How Cooking Works Author:Fran Shinagel, Sylvia Rosenthal, Cal Sacks (Illustrator ), Ray Skibinski (Illustrator ) How Cooking Works is the first major handbook that fully explains the whys of what you do in the kitchen. It uses recipes as supporting material to back up basic culinary principles. With 200 illustrations and 500 recipes, How Cooking Works is the equivalent of taking an expensive series of lessons in a prestigious cooking school.