Slate food writer Lauren Shockey grabbed a few cookbooks pegged to famous restaurants — Eat Me, Carmine's Family-Style Cookbook, and Chanterelle — and tried to recreate the dishes at home. We've all done something like that, certainly, but she also had the opportunity to compare her attempts with the real deal by visiting the restaurants. The result? Surprisingly sucessful.
This article appears in Jan 21-27, 2009.