Jean-Louis: Cooking with the Seasons

New York: Lickle Publishing, Inc, 1997. Signed in black sharpie on the front free endpaper: "Bon Appetit Jean-Louis 5/8/99. PHOTO UPON REQUEST. Recipes by Jean-Louis Palladin. Stunning color photos by Fred J. Maroon. Bound in at the front of this edition is a translucent parchment sheet with text explaining that Palladin joined the Rio Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas as Executive Chef of their Napa Restaurant. Palladin died of lung cancer in 2001. Although Jean-Louis signed this copy in 1999, it was not distributed until 2002 at a postumous dinner in his honor. Tipped-in at the rear is a printed sheet for the: Friends of James Beard Dinner in Memory of Chef Jean-Louis Palladin, Hosted by Alize at the Top of the Palms Casino Resort, Monday, November 25, 2002. On the opposite page are the signatures of 11 Las Vegas celebrity chefs who hosted or attended the dinner tribute. Among the legible signatures are the host chef Michael Demers of Alize, Chefs Michael and Wendy Jordan of Rosemary's, Chef Michael Mina of Aqua at the Bellagio, Pastry Chef Megan Romano of Aureole at Madalay Bay, and Chef Marc Poidevin of Le Cirque at the Bellagio. The other 5 signatures are difficult to decipher (PHOTO UPON REQUEST), but probably include other chefs participating in the tribute such as Chef Andre Rochat of Andre's, Chefs Jean Joho and Juong Sohn of Eiffel Tower Restaurant at Paris, Chef Luciano Pellegrini of Valention at the Venetian (among others, as listed in print on the facing page). Fine condition in a Very Good dust jacket. The jacket is rubbed but has NO chips or tears. Sharp corners. Pages are clean and unmarked. Bound in the original black cloth, stamped in bright gold on the spine and front cover. Complete with dust jacket. Oversize Hardcover. 10.25" wide by 14.25" tall. This large heavy book will require extra postage for Priority and International shipments, but only the standard charge for media mail. The announcement for the dinner can still be seen online. It reads: "Monday, November 25 [2002], 6:30 p.m. cocktails, 7:00 p.m. dinner. Members $175, guests $200. For reservations or more information, please call 702.951.7000. Las Vegas is a city of risk. Sure, the payoffs can be great, but everyone knows the house always wins. Well, maybe not always. One of the biggest gambles the city has taken in recent years is the transformation of the dining scene from all-you-can-eat prime-rib buffets to world-class restaurants. The hotels that invested in these new eating establishments are reaping financial rewards, but the real winners are the residents and tourists who can now feast on some of the best food in the country. At every level, from bakery to bistro, noodle shop to nouvelle cuisine, Vegas is firmly situated on the culinary map. One of the people who helped make it so was Jean-Louis Palladin, who packed up his things in the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C., and moved to the dining desert in the early 1990s. We lost Palladin to lung cancer last year, but this event has been coordinated by his colleague André Rochat to honor the people and the city he touched. Rochat is gathering many of the chefs who helped the Vegas gourmet gamble pay off at his new restaurant in the Top of the Palms Casino and Resort, Alizé, which Ken White of the Las Vegas Review-Journal says "delivers" on all counts. Greeting the chefs will be Michael Demers, a Johnson & Wales grad who worked with Daniel Boulud at Le Cirque and who is executive chef of Alizé. Demers moved to Las Vegas, where he met Jean-Louis Palladin. Palladin mentored Demers and encouraged him to join the Napa restaurant opening team. When Napa closed after Palladin's death in 2001, Demers was recruited to Rochat's new project at the Top of the Palms. Rochat, Vegas regulars will know, was one of the first serious chefs to call the city of neon lights home. He opened his first fine French restaurant, André's French Restaurant, in 1980, bringing the cooking of his native Savoie to town before anyone on the Strip had ever even heard of Wolfgang Puck. Given all the changes that have ensued-Rochat himself opened a second restaurant in the Monte Carlo in 1997-it was impressive to read Heidi Knapp Rinella's review in the Review-Journal last year: "Was André's still able to stand up to what, in the past decade, had become very stiff competition? Oh yeah. In spades." Last year, he opened Alizé at the Top of the Palms. Beard Award winner Jean Joho climbed to culinary heights at Everest in Chicago (not to mention Brasserie Jo and the Corner Bakery), and he's scaling them again at the Eiffel Tower restaurant in Vegas's Paris Casino. Michael Jordan is another Vegas culinary pioneer who, amid the frenzy of casinos importing chefs, went local by opening an independent restaurant away from the Strip. Like Rochat, Jordan and his wife and partner, Wendy, flouted the trend of bringing in chefs from someplace else by opening a branch of Rosemary's at the Rio, in the former Napa space. Grant MacPherson came to Bellagio the long way, via Singapore. He was chef at Raffles there, until he was tapped to head the vast kitchens of Las Vegas's most expensive hotel to date, where he oversees 20 restaurants and a food and beverage program that surpasses $200 million per year. Bellagio is the only Mobil Five-Star hotel in Vegas. One of the those restaurants is Aqua, where Beard Award winner Michael Mina is in charge. Mina is chef of Aqua and Nob Hill in San Francisco and Las Vegas, restaurants that have made a splash in fish cookery and fine New American cuisine. Charlie Palmer and his food tower over the competition in New York and the new Las Vegas. Dramatic presentations and ethereal flavors set his modern American cooking apart-and they are also the reason why he's received a James Beard Foundation Award. At the Vegas outpost of his beloved Aureole, it's his food and the striking design that make the meals memorable. Celebrity restaurateur Piero Selvaggio would only put a gifted chef in charge of his sister restaurant. He found one in Luciano Pellegrini, a native of Bergamo, who came to Los Angeles to work for Selvaggio at Valentino, then helped him open Primi and Posto before moving to Las Vegas. Rounding out the crew is Marc Poidevin, executive chef of Le Cirque and Osteria del Circo in the Bellagio. He couldn't have been better prepared for the task, having been chef de cuisine for Le Cirque 2000 in New York before heading west. Need any more encouragement to take Las Vegas American, Italian, and French dining seriously? Les jeux sont faits.". Signed by Jean-Louis Palladin & 11 celebrity chefs. 2002 Friends of James Beard Dinner. Oversize Hardcover. Fine condition/Very Good dust jacket. Illus. by Maroon, Fred J. (photography). 225pp. Great Packaging, Fast Shipping.