Ms. Pirret has a few confessions to make about her own cooking, such
as this one, included in a first-rate recipe for crab cakes: "I would
have given you a recipe for a fresh coleslaw to go alongside -- but
cabbage heads are too big and usually just sit and rot in my
refrigerator, so forget about it." The best meal she outlines is one
of the simplest: an easy but exemplary take on that old bistro
standard, steak au poivre with pommes frites. Ms. Pirret describes
this as her "death row wish -- all I'd want before my big send-off."