The time is right for getting back to French home cooking and discovering how it has evolved, how easy it is for anyone to make, and how appropriate it is for the moment. Laura Calder reminds us that we don’t have to commit to mastering the entire canon of French cuisine to make a delectable chocolate mousse or a sole amandine. And just because we’re in the mood for coq au vin doesn’t mean we have to start dinner with a foie gras terrine and end with Grand Marnier soufflé. We can integrate a French dish into the menus already in our repertoire -- serve coq au vin as a main course, with gingerbread or ice-cream sundaes for dessert. Why not?

French Taste is all about simplicity. If we get too caught up in the “how to” of French cooking, we miss the point. Yes, French cuisine has given the world impressive recipes and techniques, but the most valuable things the French have to offer when it comes to food are a sense of how to eat with joyful abandon, how to make food look as beautiful as it tastes and how to take time to enjoy good food in good company.

LAURA CALDER is the author of French Food At Home; French Taste: Elegant Everyday Eating, awarded gold at the Canadian Culinary Cookbook Awards in 2010; and Dinner Chez Moi: The Fine Art of Feeding Friends.

She wrote and hosted 78 episodes of the Food Network Canada series French Food at Home (also airing on Cooking Channel USA and worldwide, and the winner of a James Beard Award for best food television show in a fixed location). She also hosted the James Beard-nominated one-hour special The Chateau Dinner and was a participating host in the Food Network Canada Christmas special Twas the Night Before Dinner. She was a panel judge for two seasons on the Food Network Canada series Recipe to Riches, and has judged on both Iron Chef America and Top Chef Canada. In 2011, Cooking Channel USA produced and aired a one-hour "Chefography" on Laura Calder, a biography of her life and career in food. She has most recently filmed a one-hour special/pilot in the French Alps for Cooking Channel USA, which aired August 2012.

Laura Calder's profile page