Behind Every Great Chef, There's a Mom! : More Than 125 Treasured Recipes From the Mothers of Our Top Chefs

Now in paperback, today's top chefs unlock their mothers' secret recipe file and share the dishes that inspired them to cook! Behind every great chef there's a great mom . . . and a great recipe file. This cookbook collection pulls Mom's best recipes from celebrated chefs nationwide, so that you can share them with your own family and friends.

Mom's Secret Recipe File is a veritable Who's Who of American cooking!

Finally, a book that reveals our top celebrity chefs' most secret recipes -- the ones their moms taught them.

Who inspired Jamie Oliver to put a premium on fresh, naked food? Who influenced Sylvia Woods' talent for titillating the sweet tooth? It just might have something to do with their mothers. Now, in this one-of-a-kind cookbook, America's top celebrity chefs divulge the cooking secrets that started it all. Mom's Secret Recipe File features endearing stories, approachable recipes, family cooking lore, valuable tips, and timeless advice from each chef/mother pair. The duos are featured in mini chapters that begin with short introductions written by the chefs -- a favorite memory about how their moms' cooking styles inspired their own -- followed by four recipes from their moms' secret files.

Mom's Secret Recipe File is not only a perfect Mother's Day gift, it's sure to become a cooking classic.

Other chefs who share their mothers' recipes include:

--Jamie Oliver
--Nigella Lawson
--Sara Moulton
--Lidia Bastianich
--Daniel Boulud
--Art Smith
--Chris Styler
--Sylvia Woods
--Jacques Pepin
--Rose L Beranbaum
--Barbara Kafka
--Nick Malgieri
--Joan Nathan
--Ming Tsai
--Martin Yan
--Mollie Katzen
--Tom Colicchio
--Jim Perdue
--Jasper White
--Anthony Bourdain
--Rocco DiSpirito

A portion of the proceeds of Mom's Secret Recipe File will go to the Women's Commision for Refugee Women and Children, which since 1989 has worked to improve the lives and defend the rights of refugee and internally displaced women, children, and adolescents.

Editor Chris Styler is an experienced chef, restaurant consultant, recipe developer, culinary producer, and cookbook author. He was the chef of Metro C.C. in Manhattan and Blue Collar Food, a successful catering company. He is a contributing editor to Food Arts. In the last three years, he has been the Culinary Producer for several award-winning PBS television series including Julia and Jacques: Cooking at Home and Lidia's Italian-American Kitchen. His most recent cookbook, Smokin': Getting the Most from Your Stovetop Smoker. He lives in South Orange, New Jersey.

Publishers Weekly

This Mother's Day book is a marketing coup: what chef doesn't have a mother or grandmother who inspired him or her as a child? And who wouldn't want to hear those stories? That said, this collection transcends its own gimmickry. The chefs' anecdotes are truly engaging, telling of wise and clever female relations (mother is loosely defined) who fling wide the doors of their kitchens for their charges like fairy godmothers. These are simple recipes, for the most part-true comfort foods, as remembered by a chef's inner child. (The one predictable exception is Jeremiah Tower, whose idea of a user-friendly recipe is idiosyncratic: Put a whole small and trimmed codfish that has been boned through the back la Colbert into the pan.) Most of the recipes-especially Jasper White's Shrimp with Thyme Butter, Sylvia Woods's Biscuits, and Anthony Bourdain's Baked Macaroni-are can't-miss formulas. If there's a prevailing theme, it's belly-filling foods with big flavors, like Grandma Sarah's Lamb and Prune Stew from Rose Levy Beranbaum, or Rocco DiSpirito's Pasta for Breath Only a Mother Could Love. Styler presents the recipes one chef at a time, but a helpful index lists the recipes by course, which is more practical for a browsing cook. The best guarantee that this restaurateur's cookbook will actually be usable at home may be summed up in Joan Nathan's kind advice on making jelly roll cookies: If you only have only 1 baking sheet, roll, fill, and bake the cookies in 2 batches. Agent, Kim Yorio. (Apr. 14) Forecast: With national publicity with some of the contributors, print ads, and online marketing and publicity on cooking Web sites, this book has a good shot at being one of this year's top Mother's Day sellers. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Presents family recipes by famous chefs--including Martin Yan, Jamie Oliver, and Daniel Boulud--along with cooking lore, culinary advice, and personal reminiscences from the contributors about their mothers' cooking styles