Edited by Colette Gouvain, Full-Color Photographs by Dorian Shaw, Illustrations and Food Styling by Claire Connan

If entertaining is a pleasure, it can also, for many, mean a fear of not measuring up, shopping stampedes, struggles in the kitchen and, finally, the eternal dilemma: how to be relaxed and available to your guests? Arlette Sirot, renowned restaurateur and food consultant in France, suggests how we can eliminate stress using a little know-how, a bit of organization and a good measure of simple conviviality. Recevoir paresseusement snaps its fingers at the conventions governing traditional meals, focusing instead on the enjoyment and sharing of French food in an elegantly relaxed environment.

This is not a book about defrosting frozen gourmet dishes or ordering from the caterers, but about planning simple, authentic French meals, choosing from 139 easy-to-follow recipes that require no special skills or equipment. Each chapter corresponds to a particular theme: the garden at your table (dedicated to lovers of fresh produce), one-pot meals, tartines-as-meals, soups as centerpiece, breakfast as lunch, cold suppers, and for aficionados, all-cheese and all-dessert menus. The authors have also come up with two themes for weekend celebrations: one is an all-pork festival, (complete with terrines, sausages and stuffed pig’s ears) while the other is a celebration of seafood featuring such delectable dishes as smoked oyster velouté, shrimp sauteed in bacon and fennel, and roasted spider crabs flambéed in whiskey. All of these suggestions can be followed as recommended in the complete menus provided, or mixed up as you like, since good cooking, the author believes, is perpetual reinvention. The essential is to treat your guests to a delicious meal and to enjoy real and well-deserved relaxation as you join them at the table.