French cooking can be intimidating. But the food is delicious. Who doesn’t love a Croque Monsieur or Boeuf Bourguignon or Creme Brulee? French food is comfort food, but elevated. It’s rich in flavor and feels a little decadent. But where do you get started cooking like that?

Ideally, you learn that from your French grandmother, but if you’re like me and didn’t have one (German grandmother, yes, French, not so much), then you can learn from a chef who learned from his French grandmother.

Francois de Melogue grew up in Chicago but spent his summers in France. He learned French food as he shopped in French markets and traveled through the countryside of France. He understands the foods of the different regions and knows how to explain it in a way that someone nervous about French cooking can understand. And he offers it all on a silver platter in his new cookbook, French Cooking for Beginners.

There are recipes for Crepes and Quiche, Cheese Souffle and Oysters Mornay, Nicoise Salad and Bouillabaisse, Cassoulet and Duck Confit with Crispy Potatoes, Tarte Tatin and Chocolate Pots de Creme. But there are also helpful tips to ease you into crepes and souffles, making a pan sauce, and setting up a cheese course. And of course, there is a crash course in French wines that will help you find the perfect pairing for any of these dishes.

French Cooking for Beginners is a delight, an introduction to all the most iconic French dishes that you can learn and use to impress family and friends. I do wish there were a few more photos, as the pictures that are there just draw me in, wanting to eat and make these amazing dishes. But I love that this has all the French dishes that you crave without the heft of that two-book classic French cooking tome that we all respect but don’t want to carry around. This svelte cookbook is ideal for taking into the kitchen, schlepping to the grocery store, or reading right before bed to have the sweetest of dreams.

A copy of French Cooking for Beginners was provided by Rockridge Press through the Callisto Media Publisher’s Club, with many thanks.