Altough this is a beautifully illustrated book, I found that the recipes I tried seemed to just miss the mark. I am an experienced Asian cook and have lots of knowledge of fresh Asian ingredients so I was not daunted by the recipes. When each dish was completed it looked beautiful but tasted as if something was missing. I have tried recreating several of the dishes to no avail. Puzzling!

Two weeks ago my girlfriend Snow and I dined at Tetsuya's new restaurant Mju at the Millenium Knightsbridge Hotel in London, prompted by Snow's raving of Tetsuya from her winters in Sydney. The only dining option is an eight-mini-course tasting menu, but since the man himself was in town (Tetsuya spends only one week a month in London) we were all for it. We thought the portions were adequate, but I suspect people used to NYC portions might go home hungry. I must say that his cuisine was awesome - highlighting the flavors of fresh ingredients, and many of the courses were based on raw or undercooked items. Although the presentation of the food was highly stylised - just look at the photos in the cookbook and they are similarly presented at your table - the cooking is unfussed and the philosophy predominantly reflected the Japanese appreciation for simplicity and French classical culinary techniques. The result was that every dish managed to emphasize yet enhance the flavor of the main ingredient. Compared to Nobu, Tetsuya is hardly fusion and very Asian at heart. Most of the courses served at Mju are included in the cookbook, so we know that these recipes have been tried and tested. What's most gratifying is the listing at the end of the book of food sources for Mju - London lags NYC in terms of high-end food stores such as Dean & Deluca and Citarella, so the list is very useful, and it allows me to dream about learning to cook at the level of a master like Tetsuya.

Beautifully presented, innovative recipes, amazing combinations of flavors that one would not normally consider. I have made a number of the recipes which have won rave reviews from my guests. I love cooking and eating and found these receipes easy to follow however to get the best results one really needs to use the freshest of ingrediants. Some recipes are a little more involved and need a trial run prior to trying them on guests. One of the best cook books I have seen for some time and I have quite a few. For those that really appreciate the best in food.

Charlie Trotter is probably the greatest chef in America. I'm quite sure that no restaurant in NY can match the unbelievable perfectionism of his Chicago establishment. This cookbook, however, is not for everyone. It will appeal to two possibly overlapping types: those who will leave it on their coffee tables and occasionally peruse its brilliant presentations, and those with the determination, skills and experience to actually follow its recipes.

The latter will be a very limited audience. These are very hard dishes to reproduce, typically involving dozens of ingredients and hours of preparation. Perhaps the book functions best as advertising for CT's restaurant; although it's one of the most expensive in Chicago, it starts to look like the deal of the century when you realize how much work goes into these dishes.

Charlie Trotter's "Vegetables" decorated my coffee table for over a year before I dared to cook from it. I started with six recipes for a dinner party of 6 people. By checking sources early in the week I was able to find most ingredients, the most difficult part of the entire process. I had to substitute a few items, but all very successfully. The next trick was to start early (it might take hours of boiling to reduce a stock down to the desired consistency). So I wouldn't be cooking while my quests were there, I prep'ed everything I possibly could and only had to do a few last minute sautes to finish things up. I was exhausted by the end of the day, but it was a "triumph." Later, I realized that in the 6 recipes I made there was no garlic and only one herb in the final prep--all the wonderful flavors came from concentrations of the natural ingredients and the unusual match-ups. Though not marketed as a vegetarian cookbook, I made it so by substituting a slightly thickened vegetable stock for veal stock. Now I ready to take on more of Charlie Trotter's "Vegetables."

None of these recipies are easy, but if you are willing to sacrafice time and money, the results are pretty amazing. I find CT's Vegetables to be his most versitile book, where Charlie really shows us his most spectacular innovations.

I've cooked successfully out of this cookbook for 4 years, and have come back to it time and time again, when I'm in need of something truly smashing - and in particular, when I'm feeding vegetarian friends.

A word to the wise, buy this book to cook from only if you know your way around a kitchen and the standard resturant vocubulary (he's not going to tell you how to blanch or julienne). Another word of warning - don't try any of this if you're trying to take care of small children at the same time - the recipies demand all of you attention.

Show stoppers are the glorios carmalized onion and potato tart, the chilled cucumber soup, the blue cheese souffle (the brioche is out of this world), the asparagus terrine, and the grits-filled morelles. ymmmm.

When was the last time you ate at a divine restaurant? When was the last time you ordered something that you couldn't pronounce? Have you ever savored that perfect bottle of French Merlot? If you have a taste for the exquisite, an eye for artistic flair in cooking, and a passion for the culinary arts, this book is your nirvana.

Each recipe is thoughtfully organized into sections:
Serving Size, List of Ingredients, Method, Assembly, and Wine Notes. There is also a full-color picture of each completed dish to accompany the recipe.

