The Complete Technique (Jacques Pepin)

Shh! No one tell my husband, but I have a crush on Jacques Pepin. He can make puff pastry (or puff paste, as he calls it) with a few turns and a couple of well-timed blows with his rolling pin, and carve delicate swans out of nearly any produce product. The man can make olives turn into bunny rabbits, for pete's sake. Who needs to see a magic show?

And, best of all, all of his secrets are revealed in Jacques Pepin's Complete Techniques, a compilation of the long (and highly frustratingly) out-of-print La Technique and La Methode. Step by step he goes through the process of sharpening a knife, julienning a carrot, creating croissants, deboning a chicken, et al. Each step is photographed, in somewhat inglorious black and white. (As much as I like old movies, this book would have been much better served if the instructional photos had been in color). As well, the trick of making a rabbit out of an olive, a pig out of a lemon, and a swan out of a melon.

This isn't a cookbook in the strictest sense, as Pepin is careful to point out. It is a book about how to master technique, so that no recipe is daunting. There are some recipes included however: Chicken Stuffed Under the Skin is simple enough for even the most basic of cooks, and is elegant enough to grace the fanciest of parties. A stuffing of mushrooms, parsley, garlic and butter, and a sauce of garlic, onion, and tomato makes a wonderfully luxurious dish. On the more fanciful hand, he shows you how to make a cooked squab look like a toad. (Hint: use bits of hard boiled egg and black olive for the eyes). I have to confess I'm not sure I see the appeal in this particular transformation--it's goofy and a little creepy all at the same time. (On a similar note: the squeamish will want to avoid the recipe for Rabbit with Prunes, which includes the technique of skinning said rabbit. No thanks.) Beautiful guides for creating baguettes and croissants are included, along with the caveat that the results may well not be the same as you get in the bakery, unless you happen to have a convection oven that can force steam into the loaves, guaranteeing that shattering crust. For those of you that aspire to beat Martha Stewart at her own game, careful instructions are included for making sugar cages and sugar flowers, along with the cheerful tip that one should keep the flowers in a tin box with pieces of limestone to absorb humidity. I doubt I'll ever attempt to work with hot sugar, but I'm pleased nonetheless that Jacques thinks I might have a tin box with pieces of limestone in it, just in case.

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