By Susan Herrmann Loomis
Review by Marolyn Charpentier

Though French cooking is evolving with the speed of light, simple, traditional dishes haven't lost their cachet" essentially sums up Susan Herrmann Loomis' message in her latest, characteristically personal, book: Cooking at Home on Rue Tatin. This is a natural sequel to her tremendously successful memoire, On Rue Tatin, which drew readers out of her Normandy kitchen and through her adjustment to life in Louviers. Now she leads us back into her well-seasoned kitchen with wit and plenty of astuces, tips and clever ways to deal with the stickiest details, such as caramelizing tomatoes for Tomates Provençales.

My first encounter with Susan Loomis' expertise and the down-home focus of her cooking was in her engaging tome, The French Farmhouse Cookbook, published by Workman in 1996. In this travel journal/cookbook, I found answers to my myriad questions about cooking duck, guinea fowl, rabbit, using garlic and many other special products of southwest France as we were settling into the rhythm of life in the Périgord. Not only does she consistently deliver the recipes, but the setting, the people and their ways with food described on each page add to the experience of preparing each dish. In fact, her details and stories enrich the sauce.

During the twelve years that I have lived in the southwest and rambled across the vast hexagon of regions that compose La Belle France, French cooking has indeed evolved. Previously rare spices are more widely available, in part due to the demand from population groups that have become a part of the fabric of France in recent years. Susan Loomis brings many of these influences to light in her new book. Arrivals from the French DOM-TOM departments (including Martinique, Réunion, Guadaloupe, Guyane) bring a taste for tropical flavours, which appear in her version of Poulet au Curcuma et Noix de Coco, Chicken with Turmeric and Coconut Milk. In her recipes for Soup for Couscous, Flat Semolina Bread for Couscous, and Chorba (a cilantro-scented lamb ragoût) she nods to the deep influence of Middle Eastern immigrants in today's French life. Alongside the recipes, we are introduced to the fascinating people with whom she has eaten these traditional dishes.Recipes cover this expanding range of culinary traditions in Cooking at Home on Rue Tatin, from long instructions for making Nems, Franco-Vietnamese Spring Rolls, to very succinct directions for a versatile Cumin Salt to season salads and fish. This simply made, delicious condiment is an example of the range of recipes Susan Loomis includes. What better classic to enhance a plate of grilled chicken, or to mound beside a silky slice of foie gras? The recipe is given in the book's useful format, contents on the left, directions at right.

To complement the recipes and astuces, black and white photographs appear facing every chapter page. In one photo, through a kitchen window we see little Fiona watching her mother stirring up dinner, in another goblets are held up to toast an occasion, and in a sepia tint on the cover, Susan deftly kneads spelt flour dough for a loaf of walnut bread; the book's
mood is familial, between friends and family. In this, her newest cookbook, Susan Herrmann Loomis again interprets the classics and celebrates influences in the evolution of French cuisine, informing us, and inviting us into her kitchen on Rue Tatin.

Marolyn Downing Charpentier

To purchase Cooking at Home on Rue Tatin, go to www.booksite.com