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Summary: Cooking to get excited about
Review: These dishes are fantastic! Tyler has managed to pair certain foods together to make mouth watering recipes. You won't find your run of the mill recipes in here. What you will find are dishes that will make your family and guests say "Wow! You did this?". He starts out with a primer on what tools and food staples a chef should have on hand, which is nice if you new to cooking or just looking to upgrade your cookware. The recipes which follow (including mouth watering photographs)will definitely get you excited about cooking. Everything from appetizers,breakfast/brunch, to one pot dishes and outdoor cooking. He even has a few pages on fancy cocktail drinks. If you love to cook, you will love this book.
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Summary: Real Kitchen is Real Hot!
Review: This book has it all - excellent recipes, beautiful photographs and amusing editorial. They should laminate the pages of this book, I could not help drooling over all the magnificent looking food! Go out and buy this, I have already ordered more copies of this book than any other I own - plan on giving them at every shower, b'day and dinner I attend this year. Bravo Tyler, you are not just a "talking head" but one darn good chef.
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Summary: An absolute MUST for anyones Cookbook Library!!
Review: This book is my #1 seller I have sold this book countless times on Auction sites. If you are fortunate enough to purchase it here on [Amazon.com] take advantage of the [price!!!] it is well worth the money.Tyler has all types of recipes from real fancy to very simple. However even the fancy recipes are "fancy" only in "type" of Entrees not in preparation. The majority of the Recipes require every day ingredients so it won't be a challenge to find. There are lots of pictures throughout the book and his instructions, as seen on Food 911, are easy to follow. I have over 200 Cookbooks at home and I recently purchased this one for myself after selling apprx. 6 of them on Auctions! Respectfully Reviewed
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Summary: Fairly easy to prepare delicious recipes
Review: This book is quite easy to follow for the novice like me. I've been a huge fan of Tyler ever since watching him on Food Network on the now cancelled Tyler's Ultimate show. I prepared a meal for a group of my friends that went over so well that everyone still asks me for his recipes. I made the meatloaf, garlic mashed potatoes, creamed spinach, chocolate cake, and the "wow wow" cocktails. Everything turned out incredibly wonderful the first try. The portions are huge which is good if you are making food for a party. His definition of party is probably around 6-10 people, while I made all that food for only 4 friends. We had leftovers but everyone was happy about that. If you plan to prepare the exact menu I did, it may take at least 2-3 hours to prepare everything. I have a small kitchen so that did slow me down. You can also make the chocolate cake one day ahead and it will still taste great the next day. I went to a food demonstration hosted by Tyler a few months ago and he is obviously a very nice and friendly man and definitely shows his love for cooking. The pictures in the book are very nice and this would make a great gift to any food fans. Wonderful pictures of Tyler in the book are an added bonus!
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Summary: Really a great cookbook
Review: This cookbook is a real find. It offers original, fresh recipes with simple clear directions. I have made about half of the meals so far and everything has been delic. The thing I like the best is the variety he offers, big dinners or small, party food. It is a perfect gift and a worthy addition to any cookery collection.
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Summary: Not another superstars cookbook...
Review: This one's a winner. Tyler Florence of Food 911 fame shares a wonderful assortment of relatively easy recipes that any half way knowledgeable home cook can produce. The food is simple enough that even beginners can manage to bang out even the complicated dishes in the time given with each recipe. The sections on equipment and pantry stocking were great for a person with very little experience cooking, but readers with advanced knowledge will find them a boring read. I recommend skimming that section if you have more than a working knowledge of kitchen equipment and food stuffs. I understand the need for these sections in almost every chefs cookbook, but after you've seen one, you've seen them all. This is a very attractive book. The photography and food styling are fantastic. If you just want to look at pictures this is the wrong book for you. Pick up one of Charlie Trotter's books if you want to see some truly uncookable stuff. This is a more usable cookbook than all of Trotter's books combined. All of the ingredients are available in most major cities and won't require all of your pans and most of your paycheck. The recipes are very doable.
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Summary: WOW! Tyler does it again...
Review: Tyler Florence has a knack for creating simply delicious food. The book is separated into sections like Table for Two, One Pot Wonders, and Appetizers. The Appetizer section has some of the most creative and inspiring party snacks I have seen in a cookbook. Most of the "innovative recipes" I see are too complex and not anything I'd ever want to eat, or serve to friends. Not here--I would prepare any of his recipes and devour them with abandon! No Food 911 emergencies,just pure, simple, and tasteful. The photography in this book plays a huge role. It is evocative and truly represents the food. I enjoyed flipping through it for the layout and photos alone.
