Les appétissantes recettes et les somptueuses photographies transportent les lecteurs au coeur de la campagne française. À la table de Mimi célèbre le début d'un nouveau talent de la cuisine moderne. Quand Mimi Thorisson et sa famille ont un jour décidé de quitter Paris pour aller s'installer dans un vieux corps de ferme dans le Médoc, elle ne savait pas exactement ce que l'avenir leur réservait. Elle a découvert une région magnifique qui lui a donner l'envie de prendre le temps de cuisiner. Son livre de cuisine est la chronique des repas qu'elle prépare à partir des produits de saison et de la région pour sa famille et photographiés par son mari, Oddur. La cuisine chaleureuse, gourmande et joyeuse de Mimi - Poulet rôti à la crème fraîche et aux herbes, Sole à la parisienne, Gaspacho à l'amande, Langoustines à l'armagnac, Tarte aux pommes à l'eau de fleur d'oranger, etc. - est une vraie ode à la tradition française.
This book just could not be more gorgeous- I couldn't leave it behind in the bookstore just based on that. And beyond that it has many seasonal-based, relatively healthy, real-food recipes, arranged in a cycle from spring to winter. Even my picky eater husband couldn't wait to try half the book- we've just started trying them, so I'll update when we've done more, but so far all the steps are easy, very few ingredients required for the ones I've tried. Somewhat time intensive, and not all the recipes have readily accessible ingredients, but most do. And again, it's gorgeous and more than worth buying for the photographs alone. Do not regret this at all.
I will probably only make a handful of recipes from this cookbook, but that’s okay. The point of this book, for me, isn’t so much the recipes but the beauty, the stories, and the inspiration. Mimi makes me want to get in the kitchen and make lovely things using my own local Wyoming ingredients, which are distinctly different than what’s available to her in Medoc. I’m not really interested in snails,and cepes don’t grow wild here, but what delicious meal can I make with bison or boletes?
Beautiful. This cookbook is like a dream--a really good one. I love seeing the inside view of daily meals in France, even if some of the recipes I might not make.
I’m thankful for the review copy of a book that is as much fun to look at and read as it is to make the yummy recipes inside. Here is the book trailer that introduces you to Mimi and her cooking adventures.
The author says, “Ever since I was a little girl I have been deeply passionate about food. My childhood was largely spent scurrying between the restaurants of Hong Kong, where I grew up, and the bistros of Paris and the south of France where we spent our holidays at my French grandmother’s. Food was constantly on my mind, I’m the girl who was always happiest at the table. After a life full of adventure and travel, a career in fashion, media and television, I settled down in Paris with Oddur, my Icelandic photographer husband…. A big family needs a lot of space (she has five children, two older step children)….. we went looking for a bigger place to live, and found one … in Médoc. Moving to the country was not planned at all, but we took the leap and it’s been some sort of fairytale ever since – you should try it! I’ve been doing a lot of cooking in these last four years, to glowing reviews (my family are very kind) and around 2 years ago I felt the need to share my culinary experiences with some friends and perhaps a few others. So Manger was born and while the rest may not be history it’s my story and my family’s….”
After a career in T.V. and having lived in Hong Kong, Singapore, London, Reykjavik and Paris, she has settled down in a farm house in Medoc where she adjusted to not having a hair dresser down stairs, no bakery on the corner but she did have a fireplace in every room of her farm house, and thousands of roses climbing up the wall and decorating on side of the house. She became more aware of season changes and the pleasure each season brought. She grows her own vegetables and fruit. She started to eat the fruits and veggies highlighted by the season in which they shined. This cookbook, “chronicles the family’s seasonal meals and life in an old farmhouse with beautifully photographed by her husband, Oddur.”
