Houghton Mifflin Jacques Pépin Quick & Simple

Excellent cookbook. I liked the recipes. They were easy to cook and delicious. 😋 Thank you Jacques Pepin.

I am a long time follower of Jacques Pepin--a pre-internet fan. This book is a remake of an earlier book by Jacques, "The Short Cut Cook" from 1990. The new book is about a hundred pages longer, and does have some new recipes, and much better presentation and "feel". I am glad I bought it. If you are wondering what's inside, or if you should replace your old copy, here is what you might find useful to know: The Good: (1) The Physical Book is Better. Specifically, the paper is better quality--coated and perfectly cut, not a deckled long edge like the hardback I have of the previous title. The coated paper (what they use to print colored inks) should not yellow as quickly as the older version has. (2) The format of the book is better. Specifically, each recipe begins on a new page, the ingredients have been placed on the outside edge of each page and identified in a different color--a deeper blue ink, not a hard-to-read-when-the-flour-is-flying pale color (THANK you Editors!). These things make using the book in the kitchen a little easier. The old title did identify the recipe in different typeface (italic), but often you had to flip back and forth between ingredients and instructions when the recipe started mid=way in a page and continued on the the next page. That is far less frequent in the new book. (3) There are photographs and colored artwork--not every page, not every recipe, but some folks feel they "need" the photos for inspiration and they are there. The old book was entirely black ink, and only had few tiny bits of art drawings. (4) The grouping of recipes is more selective (more chapters). I compared three chapters in the new book to the old, (the chapters are broken up differently in the new book and some recopies have been reclassified (e.g. cheese tart went from the appetizer chapter to a bread chapter, etcetera). (5) Each chapter lists the recipes. The old title only had the index. (6) There are new recipes. In my chapter compare of the fish & seafood, I found a dozen new recipes and 2 recipes that were dropped from the new edition. I checked 2 other chapters, (appetizers and soups) and found just 3 new recipes, and 2 drops (example: a consume soup was dropped, though a different consume based soup was among those added). The "Bad" (honestly, in this case, I would say unfortunate, not actually bad): (1) Some recipes dropped (like a broiled snapper and a Herring Lyonnaise). Looking at what dropped vs what added, this may reflect changes in availability/sustainability, and/or simple changes in taste (new fish available, a different red snapper treatment was added). (2) Chapter introductions were dropped--but each recipe still maintained it's own introduction. The Different--neither good nor bad, just a change: (1) Much of the text is unaltered, save in some very subtle ways-- a phrase moved, sentences arranged into different paragraphs. The most significant case i found, a clam recipe cleaning the beards is now done in the first instruction, whereas before it was done after boiling. Other changes are VERY minor. (2) Some recipes have changed ingredients: Example: The cheese tart originally used allspice and tabasco--the new suggests either a salsa (recipe provided) or a bottled siracha sauce. Not bad, just different. (3) The new book is substantially longer: 283(last numbered page) vs 376(last printed page)--this does NOT reflect a huge number of new entries (but there are several), but rather other factors: Each recipe starting on a new page; The introduction of photographs (lots of them full page); Full page artworks of Jacques; and now each chapter lists the recipes contained therein.

I love Jacques style of cooking ,so simple and easy and food turns out so tasty! His old recipes are the best !

Bought for a present after watching him on facebook having been recommended to me. We also share our surname

Es de buena calidad bonitas fotos pero todas las camtidades son en el sistema americano (pounds, ounces, cups, inches), for anyone in Europe is very difficult to follow)