The good news about legendary chef Jacques Pepin: he’s still got it. Even better – you can get it. Pepin’s latest, greatest cookbook Essential Pepin features more than 700 of Pepin’s “all-time favorite” recipes AND a how-to-do-just-about-everything DVD. Pepin will turn 76 years young on December 18 and he is as engaging as ever.
The cookbook is laid out in a friendly, readable type with titles in blue and instructions and ingredient lists in black. The recipes are written simply. Thank you, Jacques! There are no photographs of food – they would not fit within the 685 pages. But there are many of Pepin’s own small, whimsical sketches of food. Photos of Pepin enliven the end papers of this sizeable volume.
Pepin has been promoting this new cookbook tirelessly on television and radio and at major food events. I wouldn’t be surprised if the last page of this book that reads “la fin” is far from the end of Pepin’s contributions to the world of cooking. Essential Pepin by Jacques Pepin (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt: 2011) available locally from Books & Books in Westhampton Beach and online. $40.