Baking with Julia

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.com Review ----------- Television cooking shows are occasionally moderately entertaining to watch, but as sources for usable recipes and good cooking ideas, they are hit or miss at best. Cookbooks based on cooking shows are even less likely to be useful in the kitchen. One shining exception is Julia Child's "Master Chef" series. One of the best cooking shows ever produced, it also yielded some wonderful cookbooks, including Cooking With Master Chefs ( /exec/obidos/ISBN=0679748296/%24%7B0%7D ). The latest is Baking With Julia, which features the creations of 26 top bakers. All are artists with flour, eggs, butter, and the other ingredients of their craft. Writer Dorie Greenspan is a master at her craft as well. The paste for eclairs, she writes, is transformed from "ordinary-looking batter" into "a puffed pastry that appears to be threatening flight." It's all definitely good enough to eat. From Booklist ( /gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000730363%20 ) ----------------------------------------------------------------- The most celebrated U.S. television chef weighs in with a companion to her upcoming PBS series. This time, Child guides her admiring pupils through the breadth of contemporary American baking. Octogenarian Julia herself does little cooking, but her presence validates the work of the bakers young and old whose skills she showcases. Dorie Greenspan gets credit for authorship of this endlessly tempting, lavishly illustrated volume destined to raise temperatures in the nation's kitchens. Beginning with familiar yeast breads, the book advances through cakes, cookies, pitas, and pizzas to croissants, matzos, and, yes, bagels. Techniques range from Beatrice Ojakan' familiar Scandinavian loaves to Martha Stewart's complex, grandly embellished wedding cake. In a bow to technological advances, some of the recipes are designed for bread machines. Since this book is meant to accompany the video series, its illustrations serve as portraits of final products, not as the step-by-step technical guides that made Julia's Mastering the Art of French Cooking a classic. Despite her limited presence in the book, Baking with Julia perfectly reflects the queen of U.S. cuisine's passion to teach us an appreciation for good food. Mark Knoblauch