CookWise: The Hows & Whys of Successful Cooking, The Secrets of Cooking… (utgåvan 1997)

Not the kind of book you just sit down and read cover to cover - it is a cookbook, after all - and lacking the adorable, elementary school science teacher vibe she brings to her spots on Alton Brown's Good Eats, but still a pretty amazing book. As someone who would rather learn underlying principles and then be shooed out the door than master recipes by rote, this dense volume is right up my alley. You can see why Alton hero-worships her so fervently. ( )

This is my favorite Science of Cooking book -- comprehensive, clear, more approachable than McGee's and less affected than A. Brown's. ( )

Definitely cooking with the chemistry/science buff in mind. Somehow I appreciate the info and yet yearn for the mystery. When I get more upset about failed recipes, this the book to which I will turn. :-)

I have enjoyed the recipes and explanations in this cookbook. Thanks to one of the recipes (Chili Oil) I actually really like broccoli for the first time. Contains other great recipes (apple pie, potato/french fries). I only wish I had more time to try out more of the recipes.

Now that I've looked through this one, I vaguely remember reading it a few years ago, but I liked it better then, for some reason. This time around, I went from being totally impressed to completely overwhelmed in just a few pages. The book starts with bread. Well, I bake bread. So I know about that. But this went so far over my head, it was into the stratosphere. I was overwhelmed with a discussion of which kind of flour I needed, based on protein content. Then we got into the importance of adding a little crushed ice to the batter for some reason and a little malt barely syrup and something else, and on and on and on.

The one recipe I did try, shallot mashed potatoes with garlic, was a complete disaster. Too soupy and too hard. I followed the recipe instead of using my own instincts, so I should have cooked the potatoes until done, checking them myself, instead of going by the time in the recipe.

I did copy a couple of dessert recipes (what else?), one for this decadent chocolate thingy and one for pralines. We'll see how those turn out.

In my opinion, this cookbook is best used as a reference. If you have a recipe that isn't working for some reason, this is a good place to look for why. Maybe more experienced cooks or ones willing to follow all the complicated directions and look for all the special ingredients would turn out some fabulous food, but I do not have the time or patience for that. I did enjoy all the name dropping and hints from famous chefs. But I don't think I'll bother with this one again. ( )