Title:	To Drink and to Eat Vol. 1: Tastes and Tales from a French Kitchen
	Author:	Guillaume Long
	Published:	February 12, 2019, Lion Forge
	No. of Pages:	144
	Cover Price:	$24.99 Hardcover, $15.38 Kindle

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To Drink and to Eat Vol. 1: Tastes and Tales from a French Kitchen, by Guillaume Long is certainly very unique. It is short stories, a comic strip, a cookery book, and a cooking instruction manual all rolled into one. Much can be learned from this fun book, and while there aren’t a lot of actual recipes, there is much to be learned such as how to make a perfect omelet, breading fish, and how to make good French coffee. There are charts on different foods such as how to recognize different types of fish after the fish has been cut up, useful tools for your kitchen, and a primer on tomatoes. Long covers kitchen skills such as skimming, breading, boiling eggs, using garlic, and green cuisine (like to avoid eating endangered species so we don’t run out).

There is a recipe for a Hungarian specialty called Porkolt, several fabulous salads, an excellent bouillabaisse, and a section with some quick and easy appetizers. The Watermelon Feta Salad is excellent, and most cooks won’t want to try the recipe for Poached Raven, which was given to the author by his father just before he died; most cooks will, however, want to follow the step-by-step instructions for perfect French crepes. This is a French cookbook, after all.

The book is loosely divided up into seasons, and there are helpful cooking tips throughout. Everything is included in little squares in comic book style, which makes for fun reading, but not necessarily easy-to-follow form. While there are good cooking instructions that will improve every cook’s knowledge and cooking skills, this book is more of a novelty, and is quite entertaining as opposed to a serious cookbook that cooks will refer to often. For those who like novelty books and want to read something entertaining, this book will be a welcome addition to their cookbook collection.

Special thanks to NetGalley for supplying a review copy of this book.