Jacques Pepin's Thanksgiving Celebration

Sure, Jacques has his own cooking show (this program is part of his Jacques Pepin Celebrates! series), is a well-known author whose successful cookbooks have earned him many of the food industry's highest awards (as well as a place in the Cookbook Hall of Fame), has served as personal chef to Charles de Gaulle, has taught food and wine at the French Culinary Institute, is a faculty member at Boston University, and okay, he's French, but what has he done lately? Well, he's been in the kitchen cooking up grub for Thanksgiving. Pepin and his daughter Claudine share recipes for three different kinds of salmon appetizers, a roasted turkey with apple cider glaze, mushroom-bread stuffing, a decadent gratin of butternut squash, a cherry-ginger chutney, and two elegant-looking desserts (a chocolate-bourbon-prune cake--only the French could make prunes look THIS scrumptious--and beautiful poached pears). Pepin and his daughter share cooking tips and techniques and easy banter, but while the program is supported by excellent close-up and overhead camerawork, there are no onscreen recipes, and no list of ingredients found anywhere on the DVD (the box states that recipes can be obtained from the KQED website, but you'll only find full recipes for the meat and the stuffing). Still, this tribute to a truly American gustatory celebration by a truly charming French chef is tres sweet and highly recommended. [Note: also newly available on DVD in the series are Jacques Pepin's Christmas Celebration and Jacques Pepin's Chanukah Celebration.] Aud: P. (N. Plympton)