Pleasure Is All Mine

Yes, that is the author on the cover and that is a bottle of Mouton Rothschild 1970 hanging from her hand. She is also an actress, award winning voice-over artist?!, who went to Harvard and to the Cordon Bleu in France and London (that's dedication!) and as a trained pastry chef worked for Jamie Oliver at one of his restaurants. She even wore similarly sleek dresses, while making pastry, for her T.V. spots. I have probably done too much research, but what truly matters is whether the recipes live up to her resume. There is something sinful about cooking for that bottle of wine and falling short. Dry, roast chicken and a rich, velvet Bordeaux? Happily, our heroine provides excellent recipes like "Best Duck Confit" with the appended note, "Start on a Friday. Throw in oven on Saturday. Eat blissfully on Sunday. And don't be fooled, the prep time is about fifteen minutes. The rest has very little to do with you." Her simple preparation for scallops is enlightening: roll them in soft butter and replace in fridge for fifteen minutes before broiling. Henceforward I will always do this. She has substance paired with style and packaged it in a small marvel of a cookbook.

With The Pleasure is All Mine, anyone can enjoy a Steak au Poivre with Frites, Three-Cheese Ravioli, Coconut Fish Curry with Homemade Naan Bread, or a Wild Blueberry Free-Form Tart without the expense and hassle of restaurants or fussy dinner guests. The 100 uncomplicated, exquisite recipes in this collection are simple to prepare and require no fancy equipment. With just a skillet, bowl, knife, and a few perfect ingredients, Pirret makes great solo dining effortless-and she offers inspired wine and cocktail pairings, too, to make dinner complete. Edgy and bursting with personality, The Pleasure is All Mine is also filled with a wealth of devilishly entertaining stories based on her experiences living in New York, Los Angeles, Paris, and London.

“I couldn’t put this book down! Everyone will be begging to be a guest or even a dishwasher in Suzanne Pirret’s kitchen after reading and cooking from The Pleasure Is All Mine. She’s infectious!”

“Intoxicatingly indulgent… Cooking for yourself doesn’t need to be about self-deprivation or about you’re-not-worth-anything-better recipes… Pirret’s hilarious recipe headnotes, fictional interludes and essays are worth the price of the book even if you don’t make a single one of the dishes.”

“A wickedly funny manifesto for the hungry single girl that makes solo dining effortless as well as fabulous, with musings on the catering industries of New York, LA, Paris and London, where Pirret was a chef at Jamie Oliver’s restaurant, Fifteen.”

“A saucy, snarky take on cooking for one, with ‘simple (yet not stupid) recipes’ accompanied by wine and cocktail pairings, and roguish, funny stories from her experiences living in New York, Los Angeles, Paris and London.”

“The type of book one can curl up with and read as well as take to the kitchen and actually use.... Refreshingly casual and conversational.... I’m inspired to get back to the kitchen and treat myself to more home-cooked meals.”

“Back away from the frozen pizza. Suzanne Pirret’s cheeky new book offers elegant, decadent dishes for one.”

“A collection of 100 excellent recipes-for-one…. [Suzanne Pirret] displays a disarming blend of naked egotism, self-deprecating humor and, most important, a keen understanding of good cooking. While many of Ms. Pirret’s recipes are sophisticated, they can all be produced in real-world kitchen conditions.”

Suzanne Pirret is a Harvard-trained actor, an award-winning voiceover artist, and a graduate of the Cordon Bleu in both Paris and London. For more than a decade, she has worked in the restaurant and catering industries in New York and London, notably as Jamie Oliver's pastry chef in London at the critically acclaimed nonprofit restaurant Fifteen. She lives in London.

Distributor: HarperCollins Publishers
Publication Date: 03-10-2009
Pages: 256
Measurements: 8in X 6in X 0.89in X 12.96oz