Anne Willan demystified classic French culinary technique for regular people who love food. Her legendary La Varenne Cooking School-in its original location in Paris and later in its longtime home in Burgundy-trained chefs, food writers and home cooks. Under Willan's cheerful, no-nonsense instruction, anyone could learn to truss a chicken, make a bernaise, or loft a soufflé.
In One Soufflé at a Time, Willan tells her story and the story of the food-world greats-including Julia Child, James Beard, Simone Beck, Craig Claiborne, Richard Olney, and others-who changed how the world eats and who made cooking fun. She writes about how a sturdy English girl from Yorkshire made it not only to the stove, but to France, and how she overcame the exceptionally closed male world of French cuisine to found and run her school. Willan's story is warm and rich, funny and fragrant with the smells of the country cooking of France. It's also full of the creative culinary ferment of the 1970s-a decade when herbs came back to life and freshness took over, when the seeds of our modern day obsession with food and ingredients were sown.
Tens of thousands of students have learned from Willan, not just at La Varenne, but through her large, ambitious Look & Cook book series and twenty-six-part PBS program. Now One Soufflé at a Time -which features fifty of her favorite recipes, from Coquille St. Jacques to Chocolate Snowball-brings Willan's own story of her life to the center of the banquet table.
"Ms. Willan tells the story of her life--interespersing it generously with recipes, classic French and otherwise--in an easygoing, readable style, full of anecdote and insight."
Colman Andrews, Wall Street Journal
"Woven into the story of how she managed to build a culinary school in Paris, Willan shares anecdotes from her interactions with Julia Child...making one of the most legendary figures in cooking seem like an old friend. Somehow she does the same with food."
Saveur
"[Willan] shares her adventures in life, love and cheese balls in the delectable memoir One Soufflé at a Time, which also comes peppered with her favorite recipes."
