Photo: Amazon.com.

'The French Market'
by Joanne Harris and Fran Warde
HarperCollins Publishers -- 2005
Buy it on Amazon

Although glorious American markets do exist, nothing quite compares to the French marketplace -- the endless barrels of olives alone distinguish them. But in the next-best-thing category, the author of "My French Kitchen" attempted -- and succeeded -- to capture the art of French market-inspired cooking yet again in "The French Market: More Recipes from a French Kitchen."

French cooking at its core makes strong use of fresh produce, with dishes like the traditional tomato salad, which frugally pairs tomatoes with parsley and heaps of pepper to magnificent results. "The French Market" seems to share this proclivity for cooking with tight ingredient lists, relying largely on the flavors of quality produce -- and the occasional bouquet garni.

See what we tested and find out whether the book's worth buying after the jump.

Eli, Kevin, Ron and a lot of attitude. Photo: Bravo.

Cocky much? You'd think that in the highest-stakes episode yet this season, a bunch of young cooks with their reputations on the line would be too busy sweating the details to gloat.

But on Wednesday night's tribute to the art of French cooking, awe quickly gave way to a swaggering show of braggadocio the likes of which we haven't seen since Eminem was doing freestyle rap-offs on the streets of Detroit. Chalk it up to nerves -- or ironic editing -- if you want, but when the headstrong, "I'm better than my brother" Michael V. seems the most shy and unassuming of the bunch, you know something's out of whack.

Sure, a few were in awe: Not only did the cooks have to make snails for Daniel Boulud in a quickfire challenge, but none other than Joël Robuchon held court at the elimination dinner.

Several days ago, I asked you, my beloved Slashfood readers, for help on what to do with about a bazillion cherries I had picked up. One of the overwhelming responses was for a cherry clafouti - the French dessert-t thing that's made with a pancake batter and fruit. I am not yet telling you what I am doing with the cherries -- it may or may not be a cherry clafouti -- but until I post that, here are eight cherry clafoutis from around the food web for your viewing, reading, and perhaps eating, pleasure:

1. Noshtalgia is cheery about cherries
2. Amy does Julia Child's recipe
3. 28Cooks uses sour cherries
4. You might get a muffin top if you eat the clafouti from MuffinTop
5. Mahanandi is the one in the picture
6. Clafouti from Becks N Posh is not for the Frenchman
7. Lucullian Delights adds a little spice
8. Smitten Kitchen's clafouti is a cliche come true

Sous vide is a cooking method that involves packing food, usually meat, in a vacuum-sealed bag and poaching it in water for a long time over low temperatures. It was first developed in France in the late 1960s and it is a popular technique with chefs at high end restaurants because the food prepared in this way is more tender, juicy and flavorful than as it is in some other methods of cooking.

The water temperatures used to cook the meat are often much lower than boiling, though, which raised concerns from the New York City Health Department. The department feels that the risk of bacteria breeding in sous vide food is very high, especially if the bag is improperly sealed. Though there have not, as yet, been any health problems tied to sous vide cooking, the health department has imposed fines on chefs using the method until a city health code that specifically governs the use of the technique has been drawn up. Chefs have been forced to dispose of thousands of dollars of vacuum packed food, both cooked and uncooked, by city inspectors and have complained that not only is the city's move unwarranted, but that they were not given any notice of the change in policy prior to their regular inspections.

I've decided to finally approach my fears head-on and make cassoulet. I've searched high and low for a good recipe and found a couple of great blueprints. I linked to this extremely detailed post on cassoulet when I spoke of it before, and I'm printing it out to use as a guide through my adventure.

Before you can make cassoulet, you have to decide how you're going to handle the meats. Most cassoulets are centered around duck, and use several parts of the bird. A classic rendition has the chef roasting the duck, rendering the fat, and making a 'confit' of the leg and a demiglace (French for stock) of the carcass. What's more, after all that, you have to select which other meats to include.

I made a critical decision when faced with my favorite butcher's meat counter and decided to buy duck confit already made. Brilliant no? It's pictured here. I also decided to go without the authentic duck stock and just buy storebought chicken broth. Hey, I don't have 48 hours to make this thing. I need cassoulet to be easy, or it's not happening.

Want to cook this live with me tonight? You'll have to head to the market. Here's what you'll need:

We're prepping our ingredients for Gardiane La Camargue, French beef stew in the style of the cowboys Francais in the Camargue, south of Arles. The dish is from Patricia Wells' Bistro Cooking.

Whoops! A few hours have passed since we cut the meat into 3- or 4-ounce pieces. Sorry about that, the baby that was getting into the cat food last time, I realized he'd better have some human food. Oh well, such is life. Now it's time to prep the carrots, onions and garlic. The instructions just say "garlic cloves," not "minced" or "peeled" or "unpeeled."

Hmmm. I decided to just peel them and crush just a bit in the process (I smack them with the wide edge of my knife to loosen the skins). My cloves look a little small... so I use eight or nine. I love garlic. I decide to toss it all in. A little extra garlic never hurt anyone. Right?