Pierre Franey

PIERRE FRANEY HAS been cooking in America for more than 50 years, but that doesn't make him a know-it-all. In fact, he's learned a lot, he says, over the last six months and across the 50,000 miles he's logged seeing -- and tasting -- just what is cooking in America.Franey, 70, has eaten grilled steaks with Nevada cowpokes, shared quail with California vintners, palled around a Disney World kitchen with Chef Mickey and watched a Baltimore chef prepare soft-shell crabs in a Maryland tomato sauce.

Claudia Franey Jensen always wanted to write a cookbook with her father, the noted and much-beloved chef, TV star, book author and newspaper columnist Pierre Franey.Franey, who collaborated with Maryland Public Television for his cooking series, wrote 14 cookbooks, five of them companions to his television shows. He always worked with a collaborator -- "He was a chef, not a writer," Jensen said -- and was confident that he and Claudia, who had worked in newspaper and magazine publishing and in TV, would work well together when they had the chance.

Pierre Franey has been many different things in his seven-plus decades: Fisherman, hunter, apprentice, chef, immigrant, soldier, executive, husband, father, newspaper columnist, raconteur, cookbook author and television star. But there is one thing he has always been without change: French.So it's no surprise that his new series for PBS, produced by Maryland Public Television, is about his native France, from Paris to Normandy, from Brittany to the Loire Valley, from Gascony to Provence, from Burgundy to Champagne.

If there's a cook on your Christmas list, take heart. The perfect gift is waiting at your nearest bookstore, thanks to a simple truth: People who cook never have enough cookbooks.But there is a trick to buying a cookbook. 1ow to choose? With new cookbooks appearing at the rate of several a day, picking just one, or one or two, can be daunting.So, to get a little guidance through the literary cornucopia, we asked more than a dozen local food enthusiasts, both in the food profession and out of it, to recommend their favorite cookbooks -- new ones, most loved ones, ones they'd give as gifts.

This weekend is a real treat for cooking show junkies because two popular television chefs, Pierre Franey and Nathalie Dupree, introduce their new shows."

Chefs from across the country will mark the 70th birthday of Pierre Franey, the "60 Minute Gourmet," with a toque-to-toque competition on Jan. 13 that will take them away from their kitchens.The event is the annual chefs' skiing race at Ski Windham in New York state, organized by Marnier-Lapostolle, the French producer of Grand Marnier liqueur. The race will be followed by a gourmet banquet.Nine chefs from Maryland, including the Tidewater Grille in Havre de Grace, the Cafe Royal in Potomac, Troia's International Cafe in Towson and Albert Uste Imports in Gaithersburg, are scheduled to compete in this mid-Atlantic regional race.

CASTING OFF: Casting agents will be in town this month to search for new talent for "That Night," a film based on the novel by Alice McDermott.Shooting for the production is to begin at the end of August in Baltimore, so if you're a local actor or actress looking for your, ah, big break, listen up. Needed are a couple between the ages of 30 and 40 to play the parents of young children, boys and girls between the ages of 16 and 19, children ages 9 to 12...

Claudia Franey Jensen always wanted to write a cookbook with her father, the noted and much-beloved chef, TV star, book author and newspaper columnist Pierre Franey.Franey, who collaborated with Maryland Public Television for his cooking series, wrote 14 cookbooks, five of them companions to his television shows. He always worked with a collaborator -- "He was a chef, not a writer," Jensen said -- and was confident that he and Claudia, who had worked in newspaper and magazine publishing and in TV, would work well together when they had the chance.

DON'T PANIC. MAYBE if I say it enough times I'll eventually believe it. However, every time I've been confronted with a large group of people to feed my first thought, after I've stopped hyperventilating, is to send out for a few buckets of fried chicken.There really is no need to panic if you plan ahead. These make-ahead dishes, for about 20 to 25 people, are part of a meal I actually served at a friend's going-away party. You can supplement this menu with party-fare standards such as potato salad, cole slaw and cheese and crackers.

