Petits Festins

This collection of small treats, almost all of them sweet, offers a year's worth of casual celebrations, all devised by the legendary chef Michel Bras.

Organized around traditional holidays such as Easter and Christmas, Petits Festins offers dishes for whatever meal might be appropriate for a given celebration, along with some tipples and other restoratives for those occasions when the weather is bracing.

And although holidays might seem to call for familiar fare, Bras offers anything but.  Bananas roasted in Armagnac; yogurt cake filled with orange-rhubarb cream; salty-sweet cherries with fresh milk curd; poached pear pie with blueberries.

There are no plating photographs, but the chef has included his sketches showing how these small dishes are assembled. 

This book is the companion to Desserts. Unlike that book, it was never translated into English. A result, perhaps, of its sentimental quirkiness, but that same quirkiness is surely part of its charm.

Paperback. Line drawings. In French.