The famous chef describes his early life in France, culinary training, and career as a chef and food arbiter in America, also includes one hundred classic and modern French recipes Franey is best known as "the Sixty-Minute Gourmet," but he has also been a top New York chef at the legendary Le Pavillon and other restaurants, Craig Claiborne's long-time collaborator at the New York Times , and the author or coauthor of a dozen cookbooks (most recently, Pierre Franey's Cooking in America , LJ 4/15/92). His memoir with recipes covers his early life in France, cooking at the 1939 World's Fair as one of a crew that was introducing French food to Americans, and succeeding career highlights; the sections on his childhood seem somewhat stilted, but once he enters the culinary scene the reminiscences become more vivid. Many of the 100 recipes he includes are real French classics, often from the menu at Le Pavillon, although there are some updated or more recent dishes as well. Franey recently stopped writing his newspaper column, to the disappointment of many readers; his numerous fans ensure demand for his newest book. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 12/93. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. In these memoirs, legendary chef Pierre Franey reminisces over a rich life, placing an emphasis on hard work, playfulness, and great taste. He begins his story with his childhood in St. Vinnemer, a village in the Burgundy region of France, where his family's lives were deeply linked with the land and the food it provided. Then he takes the reader through his cooking apprenticeship in Paris at the age of 14, his transatlantic voyage on the Normandie (where he was one of the 120 top-rated French chefs onboard), and his American debut as a cook at the 1939 World's Fair in Flushing Meadows, New York. There, in the French pavilion, he helped introduce French cuisine to the American public. Later, he earned fame working at Le Pavillon and La C{"}ote Basque in New York City. From there, he tells how his column in the New York Times --"The 60-Minute Gourmet"--led to more than a dozen books as well as cooking shows on public television. The autobiographical part of the book ends on a peaceful note as the author describes his current lifestyle, with time (at last) to dine among friends. The concluding section, almost one-third of the work, includes 100 of his trademark French recipes, such as his shrimp with tequila, the first recipe he ever did as a "60-Minute Gourmet" chef. Certain to be in high demand. Kathryn Broderick Franey, recently retired from his New York Times and syndicated food column, looks back with clarity, precision, and considerable charm on his Burgundy childhood in a food-centered family; his rigorous training in Paris eateries (after leaving home and school forever at 14); and his American career as a French chef making his name in restaurant kitchens, newspaper columns, cookbooks, and television series. ``Anyone who has ever tried to cook well knows that about 50 percent of the job is focus, the willingness to concentrate,'' Franey notes. His own ability to focus on the details of food preparation combines with the specificity of his recollections to make his memoir solidly evocative. Still fresh in his mind's eye, it seems, are the fish he caught and cooked for family lunches when he was eight and even the ingenious devices he and his friends used to catch their prey. He recalls the elaborate dishes (including a boned, stuffed turbot souffl‚) that, as a teenage apprentice, he ``felt I had to master if I was ever going to be anybody.'' And he still remembers his ``effervescent elation'' on entering New York harbor as a fairly lowly member of the hierarchy tapped to staff the French pavilion's kitchen at the 1939 World's Fair. Franey's independent nature informs his story's more dramatic moments: his surprisingly successful defiance of orders in the US Army during World War II; his resignation, after 20 years at New York's regal Pavillon restaurant, following a dispute with owner/manager Henri Soul‚; his painful split with New York Times food man Craig Claiborne after years as an uncredited partner in Claiborne's restaurant reviews and recipe columns. (``I think about him all the time, even now.'') Franey has little to say about his marriage or his personal life in America, if he has had one apart from food and cooking. But his memoir of kitchens past is enlivened with anecdotes and personality sketches and peppered with authoritative parenthetical tips on culinary procedure. Unlike his more recent, eclectic ``60- Minute Gourmet'' entries, the 100 appended recipes, many tied to events reported in the book, are mostly French, though trimmed for current lower-fat standards. And he explains how the others are grounded in the cuisine he knows and does best. (Book-of-the-Month- Club Alternate Selection) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.