The book is organized by ingredient. Tomatoes, Potatoes, Mushrooms, Salmon, Scallops, Tuna, Rabbit, Squab, Lamb, Varietal Meats, Grains, and Desserts. Examples of the recipes are: Truffled Exotic Mushrooms and Root Vegetable Tart with Red Wine Butter Sauce, Timbale of Salmon Tartare with Osetra Caviar, Avocado, and Lemon Oil, and Peach and Creme Brulee Napoleon with Green Tea Creme Anglaise and Peach Juice.

This book is a beautiful example of gourmet cooking at it's height of finesse. This book is not for the beginner or the faint of heart. The tools and ingredients required in this book are extensive, and not always readily attainable. If you are an aspiring gourmet chef, or merely an officiando of the fruit of their labors, you will thorougly enjoy this book.

When I first encountered Charlie Trotter's books, I actually laughed - how could even the most dedicated home chef even hope to create these dishes? Some recipes even required ingredients that were in season at different times of the year!

Since then, the book has grown on me, and I've grown with it. His approach to food has opened a new chapter in my efforts to become an excellent chef, and his vision has gripped me with a mania that borders on the religious. Coming up to speed with his culinary style takes a lot of work and a lot of money, but once I found sources for the necessary ingredients, and stocked up my freezer with preparations like fennel oil, pinot noir reduction, and cubes of sauteed black chanterelle mushrooms, I am able to whip up a three-course Trotteresque dinner in just a few hours. Notably, I have never followed one of his recipes literally; it is impossible. Instead, you must draw from his techniques and improvise, using whatever excellent ingredients are available in your area at that time.

In short, this is a landmark book that has completely changed the way I approach food. It is NOT for the casual chef, however. His cuisine should be approached with the kind of practice and discipline one might apply to, say, learning to play the piano. The path is long and hard, but the results are worth it.

If you care - REALLY care - about becoming a truly great chef, then buy this book. If not, it's still worth it just to drool over the pictures.

This book is fantastic. The quality of the pictures and recipes are extremely high.

The culinary masterpieces created in the mind of Charlie Trotter push the outer limits of creativity and innovation. This book focuses on every aspect of a gourmet meal: from visual presentation to taste, texture, and usage of seasonal fruits and vegetables. I am a big fan of this book. While I will not make every recipe in it, it has caused me to experiment more freely in my kitchen and opened my mind to new possibilities, food combinations, and presentation styles. There are several recipes that call for extremely exotic/hard-to-find items...don't bother with them...Improvise and use what you have.

This book is not for the novice chef. A solid understanding of several cooking techniques is required for each dish...but with some practice, you will be rewarded tenfold. If you have the means, I highly recommend his namesake restaurant in Chicago. It is an utterly overwhelming experience.

This is the first book that I have read about Charlie Trotter and his style, but I will say this, I will definetly go to his resturant in Chicago for what I understand is a remarkable experience. The book is valuable, both for his analogies to jazz sessions and the need for improvisation in cooking just as in music, to emphasizing assembly and presentation of various receipes. I bought this book in Napa Valley, and while on a flight home to the East Coast, I was busily writing notes in the book(it is good for that, both the cover that gives it the feel of a workbook in a sense), no pork would also go with that, perhaps beef there instead of duck- the book inspires ideas, and for someone like myself who is getting into gourmet cooking, Trotter's book makes cooking fun and enjoyable. His analogy with jazz music, has inspired me to have a set of music that will be played at my various "dinner sessions". Highly recommend!

Charlie Trotter shares a little of his culinary philosophy and the passion that helps create some of the most innovative dishes in America. His interpretation of classic dishes, such as, Cobb Salad are beautifully prepared with step by step instructions that can be understood by cooks of any level. Most dishes prepared by Chef Trotter are completely original and innovative. The use of the freshest ingredients during peak season is one of Chef Trotter's secrets.Beautiful photography as we have come to expect from Charlie Trotter's books. Kitchen Sessions is an excellent teaching tool

There is no question that this book, and any of chef Trotter's books, are for the medium to advanced cook. I found these recipes to be fairly easy to follow, but require preparation. My advice is to read the recipe fully first. I have prepared at least a dozen of these recipes and never once has the dish turned out wrong. I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to create advanced dishes.

...Charlie Trotter's dessert is of limited to no use for a Continental/European Chef/Cook. Weights and measures are all in cups and ounces.Still maybe undestandable for a European Chef but impossible to work for instance a Russian Chef (These are the people who buy these books because they want to learn.They have little chance to travel yet,so have to rely on books to improve their skills) I have checked ,quickly only, through the recipes and gave up,there are also certain facts not right (Original Linzer cake you don't make with raspberries but with 'red currants'.Also recipes are using to many US specific names and terms,i.e. what is a Meyer lemon? And for the poor amateur cook?Well,look at the pictures and go have dinner where Trotter is cooking! Had I known before,I would not have purchased the book. Benedikt Morak, Executive Chef (from Austria,35 years i nthe business)

This is a great book to draw inspiration from , but the recipes are not always accurate. I have enjoyed the book for over a year. The pictures alone are worth the price. The book may be better suited for those who are professionals and not the home cook.

