Legendary Dinners

Book excerpt: This sumptuous blend of recipes with cultural history is a dinner invitation you won't want to pass up. Chances are you weren't invited to the wedding of Grace Kelley and Prince Ranier, or to Truman Capote's famous "Black and White" ball at the Plaza Hotel. But now you can experience those and other legendary celebrations in your own home, as well as learn about the historic and cultural moments they embodied. This beautifully designed book brings together twenty menus--both authentic and imagined--along with instructions for preparing each dish and recreating the dinners in your home. Each event is represented in multi-page spreads that feature contemporary photographs to help you recreate the meals in your kitchen, while archival images and entertaining essays provide important historical context. You may not live on the Cote d'Azur like Coco Chanel, but why not pretend with the perfect salade niçoise? Join the con artist Henry Gerguson and serve up some fabulous mid-century Noodles Romanoff. Feeling artistic? Serve your guests some roast chicken and borscht, the way Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner did, with vegetables fresh from their Long Island garden. From JFK's triumphant visit to Berlin to the White House reception for the Apollo 11 crew; from a Bloomsbury high tea to dinner with the famously private Audrey Hepburn, this fun and sophisticated mixture of culture and food will reside as happily on your coffee table as it will on your cookbook shelf.