Crave: The Feast of the Five Senses: See, Touch, Smell, Hear, Taste [Englisch] [Gebundene Ausgabe]

`Crave' by the `award winning' executive chef of the Los Angles restaurant Bastide, Ludo Lefebvre elicits anticipation from its oversized format, its high price, and the very hip, tattooed pic of the author on the front cover. I am happy to say that the book delivers on it's expectations with a better than average restaurant cookbook.

Like Eric Rippert's book `Le Bernardin Cookbook', this is the kind of book which cries out for half stars, as I am quite happy to give it four and a half stars, yet there are some reasons the average cookbook purchaser may wish to pass on it. Fortunately, these reasons are few.

First, as with every good high-end restaurant cookbook, the recipes are simply not the kind you may be willing to make on a busy Tuesday or even on an average Sunday. This is because while there are relatively quick recipes in the book, there are just as many longish recipes requiring some arcane ingredients. So, you can't dip into this book the way you can a good book of Italian recipes such as Mario Batali's `Molto Italy' and come up with a good, relatively inexpensive, relatively quick AND interesting recipe.

Second, as I have already stated, the book is oversized and just a bit overpriced for the number of recipes.

Third, I sense that while Monsieur Lefebvre has very serious chops, with all the promise of an up and coming Jacques Pepin in the field of culinary education, he and his handlers may be just a little full of themselves in their presentation of the author. One example is my quoted fact that Ludo is an `award winning' chef, yet they give no information on what award it is he won. He was nominated for a lesser James Beard award, but he did not win. But, as I was told by a very wise man many years ago, if all the books with pretensions were removed from the library, our libraries would have very few books indeed!

On the positive side, this is a culinary work with an excellent point of view and agenda that it executes almost flawlessly. The point of view is almost anti-scientific, insisting that the chef concentrate almost exclusively on their own five senses. This is a theme which runs through practically all cooking literature from Wolfgang Puck to Mario Batali to Jamie Oliver and everyone in between, but not the scientific wonks such as Alton Brown and Shirley Corriher. The extreme position for this point of view is in the author's description of one of his mentors, Alain Passard, who refused to even let his line cooks use thermometers to gage doneness. Passard insisted that sight and sound and touch should be enough. And, not only is it enough, it is probably preferable for a very busy line cook to use their trained senses, as this method is both much faster than poking food with an `instant read' thermometer and less damaging to the food itself.

The book begins with a brief history of the author's culinary education and career in France, which sounds a lot like that of many other French chefs, including Monsieur Pepin. Lefebvre did not cook for the French President, but he was the personal chef to the French minister of defense during his year of obligatory military service. His career also confirms the picture of long years as an apprentice, commis, and line cook before one is even considered to be a sous chef or major specialist such as a saucier.

The book is divided up into five chapters; each headed by one of the five recognized senses of sight, touch, smell, hearing, and taste. I believe the division of recipes among these five senses is mostly arbitrary, as every dish must involve all five senses. To be sure, some methods such as sauteeing involve direct experience far more than, for example braising, where all the action is going on in an oven, within a Dutch oven or bistro pan. But, the book does not suffer too much from this bit of artificiality.

As a book of recipes from a `haute cuisine' restaurant, I expect unusual recipes and ingredients and I am not surprised on this count, but I am very pleasantly surprised to see how many recipes are variations on common everyday dishes such as tortilla espagnole (Spanish potato frittata) and pain perdu (French toast). I am also pleased with the range of ingredients. Many are unusual, but they appear in only a few recipes and they are the types of things where they are interesting enough so that you will probably not mind tracking them down on the Internet.

Speaking of which, Monsieur Lefebvre gives a really extensive sources list with a feature I have seen nowhere else. For each merchant, the name of a real live person with whom you can establish a contact is given.

Lefebvre's recipes for stock pantry items such as stocks, spice powders, puff pastry, confits and marmalades are not overly fussy. In fact, I think his recipe for brioche for his French toast is a lot simpler than you will find in a book by a bread-baking specialist. I would suggest you consult such a book for brioche.

While I have seen this suggestion in a few other books, Lefebvre is the first author to fully incorporate the suggestion of resting cooked protein then briefly reheating it before service to bring it up to temperature. This makes so much sense that I am surprised I don't see it more often, but I also realize that it is a lot easier for a professional chef with a salamander at their station to do it than for an amateur with nothing but a conventional oven. Lefebvre also has a special technique for applying spices and herbs. He applies then at or near the end of cooking. This makes sense with fresh herbs, but I'm not sure it works for all recipes or for dried herbs.

"Spiced with sultry nigella seed (sometimes confused with black cumin) and sumac, this bread tastes like a walk in the forest on a hot summer day." ~ pg. 243, Spiced White Bread

Ludo Lefebvre's CRAVE cookbook holds within its pages the most perfect puff pastry recipe you may ever try. I made the pastry yesterday and just drizzled icing over delicately crispy apple pastries. A sprinkling of nutmeg seemed perfect and I can truly say they are the best pastries I've ever made. The puff pastry cooks perfectly unlike many store bought versions that seem to cook unevenly and it is made with pure butter. The results were spectacular!

