The Gourmet Cookbook : More than 1000 recipes

Rating:
Summary: To pale for comfort
Review: As a veteren cookbook reader, I was disappointed when I received my copy of The Gourmet Cookbook: I couldn't read easily any of the titles. The designer selected the palest gold for the recipe titles, and I could only read them under very direct light. It took the fun away from just perusing the book. Other than this problem, the book has many wonderful recipes, that will be a joy to try for family and friends.

Rating:
Summary: Hard to Read the Yellow Print
Review: I tried a corn bread/sausage dressing recipe for Thanksgiving but it came out too dry. I think the liquid measurement is incorrect. I had to add additional liquid and it still did not come out right. I tried the chicken tetrazini and it was pretty good, but I would add more sherry and cheese next time.

Rating:
Summary: The Greatest Cookbook!
Review: If you only owned one cookbook,and this was it,you would be ok.
The recipes are very well tested,diverse,and moderately easy. Plenty of dinner party fare as well as recipes well suited for dining en famille. The downside is that I think I have gained about eight pounds since I started cooking out of it at Christmas.
I have "40 Garlic Chicken" and "Apricot,Cherry and Pecan Cookies" in the oven as I type.
The helpful hints are actually helpful,even for the experienced cook.
Don't worry about the yellow title font unless you're blind. It probably wasn't the greatest choice,but its really no problem.
No,it doesn't have pictures,but nothing makes a cookbook look as dated as photos.

Rating:
Summary: Bad Design
Review: Put it on my Christmas list at the advice of a friend. I like to browse thru a cookbook to get inspiration, but not this book. The yellow titles render it useless to me. I suppose I could take my black pen and write the Recipe Titles over the yellow and that might help. I agree with others who suggest the Houghton Mifflin should offer to exchange the book with one that is legible. How many people looked at this design before it was approved???? A real bomb.

Rating:
Summary: The New Joy Of Cooking
Review: The Gourmet Cookbook and some of the others that got listed in the USA Today list of the best cookbooks of the year, are all very special in their own way.
Having bought all 6 of them, I realize each one has left me with great new joy for cooking at home.
They also each stand for what is best of the world of food.

While Barefoot in Paris (Ina Garten) and Indian Home Cooking (Suvir Saran) bring the cuisines of far away lands into the immediate and accessible grasp of our lives today in the US, The Best American Recipes 2004-2005, Fast Food My Way (Jaques Pepin) and Dessert University (Roland Mesnier) bring dishes we are intimately familiar with already. Together, these 6 books showcase what is best about food. How it is best when taught simply, in detail and with clarity. Each of these books has done that.

What is amazing about the Gourmet Cookbook and how Ruth Reichl has presented us this book is the bold manner in which it shares recipes that have changed how America eats. It also in many ways has documented the history of American cooking.

I only wish the yellow ink was some other color. The book can be very tedious to read and decipher at times. How could a cookbook from a magazine such as Gourmet make such a glaring mistake? Mistakes happen.

The recipe for Parker House Rolls (Page 613) is brilliant. You will never have to think Boston again. You can make them easily and to great result in your own kitchen, anywhere in the US. Pecan and Current Sticks Buns (page 618) are addictively delicious. You will never have to go searching for a favorite at a bakery, these shall always come out better.

If you wonder how to prepare Jerusalem Artichokes (page 544), you will find a recipe and also everything you want to know about the brown tuber. The mashed potatoes will be every bit as good as the ones prepared by chefs in finer restaurants where these can be found.

Gourmet Magazine and its staff have left us with a book that is every bit as exciting as the magazine and has given us a book that in one volume, has tackled plenty to sate the curiosity of the ordinary American.

Do not hesitate to buy the book, even if you worry about how you will read several of the headings in light bright yellow.

Rating:
Summary: Awesome! Just make sure not to get yellow font....
Review: This book is amazing! The publishers have already sent out a different version, the only difference being that the awful yellow titles are gone. The have been replace by much more ledgible orange writings. The recipes are spectacular!

Rating:
Summary: Magnificent Book!
Review: This cookbook is outstanding! I've prepared over a dozen recipes from it in the last week and each one was a winner. The range and variety are wonderful, and I love the fact each recipe provides preparation time - both active time and start-to-finish time. Such a great idea - why in the world don't all recipes do this ?

In addition to the great meals these recipes produce, another wonderful feature is the masterful indexing. For example, if looking for a recipe for haddock, the index provides all the recipes for which haddock is a suitable alternative for the primary fish named in the recipe - great asset to one searching for a way to use a particular item.

I had heard the gold recipe titles would be a distraction - however, I find them completely legible, and they don't detract a bit from my use of the book or the spectacular recipes. I'm delghted every time I open this book, and can't wait to get in the kitchen and use it again.






Rating:
Summary: What do I want from a Cookbook?
Review: To answer my own question, I consider that if I can make one good recipe which becomes a part of my cooking repertoire, the book has served its purpose. Based on this premise I am sure that I can find recipes in the Gourmet Cookbook.
However, having been involved in the production of a cookbook myself, I was dismayed by the design. Particularly as Ruth Reichl praises the designer highly in her introduction. I do not like the yellow type. I consider it is hard to read. I do not like the size of the book. I can see that a few sessions in the kitchen will leave me with a book with a broken spine, loose pages and illegible print; the paper is thin enough that I can see the print on the underside of the sheet. Add a few grease spots and the page is done. Looking at the amount of white space left at the ends of chapters, I find it interesting that the recipes themselves were not better organized to be on one page. Page 14; Herbed Lima Bean Hommus, the last 4 lines of type are on the following page, but there is a gap, not large enough to put these in, but large enough for one to think that the recipe was completed. Another glaring example is on page 19; Smoked Salmon Mousse; the title, recipe information and a brief description are on p.19 right hand column. Then below there is a half page sidebar across the page on salt cod. The actual recipe for the mousse is on p. 20.
There are many more examples of this. I was also interested that recipes are included which are really out of date and favor, or of which we must have many versions; examples are everyday pimento cheese, Guacamole, Oatmeal cookies, chicken kiev. There are other examples.

I cannot return this book, it is a gift from my daughter who has lovingly inscribed it, so even if I was offered an exchange it's no go for me. I have enjoyed Ms Reichl's books, which I own, but this is a mistake. Gourmet Magazine was the first magazine I bought on my first trip to the supermarket when I came to the US in 1969. I was a subscriber for many years, clipped many recipes, made them for clients when I was a caterer in NY. I am so disappointed with this book. It's main use may be in weightlifting.

Rating:
Summary: THE BIBLE OF FINE COOKING
Review: What more do you need to know about a cookbook Ruth Reichl, food expert and editor of Gourmet magazine. This massive and thoroughly impressive cookbook collects the best recipes from the last 62 years of Gourmet magazine and has narrowed it down to an impressive if daunting list of some 1200 recipes for inclusion in this bible of cooking.

While perhaps geared towards more experience home cooks, even those who have trouble boiling water will benefit from the many tips that the editors have provided. Everything from elegant dinner parties to snacks for the big game to quick dinners for Americans on the go, can be found within the massive 1000 plus page book. And it's not just recipes but also valuable education about food and food preparation that is many times left out of other cook books.

This is one you'll refer to over and over again.

Rating:
Summary: Why TheYellow?
Review: What person on Gourmet's editorial staff ever came up with the idea of yellow for the recipe titles?
I never had so much trouble reading a cookbook.
Also, I tried the pineapple upside down cake recipe and it was a disaster. Using all cake flour was a bad idea. The cakes didn't hold their shape at all.