, not the glorious food graphics his previous books are famous for.
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Summary: Best collection of recipes in one book I've ever found
Review: I have made 30 of his recipes from this book, and have been dazzled all but once!! The sample menus are great, if planning and organization is something you like to be done for you. I highly recommend this book! Every month at recipe club, I find that my Charlie Trotter recipes are always received well. A++++
Rating:
Summary: Give it a try
Review: I have to admit that I am not much of a cook or a foodie. In fact, until recently I had no idea who Charlie Trotter was. Then a friend who is in the know brought me the book as a gift...and made me use it. I really have learned a lot from the book. The notes are especially helpful. I read the other review in this section that slammed the book for no photos. I disagree. With no photos of what the food is supposed to look like, I can make the food look like whatever I want or whatever it turns out to be. The recipes are good and do-able. I recommend giving this book a try, even if you are not a fancy cook. Your friends will be amazed!
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Summary: Some great food ideas
Review: I really enjoyed this latest Charlie Trotter Cookbook. While the previous books are beautiful to look at this one is achievable to cook with. I've already tried the Grilled Beef Tenderloin and Blue Cheese Salad, and it was fantastic, the Lobster with Horseradish Mashed Potatoes was out of this world. I felt like a real pro being able to create dishes like these, and although they look difficult, they were quite simple. I would recommend this book to all!
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Summary: I Blew My Friends Away with This Book!
Review: I was so proud of the meal that I made from this book! My friends said that they felt like they were dining at Charlie Trotter's restaurant! I'm a cookbook junkie, so that also makes me a tough critic. I have 50 or so books that I own, but never cook out of because the recipes are too complex. But Charlie Trotter Cooks at Home was so much fun to cook out of. He really made the recipes easy for the home cook. The photos in this book are very interesting as well. They are not the ordinary food shots of a recipe that you see in every other book. They make you look at food differently, which helps open up your culinary mind as well. This is a great addition to my cookbook collection!
Rating: 
Summary: Missing some central ingredients
Review: I'm a big fan of Charlie Trotter and his work, and this book's recipes are fairly accessible to the novice cook.
Trotter's affection for and unconventional approach toward combining multiple spices and herbs into traditional American cuisine has made a substantial impact on my appreciation of preparing food at home.
Each recipe of "Cooks at Home" is accompanied with a somwewhat helpful but often too-short "insights" description related to the ingredients or preparation.
Alas, this book of great recipes is spartan in all of its other aspects. What would have made this cookbook outstanding and worthy of a 5-star rating:
* Photographs of each prepared dish. A key ingredient to Trotter's talent is his ability to gracefully plate his meals. But don't count on any photographs in this book for help; the only images are rather unremarkable duotone photographs of solitary food items that apprear to have been deglazed in red wine vinagrette. For a somewhat expensive book, a lack of any photos of prepared dishes seems cheap and un-Trotter like.
* Approximate preparation times. Total preparation time for various recipes could be 30 minutes , or three hours, but the book provides no guidance.
* The book's front section offers a helpful selection of menus, but it does not include all of the varying recipes in the book. Also, each menu lacks specific page references to the dishes it suggests. What would have been helpful here, too: suggested wine pairings with each menu.
For about $11 more here on Amazon, the "French Laundry Cookbook" by Trotter contemporary Thomas Keller is eminently more satisfying. It has more recipes, lavish photographs of plated dishes, plenty of helpful preparation techniques and rich commentary from Keller about his career and philosophy toward food.
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Summary: Enough with the lack of pictures!
Review: I've been cooking from this book for the past two weeks and have my friends crawling back for more. The criticisms regarding the lack of pictures are unfounded--if you know what you're doing in the kitchen, do you REALLY need to have a picture show you what the food is supposed to look like? Come on! The recipes are inspiring and are FUN! Braising beef ribs for 12 hours may sound like a lot of time, but when the meat falls off the bone, you'll know why it's done that way. Buy it and enjoy it!
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Summary: Pictures? Who Needs Them!
Review: Pictures can be a great help in cookbooks but this book doesn't need them. The recipes have been easy to follow, using ingredients that were easy to obtain with results that were outstanding! This is a fun book to cook from and I am looking forward to trying all of the recipes!
Rating:
Summary: Pictures? Who Needs Them!
Review: Pictures can be a great help in cookbooks but this book doesn't need them. The recipes have been easy to follow, using ingredients that were easy to obtain with results that were outstanding! This is a fun book to cook from and I am looking forward to trying all of the recipes!
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Summary: Restaurant Quality for the Home Chef
Review: So far, this is the best 5-star cookbook that I have found for the home chef. There are plenty of great books that cover the basics of equipment and technique, but let's assume you have all that pretty well wired. At the next level, there are notable chef's cookbooks or famous restaurant collections. These feature spectacular recipes, but often rely on impossible-to-find ingredients or commercial-level equipment, making preparation frustratingly difficult. Though these books are often highly educational and usually wonderful and inspiring to look at (my favorites being Thomas Keller's French Laundry Cookbook and Charlie Trotter's restaurant series), they may only contain a handful of recipes that the home chef can pull off reliably."Charlie Trotter Cooks at Home" is different. Here one finds superlative recipes and top-restaurant-quality sensibilities, constrained only by the limits of commonly available ingredients and intermediate to advanced level home chef skills. Last weekend I made the Yellow Squash Soup, the Fennel and Haricot Verts Salad, the Grilled Vegetable 'Lasagna' and the Apricot Soup with Vanilla Ice Cream and Almond Shortbread Cookie. I chose the recipes based on the ingredients in my weekly produce box: Yellow Squash, Baby Green Beans, the first cured Garlic and Onions of the season, Yellow Potatoes, and Apricots. (I am a member of a CSA--Community Sponsored Agriculture--I get a box of organic locally grown produce delivered to my home each week from a nearby farm in California called Terra Firma Farm.) The results were simply stunning. Each dish was simple to prepare, yet complex enough in concept to really show off my cooking and the incredible quality of the produce: the hallmarks of fine restaurant cooking. Chef Trotter includes 'insights' at the end of each recipe which highlight specific ingredients, techniques, substitutions or other helpful tips which add another dimension of value to this wonderful book. Add to that the sample menus, complete with suggested wine pairings, and the home chef really finds here a resource to help him or her achieve true restaurant quality. The only complaint I have is that there are no pictures of the finished dishes at all. Though Chef Trotter gives fairly detailed plating instructions, it is up to your imagination how the finished dish will be presented to your guests. Also, be prepared for a lot of dirty pots and pans! A number of the ingredients are a recipe within a recipe. With careful planning and some prep work ahead of time, you can pull off a four-course dinner like the one I did, as everything comes together from your mise-en-place just like in a restaurant kitchen. Your guests will appreciate this book as much as you will! I have made many of the recipes in this book, using seasonal fresh ingredients as my guide, and each and every one has been a delight. Charlie Trotter has a way of 'brightening' the colors and flavors of foods, and even if you make minor modifications (like using Haagen Dazs instead of homemade Vanilla Ice Cream!) to suit your tastes or your available produce, his masterful roadmaps will guide you to new levels of cooking excellence.
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