Many of the recipes in CRAVE are infused with the scent of cinnamon and nutmeg. The Spiced Bread is the first recipe I tried. The spice mixture is made from nutmeg, ginger, pepper and cloves and since I didn't have whole nutmegs, I used a  tablespoon nutmeg, 1/8 teaspoon dry ginger, 1/8 teaspoon pepper and  teaspoon cloves. I crushed them all together with a mortar and pestle and then made the bread recipe using hot apple cider (infused with cinnamon, green cardamom, cloves and star anise) in place of the water, muscovado sugar for the granulated sugar, 2  teaspoons instant yeast and 2 teaspoons lemon juice and 1 teaspoon zest for the "ground sumac" which I need to order.

The recipe can be adapted slightly if you don't have all the ingredients needed, but the spice mix seems essential. I also ground up the "nigella" which I've used before on Indian Naan to produce the faint memory of spicy onions. This is also called Charnushka and Kalonji.

The bread recipe worked especially well in my bread machine, although I only used the dough cycle the first time and tried to make the bread look like the picture on page 33. You can use the bread in a variety of ways, including making delicious sandwiches with slices of turkey. The bread works especially well with a variety of cheeses or even for breakfast as toast with spinach chicken sausages and eggs. Just as I had imagined, cubes of bread would work well as croutons and they are featured in the Creamy Pumpkin Soup recipe.

Recipes to love include:

Moussaka of Lamb with Cumin and Roasted Tomato Coulis
Caramelized Cod with Five Flavors and Baby Spinach Salad
Sweet Onion Tart with Curry and Parsley Sauce
Cinnamon and Rosemary-Infused Chicken Breast with Baby Vegetables

...and for dessert:

Napoleons of Puff Pastry with Vanilla-Whisky Cream
Lemon Sorbet with Saffron
Pain D'Epices (a spice loaf)
Qunice Jam with Nostradamus Spice
Chocolate Soufflés with Bittersweet Chocolate Sauce

Everything I've tried so far has exceeded my expectations. The pictures give a good indication of the delicious aromas that will fill your home. Fresh herbs and intoxicating spices fill the pages with sensory pleasure, cooking wishes and nostalgia. The Basic Recipes are helpful if you want to learn how to make stock, or you can improvise with stock pastes. There is a recipe for Curry Powder, Four Spices Powder and Citrus Zest Confit. These items are used in various recipes.

The recipes can be made mostly with ingredients found locally, but there are a few unique items you might want to invest in over time. Buying this cookbook along with Vanilla Beans, Saffron, Cardamom, Cinnamon, Fleur De Sel, high-quality peppercorns (Tellicherry), Star Anise, Acacia Honey, Argan Oil, Raspberry Balsamic Vinegar and Verjus (tart juice of unripened grapes) would make any cook a little heady. I felt heady just thinking about all the recipes I wanted to try.

"If you've had the now-popular Chai tea, you've tasted cardamom, a spice that combines hints of camphor, citrus, and bergamot." ~ pg. 22

The prose throughout is especially personable and makes the recipes even more enjoyable to try. Ludo Lefebvre spends lots of time talking about eating apples out under trees in orchards, his first experience cooking in the middle of a forest and how he loves the feeling of Fleur de Sel between his fingers as he sprinkles it over dishes he is preparing. The story of how he became a chef mingles within the amazing recipes to create a very satisfying culinary experience.

Almost all the recipes have additional notes to invite you into the cooking experience and then the instructions effortlessly guide you through the steps. I found this book was uncomplicated, very well organized and basically a dream. The recipes have all been carefully thought out and the ingredients carefully considered. This is about accessible culinary art or creating memorable experiences through artistic creation.

While you may think of vanilla as being most useful in cakes and cookies, Ludo Lefebvre uses vanilla beans in his Ahi tuna steaks. He also creates a Chestnut Ice Cream for warm waffles, which is very creative. The recipes all seem to be perfect for wintery feasts by candlelight, although the Yellow Peach Tart with Lemon Verbena would be perfect right when ripe peaches appear.

I thought it was very interesting that while using this cookbook, I was making an apple cider using the spices that were Nostradamus' favorites even before reading this on page 228! This cookbook will inspire you in ways no other cookbook will - it is magical! While cooking from CRAVE, I like to make apple cider and burn a L'Occitane Winter Forest candle. I will now return to stealing another puff pastry while I await my husband's return home from the hunt. I sent him to the grocery store for more supplies (salmon/steaks), as I will be cooking from this book for quite a few more weeks! Most cookbooks inspire me to try one or two recipes, but this has entire worlds to experience and is truly a "feast of the five senses" with an additional dash of warm culinary comfort.

~The Rebecca Review

I have had the great pleasure of eating Ludovic's one of a kind creations at both L'Orangarie and Bastide. This book is not only a treasure in that enables me to try to prepare some of his dishes at home, but it is also a great read for any "foodie" who appreciates the love and passion of food. Ludo is a master!!