Cooking & Beverages

The Way To Cook DVD

At last on DVD—Julia’s invaluable series of cooking lessons designed to bring her right into your own kitchen to teach you the fundamentals of good cooking

Here is the six-part series (complete with recipe booklet), originally produced in 1985, in which Julia teaches you all the fundamentals of good cooking and offers a wealth of her favorite recipes.

POULTRY includes the perfect chicken sauté with variations, classic coq au vin, ways with chicken breasts, butterflied grilled birds, roast turkey, and a special duck.
MEAT: Quick and easy sautéed steaks, hamburgers, pork chops, aromatic stews, a crusty hash, grilled pork, and majestic beef and lamb roasts.
VEGETABLES: How best to cook twenty of your favorite vegetables, plus gratins, stuffed delights, eggplant pizza, and risotto. SOUPS,
SALADS, AND BREAD: The three master soup stocks and improvisations, a French onion soup and a Mediterranean fish soup, tossed and composed salads, plus how to make your own French bread.
FISH AND EGGS: Selecting fish and shellfish; broiling, sautéing, and oven-poaching fish; plus the miraculous egg—alone or in omelettes, custards, quiche, sauces, and a spectacular soufflé.
FIRST COURSES AND DESSERTS: Patés and fish mousse, tart crusts and crepes with savory and with sweet fillings, two master cakes, and a Tipsy Trifle.

From deglazing a sauce and degreasing a stock to thickening a soup and unmolding a timbale, all the important techniques that make for good cooking are here. Now, at the press of a button, you have instant access to whatever recipe or information you need. Watch Julia do it and you’ll be empowered. Bon appétit!

Julia Child - The French Chef

Studio: Wgbh Wholesale Release Date: 04/26/2005 Run time: 432 minutes

Three servings of practical cooking advice per one serving of nostalgia is the recipe for this 18-episode culinary collector's item. The French Chef with Julia Child, the pioneering public television series which premiered in 1962, brought French cuisine to American kitchens without a dash of pretension. Child (1912-2004), a cooking legend and cultural icon with her 6'2" commanding-yet-self-deprecating presence, leads viewers through some of her favorite and classic recipes with requisite humor and congeniality. The three-disc compilation is divided into Starters and Side Dishes; Main Courses; and Desserts and Other Classics, and includes several printable recipes from each category. In vintage black and white, the collection begins with "The Potato Show" and Child's sage counsel, "When you flip anything you must have the courage of your convictions," before she flips half of her sautéed potatoes onto the stovetop. Peppered throughout the collection are such reminders of why Child was so endearing: she let the camera roll through all her culinary disasters. In another show, "To Roast a Chicken," Child lines up five headless poultry as if arranging for a family photo, while earnestly discussing the differences between a fryer and a roaster, the "full glory of its chickendom." Even non-gourmands will find themselves captivated by such vintage entertainment, while passionate epicureans will relish step-by-step demonstrations of wonders such as boeuf bourguignon (from her debut show), salad Nicoise, bouillabaisse a la Marseillaise, and mousse au chocolat. (All ages) --Lynn Gibson

The French Chef With Julia Child 2

Studio: Wgbh Wholesale Release Date: 11/22/2005 Run time: 432 minutes

A regular program on WGBH Boston from 1963 to 1972, The French Chef is perhaps best known for its down-to-earth hostess Julia Child with her dry wit and practical approach to "fancy" French cooking. Eighteen classic programs, in black and white and color, feature the ever-practical Julia Child educating viewers in everything from starters and side dishes like braised spinach, shirred eggs, and hollandaise sauce, to main courses like seafood crêpes and braised goose, to breads and desserts like croissants and the exotic gâteau in a cage. Julia Child leads viewers step-by-step through each recipe, imploring budding chefs to use their fingers and hands, let go of their fear of failure, avoid a sense of panic and maintain a sense of humor so that neither the cook nor the soufflé collapses. Helpful tips include advice about preparing dishes ahead of time, how to save a recipe gone awry, and an ever-present sense of humor that includes a waving goose and more than a few chuckles from Julia Child at her own inevitable bloopers. While current recommendations about food safety may necessitate altering some suggestions like defrosting a goose in the sink for 4 hours and modern dietary guidelines might frown upon the use of pork back fat in a terrine or pâté, the majority of these recipes can easily be prepared without alteration today. If you love French food and want to learn how to prepare it yourself, join Julia Child for 18 lessons that are sure to have you cooking up exotic dishes in no time. --Tami Horiuchi

Julia & Jacques Cooking At Home

The complete Emmy Award-winning series. 10 hours, 22 Episodes and over 85 recipes. Julia Child and Jacques Pepin join together with fire, fun and culinary genius in what has become another classic hit for public television. Viewers are charmed by the special magic America's favorite cooking duo conjures up in Julia's legendary kitchen and enticed by the mouth-watering great food they prepare and enjoy. Julia's and Jacques' warmth and conviviality shine through the programs along with their spirit, whimsy and remarkable skills, as they offer techniques, tastes and recipes at the heart of today's cooking. From Hamburgers and Halibut to Chicken Pot Pie and Artichokes, they reach the hearts of the audience who loves them for their easy camaraderie, step-by-step instructions and great talent.

