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The chef and his team served me some great food and we had a wide ranging discussion. I learned lot about the extraordinary quantities of seafood that Galatoire's serves, how to prepare his award-winning Sautéed Cobia with Louisiana Crab Butter (hint: start with a mallet), and how the chef stays lean in spite of having to taste four soups and five sauces every day at the start of service.
I also asked Chef Landry about cookbooks that he considers influential to his approach to cooking. (His house took on 8 feet of water during Katrina, and he's still rebuilding his book collection.) He mentioned a few titles, some for reference--Larousse Gastronomique, Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking, and John Folse's The Encyclopedia of Cajun & Creole Cuisine--and others for inspiration, including:
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Michel Richard, Happy in the KitchenRead the interview at Dining with Bacchus.
Eric Ripert, A Return to Cooking
--Marshal Zeringue