I made the Butternut Gratin. My family and I loved it. It was simple with easy to find ingredients, it was flavorful and everyone was delighted by the taste. I like the stories behind the recipe the author shares before the actual recipe instructions start. Her directions are easy to follow and most of the ingredients are easy to find. This is a book about French cooking and several of the recipes call for ingredients that will have you looking in places you don’t normally shop. I found some pastries and desserts require more time to create than I have time for during the week. I plan on making some of them for the weekend when I have more time to cook and my family has more time to enjoy the fruit of my labor.
I loved the beautiful camera shots of Mimi, her family and Medoc France. I haven’t been there but it looks like a great get away. I felt like I've experienced a little bit of the country side through this book and the video’s I've included in this review.
This author has a cooking show filmed in France. I found a youtube video of the show in French and one in English. This gives you a sample of how easily she moves around in the kitchen and how simples some of recipes are to make. This book is an experience you won’t want to miss.
I received a free copy of this book from the Blogging for Books program in exchange for this review. There was no obligation to give a positive review, and if you read my blog, you know I'm a tell-it-like it is kind of girl. I mean what I say and say what I mean, that holds true for my review.
i had expected to dislike this book because it's one of those so perfect life cookbooks, but it was so beautiful, I had to open it up ... and i found i really enjoyed it. her recipes are appealing and not overly complicated. the photography is gorgeous. So is mimi thorisson, but in a way that isn't off-putting or overly jealousy-inducing. But i have to say that at a certain point in flipping through this book, i started actually to feel sorry for her. There she is, in this brooding Gothic manor in the middle of rural france with her brooding scandinavian husband (who photographed the book) and their five children and his two children from a prior relationship and their 12 dogs ... And there's something overly sexualized about the way she's photographed. I found it a little creepy,especially when i read her dedication at the end, where she says something like "this book is dedicated to my husband, who makes me and the children always be our best, even when we don't want to be ..." It's still a super beautiful book, though, so read and enjoy it ...
Some people think it's odd that I love to read cookbooks when I don't cook. But, a great cookbook is so much more than recipes. This book was a gorgeous photography book, a photo-styling primer, a reminder that food is an important part of living well, and a collection of excellent mini-essays on the art of living well. I loved this book!
Beautiful photographs. I have the butternut gratin in the oven at this very moment and it smells wonderful. Alas, there are too many recipes that I would not attempt but it is a gorgeous book. (And let me just say that the butternut gratin was probably the best winter squash dish that I ever had.)
I've wanted to read this book for years -- I can't even remember how I first learned of Mimi Thorisson and her dreamy, kitchen-centric life in an old country farmhouse in southern France. Despite having five children (+ two stepchildren who visit in the summer), she seems to epitomize charm, serenity, and style; her life seems like an unending dream of unhurried culinary luxury. In vain I searched for episodes of her cooking show "La table de Mimi," now a decade old, which I thought would be a pleasant way to practice my French comprehension. I still haven't found a way to watch it, but recently it dawned on me that I might be able to get her book through interlibrary loan.
It's a beautiful book with large, moody photos by Mimi's husband and recipes arranged seasonally -- an organizing principle that now feels almost cliché but no less delightful. Mimi Thorisson is an engaging, sometimes witty writer: not nearly Luisa Weiss (author of My Berlin Kitchen, which I enjoyed so much in December), but still a pleasant companion for an afternoon. The book has a couple design flaws: it is too large -- more the size of a coffee table book than a cookbook, making it cumbersome to read and use -- and the text is not well laid out (the book design, alas, doesn't match the artistry of the photography).
I would gladly eat any recipe from this book, because they all sound amazing, but I don't think I will attempt many of them at this point in my culinary life. Many either call for ingredients that aren't easy for me to come by or don't sound like they would appeal to enough of my family. (There are some simple soups and desserts that I may attempt.) I appreciate that the recipes tend to be more on the classic side (as compared to Rachel Khoo's Little Paris Kitchen) and altogether gave me a good sense of traditional cuisine in Bordeaux, which is one of the regions in France that has always intrigued me most. Just as lavishly beautiful information, it was a fun book to read.