I ate skate the other night. You might call what I ate "ray," or even the French, "raie." I call it a pretty good meal.The skate was swimming in a rich sauce made with black butter and capers that would make most anything taste good. The texture of the fillet of ray, more stringy than flaky, took a little getting used to. But, overall, it was a pleasing dish.It turns out that ray and I are old friends. I once talked strangers into eating raie meuniere, skate that was lightly floured and fried in butter.

Pierre Franey has been many different things in his seven-plus decades: Fisherman, hunter, apprentice, chef, immigrant, soldier, executive, husband, father, newspaper columnist, raconteur, cookbook author and television star. But there is one thing he has always been without change: French.So it's no surprise that his new series for PBS, produced by Maryland Public Television, is about his native France, from Paris to Normandy, from Brittany to the Loire Valley, from Gascony to Provence, from Burgundy to Champagne.

This weekend is a real treat for cooking show junkies because two popular television chefs, Pierre Franey and Nathalie Dupree, introduce their new shows."

I ate skate the other night. You might call what I ate "ray," or even the French, "raie." I call it a pretty good meal.The skate was swimming in a rich sauce made with black butter and capers that would make most anything taste good. The texture of the fillet of ray, more stringy than flaky, took a little getting used to. But, overall, it was a pleasing dish.It turns out that ray and I are old friends. I once talked strangers into eating raie meuniere, skate that was lightly floured and fried in butter.

DON'T PANIC. MAYBE if I say it enough times I'll eventually believe it. However, every time I've been confronted with a large group of people to feed my first thought, after I've stopped hyperventilating, is to send out for a few buckets of fried chicken.There really is no need to panic if you plan ahead. These make-ahead dishes, for about 20 to 25 people, are part of a meal I actually served at a friend's going-away party. You can supplement this menu with party-fare standards such as potato salad, cole slaw and cheese and crackers.

PIERRE FRANEY HAS been cooking in America for more than 50 years, but that doesn't make him a know-it-all. In fact, he's learned a lot, he says, over the last six months and across the 50,000 miles he's logged seeing -- and tasting -- just what is cooking in America.Franey, 70, has eaten grilled steaks with Nevada cowpokes, shared quail with California vintners, palled around a Disney World kitchen with Chef Mickey and watched a Baltimore chef prepare soft-shell crabs in a Maryland tomato sauce.

CASTING OFF: Casting agents will be in town this month to search for new talent for "That Night," a film based on the novel by Alice McDermott.Shooting for the production is to begin at the end of August in Baltimore, so if you're a local actor or actress looking for your, ah, big break, listen up. Needed are a couple between the ages of 30 and 40 to play the parents of young children, boys and girls between the ages of 16 and 19, children ages 9 to 12...

If there's a cook on your Christmas list, take heart. The perfect gift is waiting at your nearest bookstore, thanks to a simple truth: People who cook never have enough cookbooks.But there is a trick to buying a cookbook. 1ow to choose? With new cookbooks appearing at the rate of several a day, picking just one, or one or two, can be daunting.So, to get a little guidance through the literary cornucopia, we asked more than a dozen local food enthusiasts, both in the food profession and out of it, to recommend their favorite cookbooks -- new ones, most loved ones, ones they'd give as gifts.

Chefs from across the country will mark the 70th birthday of Pierre Franey, the "60 Minute Gourmet," with a toque-to-toque competition on Jan. 13 that will take them away from their kitchens.The event is the annual chefs' skiing race at Ski Windham in New York state, organized by Marnier-Lapostolle, the French producer of Grand Marnier liqueur. The race will be followed by a gourmet banquet.Nine chefs from Maryland, including the Tidewater Grille in Havre de Grace, the Cafe Royal in Potomac, Troia's International Cafe in Towson and Albert Uste Imports in Gaithersburg, are scheduled to compete in this mid-Atlantic regional race.