I love this book. I read this 'cookbook' when I want to run away from home. Sure, there are recipes, but I can get recipes off the web. I prefer learning about Richard's life with Lulu and Lucien, it's like living better my own self. Bon Voyage and Bon Apetit!

This is simply the finest cookbook in my library, and one above all others that I could simply not do without. It is both a pleasure to read and a goldmine of authentic, simple, provencale cuisine that allows the reader a clear understanding of what this food is really about. It is moe than a cookbook, it is a window into a world that makes one want to pack his bags and move to Provence.

I own 120 cookbooks, and I read others whenever I get a chance. I cook French, Indian, Chinese, Italian, and Mexican. And, yes, I'm a fool for good restaurants. This is one of the cookbooks I would least like to do without. It gives a good idea of what Provencal cuisine is like, and the recipes are detailed and complete. And the results are delicious. I hope it gets reprinted.

Romanee Conti, the wine, is a myth. Most wine lovers have never drunk it and will probably never have the chance to drink it. 6,000 bottles only are produced annually and sold at such a high price that it is really not affordable to most of us. This is not a sufficient reason not to be fascinated by the history of the wine and not to read Romanee Conti, the book. Richard Olney describes absolutely everything you want to know about the Domaine, the vineyards and the wine. Of course, nobody can expect to remember all the details, which are given by Olney. This is not the point of the book. Since the Middle Age, a small piece of land in Burgundy has constantly produced one of the best wines on earth. Olney introduces the reader to the myth. This is a masterpiece that all wine enthusiasts should have in their library. Dreaming and discovering small things about wine is a pleasure for those who love wines. Imagine that one day you have the opportunity to drink a glass of Romanee Conti. You will then be more than happy to have read this book!

Front cover shows a Chateau Yquem 1975 bottle. Layout is so great you know you are going to enter a whole world in itself when reading this book. Pictures are beautiful even if they should not be considered as the best part of this book. Topic itself is so important that you would expect nobody else than Olnney to master it. He does it with dexterity. This book was written long before the internal war between owners of the castle. Lur Saluces family suffered during the selling process of this estate. Have you ever tasted Chateau Yquem wine? It's a divine pleasure you can experiment buying a recent bottle from the cooperative shop inside Yquem village. Price will start around 150 dollars a bottle. I remember my grand-mother forcing us (we were 7 years old)to drink 1949 Chateau Yquem wine on Christmas dinners. "You will never forget it" she said. None of my cousins neither myself did forget 1949 Chateau Yquem or our wise grand-mother.

At one point in his story Olney recounts a demonstration he gave to some women's club in Tulsa. At the end of the class, he distributes portions of the dessert souflee he has made. The ladies respond with statements like "interesting" and so on. When Olney tastes it, however, he realizes that he has substituted salt for sugar. Now in his telling of this anecdote, there is a clear implication that the women are fools and dishonest to boot. But anyone outside of the rareified circles Olney travelled in would know that what he was witnessing wasn't ignorance but courtesy, even charity. The ladies were simply too kind to tell him that his food was dreadful.
Now Olney's misreading of the situation is telling: it highlights a streak of real nastiness that runs through his memoir, an unwillingness to pass over human foibles or to give people the benefit of the doubt. For me, at least, this limits the pleasure I can take in the book's other considerable charms.
His responses to wine are beautifully, even seductively recorded; his descriptions of food are, surprisingly, less frequent and less memorable.
I found the admiration he records for his brother James's achievements as a capable but generally unremarkable academic touching. Here is this fellow, a good friend of the likes of Auden and James Baldwin, reverently noting the publication of his sibling's dutiful scholarly tomes. This is what true brotherly love looks like.
Olney's life was fascinating and in some respects enviable, but I can't say that overall I particularly warmed to him.
Keep in mind that for all his meticulous recording of his social life, he lay dead in his home for three days before anyone found him--and even then it was the gardener. There is a sort of grim pentimento here beneath this self portrait--the artist as lonely, besotted misanthrope. How sad!

