Rating: 
Summary: Good reading and good recipes
Review: So far I've made the muffins, creme brulee, molasses cookies, oatmeal raisin cookies, brownies, and lasagne and haven't been disappointed in any of them. Plus, it's interesting reading. I've changed my brand of flour, know the best unsweetened chocolate brands, and found out baking powder goes bad in 3 months. I'm a beginner cook and shy away from recipes containing ingredients I've never heard of or cooking methods I don't recognize, but after reading each detailed description of how they arrived at each best recipe, I'm inspired to try them.
Rating: 
Summary: An Incredible Resource!
Review: The Best Recipe seems to be an expanded edition of The Cook's Bible. Both these recipe books are now complete necessities in my day to day cooking. Even when I've discovered a fantastic recipe in another cookbook, I then consult Best Recipe to see if there's any additional way to improve upon what I've found. I credit both these books (Best/Bible) with improving my sauteed and roasted chicken - no more over-doneness!! And the chocolate chip cookies?!? OH MY - soooo good, so chewy and yet crisp on the outside!! My only complaint about Best is that the index is maddening to use. I finally marked mine up with the alphabet so that I could more easily navigate my way through it. Thanks to Christopher Kimball and the rest of the editors at Cook's Illustrated for another great cooking resource....
Rating:
Summary: Larry the chef
Review: Best French toast ever. The lead ins where different attempts, recipe tweaks, and cooking times are discussed are the most valuable. and I agree that the index needs a lot of layout work.
Rating:
Summary: An essential cookbook.
Review: If someone was starting up a cookbook collection, I would recommend this one as a great place to begin. Not only are the recipes a good foundation for any cooking repertoire, each of them carries an explanation of why a particular prepartion approach is most appropriate. Even though I have over 20 years of experience in the kitchen, I still found some very informative and helpful information in this book.
Rating:
Summary: The Best Recipe - The Worst Index
Review: This is a fantastic cookbook. All the reviews make that clear. However, the index is nearly useless. Who in the world edited it??? They should be fired. It is nearly impossible to tell where you are in the alphabet. I became so frustrated with it that I actually wrote in my own annotations! Argh! Message to Cook's Illustrated: FIX THE INDEX. Other than that I love it- try the brownies... out of this world!
Rating:
Summary: My Favorite Cookbook (I have over 100!)
Review: I believe either the experienced or inexperienced cook will find this book extremely valuable. For the experienced cook, the book answers the question we all seek "what is the best way to cook x". Given that the authors are Cooks Illustrated, you can rest assured that they have tried every possible permutation to discover the best technique for making sauces, grilling meat, blanching vegetables, baking fruit crisps... For the inexperienced cook, here lies a treasure trove of recipes and techniques to guide you through the mystery and often terror of cooking a dish when it counts (e.g. when cooking for friends or family). While possibly not the most creative or exoctic recipes, I constantly find myself turning to this book to confirm or refute another book's recipe technique. More times than nought, I find myself modifying the technique suggested by another source to conform to the technique and tips found in "Best Recipes." I cannot recommend this book more highly.
Rating:
Summary: The Best Cookbook
Review: I used to manage the cookbook section of an independent bookstore and as such have read through and sampled over a hundred cookbooks. If I could only have one, this would be it. The criticisms about the indexing and redundancy with their other books/magazine are well-founded. I went through the index and wrote in dictionary-style page headers at the top, which helped a LOT. I highly recommend that. Otherwise it's almost useless--one of the main categories is "entrees," the subcategories for which go on for pages. Subcategories are barely indented and main categories are not bolded, so it's impossible to tell where you are in the index. A column of beef listings would make you suspect you're in the B's, but you may be in E for entree. As far as redundancy, I subscribe to the magazine but want the book format for the convenience. Look closely before buying more than one of their books, though. I did looked through a number or theirs and selected this one because I found it to be the most inclusive. As far as complaints about pictures, all those nice glossy shots don't really help you cook any better and they add immensely to the cost of the book. I'm glad they decided to go with the practical, affordable book. So much for the negatives. As for the positives: the recipes and techniques really are outstanding! They tell you what they were trying to achieve, the methods they tried, and why things did and didn't work. They don't say something is the best recipe because they're arrogant, it's because they made thirty different variations and printed the best one. Since so much information in my cookbooks completely conflicts with info in others, this has been fantastic. The recipes have in fact been the best I've tried for various things. In particular I found the perfect rice pudding recipe that I have sought after for years. My husband has the key lime pie of his dreams (which, it turns out, is made without key limes). The book is not an all-inclusive reference, but it has amazing breadth. Almost everything I've needed has turned out to be in there. As for the person who complained that the recipes for, say, roasting meat called for meat and salt and pepper to taste... what were you expecting, guava? The point is the technique: do you start or finish with high heat, or low and slow all along, and why? The book provides the basic technique, such as how to saute chicken breasts, then follows with several different pan sauces to finish it. Or different rubs for grilling, etc. This is just a great cookbook, and a great reference book. If you like the magazine (and check it out if you haven't) you will love this. If you read On Food and Cooking for fun, you'll appreciate this. If you think you cook better than anything they came up with... well, then why were you looking at this cookbook in the first place? I suppose, as has been suggested, some very new cooks could possibly be intimidated by the detail, but if I had gotten this as my first cookbook I probably could have saved a bunch of money on others!
Rating: 
Summary: Maybe taste is subjective
Review: I eagerly waited to receive my copy of The Best Recipe since I found their scientific approach so intriguing. But after trying a few of the recipes, specifically, macaroni and cheese, cornbread and buttermilk pancakes, I was rather disappointed. Most mac and cheese recipes are grainy in texture and taste of flour. CI's recipe called for evaporated milk for a creamy texture and taste. Wellll, guys, the texture was perfect, but the taste of warm milk competed with the taste of the cheese. The cornbread was nothing special, my favorite recipe is still off the side of the box of cornmeal. The buttermilk pancakes were heavy and somewhat chewy. The only only recipe I like so far is the one for banana nut bread. It is by far the best I've made. I wish I could give this book more stars, the effort put into this book is obvious. Maybe what excites one group's taste buds does nothing for another's.
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Summary: A COOKING BIBLE!
Review: This is hands-down the best cookbook I've ever owned. It gets into the chemistry of cooking--things like WHY uncooked pie crusts stick to pans and how to prevent it. Most cookbooks stick to just straightforward recipes and some "hows", without ever explaining the "whys", but The Best Recipe covers that and more for EVERY basic dish you can think of. Any fool can follow a recipe, but it takes a certain, special kind of foodie fuss over the details and theories about cooking. This cookbook is for anyone who's obsessed with the pleasures of preparing fabulous food...eating it.
Rating:
Summary: Good, but Uninspired
Review: Cooks Illustrated takes a strictly analytical/testing approach to creating recipes. While this approach can create good recipes, it cannot create genuinely great recipes. The results of this approach lack soul, creativity, and flair. When I picked this book up, the librarian couldn't help but snicker at the arrogance of the title. No Cooks Illustrated, these are not THE best recipes.
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