The Pleasure Is All Mine: Selfish Food for Modern Life

by Suzanne Pirret

With The Pleasure is All Mine, anyone can enjoy a Steak au Poivre with Frites, Three-Cheese Ravioli, Coconut Fish Curry with Homemade Naan Bread, or a Wild Blueberry Free-Form Tart without the expense and hassle of restaurants or fussy dinner guests. The 100 uncomplicated, exquisite recipes in this collection are simple to prepare and require no fancy equipment. With just a skillet, bowl, knife, and a few perfect ingredients, Pirret makes great...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 006168712X
• ISBN13: 9780061687129
• Release Date: March 2009
• Publisher: William Morrow & Company
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.2" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

absolutely delightful

This is the most readable cook book and not a picture in it!!!! Entertains the mind and soul with exquisite descriptiveness and easy to follow instructions highlighted by winsome, honest, ironic and bittersweet vignettes drawn from the parade of human kind. A real treasure!!!

This is the book to buy!!!

I own more cookbooks than the local library and I still bought Suzanne's. This is the missing link of the food chain. Great recipes with just the right quantities of everything for the solo eater. You can't go wrong if you follow the instructions and you don't have to go out and remortgage your shack to acquire the necessary hardware; a good size skillet, one 2qt sauce pan and a 4qt stock pot is all you need. Suzanne is not only an extremely talented chef but a great writer as well. For you gentlemen who still believe ordering out is the way to go or are too lazy to try, buy the book for the cover. She is one hell of a beautiful woman too!!!

Outstanding read, be it for the food or the entertainment!

The recipes are great, pairings as well, but what I most love about this book is how much Suzanne's vibrant personality works its way into the pages. Were I to go through the rest of my life alone, I would want at least to be accompanied by this book (and a few choice albums, but more on that another time)!

It's About Time!

Toss that can of Soup-For-One! At last someone is celebrating the delight of preparing a wonderful meal to savor alone. Suzanne's take is refreshing, blithe, snarky at times and always entertaining. What a breath of fresh air and a relief from the exhausting earnestness that can overtake food writing. Prepare her Steak Au Poivre with Frites, pour yourself a glass of Cabernet Franc (from the Collio hills in Friuli!)sit down and start reading!

Cooking for One and liking it

Suzanne's book was a fun read. It's filled with lots of quirky anecdotes and food recipes for one. The personal stories range from the seven guests who turned down her dinner invitation (the morons, but the story sounds vaguely familiar, like the New Testament incident in the gospels) to work-life in professional kitchens to an interesting ingredient in her "take-out" food chapter. Ah, and the recipes. They range from the exotic to simple pleasures, like blueberry pancakes. Try the pancake recipe. I messed it up the first time (I confess, I deviated from the recipe) but the second time I saw the light and repented. They were the best - tall and fluffy. Great! I can't wait to dip into the pool of dessert recipes. Take it from an overweight guy who enjoys eating - buy the book!