Is it difficult translating restaurant recipes into recipes for the home cook?
It isn’t really. I’ve been at it a long time. I once did a Thanksgiving piece many years ago, back in 1984, with Craig Claiborne (the writer for the New York Times). I went to Long Island and spent three days with Craig. We cooked all these different dishes and he was the most fastidious recipe writer I had ever seen in my life. He taught me how people really depend on recipes and that you have an obligation to make it right because when people buy your book or buy your newspaper, they’re expecting the works. I’ve always taken that approach and that’s why it takes me so long to write these books: I don’t fake them. I actually write them myself. What’s nice about this book, in particular, is the detail. Like the diagram for how to eat a lobster. Lots of people wouldn’t admit it, but they don’t know how. They really don’t! It’s kind of like Thanksgiving recipes for turkey. You’ll have a five-page recipe, or whatever, and at the end of the recipe it says, “Carve the turkey.” You know what
