This is one of my favorite cookbooks.  The seasonal menu arrangement makes choosing recipes easy. The currant pine nut relish (p 58) is good on almost anything, even salad

This book is so gorgeous!  One of my all-time favorite recipes ever came out of this book (the flageolet gratin).  I don't own a copy but I did buy it for a friend and have since borrowed it and made copies of the recipes I wanted to try.  A lot of the recipes are a bit too "involved" for me-- but, like I said, one of them is an all-time fav for me.  I will probably buy a copy of this for myself at some point!  It makes a great hostess gift, too.

I love this book, too, though I don't own it. Last summer, I was a guest in the home of friends who live in L.A. and they cooked for me from it every night. A week of Sunday Suppers and yet I never stepped foot inside Lucques.

This is another of those books destined to be classics. Everything I've made from it so far (3 complete menus for dinner parties, plus a few single recipes) turned out beautifully. The St. Patrick's menu is simple yet very inventive with the Parsley-Mustard Sauce that livens up the corned beef. And the the Duck Braised in Banyuls & Turnip-Parsnip Gratin with Prunes is just to die for!

Yes, these recipes are quite labor & time-consuming but so well worth it! I really hope I will have a reason to go to LA someday, so I can eat at the Lucques restaurant!