Q. Bonne femme literally means “good wife,’’ but implies someone capable of running a thrifty household. Is the cooking very traditional?
A. People think of bonne femme cooking as hearty and rustic - big stews, things like that. But I’m trying to take this more in the direction that the modern wife cooks. French cooking has always been about fresh ingredients and seasonal and local cooking. In America when we’ve thought of French cooking, we’ve thought of heavy cream, and butter-laden cooking because we didn’t have access to those market-fresh ingredients. Bonne femme hasn’t necessarily changed for the French, but it has for us because we are now able to cook more like a seasonally-minded, fresh-focused French cook.
Q. Why is there a misconception about the difficulty of French cooking?
A. French women work outside the home just like we do. They can’t spend all day in the kitchen anymore than we can. Basically, I think we’ve had the misconception because of French restaurants and watching French chefs, we’ve just been in awe of that really high-end style of food. We haven’t looked at what people really do as much on an everyday basis. They can enjoy great meals that can be brought to the table in 30 minutes just like we do.
Q. Are the ingredients easy to find?
A. If an ingredient wasn’t something that I could find easily in my market, if it was a make-or-break ingredient, like wild boar - I’m not going to make people go out to find wild boar - I didn’t include it in the book. I want people to know that the techniques aren’t intimidating and neither are the ingredients.
Q. How did you select recipes?
A. I used my background as a food writer and editor for Better Homes & Gardens to adapt the recipes for a home cook, while making sure they remain true to France. For example, I didn’t include any rabbit. The French love rabbit. I did include dishes that use wonderful flavor profiles for rabbit dishes, like vermouth-braised chicken with black olives and prosciutto. I saw a recipe for that using rabbit and I thought, this is really going to be good on chicken thighs.
Q. Should men be intimidated by this cooking?
A. It doesn’t matter who does the cooking, it’s really about the style of cooking. In some ways I think there’s a little bit of the good wife in all of us when we go to put a good meal on the table for our family and friends, so obviously it doesn’t have to be a female. Men can definitely enjoy this book and this everyday side of cooking.
