Julia and Jacques 'Cooking at Home'

Julia and Jacques "Cooking at Home" tells you how to prepare terrific food while offering more fun than "The Odd Couple." Two of the world's best known and best loved culinary stars, Julia Child and Jacques Pépin, join each other in the kitchen for the classic, 22-part American Public Television series.

In this series, their third television cooking partnership, they have more fun than ever.

Presenting their recipes for the home cook, Julia and Jacques show viewers how to prepare everything from simple, but extremely tasty appetizers to elegant entrées such as Steak Diane, Sole Meunière, and Roast of Veal. Such favorites as Caesar Salad (as prepared for Julia by the original Caesar Cardini) and classic hearty soups including Savory Leek and Potato and steamy hot, French Onion, topped with a bubbling, golden gratinée are included. Of course, audiences will also learn how to make beautiful desserts like a Free-Form Apple Tart and Flaming Crêpes Suzettes.

Each half-hour episode brings the audience inside Julia's legendary home kitchen to watch close up how Julia and Jacques collaborate on preparing the dishes of the day. The series covers a wide range of the kinds of meals our hosts enjoy eating in their own homes--deliciously rich in flavor, appealing on the plate, yet surprisingly unfussy and easy to prepare.

There are no better chefs than these two to demonstrate dozens of techniques for preparing stews, roasts and fish main courses. They work with vegetables, from peeling fresh peppers and turning cucumbers to arranging a simple, yet artful, salade composée and preparing roasted vegetables with a drizzle of oil and herbs.

They also show how to create perfect omelets, soufflés, salads, and egg dishes. Julia and Jacques share their special ways of cooking everything from hamburgers and fries to a fabulous new preparation for a stuffed holiday turkey. The two experts even carefully explain the reasons for choosing different cooking techniques. Should one broil, roast, quickly pan-sear or braise slowly?

Technique, collaboration, and improvisation were more important than specific recipes in inspiring and creating the dishes for this series and the book that accompanies it, not to mention a deep friendship and the high regard in which they hold each other. These two legendary cooks play off one another, joking, good-naturedly, bantering over kitchen techniques--demonstrating that cooking is deeply personal, and there's often more than one way to get great results. In one segment, for example, there's a "battle-of-the-soufflés" when Jacques and Julia race each other to see whose egg whites will reach the desired light-as-air consistency first.

(Don't be frightened when Julia pulls out a revolver--it's just a starter pistol to begin the race.) Will it be the eggs that Jacques whips by hand in a copper bowl, or those that Julia beats with her electric mixer?

Also see: Gourmet Dinners

Author Notes:

Taylor Kent contributes and publishes news editorial to http://www.1st-in-steaks.com. Great tips on buying top quality meats, steaks and seafood from the finest ranchers and butchers.