One highlight I'm going to file away is visual appeal of food; Mimi Thorisson talks about arranging bowls of fruit or stacks of pumpkins and garlic the way one might talk about arranging flowers but in a way I haven't tended to appreciate (it makes sense, as she herself admits, when your husband is a photographer).
I'll be removing this book from my wishlist, because I'm not going to prioritize buying it (unless I should happen stumble upon it locally and used), but I probably will request it from the library again.
Loved this book, not only is she stunningly beautiful, but adore her lifestyle with a parcel of kids and dogs in the country making scrumptious satisfying meals. A beautiful glimpse into her kitchen life.
This is a gorgeous book for food lovers. A cookbook that can be read like a novel but it is also filled with photos of food and scenes from life in the French countryside. Ms. Thorisson writes the blog, Manger. Her husband, Oddur, is a photographer and he took most of the photos for the book. It’s a coffee table book because of the size and beautiful photography, but also a cookbook that will be referenced many times over the course of a year because of the recipes.
The recipes are organized by season featuring the culinary bounty that is found in the markets or foraged from the land around the Thorisson’s house in the Medoc region of France. Some of the recipes that caught my eye are Chou Farci – Savoy cabbage stuffed with a savory pork filling, Lyonnaise Sausage Roll – brioche baked with sausage inside, and Apple Tart with Orange Flower Water – a simple dessert with the unexpected addition of the orange flower water. For the most part the recipes are simple and straight-forward everyday meals from the kitchen of a busy mom often with seven children afoot to feed. A few ingredients, like squab, pork cheeks or cepes, may not be so easily accessible for some cooks in the U.S., but there are plenty of other dishes to try with more readily available meats and produce.
I enjoyed the writing in this book as much as the recipes and photographs. It was a literary vacation to rural France. The Thorisson family moved from Paris to the countryside. While the lifestyle change was welcome, their growing family needed more space than what a Paris apartment could offer, it did take some time to get used to and Ms. Thorisson talks about how it feels to be a city girl in the country. Her writing style is chatty and conversational, like sitting down with a friend. Overall it is a very enjoyable book, especially if you are interested in France or French cooking.
I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.
A Kitchen in France could almost be a coffee table book. It's filled with beautiful photos that were taken by the author's husband. The recipes are all straight forward and easy to follow. I was really concerned because I've heard that French cooking can be quite complicated, but I didn't find a single one that I couldn't pull off as a home cook. In a lot of ways, Mimi's storytelling gives you access to a part of life that few of us will ever get to experience. After all, how many of us have 7 children, a whole bunch of terriers and live in France? Not I and I for one, don't really want to. However, reading her stories about their lives made me smile and it encouraged me to find my own passions and to follow them instead of living in any sort of envy for what other people do or have in their lives.
This cookbook is very rich is taste, flavors and probably your pocket. I have always been fascinated with french cuisine, but I didn't know what I was getting into when I read this one. The book is beautifully illustrated with gorgeous photos of the countryside, food and the family. However, most of these recipes seem very rich, as in the flavors. As I started to go through this, I was suddenly hit with the realization that most of these ingredients I would have to purchase at specialty stores or online. Living in the country with no specialty stores around, I am at a loss. But, most of these recipes do look wonderful, and I even found a recipe for Duck Confit, which I have been looking for. Hopefully I will get to try some of these wonderful recipes soon.
Loved the book, even though the recipes are a bit too complicated for a beginner in cooking like me. But definitely when I will get the hang in the kitchen I will try little by little the recipes. I think that the beauty of this book is provided by the stories that Mimi shares of all recipes and the way they got to her. Now I am switching to reading her blog. Great Job Mimi
These people are perfect, except for having a ridiculous number of dogs, but otherwise perfect. Possibly they are a superior race of aliens that really like cooking and taking perfect self-portaits of their perfectness...and dogs. The food looks good, too.
Beautiful book full of lovely photographs and quaint stories. I'm sure I'll never make a single one of the recipes, but everything sounds delicious. The author reminds me of a French Nigella.
