Cookbook author Rebekah Peppler understands that not everyone can live in Paris, inviting friends over for drinks and snacks, maybe dinner, once a week, so they can have delicious food and refreshing cocktails on the balcony as they gaze out at the Eiffel Tower. Not everyone can live the way she does. But Peppler believes that anyone can share in that spark of French magic, no matter where they live. And that is what À Table is all about.
À Table is divided into 3 parts, Before, During, and After. Before focuses on the before-dinner drinks and snacks. During is a mouth-watering collection of mains and sides, and After is post-dinner drinks and tasty sweet treats. An American now living in Paris, she has access to a cornucopia of exquisite European ingredients. when she can, she explains how we can find them in the States, or she points out how to find a good substitute, but she always emphasizes buying the best you can afford. By that, she doesn’t mean going in to debt to feed your friends and family. She just means to buy the best ingredients for your budget.
Along with recipes for delicious French dishes, there are lots of smart tips to make your time as party host easier. Peppler offers good advice on wines and aperitifs as well as what to do for those who aren’t drinking and how t deal with the problem of ice. She tells you how to stock a French pantry, from butters to salts to chocolates. She takes down the old school rules for dinner parties and suggests how best to enjoy the time at a party, from the planning to the execution to ideas for small takeaways you can send home with your guests if you’re so inclined. From the aperitifs to the digestifs, she helps you keep the drinks flowing, and she tells you how to set up a charcuterie board or an after-dinner cheese board or sweets board.
And then there’s the food. Peppler was born in Wisconsin and lived on both coasts of America before heading over to fulfill her dream of living in France. So while her recipes are for a lot of traditionally French foods, she understands the ingredients and cooking styles of American cooks too, so she adjusts her recipes for the best of both worlds. There is the Croque Madame, the Ratatouille, Cassoulet, and French Onion Soup with Cognac. There is a 7-Hour Leg of Lamb and a 3-hour Tomatoes Oubliees (“Forgotten Tomatoes”). She makes a tarte tatin out of carrots and leeks and makes a wedge salad for hangovers. But her inventive twists on traditional French food makes it modern and mouth-watering. And she includes lots of recipes that can be enjoyed by vegetarians or adapted for vegans, so everyone can have a place at the table.
If the descriptions of this food isn’t enough to draw you in, the photography will. Gorgeous photos of these dishes are interspersed with shots in real French homes and in the markets and streets of Paris, drawing you into the city with all of your senses. À Table is not just about French food; it’s about a lifestyle filled with good friends, delicious food, plenty of good wine and cocktails, and the magic of the City of Lights.
I devoured this cookbook, and I will go back to it for ideas for desserts (that Apricot Crumble looked divine), chicken dishes, and snacks that I want to try out (XL Gougeres? Yes, please!). I love the recipes, the photos, and mostly the attitude of this gorgeous cookbook. Peppler comes at cooking with a definite point of view, an unapologetic love letter to French foods, fresh vegetables, salt, butter, and cheese, and while I can’t pull off this lifestyle myself, I can find things to add to my current life that can add some of that celebratory spirit, that magic of Paris, to make my life a little richer. And for that I can be grateful to Peppler and À Table.
Egalleys for À Table were provided by Chronicle Books through NetGalley, with many thanks.
