The Omelette Book
Only Available from the Pot Shop

The Omelette Book by Narcissa Chamberlain is the ideal addition to this pan.

Since Roman times, and perhaps earlier, the omelette has been a simple, satisfying meal. In recent American cookbook history, one classic has been written about this ubiquitous dish, and this is it. Like the omelette itself, The Omelette Book is useful and always various. Its three hundred recipes will inform a lifetime of omelette making and will entice you to devise your own impromptu variations.

The omelette has been well documented in the literature of food, and Narcissa G. Chamberlain, drawing on her extensive library of old and modern books, condensed and organized this abundance of material from a home cook's point of view. She arranged her chapters under headings resembling a menu: seafood, poultry, meat, vegetables, and (these are a revelation!) desserts; and in each chapter the recipes are usefully alphabetized by major ingredients.

Mrs. Chamberlain discreetly proposed ways to use leftovers, and any sensible reader will pounce on the idea-what a wonderful way to use both eggs and the good things on hand in the refrigerator, whether for an emergency meal or a major production. Precious lobster meat left over? See Omelette Baron de Barante - this is a regal adventure. Choice, small artichokes available at the produce market? Try Artichoke Omelette Provençale, a country dish. Something fresh and simple? Watercress Omelette or Omelette Flamande with endive. Something extravagant for New Year's Eve? Look up Caviar. Dessert Omelettes begin with Almond and Apricot and end with Melba, Strawberry, and Walnut, with a long and delectable list in between. A picnic? You'll find cold omelettes to go!

Also included: the German omelette, the Italian frittata, tiny Russian omelettes, even the almost forgotten Chinese Egg Foo Yung. If it's an omelette, it's here, along with an entertaining historical introduction, in an invaluable culinary companion for your kitchen or by your bedside.

Narcissa G. Chamberlain collaborated for close to forty years in the publishing ventures of her husband Samuel Chamberlain, print maker, architectural photographer, writer, and designer of his own books. She produced the recipe manuscripts for three editions of his gastronomic travel book Bouquet de France and of the subsequent Italian Bouquet and British Bouquet, all published by Gourmet Magazine.

The recipes in Clémentine in the Kitchen (1943) were hers, as were those in the Godine expanded edition of Clémentine published in 1988. She was a knowledgeable amateur of antiques and pitched in as coauthor whenever her husband photographed for books on the interiors of old American homes. Her last book was a comprehensive catalog of her husband's etchings, dry points, and lithographs, The Prints of Samuel Chamberlain,N.A., published by The Boston Public Library in 1984.

Narcissa Chamberlain journeyed from her home in Marblehead, MA in 1968 to attend a Pot Shop branch store opening in Boston's Back Bay, where Omelettes and Martinis were featured. She showed no interest in the omelettes... but the martinis!