Bistro Cuisine

What I've learned in the past two years, is that bistro cuisine is based on traditional Parisian cafes and concepts of French cooking that mean using simple, fresh ingredients to prepare well made dinners that are both superior to the quality you get at most restaurants, and often times, better priced for the quality that you are getting. It's also healthier cuisine. Our bistro features organic produce, bovine hormone free dairy, and free range poultry whenever possible. But we do not cook French cuisine. I think that's the biggest misconception, really. We cook an array of dishes based on international cuisines, but not as they would be presented in their home countries. For instance, in China, hoisin sauce is very traditional, but they certainly aren't using it to make a chicken salad.

We've featured so many interesting recipes (and a few uninteresting recipes) in our time at the Bistro. Some of my favorites were our spin on chicken taquitos, cilantro lime sushimi, and our Mediterranean Cous Cous with Balsamic Glazed Roasted Veggies.

But some days, we just don't feel inspired to think of new recipes. Everyone has a bad day. That's when we pull ideas, not exact recipes, mind you, from our wealth of cookbooks. Some of my favorites for inspirational ideas are Les Halles, a true French bistro cookbook, written by Anthony Bourdain, of Kitchen Confidential and Travel Channel fame; Hawaii Cooks, written by Roy Yamaguchi, who's Roy's Restaurants are some of the best I've ever eaten at ...(very sad to see they recently partnered with Outback Steakhouse)....and a local celebrity chef, Sarah Foster who wrote Fresh Every Day, with recipes from her Foster's Market. Sarah is famous for having run the Conneticut based catering business for Martha Stewart before Martha got famous (you didn't think she did it all by herself, now did you??), and Sarah nows runs a few fresh market cafe concepts in our local area.

There are so many ideas that can be taken by such a diverse group of cookbooks, plus all the other cookbooks I have stacked at work, in my kitchen, in my garage, in my car trunk, in storage, in my bedroom closet....LOL...I could browse cookbooks for hours! How about you?