Rating: 
Summary: Cook Your Favorite Restaurant Food At Home
Review: My husband and I have been using this cookbook for a few weeks now and we just love it. We've always enjoyed cooking, but this book has all of our favorite recipes for dishes we frequently order in restaurants - with normal ingredients and relatively easy instructions. It's like a dream come true! We just dove in and started using it, but after finishing up a delicious meal from the cookbook last night, I sat down to read the introduction, and I agreed with every word. If you like cooking and trying new/different combinations of ingredients, buy this cookbook NOW. You don't have to buy fancy items from the store (I find everything I need from my local supermarket), and - at least the recipes I've tried so far - have been relatively simple and DEAD ON delicious on the first try. Suggestion: cook the dish to recipe the first time, then improvise on your own (ex. some recipes call for a medium to heavy amount of butter and oils, when you can usually get away with halving the fats and using extra wine or stock if your palate is not too refined). Our favorite so far is the mushroom risotto. Yummmmmmm.
Rating:
Summary: I love it, well-written, seductive, eclectic and delicious!
Review: Since the day I got this cookbook as a gift, I use it for inspiration and often everyday cooking. I live in Tel Aviv, so the mediterranean flavor suits my accessiblility to ingredients and adds new twists to the way I think about using them. Although many of the recipes are for party fare only, I always manage to find some great recipe for even a casual gathering. The book is extremely fun to read, easy to follow and makes me feel like a pro just by making a simple dip for crudites. For those of us who tend to rely on just a few cookbooks, I recommend it highly. It can never replace my desert island favorite choice, Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Italian Cooking, but it's right up there with the Silver Palatte.
Rating:
Summary: Cooking up a storm...
Review: Solid recipes without someone's rediculous "interpretation" of what a traditional dish should or could be. Great basic cooking techniques for the novice, some more daring for the experienced. I own 100's of cookbooks and cooking magazines - mexican, italian, asian - you name it. This one never fails, and I always go back to it.
Rating:
Summary: Tried and True
Review: Solid recipes without someone's rediculous "interpretation" of what a traditional dish should or could be. Great basic cooking techniques for the novice, some more daring for the experienced. I own 100's of cookbooks and cooking magazines - mexican, italian, asian - you name it. This one never fails, and I always go back to it.
Rating:
Summary: Not the only book you'll ever need, but one of the best.
Review: This is a very useful "contemporary American" cookbook- It's well-written, informative, and full of great recipes. It's pretty ecclectic, and I find myself disappointed sometimes when I try to look something up in the index and it isn't there. It's kind of like asking your braniac friend a question and they don't have the answer- you kind ofassume that they do. This book is so good at what it does you assume it's good at everything. The biggest problem with this book is that it doesn't have all the answers. The greatest thing is that all the answers it has are correct. This isn't one of those utility cookbooks you use like "Joy of Cooking" or "Fanny Farmer." You might not find a gravy recipe, but if you want to serve a dynamite meal to guests without looking like you were trying to get all fancy, this is a great book. And let me reiterate that there's a lot more than recipes in this book- it's also very informative. The continuous use of the third-person plural (The "Royal WE") is a bit annoying, but it's clear that this is David Rosengarten having to prentend that two guys named "Dean" and "Delucca" actually wrote it. Not terribly friendly to dieters, this book is nevertheless not all about fat and carbs. Just lots of good food. Really, really good food.
Rating:
Summary: Not the only book you'll ever need, but one of the best.
Review: This is a very useful "contemporary American" cookbook- It's well-written, informative, and full of great recipes. It's pretty ecclectic, and I find myself disappointed sometimes when I try to look something up in the index and it isn't there. It's kind of like asking your braniac friend a question and they don't have the answer- you kind ofassume that they do. This book is so good at what it does you assume it's good at everything. The biggest problem with this book is that it doesn't have all the answers. The greatest thing is that all the answers it has are correct. This isn't one of those utility cookbooks you use like "Joy of Cooking" or "Fanny Farmer." You might not find a gravy recipe, but if you want to serve a dynamite meal to guests without looking like you were trying to get all fancy, this is a great book. And let me reiterate that there's a lot more than recipes in this book- it's also very informative. The continuous use of the third-person plural (The "Royal WE") is a bit annoying, but it's clear that this is David Rosengarten having to prentend that two guys named "Dean" and "Delucca" actually wrote it. Not terribly friendly to dieters, this book is nevertheless not all about fat and carbs. Just lots of good food. Really, really good food.