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Summary: I love this book!
Review: Tyler Florence is a young man and this is his first full cookbook. That said, he will get better but what a fine start! I love the liberal use of fruit and fresh sauce and herbal flavors in the recipes. I do not consider myself a gourmet, nor a chef, however I am a good cook and had no problem successfully completing all of the recipes I've made from this book.
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Summary: Good New Recipes, Mostly New Versions of Classics
Review: Tyler Florence' cookbook belongs to the genus 'celebrity chef cookbook', species 'not associated with cuisine or restaurant'. The primary object of this genre is to provide good recipies in an entertaining manner from a wide variety of cuisines. This book generally succeeds on all these counts, with some reservations.
Please be careful to note that this book is not and does not claim to be a teaching text. One will probably not get the full benefit from this book if they are a complete novice. This being true, the brief sections at the beginning of the book on kitchenware and pantry items are probably misleading. Whole books are devoted to these subjects. Tyler cannot hope to cover these subjects effectively in a few pages.
While there are some recipes in this book which are fairly simple, there are also many which are quite complicated. Take, for example, the Philly Cheese Steak. Pat's Steaks in South Philly can knock out a cheese steak in 10 to 15 minutes. Tyler's recipe will take an amateur chef at least 90 minutes, requiring the preparation of two different sauces. For best results it also requires a specific Italian Ciabatta bread and Italian Fontina cheese. The other side of the coin is that the results are spectacular. Pay special attention to the time from shopping bag to dinner plate given for each recipe. He's not kidding, and almost all recipes need an hour or more. This feature a major plus and fits the primary purpose of the book as a source for amateur cooks to find new and interesting recipes to entertain or have fun with.
Also, I would take the statements about simple ingredients with a grain of salt. I have yet to find a local source for Kaffir lime leaves and fresh or whole dried lemongrass and I am skeptical about availability of some other ingredients if one does not have access to a good oriental market. A corollary to this situation is the fact that these are not budget recipes. They are also not specifically aimed at being low fat, low calorie, or high healthy. This is not to say they are bad for you. I will wager that almost all of these recipes will be healthier for you than any typical fare from a fast food outlet. Just don't bother trying to count calories. Have fun with the recipes and eat small portions if you are watching your weight.
Tyler dutifully subscribes to the 'fresh ingredients' mantra, to which I have no argument, as long as you are aware of the implications and alternatives. There is no question that you really should use fresh herbs in certain cases such as parsley, basil, cilantro, and dill. Dried alternatives are simply a pale shadow of the fresh herb and at least three out of four of these herbs are reletively inexpensive and available the year around. Tyler, however, specifies fresh herbs for practically everything, including thyme, rosemary, and marjoram. These fresh herbs are expensive and not always available. Also, the dried forms of these herbs are as good or sometimes even better than their fresh counterparts, especially when ground and added at the beginning of cooking. Just be sure when using dried herbs and spices, that you buy the whole form and grind or mash the material at the last minute. The most dramatic example of this is nutmeg.
I find the style of recipe writing to be competent, with two concerns. First, Tyler seems to have subscribed to the Jamie Oliver school of measuring, where the amounts of many ingredients, especially things like cooking oils and seasonings are not stated exactly. This is fine for an individual's style of cooking and does reflect the fact that many ingredients are added to taste, but this is not good communication! One person's '1 count of peanut oil' may be three times larger than the next person's. Just as one always gives a test for doneness as well as giving an expected cooking time, I would much prefer the old teaspoons and tablespoons to 'glugs and counts'. Second, I have found lapses in the proper sequencing of steps. There are times when Tyler gets things out of order, even though much of his text makes a great effort to sequence carefully, there are some slip ups. Otherwise, the recipe writing is very chatty, filled with tips on technique to get the best results, however, the background material which makes this type of book fun to read is a little thin.
I would recommend this book to an amateur chef who buys the occasional cookbook to make their meals more interesting and who is not afraid of complicated, time-consuming preparations and who is not adverse to some pricy ingredients. Note that there is some overlap to Tyler's TV shows, but not so much that it makes one feel the book has nothing to offer.
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Summary: tyler florence's real kitchen
Review: tyler is amazing
a master of his craft
a beautiful and wonder full book from a true gentleman
as you can see i love tyler florence.
he can cook in my kitchen everyday
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