There is really only one good reason to read this book, which is if you are seriously interested in post-war French food and wine (and the associated culture), and for that purpose it contains an enormous wealth of information.

If you want to know more about Richard Olney (as I also did), you may be unsatisfied. The impression the book gives is of a very private man who never really reveals himself and who was in the end disappointed by life. Also, the writing is, to be honest, not really up to the standards that he sets in his other books: this reads more like a draft than a finished book, which it may very well be, since he died before publishing it - but even so, I suspect that he was simply not very comfortable with autobiography as a genre.

While he is, for instance, perfectly frank, and even quite charming about his sexuality (the episode with Auden and the little pots of jam is worth, by itself, the price), you never learn, for instance, what his conservative middle class, middle-american parents thought (or if they knew). Neither, for that matter, do you ever find out how he earned his living (yes, life was cheaper, but a cellar full of Romanee-Conte and 60 year old d'Yquem must be based on some sort of income).

I found the most touching parts to be about his friendship with Elizabeth David, and that is maybe revealing, since she was another loner (or simply lonely)...

I've just finished reading 'Reflexions' and am more than sad to find Olney hadn't written more such material. I find his overall impressions of the food-related world and its sometimes quirky inhabitants to be quite revealing and true to my own limited experience. Seldom are we exposed to scenes behind the public persona. Chefs are gifted people, and unfortunately some are troubled with difficult personalities. Olney's portrayal of people-with-palate and their world is unapologetically his own: insightful, frank and touching. He does not hesitate to include his own opinion - an aspect of his writing I find refreshing and many times laugh-out-loud amusing. His food-wine pairings are inspired. I truly dreaded the approaching end of this book. I had come to read the text as a small yet intimate peek into an artist's life. The last pages brought great emptyness, as if I had lost a friend. 'Reflexions' is a great read and is now part of my permanent collection, no doubt to be revisited again.

Preparing cow brains and eels might be simple for some, but most will find this a very impractical guide to French cooking. "Pretentious French Food," would be a more appropriate title.

Olney is acknowledged by the best in the food field (like Alice Waters of Chez Panisse in Berkeley) as an unimpeachable source of excellence in understanding, tasting, and (by the way) cooking French food. He is, I must acknowledge, opinionated, even arrogant -- he is also almost always right. This book should be read as well as cooked with; absorb it through the skin if you can. My favorites include roasted calf's liver -- absolutely sublime -- and lamb shanks with garlic (unforgettably good). As a european, I acknowledge his view of scrambled eggs as they should be -- soft and creamy, not the overcooked, dried-out buffet eggs of the american breakfast table. And his recipe for poached eggs is perfect -- boil water, turn off the flame, break in eggs, cover, leave.

Simple french food doesn't mean simple cooking; it actually takes real work. But this is the best overall treatise I have read (among hundreds). My second copy is falling apart, I have given it to many friends and I will go on buying it until they take me to the great restaurant in the sky. Don't be without it.

I am a true devotee of Olney's food and wine writing and place "Simple French Food" at the top of his list of books, even over "The French Menu Cookbook." No, the word "simple" in the title does not mean that the book contains recipes that are necessarily quick and easy, although there are some. Instead, "simple" refers to the food itself. It's the food (historically, at least) found in french country restaurant and home kitchens - soul satisfying food that has little if anything to do with showy "eye-candy" found in the famed three star establishments. Wonderful gratins, terrines, roasts, daubes ... that truly maximize the flavor of the ingredients listed in the recipes. Olney was an American artist who lived in France for decades and over the years became an expert on French food and wine. Indeed, he was widely respected by the French for his expertise (no mean accomplishment!). He is often cited by now famous American chefs for his influence on their careers (for example, Alice Waters, Mark Miller, James Peterson, Jeremiah Tower). While some might think his writing style verbose, I consider it to be uniquely informative and entertaining. I only wish he had written more books before his untimely death. (This review is based on the hardbound volume printed in 1974)