Rating:
Summary: Not the only book you'll ever need, but one of the best.
Review: This is a very useful "contemporary American" cookbook- It's well-written, informative, and full of great recipes. It's pretty ecclectic, and I find myself disappointed sometimes when I try to look something up in the index and it isn't there. It's kind of like asking your braniac friend a question and they don't have the answer- you kind ofassume that they do. This book is so good at what it does you assume it's good at everything. The biggest problem with this book is that it doesn't have all the answers. The greatest thing is that all the answers it has are correct. This isn't one of those utility cookbooks you use like "Joy of Cooking" or "Fanny Farmer." You might not find a gravy recipe, but if you want to serve a dynamite meal to guests without looking like you were trying to get all fancy, this is a great book. And let me reiterate that there's a lot more than recipes in this book- it's also very informative. The continuous use of the third-person plural (The "Royal WE") is a bit annoying, but it's clear that this is David Rosengarten having to prentend that two guys named "Dean" and "Delucca" actually wrote it. Not terribly friendly to dieters, this book is nevertheless not all about fat and carbs. Just lots of good food. Really, really good food.
Rating:
Summary: Great for Regional Basics
Review: This is the best cookbook I own. Granted I'm in a phase of cooking where I can make a slew of pasta dishes, but now I want to branch out a little. This book provides clear and concise recipes for all my favorite "basic" dishes, from quesadillas and matzo balls to thai curries and falafels. The authors also give tips on seemingly simple things such as making fluffy rice, buying fish smoking meat, as well as in depth descriptions of grains, seafood, veggies etc. in their many varieties. What I love most about this book is that it allows the reader to master the basic recipe before it provides another trussed up version. If I want french onion soup, I don't want someone else's fancified take. I want one that tastes damn good and takes me back to France in the winter. (And it does too!) This book is for the seasoned and novices alike who love good unadulterated regional basics with the occasional fancy versions thrown in too.
Rating:
Summary: Great for Regional Basics
Review: This is the best cookbook I own. Granted I'm in a phase of cooking where I can make a slew of pasta dishes, but now I want to branch out a little. This book provides clear and concise recipes for all my favorite "basic" dishes, from quesadillas and matzo balls to thai curries and falafels. The authors also give tips on seemingly simple things such as making fluffy rice, buying fish smoking meat, as well as in depth descriptions of grains, seafood, veggies etc. in their many varieties. What I love most about this book is that it allows the reader to master the basic recipe before it provides another trussed up version. If I want french onion soup, I don't want someone else's fancified take. I want one that tastes damn good and takes me back to France in the winter. (And it does too!) This book is for the seasoned and novices alike who love good unadulterated regional basics with the occasional fancy versions thrown in too.
Rating:
Summary: Lush and luscious
Review: When most of us think of cooking dinner, we think of a quick saute of chicken, a splash of wine, a simple salad. Rosengarten's book is NOT for most of us. Still, that fact does not detract from its considerable appeal and accomplishment. This is a book to break open for the two or three times a year when you MUST impress: a romantic dinner for two with top quality ingredients, candlelight, and a diamond sitting atop the tiramisu; a gorgeous array of sumptuous courses for the firm Partners; a slow-cooked, soul-warming pot of (updated) cassoulet, sans the 7-times-broken crust. What Rosengarten has created with "The Dean and Deluca Cookbook" is a fascinating insider's look at the culinary world, where food and drink hold center-stage at all times. His chapter on salads, for instance, describes in detail dozens of varieties of greens, offering tips for mixing them that sometimes seem more appropos to a chemistry lab than a salad plate. While most of us would not seek out these kinds of ingredients for an everyday meal (a truly up-to-snuff salad may run $15 in ingredients!), being able to read about it is the voyeuristic next-best-thing. The anecdotes and advice are almost as rich as the food. Soak up Rosengarten's considerable expertise, and you'll be well on the way to creating dazzling menus and timeless memories--just be sure to plan to spend the better part of a weekend creating the meal itself. Not for the faint of heart,the hurried,or the harried, this book is nevertheless a treasure. It richly deserves be proudly displayed (a gorgeous parchment-papered cover and the visual layout of the book are as appealing as the recipes inside) next to the Classics on the cookbook shelf of every epicure.
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