Women in the Kitchen

(Scribner August 2020)

Culinary historian Anne Willan traces the origins of American cooking through profiles of twelve essential women cookbook writers—from Hannah Woolley in the mid-1600s to Fannie Farmer, Julia Child, and Alice Waters—highlighting their key historical contributions and most representative recipes.

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The Edible Monument: The Art of Food for Festivals

(Getty Publications, 2015)

Anne Willan was a contributer to this book. The Edible Monument considers the elaborate architecture, sculpture, and floats made of food that were designed for court and civic celebrations in early modern Europe. These include popular festivals such as Carnival and the Italian Cuccagna. Like illuminations and fireworks, ephemeral artworks made of food were not well documented and were challenging to describe because they were perishable and thus quickly consumed or destroyed. In times before photography and cookbooks, there were neither literary models nor a repertoire of conventional images for how food and its preparation should be explained or depicted.

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Secrets from the La Varenne Kitchen

(Spring House Press, 2015)

This sturdy paperback book contains the fifty basic recipes of the Secrets from the La Varenne Kitchen, along with the many derivatives, broken down into six chapters. Stocks and Aspic covers veal, chicken, fish and glazes; Hot and Cold Sauces ranges from Brown to Tomato, Béchamel to Béarnaise, and Hollandaise to Mayonnaise; Pastries and Cakes includes pie shells, puff pastry, sponge cake, and brioche; Fillings, Frostings, and Meringues features pastry creams, three types of meringue, and the many variations of butter cream frosting; Ice Cream, Sherbets, and Poached Fruits covers a wide variety of flavors; and Cooking with Sugar includes a helpful cooking chart. Each recipe includes the French translation of ingredients, true to the original bi-lingual English/French format.

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La Varenne Pratique eBook

(Anne Willan, Inc. 2013)

With the original edition out of print, this new eBook edition of La Varenne Pratique makes the timeless classic more accessible, more affordable and easier to use.  The digital reproduction of the original was created by scanning each and every one of its 500-plus pages. Sliced and diced into four separate Parts, every chapter offers details on ingredients, storage, cooking techniques and recipes.  Each Part includes a glossary of cooking terms, cooking equipment and a bibliography. Readers can purchase only the Part or Parts of greatest interest to them, or all of them.  Each Part is completely searchable, its images can be enlarged or viewed independently and formatting can be adapted (to the extent allowed by the user’s e-reader).

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One Soufflé at a Time

(St. Martin's Press, 2013)

Anne Willan demystified classic French culinary technique for regular people who love food. Her legendary La Varenne Cooking School—in its original location in Paris and later in its longtime home in Burgundy—trained chefs, food writers and home cooks. Under Willan’s cheerful, no-nonsense approach, anyone could learn to truss a chicken, make a béarnaise, or whip up a soufflé. One Soufflé at a Time bubbles with warm, funny, and never-told stories of the world’s most well-known foodies, from Julia Child and her co-author Simone Beck, to James Beard, Richard Olney, Elizabeth David, Jane Grigson and more. Featuring fifty recipes—from Cotriade Normande to Chocolate Snowball—and written in Willan’s open, sharp, fast voice, One Soufflé at a Time is a memoir from a culinary personality who has always defied expections.

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The Cookbook Library

(University of California Press, 2012)

This gorgeously illustrated volume began as notes on the collection of cookbooks and culinary images gathered by renowned cookbook author Anne Willan and her husband Mark Cherniavsky. From the spiced sauces of medieval times to the massive roasts and ragoûts of Louis XIV's court to elegant eighteenth-century chilled desserts, The Cookbook Library draws from renowned cookbook author Anne Willan's and her husband Mark Cherniavsky's antiquarian cookbook library to guide readers through four centuries of European and early American cuisine. As the authors taste their way through the centuries, describing how each cookbook reflects its time, Willan illuminates culinary crosscurrents among the cuisines of England, France, Italy, Germany, and Spain. A deeply personal labor of love, The Cookbook Library traces the history of the recipe and includes some of their favorites.

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The Country Cooking of France

(Chronicle Books, 2007)

Bring French regional cooking into your own kitchen. The Country Cooking of France, (Chronicle Books, 2007) takes you on a culinary journey through the traditions of the many distinct gastronomic regions of France. Recipes range from time-honored favorites like Le Cassoulet de Toulouse to contemporary Crêpes au Caramel et Beurre Salé. The book is full of wonderful photos of the recipes, markets, villages and ingredients that make rural France special and make this book as beautiful to look at as to cook from.

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The Good Cook

(Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2004)

The Good Cook (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2004) offers a comprehensive course for the home cook, outlining all of the essential techniques and including hundreds of accompanying recipes. The Good Cook addresses every subject of importance to home cooks, including essential flavors and sauces; fish, meat and poultry; vegetables and eggs; pasta and pastry. Clear step-by-step photographs illustrate more than 70 basic techniques, which are followed by easy-to-execute recipes.

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The 15 Minute Cook

(Whitecap paperback, 2004)

No time to cook? Take a cue from Anne Willan's The 15 Minute Cook (Whitecap paperback, 2004) originally published as In and Out of The Kitchen in Fifteen Minutes or Less (Rizzoli, USA and Quadrille, UK, 1995) with its 100 quick and easy recipes.  Available in six foreign language editions.

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From My Chateau Kitchen

(Clarkson Potter, 2000)

Anne Willan renders an intimate appreciation of both the food and the culture of Burgundy in From My Chateau Kitchen, (Clarkson Potter, 2000), a beautifully illustrated and personal book inspired by Anne’s life at Château du Feÿ in Burgundy.  The book features more than 300 color photographs and more than 160 recipes from Anne’s 20 years of living and teaching cooking at Château du Feÿ.  Published in the UK as A Kitchen in Burgundy (Cassell).

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