For most readers, this will be a "special occasion" cookbook.

A Private Chef: Four Star Cooking In Your Home will make those special occasions what you always intended them to be. How many times have you planned a special dinner party, shopped for a couple of days for the ingredients, lovingly put together a beautiful menu, and carefully put it all together in the kitchen- only to feel, at the end of the night, that the food really didn't measure up to your dreams? More show than substance? Lovely-but at its heart, under the sauce and spice, just sort of plain? With this cookbook, that won't happen.

If you're the sort of host or hostess who loves the planning, shopping, and cooking, who loves feeding others and watching delight spread to the depths of their souls, you need recipes and techniques as fine as your intentions. That's what you'll find here.

I give you a manageable number of menus, for different kinds of occasions, and I tell you how to make them. You don't have to make any huge decisions-just master the meal.

Just choose a menu and do what I say.