Kate F. (kateford) reviewed How to Cook Everything: Bittman Takes on America's Chefs on + 13 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
This is the most disappointing cookbook I've ever read, and quite possibly -- no, definitely -- the worst photographed book I've ever seen. Pictures are out of focus, blurry, poor color. They look as if someone with a WalMart brand webcam snapped a photo of their lunch on their desk at work, uploaded it to Picasa, and then printed their own book.
**Update** I learned from someone in the restaurant biz that the recipes being cooked were being filmed and the publisher grabbed video stills from the shoot, scanned them, and uploaded those as photographs. That's why they are grainy, out of focus, have poor color, and look as if they came from a 1970s era television. Just awful.**
As for the recipes, they range from the very complicated to the very simple, but they are universally disappointing. For instance, the concept of "taking on America's Chefs" by creating competing, but substantially similar dishes, is just a joke in certain respects. Here's a perfect example:
One chef created a Persimmon Gelato. Bittman's answer, and his posted recipe was to freeze a persimmon and eat it with a spoon. I kid you not -- eat a frozen piece of fruit. That's his answer to the Persimmon Gelato, and, HIS idea of a frozen piece of fruit took up an entire page in this cookbook. Not that the recipe was long, mind you. Freeze a persimmon. Eat it with a spoon. It's just that presenting the original recipe on one page, and his response, on the other, he gets "two pages out of it" and he's that much closer to being done with this POS cookbook.
PASS this one up, cooks. Really, take it off your wish lists. It's not even worth the 1 point you'll spend to get it, and certainly not worth the $3.00 or so you'll pay to ship it to someone else.
**Update** I learned from someone in the restaurant biz that the recipes being cooked were being filmed and the publisher grabbed video stills from the shoot, scanned them, and uploaded those as photographs. That's why they are grainy, out of focus, have poor color, and look as if they came from a 1970s era television. Just awful.**
As for the recipes, they range from the very complicated to the very simple, but they are universally disappointing. For instance, the concept of "taking on America's Chefs" by creating competing, but substantially similar dishes, is just a joke in certain respects. Here's a perfect example:
One chef created a Persimmon Gelato. Bittman's answer, and his posted recipe was to freeze a persimmon and eat it with a spoon. I kid you not -- eat a frozen piece of fruit. That's his answer to the Persimmon Gelato, and, HIS idea of a frozen piece of fruit took up an entire page in this cookbook. Not that the recipe was long, mind you. Freeze a persimmon. Eat it with a spoon. It's just that presenting the original recipe on one page, and his response, on the other, he gets "two pages out of it" and he's that much closer to being done with this POS cookbook.
PASS this one up, cooks. Really, take it off your wish lists. It's not even worth the 1 point you'll spend to get it, and certainly not worth the $3.00 or so you'll pay to ship it to someone else.
I was disappointed in this book. However, I leave in a rural area and have access to a rather limited set of ingredients. (For example, it's only been recently that I can acquire eggplant without going out of town.) Many of the ingredients listed in the recipes are, for me at least, difficult to acquire.
I have not tried any of the recipes yet, thus I cannot judge whether the recipes are instructive, easy to follow, turn own well, etc.
On the plus side, every recipe is accompanied by a picture and the book is visually attractive.
I have not tried any of the recipes yet, thus I cannot judge whether the recipes are instructive, easy to follow, turn own well, etc.
On the plus side, every recipe is accompanied by a picture and the book is visually attractive.
