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Great
Kitchens
At Home With America's Top Chefs
by Ellen Whitaker, Colleen Mahoney and Wendy A. Jordan (Taunton)
This
book may make you a better cook than any cookbook—and there's
not a recipe in sight.
Packed
with floor plans, gorgeous color photography by Grey Crawford and
tips, it's like getting chummy advice from America's top chefs on
how to design and organize your kitchen.
Better
than walking through an impersonal kitchen design studio, who is
more qualified to clue you in than exceptionally distinguished cooks?
Lidia
Matticchio Bastianich, owner of the acclaimed Felidia, Becco, Esca
and Frico Bar eateries in Manhattan, will walk you through her home
kitchen and show you why pans should hang on a rack over your stove
and how granite counter tops make all the difference when rolling
fresh pasta.
Michael
McCarty, owner of Michael's in Santa Monica and Manhattan, rebuilt
his Malibu seaside retreat after fires ravaged the town and swears
by floor-to-ceiling pantry cabinets, convection wall ovens and an
outdoor wood-burning pizza oven instead of a barbecue.
Hubert
Keller, owner of Fleur de Lys in San Francisco who first cooked
in acclaimed spots in France, shows off how specially designed cabinets
and drawers make all the difference in organizing and storing culinary
tools and serving pieces. And how collectors can both show off and
make use of their prized possessions, such as Keller's father's
antique kugelhopf and chocolate molds that make a striking design
element on a shelf atop his refrigerator. But you don't have to
want to redesign or even reorganize your kitchen to get a kick out
of this book.
It's
like an in depth version of In Style or Vanity Fair magazines—giving
a glimpse of how the celebrity set lives. After you see the kitchen
floor plans and read about how the chefs designed and organized
their favorite room, you also get glossy photos that make you virtually
want to move right in, bios that read like novels along with envy-producing
descriptions of their scrumptious day-to-day lives.
McCarty's
good fortune is a prime example. "Perched 1,000 feet up a steep
hillside, overlooking an incomparable expanse of the blue Pacific
and surrounded by vineyards, Kim and Michael McCarty's home is reborn,"
the authors write. "The McCarty's bought the house in 1976 and remodeled
a few years later, turning three rooms—dining room, kitchen
and den—into a spectacular open living space loaded with glass
doors and windows, wraparound decks and, what is arguably, one of
the best views in the world....Michael's (restaurant) is not open
on Sundays, 'so we're open here,' the host explains. Michael and
Kim entertain by arranging tennis parties, wine tastings, gatherings
around the pool or alfresco meals....When entertaining, Michael
personally selects the produce from local farmers' markets. The
wines come from the grapevines the guests can see all around them."
What
you'll see all around you if you open this lavish book are plenty
of tastes of the good life, as well as helpful everyday tips you
can put to use in your own kitchen. Here are a few other suggestions:
—Mary
Sue Milliken, co-owner of Santa Monica's Border
Grill and Los Angeles' Ciudad
who became a household name as one of the stars of the TV Food Network:
Open kitchens are best since they allow you to cook while staying
involved with whatever is going on in the rest of the house. Kitchens
should have a compact, but efficient work area that puts everything
close at hand and have a centrally located work island. Buy special
organizers for drawers that will keep knives neatly separated and
easy to quickly find.
—Georges
Perrier, owner Le
Bec-Fin, an acclaimed establishment in Philadelphia: "Lighting
may be the room's most important feature. If I told you how many
lights we have, you wouldn't believe me." Also: Oversized pullout
pantries with wire racks are great for storing ingredients; nothing
gets lost at the back of the shelves. Warming drawers are a nice
addition to a work island.
—Nancy
Oakes, chef and co-owner of Boulevard
in San Francisco, and her husband Bruce Aidells, owner of Aidells'
Sausage Company: Give up on cramming spices into a small rack, go
wild. Aidells designed an eight-shelf, four-foot spice rack that's
as much a piece of wall art as it is functional. Drawers in the
work island have only half fronts for visibility and racks for hard-to-store
items. A commercial butcher block-topped rolling unit with slide-in
sheet pan resides by the range. Oakes' and Aidells' knives are in
a wooden holder attached to the butcher block.
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