What a knockout of a cookbook! Visually it is just so well done. Nothing else like it! Difficult to do the recipes, not for beginners or the faint of heart. Ingredients most of us have never heard of, nor know where to go to find them. But inspirational, and some of them even from our homes can turn out for that very special occassion when some dazzle is needed at the end of a culinary adventure. Try Mango Compote with Green Tea Creme Brulee or the Peach=Polenta Upside-down cake with almond sherbet. Also, pick up his new book as Charlie Cooks at Home. Much more friendly.

As a big fan of Trotter and his innovation and creativity, I was excited to read this book. Unfortunately, it's just not very good. Mr. Clarke uses a notion or two per chapter that Trotter has applied as a successful entrepeneur, then boils it down, oversimplifies it, and creates tedious little pop quizzes of the "rate yourself" variety. It's as if he doesn't know whether he's writing a do-it-yourself workbook or a study of business. Clarke's very intrusive and heavy-handed, and this blunts the force of the good observations he does make. All in all, Clarke's interpretations of Trotter's wisdom lack the ring of authenticity of someone who's actually done what he espouses. This would be a lot better if it was actually Trotter doing the teaching.

This is both an interesting and boring work, due to the insights shared from Charlie Trotter's success. The boring stuff is the repitition of common-sense advice which everyone knows but few implement habitually. This is what separates the mediocre from the excellent.

Trotter maintains an atomosphere of excellence, from his hiring practices to discipline to innovation to publicity, etc.

One can certainly take much from this work to ponder about possible adaptation for one's own enterprise.

I happen to find this book very interesting. It gives you some insight as to how Charlie Trotter runs his restaurant in Chicago. For anyone who knows of this restaurant, you will know how successful it is and how much pull Charlie Trotter has in the restaurant business. This book won't teach you how to become a better person in life, but what it will do is teach all of us how to be more effective in the workplace. We all think we know the best way to run a business, but the truth is you can't do any of it without a great team of minds to assist you along the way.

This book was very informative. I, for one, always wanted to know some of the secrets myself about this place. The restaurant hardly ever drops the ball when it comes to providing a great dining experience.

This book would be great for managers, VP's, and directors of any company. Not just the restaurant business. It explains how to treat your workers with respect and how to also tighten the ropes when you need to get things accomplished sooner than you already are without killing the integrity of the worker.

All in all, a really good book. Buy this if you are a fan of the restaurant or would like a good idea of how the place has run over the last 12 years.

Perhaps this book is aimed more at the gourmet cook with LOTS of space for storing all kinds of gadgets and tools! But I have been cooking from scratch for almost 25 years now, and I have not found a need for many of the tools this book claims are basic and necessary.

I did enjoy, however, looking through this book with its beautiful pictures. I also enjoyed learning about tools that I have never seen before! There are no doubt people who use tools such as the tomato press, nutmeg mill, bean slicer, and cheese dome, frequently and couldn't cook without them! Which gadgets a cook treasures is a very individual thing.

As for me, my favorite cooking gadgets are Kitchen Aid mixer (see my review of this on Amazon), garlic press, and a rotary grater for grating fresh parmesan cheese. My advice is to check out reviews of particular brands of cooking tools here on Amazon and on other cooking websites.

This book has many fold-out pages with pictures of MARVELOUS looking food! There are quite a few recipes and many have photos showing the various steps. Most of the recipes are on the gourmet-cooking end of the scale, rather than ones that would be easy to make and family-friendly.

My advice is to decide which tools you will need for YOUR style of cooking and then buy a quality product that will serve you well and will last a long time!

Please check out my other reviews - I've reviewed a number of cookbooks here on Amazon. Happy cooking!

I don't know how appropriate the title is (or how "essential" many of these items are) but I had a lot of fun reading through this book--which I did in one seating, and read almost the entire contents--quite a rare feat for what is essentially a kitchen gadget guide/cookbook I would think! Now I find myself coveting pricey mandolins and Indian woks. And no longer a complete kitchen gadget neophyte, I'm able to identify the most obscure tools at, say, the well-stocked shelves of haughty culinary kitchen shops like Sur La Table. The design of this book is intriguing as well--I like how some pages unfold to reveal a double-sized page...and if you're one to appreciate lustrous thick paper and engaging text layout (you know who you are, DK/Eyewitness guidebook fans), this book will probably catch your fancy. The content is interesting as well, it is sort of like reading "Cook's" magazine. The only drawback to the book is that although there are some recipes included, they don't seem to have any theme to them, and furthermore, there isn't an index...so while you're casually browsing the book, you might happen upon a potential recipe, but then when you try to go back and find it later, you have to flip through each and every page to find it again! Overall though, a fun book to go back to as a reference and inspiration.