What if you could invite Alice Waters, M. F. K. Fisher, and Marcella Hazan into your kitchen as you make dinner? Imagine Julia Child looking over your shoulder as you prepare Julia's Lobster Newberg, or Gina Batali giving you her prized recipe for Batali Family Stuffed Artichokes? Les Dames d'Escoffier International (LDEI) is the premier association of female culinary professionals, started in 1973 in response to the all-male Les Amis d'Escoffier. In the organization's first national cookbook, the Dames share their most essential dishes--the ones they cook at home for family and friends. Here are such delights as Lidia Bastianich's hearth-warming Pork Rib Guazzetto, Susan Feniger's Roasted Black Cod with Horseradish Coulis and Farmers' Carrots, Anne Willan's elegant Twice-Baked Spinach Soufflés, and Alice Medrich's Bittersweet Soufflés with Nibby Cream. More than 125 recipes provide the range from appetizers to salads and soups, main courses (including vegetarian options) and sides to baking and desserts. Cooking with Les Dames d'Escoffier also offers up a wonderfully eclectic and informed array of foodie sidebars: the lowdown on screw-cap wines, how boxed phyllo dough can be a lifesaver, how to pair beverages and food, new ways to enjoy caviar, favorite kitchen tools, how to perfectly turn out a cake from its pan, and much more.