It's All About Food Porn

I am going to step into a weighty subject - literally.  These two books weight about 5 pounds each.  And while you might think with all that poundage, these are candidates for an e-reader, think again.  These two books need to be savored in all their printed, full-color photographic, splendor.

I call them 'food porn' because the first thing you do is look at the pictures and drool.  Forget reading the material until you have paged through these tomes from cover to cover and back again.  Then you can read the articles.

The first book, and I'll labeled it 'R' rated, is Bouchon Bakery by Thomas Keller and Sebastien Rouxel.

And this is how I was enjoying flipping through this book....

sitting on the patio in the morning with a cup of coffee and a pad to take some notes.  Notes like,  (1) I need this book, (2) I need to buy a food scale for the kitchen, (3) I need a thermometer for the oven, and (4) I need to exercise more so that I can make and eat the food made from the recipes in this book.

With brief stories on how each of the people involved in this book got to where they are, Bouchon Bakery then opens up like stepping through the doors of a bakery.  There are the cookies, tarts, cakes and breads all neatly arranged in their places.  A continuation of Sebastien Rouxel's 'cooking clean' philosophy.  

The recipes are to die for and the directions easy to follow.  However, and this is explained and stressed at the start of the book, the recipes are mainly in grams and ounces rather than cups and spoonfuls.  There is a conversion for most of the recipes, but I think I am going to have to get the scale and start measuring in order to make the breads I want to make. 

Color photographs accompany most of the recipes, but not all.  Or there is one photograph showing several different products at one time a few pages away from the recipe.  This is the only negative I have about the book.

Now for the 'X' rated book.  And this one I immediately sent a message to Savvy to get for herself and a friend (who is an avid baker and in training to become a professional baker).  It is on my Amazon wish list (if anyone would care to get it for me---my birthday is coming up you know!)

I happen to know that this book is 5.5 pounds of pure lusciousness, I weighed it.  A hot pink cover, opening this book is like opening the door of a French patisserie, in all it's brass and glass glory.  This is food porn at it's finest.

The recipes are rated according to difficulty, but with the almost step-by-step instructions it would be hard to go wrong.  Macaroons to shortbread, this book has it all and shows it to you in beautifully detailed colored photographs.  It should be illegal to make a book like this.   Little time is wasted on background, but jumps directly into the dough.  Hopefully, I will have this book in my hands, not as a library book, but as MY book by Christmas baking time.

These books make me glad I have saved and purchased two things recently - (1) a Kitchenaid stand mixer and (2) my recumbent bike!  I will be 'kneading' both.