AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
![]() |
Home |  Store List |  FAQ |  Contact Us |   | ||
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
![]() |
Title: The Cook's Bible : The Best of American Home Cooking by Christopher Kimball ISBN: 0-316-49371-6 Publisher: Little Brown & Company Pub. Date: 01 October, 1996 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.5 (24 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Money well spent
Comment: I own a lot of cookbooks, most of which I never open. After I began reading The Cook's Bible, I thought about all the money I wasted on other books. After all, I want to learn how to cook, not how to read a recipe. I also consult Mr. Kimball when I am thinking of purchasing a piece of equipment, to make sure I am buying the right item for the job and getting a good value. You can't believe how much information is in this book. Money well spent.
Rating: 5
Summary: Christopher Kimball is the successor to James Beard.
Comment: James Beard brought fine cooking to the American kitchen. Christopher Kimball has continued in this tradition.
This book provides not simply near perfect recipes but a guide to both the experienced cook and the novice on how to prepare them. The sections on the selection of kitchen equipment are wonderful. He presents his recommendations on what you need not only in the generic, but the specific.
Some of what he advocates, you may disagree with. I know that I can put a finer edge on a knife with a good steel than I can with the recommended electric knife sharpener. However, the knife sharpener is necessary when the edge no longer responds to the steel.
In no case will you go wrong with his recommedations (except for the waffle recipe). It does need more oil.
For anyone starting to learn to cook or wanting to learn to cook better, this is a priceless resource. I cannot recommend it more strongly. If I had only one cookbook in my kitchen, this would be it. The second would, of course, be James Beard American Cooking.
Rating: 4
Summary: Pretty good...
Comment: I have the version of "The Cook's Bible" that came as one book together with "The Dessert Bible." If you are at all familiar with Cook's Illustrated Magazine, the format and style will be familiar to you. As for recipes, you will find it all in here -- product tests, exhaustively researched recipes for the food your mom and grandma used to make, etc. Some of the product testing is a little dated, but frankly, I don't base my purchases on Christopher Kimball's opinions anyway. I rely on an amalgam of information from many different sources to determine the best kitchen equipment, ingredients etc.
It's a great kitchen resource, but be warned -- if you own this, there's no need for you to buy "The Best Recipe," "The America's Test Kitchen Cookbook," or basically anything else Cook's Illustrated puts out, because the recipes are the same. This book is basically an expanded version of the non-dessert recipes in "The Best Recipe," which I also own. Cook's Illustrated is famous for recycling their recipes over and over and just putting new titles and covers on the cookbooks. If you buy this, don't buy another CI book until you're absolutely positive (through side-by-side comparison) that you need both.
The only other criticism I have of this book -- and all the Cook's Illustrated books, really -- is there's not a lot of diversity of cuisines involved. The magazine and cookbooks stick to tried-and-true staples of American (actually Northeastern American) food, and occasionally step a just a little over into ethnic cuisine. But if you're looking for explosive new tastes, interesting fusions of different cuisines, daring flavor combinations, new twists on old standards etc., these are not the cookbooks you're looking for. This would be a great gift for nervous new cook who's interested in learning the fundamentals and needs the reassurance of extensively tested recipes, but there's not a lot of excitement or intrigue here for a cook who's more or less mastered the basics of American cuisine and is now branching out into cooking the food of other parts of the world. A very nice basic "resource" cookbook to have, but definitely not the be-all end-all "bible" of cooking Kimball purports it to be.
![]() |
Title: The Dessert Bible by Christopher Kimball ISBN: 0316496987 Publisher: Little Brown & Company Pub. Date: 24 October, 2000 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
![]() |
Title: The Kitchen Detective: A Culinary Sleuth Solves Common Cooking Mysteries With 150 Foolproof Recipes by Christopher Kimball ISBN: 0936184701 Publisher: America's Test Kitchen Pub. Date: August, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
![]() |
Title: The Yellow Farmhouse Cookbook by Christopher Kimball ISBN: 0316496995 Publisher: Little Brown & Company Pub. Date: 02 November, 1998 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
![]() |
Title: The Best Kitchen Quick Tips: 534 Tricks, Techniques, and Shortcuts for the Curious Cook by Editors of Cook's Illustrated Magazine ISBN: 0936184655 Publisher: Boston Common Press Pub. Date: February, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
![]() |
Title: The Best Recipe by Editors of Cook's Illustrated Magazine ISBN: 0936184388 Publisher: Boston Common Press Pub. Date: 10 September, 1999 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments