Chefs i like - This is Women Power!!

NIGELLA LAWSON

a few years back i got introduced to Nigella through the TOH bulletin board..someone mentioned a recipe of hers there and i got curious who she is... She is not a chef as a profession but by love with food - she is a food critic and writer and she does a wonderful job!!

in German we do not have foodtv and here we do not know all the famous chefs and cookbook authors you do in USA/Canada undless you are interested in cooking and North American Cuisine...

So i never watched one of her shows - later i was able to on youtube... anyway i checked out her books during a visit to UK and Canada and decided i would spend my money on her cookbooks and i like all of them! :-)) www.nigella.com

I like Nigellas cooking style and the class she has - its right up my alley....

I do enjoy Martha Stewart - she does have good taste in everything - ther is no question about it... but it is too commerzialized and i miss the touch from the heart - she is no doubt a fantastic business women and extremly talented...

But this is about Nigella... I have to say all the cookbooks i have are being used over and over again and they contain fancy, elegant but easy to prepare meals that i appreciate being a fulltime working single mom. The Partybook she has a fantastic source of recipes with all theinformation how to throw all kinds of parties, celebrate events and holidays!!

I can really recommend her books you will not regret it... put them on your wish list!!
Alissa

GIADA DE LAURENTIIS

The next northamerican chef i really like is Giada De Laurentiis - she seems so nice, easy going and has a down to earth italian cooking with this extra touch. http://www.giadadelaurentiis.com/

I have one of her cookbooks New Italian Favorits Giada's Kitchen and i have tried quite a few recipes and they worked out fine. che has a section for childrens food that i like and her recipes are easy to follow so this is really somethig for everybody. Cheers Alissa

LEA LINSTER

Lea Linster is a very talented chef who runs her own restaurant in the town of Frisange in Luxembourg. She created dishes for the ‘Bocuse D’Or’, a chefs’ competition which she won - she is the only women so far that won this comeptition. She is one of the few women how win prizes and earn stars in this very tough and hard business that is dominated by men. She has a georgous restaurant in Luxemberg. This women was destinated to cook, she grew up in her parents cafe which she turned into a famous star restaurant. She was trained in the best culinary houses. I have all her cookbooks. and my parents went to eat at her restaurant once and they brought me back a signed cookbook. She is a very nice and lovely women with a big heart. She is ambitous and very precise and tough in her business but you have to be in her profession. The things she cooks are not always very easy but managable and in her cookbooks she gives very good instructions how to get there. Her cuisine is upscale and starlevel. She recently starts to appear on german TV here and there - she is quite shy but its lovely to see her cook!!

here one of her recipes - http://www.lealinster.lu/

Duck breast fillets with Ginger

Preparation for 4 people

Ingrédients :
3 duck breast fillets

2 soup spoons acacia honey

2 cl of Melfor vinegar

20 g of peeled and chopped gingers

1 garlic clove

3 cl of soy sauce

¼ l of fowl ground

1 pinch of pepper

Preparation :
I warm up the honey in a saucepan, solve it then with the vinegar off the pot ground and let the whole draw something. Then I add the ginger, the soy sauce and the fowl ground and allow to thicken the whole again. In the end, I add the pepper. Then I passI sear the duck's breasts on the skin side to reduce the fat. Then I roast those 3 minutes on the meat side, after I have removed the fat from the frying pan. Before the end of the done time I salt the duck's breasts slightly on every side and pepper them. It is served with caramelized apples and a good Gewürztraminer.

Johanna Maier - Austrian Star Chef

So far i haven't eaten there but i am a big admirer of her cooking... I have read 2 of her cookbooks with pleasure, the recipes are very clean, perfected and she is very experimental and open to new styles. It is possible to folow her recipes no problem. You need to be prepared, mise en place works well and focus... then you are rewarded with a star worthy dish!! She is a remarkable women in my eyes - i have lots of respect for the work she does - being a mother, wife, hotel and restaurant owner.... and winning so many awards and prizes!! She got 19 Points from Gault Millau and 2 Michelin stars...

Alissa

Hubertus, Filzmoos, Austria, the restaurant from Johanna Maier, according several magazines "the best female chef in the world": an overwhelming experience, if you are a serious chower.Dishes are mostly "variatios of ", i.e. for example foi gras entree consists of 3 different preparations of foi gras, and entrée variations of flusskrebs even 4 completely different small plates, each one with unique preparation and flavour. Most of the Main courses come in two - completely different prepared - servings - for example deer: first serving grilled , second steamed and in puff-pastry. Mrs. Meier personally welcomed each guest.

She spent time with Dieter Müller, Hans Haas, André Jäger and Jean-Georges Vongerichten and learned a great deal from all of them

What was your most moving culinary experience?

When I was thrown out from Thomas Keller’s restaurant in New York because I wasn’t dressed elegantly enough. Thomas Keller came and rescued me, offered me a glass of champagne and made sure that I didn’t have any, but the best seat in the restaurant with views of New York.

The most amusing kitchen incident you ever witnessed? On my return from Paris I immediately made a vanilla sabayon, which prompted my father-in-law to say, “There’s soot in it!”

Your best piece of advice for amateur chefs?

To remain true to yourself, to never stop evolving and to keep a lively mind. Cooking never stops, the diversity of taste is infinite, the garden of nature is inexhaustible. Every day must bear witness to a new pursuit of tastes, experimenting, feeling one’s way towards what is perfect.
by Johanna Maier!

Anne-Sophie Pic

Not far from Lyon and Marseille, half-way between the mountains and the sea, you will find Valence, a dynamic city in one of France's loveliest rural regions. And in Valence, you will discover a very special island of calm: Restaurant Pic, which over the past sixty years has earned a reputation as a shrine of French cuisine. Curnonsky, "the prince of gastronomes," said early on "there are three creators of modern cuisine: Escoffier, Pic, Point." And it was certainly no accident that the three men were friends.
In the days before multi-lane highways and high-speed trains, writers, painters, actors, aristocrats and even kings, not to mention ordinary food-lovers, eagerly looked forward to stopping off at Valence. They weren't alone - and thus began a tradition that continues to this day.
Three generations of 3 stars. http://www.pic-valence.com/

Anne-Sophie Pic is the daughter and granddaughter of chefs who have held three Michelin stars. She has brought the three-star rating back to the renowned "Maison Pic" in Valence. They were first granted to her grandfather André in 1945, but not maintained. Michelin then gave the prized rating to Anne-Sophie's father Jacques Pic but downgraded the restaurant in 1995, three years after his death. At first, it was to be Alain Pic, Anne-Sophie's brother, who would take over the family culinary business, which has operated in the same location since before the war. But gradually it was Anne-Sophie who took over the reins. "Experience can't be handed down," she says in a small voice, "but I believe a lot in destiny."
In 2007 Anne-Sophie Pic became the only female chef in France to hold three Michelin stars. An event to celebrate! It's the first time since 1968 that a woman has held such an honor, since the third star was withdrawn from "Mère Brazier" in Lyon. by http://www.theworldwidegourmet.com/