My French Family Table by Beatrice Peltre is, first and foremost, about cooking in the French style for your family. The fact that it’s also gluten-free is more of a side note than the main purpose of the book, focusing instead on fresh, in season, locally grown ingredients.

It includes pantry tricks and essential basics to have on hand for cooking, and tells you which ingredients have uses in multiple recipes for easier meal planning, even going so far as to tell you which pages the recipes are on. Also included are variants on basic recipes to make them multi-purpose. The recipes are practical and straightforward – they sound more complicated than they actually are. Step-by-step instructions make them easy to understand, and the book is full of beautiful, full color photos that show you how the completed dish looks.

Peppered with stories of growing up in France and cooking with her own young daughter, the entire book revolves around family and food. It’s planned as a book that you can use for every day meals as well as for something special when you have more time. It’s obvious the author takes great joy in cooking with her daughter, with a genuine love of food.

Many of the ingredients are not difficult to find (aside from the fresh seafood recipes if you live in a  land-locked state). Technique-wise, these recipes will be much easier for someone with at least a little more experience in the kitchen or the willingness to jump right in and try them.

This is a lovely cookbook that makes the idea of trying French cooking for regular meals much more approachable, and there’s an entire section dedicated to recipes aimed at cooking with children. A lot of thought and planning has gone into it, and it really shows.

This book will be available on May 31, 2016.

 

 

Disclaimer: I was given a digital advanced copy of this book from publishers registered with NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.