The Last Course

Starred review from July 2, 2001
Food THE LAST COURSE: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern Claudia Fleming with Melissa Clark. Random, $35 (320p) ISBN 0-375-50429-X Claudia Fleming—pastry chef at New York's swank Gramercy Tavern—is a dessert visionary who has earned a James Beard Award for Best Pastry Chef and two Best Dessert Awards from Pastry Art and Design. Some of her restaurant recipes will be a challenge even for the most practiced home bakers, but they are well worth the effort. The book includes 175 recipes, organized by main ingredients. There are chapters on fruits (recipes include Blueberry-Cornmeal Cakes and Tamarind-Glazed Mango Napoleons), vegetables (Truffled Rice Pudding, Chilled Rhubarb Soup) and sweet essences (Earl Grey Ice Cream), as well as the usual suspects like chocolate (Chocolate Espresso Terrine) and dairy products (Goat-Cheese Cheesecake). Fleming also displays a light touch with such unusual herb-inflected desserts as Bay Leaf Flan. The restaurant's wine director, Paul Greico, has contributed thoughtful wine suggestions for each category. Recipes for the individual items are provided separately, but in an appendix Fleming groups them as they appear on the restaurant's menu and explains their assembly process (e.g., Rose Meringues with Summer Berries, Raspberry Sorbet, and Goat Yogurt–Rose Mousse consists of three recipes, but a composition of all three would be a single dessert at Gramercy Tavern). It's easy to see why these recipes—whimsical without being silly, daring without ever losing their focus on flavor—have won Fleming a reputation as one of today's most talented pastry chefs. 85 color photos. Agent, David Black.
(Oct.)Forecast:With a first printing of 30,000 and a seven-city author tour (with demonstrations), this cookbook's commercial prospects are good. Gramercy Tavern's name should help too; since its 1994 opening, it has consistently made Zagat's top five most popular New York restaurants.

August 3, 2001
Recipient of the 2000 James Beard Award for Best Pastry Chef, Fleming presents her first book of creations from New York's Gramercy Tavern. Don't expect to find architectural desserts with spun sugar and gold leaf here; Fleming instead stresses ingredients, flavors, and textures that are inspired by the desserts of her childhood and international cuisine. The 175 recipes, such as Spiced Italian Prune Plum Crisp and Anise Shortbread, are sophisticated yet easy to follow. Some readers, however, may find some of the unusual fare unappealing (e.g., Truffled Rice Pudding and Tarragon Ice Cream). Chapters are divided by main ingredient and include wine notes. While all of the recipes stand on their own, the final chapter combines individual recipes to create the kinds of desserts Fleming serves at Gramercy Tavern. Of interest to professional chefs and ambitious home cooks alike; recommended for larger collections. Pauline Baughman, Multnomah Cty. Lib., Portland, OR

Copyright 2001 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2001
In addition to the profits desserts generate on their own, restaurants rely on sumptuous, beautifully crafted sweets to send patrons off smiling and content and likely to return for repeat business. New York's Gramercy Tavern entrusts its desserts to master pastry chef Claudia Fleming. In "The Last Course," she offers the secrets behind many of her successes. Fleming relies often on classic, well-tested flavor pairings: prunes and Armagnac, maple and walnut, chocolate and coffee. Unique and elegant desserts also appear, such as a foccacia studded with concord grapes and a bracing Lemon-Lime Souffle Tart. Most of Fleming's desserts rely on premium ingredients and uncommon items such as quince, saffron, passion fruit, and tamarind. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2001, American Library Association.)