World in My Kitchen: Excerpt on France

By JULIETTE ROSSANT The predecessors of today's super chefs are the rebel chefs of Nouvelle Cuisine, like Paul Bocuse, Roger Verge, Michel Guerard, and Louis Outhier and others. A few people at the time predicted their future impact on American cuisine, none more so than Colette Rossant, who provided excellent background descriptions for Super Chef. Her new memoir The World in My Kitchen: The Adventures of a (Mostly) French Woman in America, (Atria 2006) is about her experiences encountering New York in the 1950s-1980s, becoming a journalist, cookbook author, and travel writer. It is the sequel to her two previous memoirs, Apricots on the Nile and Return to Paris. Here is an excerpt from a chapter about how she started her career in food, becoming a cookbook author, host of a children's cooking show, and translator of Paul Bocuse's French Cooking. This initial experience ended in disaster, itself a hilarious and witty story, so Paul invited Colette and her husband, the architect James Rossant, to a tour of the great chefs of Nouvelle Cuisine: L'Oasis, Outier's restaurant, was a beautiful place near the ocean in the small town of La Napoule near Cannes. This was to be the end of our trip. Outier was more like Jean Troisgros. He was tall, very handsome, and believed himself to be the best cook in France. He was very proud of his three–star Michelin rating. Outier was one of the first chefs that I had met who was truly international. He had opened restaurants in Thailand and India. That night, I told Outier what we had done and eaten for the last ten days. He then understood that to conquer us and show me what a great chef he was, he had to serve us something lovely, but simply cooked, because by now, I could no longer eat and wished only for plain yogurt! He served us a frothy consommé, light as air, with tiny morsels of fresh raw scallops. This was followed by the best bouillabaisse I had every tasted. Just before the next dish arrived, to clear our pallet, a small pear and brandy sorbet was placed in front of us. The cool sorbet was so refreshin that suddenly I felt rejuvenated and with enjoyment, ate the roast squab that followed. Later, while I was savoring a fresh fromage blanc drizzled with local honey and roasted walnuts, Outier talked about coming to New York and opening a new restaurant. He had trained a young chef who would run the restaurant while Outier was at L'Oasis. Outier, three years later, true to his word, opened Lafayette, a restaurant in the Drake Hotel in New York. He brought with him the young chef whom he had trained. Jean-Georges Vongerichten… (pp. 133-4) Check out the recipes for elegant Poached Salmon with Spinach Tarragon Sauce (p. 138) and succulent Roast Quail (p. 139). Previous articles: R. W. Apple Jr. RIP World in My Kitchen: Bocuse Chez McDonald's [Cookbook Reviews - complete] Technorati Tags: superchefblog, Juliette Rossant, super chef, celebrities, chefs, food, restaurants, cooking, branding, cuisine, blogging, food blogging, cookbooks superchefblog --> back to superchefblog