Top Chef: New York (Season 5)

Studio: A&e Home Video Release Date: 09/29/2009 Run time: 50 minutes

Foodies and budding chefs love the reality show Top Chef, but so do millions of other viewers, as evidenced by Top Chef's position as the number one food show on cable. Season 5 of Top Chef takes place in the food city of New York as well as in New Orleans and pits 17 chefs against each other in a test of culinary skill, creativity, flexibility, and performance under pressure. While the show is all about food, it's also about personalities, and this 14-episode season is full of strong personalities. There's the brashly confident Stefan, hyper Carla, ladies' man Fabio, overachiever Jeff, gay and lesbian "team rainbow," and many others, and everyone's antics in the kitchen, the stew room where they await judgment, and their shared apartment translate into some great entertainment. Host Padma Lakshmi is joined by head judge Chef Tom Colicchio, judges Gail Simmons and Toby Young, and an array of guest judges, including celebrities like Emeril Lagasse, Martha Stewart, Jean-Georges, and Wylie Dufresne. The judges are demanding, exacting, and sometimes downright harsh, but they push each chef to deliver the very best food that he or she can--all in hopes of escaping Padma's dreaded words "please pack your knives and go."

Each episode consists of a quickfire challenge and an elimination challenge. The quickfire challenges test the chefs' culinary techniques and palates as well as their ability to think on their feet and create winning dishes with very little time and some particularly odd ingredients. The elimination challenges give the chefs more time but test their versatility and creativity, requiring them to cater to groups such as rock's Foo Fighters and other Top Chef contestants and highly regarded food legends; to cook in specific styles that may lead them far from their comfort zones; to employ highly exotic ingredients; to make do with severely limited kitchens; or to engage in the highly competitive restaurant wars at the very last moment, among other trials.

Just as entertaining as the food challenges are the unpredictable interactions between contestants, which range from unlikely friendships to romantic liaisons and ugly shouting matches. This fifth season gives rise to several burning questions: can a person get voted out for serving deviled eggs or s'mores in a cooking contest? Is making an ostrich egg omelet original enough to keep a contestant in the competition? Is the Top Chef competition all about food, or does service count, too--and if so, how much does it count? Is this purely a cutthroat competition between chefs, or is there room for compassion and maybe even a little holiday spirit? Bonus features include footage and interviews from inside the eliminated cast house, extended interviews with the top four chefs, some pretty amusing stew room footage, and cooking demonstrations of selected contestants' dishes on "The Wong Way to Cook." The DVD also comes with a cookbook insert that features five recipes from past Top Chef seasons. --Tami Horiuchi

Raw Food Made Easy

A great companion item to the best-selling book, "Raw Food Made Easy for 1 or 2 People", this informative and entertaining DVD expands on the recipes and tips found in Raw Food Made Easy for 1 or 2 People. Here Jenny shows how to: Set up your kitchen with basic equipment and staple ingredients; Purchase the right fresh ingredients each week; Use a knife, blender, food processor, juicer, and other kitchen tools; Prepare a few items in advance so that daily meals are quick and easy; Make breakfast juices, smoothies, and cereals; Master delicious dishes for the rest of the day: soups, patés, dressings, elegant entrées, and scrumptious desserts. Bonus features include a detailed study guide with recipes, a section on Portable Lunches, and Jenny's specialty- Travel in the Raw! Shown in this DVD: Equipment & Ingredients-- Advance Preparation-- Breakfast: Fruit Smoothies, Green Juice, Granola with Almond Milk-- Lunch: Garden Vegetable Soup, Not Tuna Paté & Crudites, Tomato Stacks with Pesto, California Rolls-- Dinner: Ranch Dressing, Mediterranean Kale, Zucchini Pasta-- Dessert: Chocolate Mousse Tart-- Travel In The Raw

Christmas in Connecticut

Journalist Elizabeth Lane is one of the country's most famous food writer. In her columns she describes herself as a hard working farm woman taking care of her children and being an excellent cook. But this is all lies. In reality she is an umarried New Yorker who can't even boil an egg. The recipes come from her good friend Felix. The owner of the magazine she works for has decided that a heroic sailor will spend his christmas on *her* farm. Miss Lane knows that her career is over if the truth comes out but what can she do?Running Time: 101 min.System Requirements:Running Time 101 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: CHRISTMAS/CHRISTMAS UPC: 012569677166

Christmas in Connecticut is a holiday film that plays 365 days of the year. Barbara Stanwyck gives a brilliant, sardonic performance as Elizabeth Lane, a columnist for Smart Housekeeping magazine, whose enticing descriptions of the exquisite meals she prepares for her husband and baby on their bucolic Connecticut farm earns her fame as "America's Best Cook." A writer, she is; a cook, she is not. As she types the words, "From my living room window, as I write, the good cedar logs cracking on the fire..." the view is of clothes flapping on the line outside her bachelorette Manhattan apartment. An able supporting cast keeps her lie on life support: her editor, her stuffy and detestable architect suitor, and the wonderful "Uncle" Felix (S.Z. Sakall), an English-garbling Hungarian chef who provides the recipes that fill her column.

