Product Description

Easy to prepare recipes with the trademark Bishop's emphasis on flavour and texture-using fresh seasonal ingredients.

John Bishop and Dennis Green of the renowned Bishop's Restaurant in Vancouver are great chefs who have a real zest for learning more about food, trying new ingredients and inventing new recipes. They have long believed that simplicity in cooking is learning to let quality seasonal ingredients speak for themselves. Over the years, they have created a collection of recipes that combine their enthusiasms-wonderful dishes that feature seasonal ingredients with the trademark Bishop's emphasis on flavour and texture. Here are more than 100 new, easy and tempting recipes to prepare through the seasons-spring, summer, autumn and winter-organized into sections of appetizers, soups, entrŽes, side dishes and desserts. There are many useful and friendly tips about selecting produce and preparation techniques, alongside wine suggestions for entrŽes and a section on basic stocks. Bishop offers other interesting and helpful ideas for people who enjoy cooking at home for family and friends, such as menu suggestions, setting up an attractive buffet and keeping a dinner party diary. Praise for Bishop's: The Cookbook: Like the restaurant, this book is solid, understated, gracious; helpful and delicious at every turn." -The Globe and Mail

"The one Vancouver establishment of truly international calibre. It's hard to imagine a better mix of hospitality and good food anywhere."-Vancouver Magazine

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #129579 in Books
• Published on: 2002-10-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 160 pages

Amazon.ca
Many of the recipes in Simply Bishop's, the eponymous Vancouver restaurateur's third cookbook, were created for a class Bishop and his chef, Dennis Green, taught to showcase local foodstuffs harvested and prepared according to the rhythms of the year. With ingredients such as morels, chanterelles, duck breasts, and heirloom tomatoes, these are recipes for special occasions. Keeping to the book's title, however, the introduction lists several good ideas for lessening the hassle of entertaining: "One secret ... is to keep it simple. Another secret is to plan. A third ... is to prepare dishes or parts of dishes ahead of time." For instance, in a section about stocks, Bishop suggests the time-saving shortcut of freezing stock in stackable containers and storing it in zip- lock bags. He also includes a recipe for a stock based on corn cobs, illustrating his desire to experiment and avoid waste. Since the theme is seasonal, Bishop cross-references the sections of the book--from appetizers to dessert--to the appropriate seasons. Full-page colour photos of finished dishes appear every four to six pages, alternating with smaller, uncaptioned black-and-whites, usually vegetable gardens, grocery counters, or close-ups of cooking procedures.

The simplicity of these elite recipes is admirable, but occasionally beside the point. Some main ingredients are often expensive and may not be available in small towns. Also, some dishes have many clashing ingredients, typifying the excesses of fusion cuisine, as with the halibut fillet sandwiched between a pesto sauce and red lentils. That said, many of the celebratory dinners herein will have guests asking for seconds. A meal of Slow-cooked Pork Shoulder with Pan-roasted Vegetables followed by Spiced Poached Pears with Red Wine Caramel is a crowd pleaser, no matter how simple the preparation. --Ted Whittaker

About the Author
John Bishop takes joy in creating innovative dishes in a style that is distinctly Pacific Northwest. His two previous critically acclaimed and best-selling cookbooks are Bishop's: The Cookbook and Cooking at My House.

Dennis Green has a passion for regional-style cooking using organic, fresh, local and seasonal ingredients. He joined the team at Bishop's in 1993 and became chef there in 1997. He is one of the contributors to Bishop's: The Cookbook.

Customer Reviews

Simply SUPERB!
An excellent cookbook with easy to follow recipes. We own all of his books and while each one is excellent, Simply Bishop's probably stands out as the best of all.