Raymond Blanc : Le Manoir

Little, Brown, 1993. Paperback. Very Good. Little, Brown [Published Date: 1993]. Soft cover, 280 pp. Reprint edition. In very good condition. Glossy white pictorial paper covers have light bumping and creasing to edges and corners and light overall scuffing. Binding tight. Pages clean and unmarked. NOT Ex-Library. NO remainder marks. Black and white and some color illustrations. [From back cover] Raymond Blanc has achieved worldwide fame as an inspired chef with a relentless drive for perfection. His cooking has been described in The Good Food Guide as 'an extraordinary process of creativity, passion, subtlety, indeed genius'. Born in Besancon, in eastern France, he grew up among a family of food lovers who took great pride in the quality of their cuisine and their home-grown ingredients. Although deeply influenced by their ideas, he is entirely self-taught and has never revealed the secrets of his cuisine. But here at last he explains his uniquely successful methods and shares some of the very special recipes from his Oxfordshire restaurant, Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons. M. Blanc's reputation is such that even before it opened, in 1984, Le Manoir was awarded two Michelin stars. In keeping with Raymond Blanc's insistence on fresh produce, the emphasis in this book is on seasonal variety, with thirty to forty recipes for each season. For Spring there is an elegant chartreuse of asparagus spears and leeks; raspberry sorbet is one of the refreshing Summer desserts; Autumn richness is celebrated with roast snipe in a sauce of old Madeira and walnuts and for Winter there is a warming mussel soup. The recipes are accompanied by menu suggestions, wine recommendations and chef's notes on how to achieve professional results. With glorious photographs by Michael Boys, a preface by Egon Ronay and foreword by Hugh Johnson, Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons conveys a little of the genius of the chef widely regarded as the best in Britain.