Cut to Jefferson Jones, a sailor adrift at sea for weeks after his destroyer is torpedoed. Memories of the food described in Lane's columns are central to his survival. After his rescue, as he's recuperating in a naval hospital, a marriage-minded nurse thinks she might nudge Jones to the altar if he could only experience a real domestic Christmas. And it just so happens that she was nurse to the grandchild of Alexander Yardley, the wealthy and powerful publisher of --you guessed it--Smart Housekeeping magazine. And so, she pens the letter that could unravel Lane's carefully constructed fraud. She writes to Yardley asking that Jones be included in America's ultimate Christmas--the one to be held at the Lane family farm in Connecticut. The pompous Yardley (ably portrayed by Sidney Greenstreet) believes the Lane myth and instantly sniffs a story that will send his magazine's circulation skyrocketing. And staring down a lonely holiday, he decides to join the Lanes for Christmas on the farm, too. Now, all Lane has to do is come up with a farm. And a husband. And let's not forget the baby. Christmas in Connecticut is classic screwball entertainment of the best kind, with its on-target skewering of social convention and house-of- cards-about-to-tumble tension: a perfect farcical vision of domestic blitz. --Susan Benson

Spain... On The Road Again

Studio: New Video Group Release Date: 01/20/2009

If you've ever considered traveling to Spain, or have been to certain spots but not everywhere, this is the DVD set for you. The set includes 13 one-hour episodes as well as plenty of sensual extras, especially for the home gourmet. The series follows master chef Mario Batali, New York Times food writer Mark Bittman, Spanish actress Claudia Bassols, and actress Gwyneth Paltrow on a real road trip around Spain, sampling its fantastic cuisine, fancy and plain, and tasting more varieties of wine than your local wine store could ever stock. And the foursome takes in some of the country's most impressive sights and attractions, including much of the countryside that's often overlooked in travel guidebooks. In the group of episodes called "Basking in the Basque Country," for instance, Paltrow and Batali (longtime friends before this series was shot) try organic goat yogurt, a perfectly cooked 65-degree soft-boiled country egg, strong café au lait, and an assortment of freshly baked goodies, all at one breakfast. (Expect to become extremely hungry as you watch.) The group travels to cities, vineyards, tiny towns (where one vegetable farmer treats them to a fabulous meal of freshly picked, then grilled veggies cooked right on the fire, finished with some salt and olive oil--"heaven!" declares Paltrow), and everywhere in between, seeking out the best food and drink and other amenities Spain has to offer.

Batali is an old hand on camera; Bittman surprisingly telegenic and self-deprecating, and Bassols a very knowledgeable and companionable guide to her own country. Paltrow she seems to be here largely for her star power, though her Spanish is acceptable and she's very appreciative of the experiences she's privy to. Sometimes Paltrow's waxings can seem a little over the top; of architect Frank Gehry, whose buildings in Bilbao the group visits, she says, "Frank Gehry has to be a good guy, because his buildings are so innovative, and yet so sensitive." (Clearly Paltrow hasn't yet visited the Experience Music Project in Seattle.) But the series' pluses are enormous, and happily the focus on great food (try not to salivate while you watch Bittman and Bassols down tapas made of grilled anchovies and button mushrooms), stunning countryside, and lovely people of Spain. Buen apetito! --A.T. Hurley

The French Chef with Julia Child (6 DVD Set)

Contains two 3-disc sets: THE FRENCH CHEF WITH JULIA CHILD: Cooking legend and cultural icon Julia Child, along with her pioneering public television series, The French Chef, introduced French cuisine to American kitchens. In her passionate and sometimes breathless way, Julia forever changed the way we cook, eat, and think about food. Entertaining, fun, and real in a way that influenced every television cooking program that followed, The French Chef embraced Julia's passion for food and teaching and reflected her joie de vivre: "If I can do it, you can do it...and here's how to do it!" Now chefs of all ages and abilities can share Julia's love of fine French food and learn to cook some of her most-loved dishes with this special collection of 18 episodes from her original series, The French Chef. In her signature style and with bloopers intact, Julia demonstrates such classic recipes as boeuf bourguignon from her debut show, salade Nicoise, bouillabaisse a la Marseillaise, mousseline au chocolat, and many more delicious dishes. Bon appetit! Special DVD features include downloadable recipes from Julia Child's classic The French Chef Cookbook, and a bilbliography . Screen format: 4 x 3 Full Screen. THE FRENCH CHEF WITH JULIA CHILD 2: Prepare to enjoy eighteen of Julia Child's kitchen classics in a sumptuous second collection from her pioneering cooking show, The French Chef. Warm and exuberant, Julia was a natural television star, whether scooping up a spilled potato pancake or coaxing a reluctant souffle, This special collection presents 18 episodes from her groundbreaking series. In her signature style and with bloopers intact, Julia demonstrates such classic recipes as crapes suzette, omelette gratinee, pate de campagne, buche de Noel and many more. Bon appetit!

Julia Child! America's Favorite Chef

Studio: Wgbh Wholesale Release Date: 12/07/2004 Run time: 60 minutes