Lovely, but outrageously aspirational lifestyle porn for even the most privileged. I'll keep it for perusal, but doubt I will cook more than one or two recipes from it.
This is the most beautifully photographed, one-dimensional, fantasy cookbook I have ever read.
I LOVE reading about French home/country cooking and there are some truly understated books out there (In a French Kitchen, A Life in Provence, Bringing up Bebe) do a beautiful job of describing how in love French people are with food THAT DO NOT HAVE A SINGLE PICTURE.
This book is the opposite.
The love of food is there, I will give it that, but is completely overshadowed by a series of dark photographs depicting a beautiful woman, benignly smiling, as if she is a doll who has been posed in a very rustic luxe dollhouse, holding a basket of root vegetables.
The book depicts a world where you can't really imagining anyone having -too- good of a time. Surely there are no iPhones or even screens in this world. I challenge you to look at these pictures and imagine these people doing anything but smiling, closed-lipped, as they bend over a roasted guinea hen. It's impossible.
The photos are beautiful. I do like the contrast and the palette and the beautiful lighting... I just wish that the photos weren't all the same. And that maybe, just once, we could see this woman laugh.
This is a fairly short cookbook at only 159 pages, and with so many beautiful photographs there is not much room for many recipes. That being said, the recipes that ARE here look amazing. I love that they are organized seasonally, since that fits my desire to eat only things that are currently in season. There are a few ingredients that I think most Americans might have some difficulty locating, but not many - especially if you have a well stocked gourmet grocery in your area. Still, the emphasis is on nice cuts of meats and seasonal produce, so you shouldn't have too much trouble tracking down what you need. None of the recipes seem too fussy, either, so while i would probably relegate most of them to weekend cooking, many would be easy enough for a typical weeknight. I should state again - the photos are spectacular.
I don't know why a lifestyle/cookbook elicited such a strong response in me, but somehow the utter fakeness that seeped from its pages made me all riled up. Look at the cover. It's the author, Mimi Thorisson, an author of a once-popular blog that I could no longer find on the Internet. She gave birth to five children! Why is she so painfully thin? Why is she standing on one leg like a stork, bending over a table that is obviously too low to be used for cooking comfortably? Incidentally, the photographer of all the pictures for this book is her much older husband. Not to say anything bad about their relationship, but she doesn't look happy in any of the pictures.
Many of Mimi's recipes are seasonal and very local, which makes them useless to anyone who doesn't live near the coast of France or their forests like she does. I didn't find her recipes very useful or adapable.
I don't really count this as a cookbook, because it reads more like an autobiography with pictures and recipes thrown in. I never read the authors blog back when she started it, so I'm not up on her family and dogs. I was looking for a few cookbooks to give to family who had lived overseas, in an effort to help them remember their happy days there.
While this is a nice coffee table book, it is not the book I was looking for, nor was it a book I found myself being interested in. I wish the recipes had better pictures that went WITH THE RECIPE. I don't care so much about pictures of people who are not identified, and you have to guess from the very long and wordy saga must be "my favorite butcher in XYZ village" or something like that.
This is a beautiful book, full of glorious photographs, endpaper drawings,reminiscences, and suggested menus, arranged by season. The author's husband took the photos, so it's rather a family affair, as the text makes clear. I will use some of her recipes for sure, being very careful to write them out first so the book doesn't get grease-spotted or chocolate-stained. I love to read cookbooks for inspiration and ideas - been perusing this one off and on for some time, as it's so lovely to browse.
This is a very personalized cookbook filled with outstandingly tempting recipes. Very simple, fresh ingredients, along with a healthy family lifestyle. Highly recommended.
If we move to France, I need to get better at cozying up to the butter dish + cream pitcher, because I've bookmarked all but maybe five of Mimi's recettes...
Well-organized and purposeful...the care in food preparation is helpful info. I think I might be used to more layers of flavour and I don't like truffles so that knocked out a few recipes!