LAUNCH PRICE $17 $37

A cookbook by Colette Moreau

French cooking was never fancy. It was Grandmother's everyday food.

140 French family recipes from Colette Moreau, who learned to cook standing on a stool next to her grandmother. Everything comes from a normal American supermarket, and every recipe comes with Colette's trick: the one thing that makes the dish work, so it turns out right the first time.

Get the book · $37 $17 Instant PDF download. Read it on any tablet, phone or computer.
  • 303 pages
  • A full-page photo of every dish
  • Every ingredient pictured
  • Large, easy-to-read text
Cuisine de Grand-Mère by Colette Moreau, book cover
140family
recipes
French onion soupFrench onion soup
Coq au vinCoq au vin
Tarte TatinTarte Tatin
Quiche LorraineQuiche Lorraine
Crème brûléeCrème brûlée
Beef BurgundyBeef Burgundy
Croque monsieurCroque monsieur
Potato gratinPotato gratin
Chocolate mousseChocolate mousse
RatatouilleRatatouille
Steak frites with peppercorn sauceSteak frites
Thin crêpes with butter and sugarThin crêpes
Mac and cheese with GruyèreMac and cheese with Gruyère
Cherry clafoutisCherry clafoutis
Salade niçoiseSalade niçoise
Mussels in white wineMussels in white wine

The part nobody tells you

French food was made to look fancy, so you'd think it wasn't for you.

The restaurant

Tiny plates, long names and big prices. At home in France it was soup, a gratin, a roast chicken and a good piece of bread.

The fancy shop

You don't need truffles or a specialty store. Butter, onions, eggs, Dijon mustard and a piece of Gruyère go a very long way.

The myth

That you need copper pans and years of training. You need a heavy pot, a little time and a few small tricks.

If your gratin came out watery or your crème brûlée turned grainy, it was never your fault. Nobody showed you the simple way.

French onion soup, quiche and tarte Tatin on a kitchen counter by the window

Why this book exists

My grandmother never wrote it down. So I did.

I learned to cook standing on a stool next to my grandmother. She cooked every single day, and so did my mother after her. From them I learned the real French kitchen: a good soup from a few onions, a sauce from the brown bits in the pan, a dessert from apples that were getting soft, and nothing ever wasted.

This book is everything they taught me, plus the food I came to love after I moved to America. If your supermarket sells butter, onions, eggs, a good mustard and a piece of cheese, you can cook almost every recipe in it.

And if something is not perfect the first time, eat it anyway. My grandmother always said the second try is the better one, and she was right.

Colette

One trick in every recipe

What you were told, and what actually works.

Six of the 140 tricks inside.

Turn up the heat so the onions brown fasterDon't rush the onions. The sweetness and the deep brown color come only from time.French onion soup
Rinse the sliced potatoesNever rinse them. Their starch thickens the milk and cream into a sauce.Potato gratin
Bake the custard until the middle is firmTake it out while the center still wobbles. It keeps setting as it cools.Crème brûlée
Put all the vegetables in one potBrown each vegetable on its own first, so each one keeps its taste and shape.Ratatouille
Stir until it's smoothFold, never stir, and stop the moment the last streak of white disappears.Chocolate mousse
Cook it on the day you serve itMake it a day ahead. The fat lifts off in one piece and the sauce tastes rounder.Beef Burgundy

Built to cook from, not to sit on a shelf

Open to any page and you can cook.

Every recipe is two pages: the finished dish on the left, the whole recipe on the right. No flipping back and forth with floury hands.

Full-page photo of the French onion soup The French onion soup recipe page with pictured ingredients and numbered steps
  1. The finished dish, firstYou see exactly what you're making before you start.
  2. A picture for every ingredientNo guessing what a shallot or crème fraîche looks like on the shelf.
  3. Short, numbered stepsEach one with a short bold title, in large, easy-to-read text.
  4. Colette's trickThe one thing that makes the dish work, and why.
  5. If it goes wrongThe three most common problems and how to fix them.
  6. LeftoversHow long it keeps and what tomorrow's lunch becomes. Nothing wasted.
140recipes in 7 chapters
303pages
211ingredients, each pictured
420"if it goes wrong" fixes

What you'll cook

From Sunday breakfast to Sunday supper.

Launch price

$37$17
Get all 140 recipes

Instant PDF download · 303 pages · US Letter, prints at home

Look inside

Real pages from the book.

This is exactly what you download. Swipe →

Welcome to My Kitchen, Colette's letter
Colette's letter
Kitchen Notes page with French words and an oven temperature chart
Kitchen notes and oven chart
Coq au vin photo page
Coq au vin
Coq au vin recipe page
…its recipe page
Tarte Tatin photo page
Tarte Tatin
Tarte Tatin recipe page
…its recipe page
Table of contents
The contents

This book is for you if…

  • You love French food but thought it was too fancy for a weeknight.
  • You want to cook from a normal American supermarket.
  • You like large, clear text and one recipe per page.
  • You like knowing why a step matters, so it works every time.
  • You cook for people you love and want them to ask for seconds.

It's probably not for you if…

  • You want restaurant plating and tweezers.
  • You need a printed hardcover. This is a PDF you can print at home.
Cuisine de Grand-Mère book cover

Cuisine de Grand-Mère

Everything you need to cook it tonight.

  • The 303-page cookbook, instant PDF download
  • 140 recipes in 7 chapters, each with Colette's trick
  • A full-page photo of every finished dish
  • 211 ingredients pictured, so shopping is easy
  • 420 fixes for when something goes wrong
  • Cups and spoons first, metric too, °F and °C
  • Kitchen notes: French words explained and an oven chart
$37$17launch price, one-time payment
Get the book now

Questions

Before you cook.

What exactly do I get?

A 303-page PDF cookbook with 140 recipes, which you download right after checkout. It opens on any phone, tablet or computer, and it prints well on US Letter paper if you like paper in the kitchen.

Is this a printed book?

No, it's a digital book (PDF), so there's no shipping and no waiting. You can print one recipe or the whole book at home.

I'm not a confident cook. Is this for me?

Yes. Most of the recipes are marked Easy. Every recipe fits on one page, with short steps, the signs to look for, and what to do if something goes wrong.

Can I find the ingredients?

Almost everything is in a normal US supermarket. Every ingredient is pictured, and where something is hard to find, like crème fraîche or Comté, the recipe gives you an easy swap.

Cups or grams?

Both. American cups and spoons come first, with metric in parentheses. Oven temperatures are given in °F and °C.

Is the text large enough to read while I cook?

Yes. The book was made with large type on purpose, and on a tablet you can zoom in as much as you like.

Tonight your kitchen could smell like my grandmother's.

I wrote down every trick. All you have to do is cook.

Get the book · $37 $17 Instant PDF download · 140 recipes · 303 pages