Rating: 
Summary: Best Cookbook Ever
Review: My mother and I are fanatic cooks. If it involves anything in the kitchen, we love it!! Between the two of us we also have one of the greatest collections of cookbooks on the planet!! There does seem to be a certain level of one-ups-manship between us. But if it leads to wonderful eating, it's ok!! America's Test Kitchen Cookbook is one of the most fasinating reads we've had in a long time. The Science Desk and Taste Tests have led to many a wonderful debates over the kitchen table. Every recipe we have tried is terrific. We are still debating our favorite.
Rating: 
Summary: Shop carefully
Review: These books are great! I love my Cooks' Illustrated Books and use them all the time. My one and only complaint is that they have now published the Best Recipe series and now the Test Kitchen books and they don't have enough recipes to fill them each one with enough unique recipes to distinguish one book from another.A few repetitions is understandable, but they have gone way over the top. If you buy more than two of these books, the third is bound to be composed of a third the recipes from each of the first two. Same test info, everything. This only leaves 1/3 of the recipes as original. Because of this, I say look carefully before deciding which one from this series you purchase unless you want multiple copies of the same testing articles and recipes.
Rating:
Summary: Verus
Review: This book has a very unusal organization, each chapter is organized like the content of the TV show. This makes finding things hard. What sets this book apart is that it explains the why. You leave each one with a better understanding of cooking. You feel that cooking is a science not folk lore. What a great feeling and these recepies actually work, Wonderful book.
Rating:
Summary: excellent resource for the curious cook
Review: This companion volume to the PBS series is presented as 26 chapters that correspond to the individual shows and include recipe analysis, equipment recommendations and illustrated techniques. Christopher Kimball and his rigorous cohorts define their goals, talk to experts, test dozens of recipe variations and then let you know what works and what doesn't. For example, Shrimp Classics includes recipes for Herb-Crusted Shrimp, Cocktail Sauce, Shrimp Scampi, Shrimp/Scallops/Monkfish Fra Diavolo with Linguine, five variations of Grilled Shrimp, a comparison of garlic presses, explanations of why shrimp turn pink and garlic's changing flavor, and taste tests for shrimp and dried pasta. This much analysis really helps you experiment more intelligently, though it's dangerous to open the book if you're in a hurry. Give yourself some extra time to peruse the always informative and entertaining text preceding the recipes. Chapters include: pureed vegetable soups; pesto, carbonara & salad; spaghetti & meatballs; pizza night; simple sandwiches; shrimp classics; steak frites; fried chicken & fixin's; chicken cutlets 101; all-american cookout; middle eastern barbecue; fajitas & margaritas; thanksgiving dinner; christmas dinner; winter supper; ham, biscuits and greens; muffins & scones; bacon, eggs & home fires; french toast, waffles & breakfast strata; bar cookies; two french tarts; diner pies; apple pies; peach pie & cherry cobbler; chilled summer puddings; and chocolate desserts. The pan sauce for steak is phenomenal, fajitas and cream biscuits are great, and I will never use another recipe for pie crust again. I own about 60 food and cookbooks and would rank this as one of the top three. Though this Kimball & Co. never do in one step what they can do in three, the recipes are consistently excellent and make the extra work worthwhile. Line illustrations,charts and a passable index augment the text.
Rating:
Summary: Helps understand WHY things taste soooo good!
Review: This cookbook, and the associated magazine "Cook's Illustrated," try hard to discover the best methods, equipment and ingredients for cooking in the home. And they do so by exhaustive (at least it would be for me!) comparisons. They then explain the results and why they were achieved. If you have a scientific bent at all the explanations will suck you into trying the recipes. Then the tastes will hook you forever. For example, brining almost all poultry is now a staple technique in their repertoire, and after reading why (and going through the drawing of what happens to protein molecules during brining) it's now a staple in my home as well. Some discoveries that they share were serendipitous, too, such as leaving a brined turkey uncovered overnight in the fridge, cooking it anyway, and discovering that the resulting bird had both crisp skin (from drying out in the fridge) and juicy meat (from the brining). If understanding why something does what it does, if being shown why one thing is considered better than another, if comparisons are important to you -- then this cookbook is one you should have.
Rating: 
Summary: Think of it as a sample size...
Review: This was the first Cooks Illustrated cookbook I bought (I now have three) and it's... well, limited. It's meant to accompany the TV series, though in actuality it's really only a small part of what the TV show is about. Like other Best Recipe books, it occasionally nicks material from the other books (a frequent Cooks Illustrated annoyance) but it still manages to work nicely, and the recipes in it are still enough to get the reader going. It's the odd one out of the series, limited as it is to a fairly narrow selection of items, and it has a rather strange but appetizing Southern accent (strange because of the show's basis in New England). It also has plenty of pictures that give it a playfulness that the bigger books lack. I do recommend this book, with some reservations (though the recipe that teaches how to butterfly a turkey is not something you're going to find anywhere else, and might be worth it if it saves someone some frustration on Thanksgiving). I really wanted to give it 3 1/2 stars, and rounded up because I don't like being cheap with praise. Just understand that it's a sample of what Cooks Illustrated is all about, and really just a cleverly done ad for their bigger books, and you will definitely not be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: A Must Have Cookbook
Review: Whether you've been cooking for years and years or a beginner...this is the most educational cookbook I've ever seen. And not only do you learn a lot about the why's and wherefore's about what makes a particular recipe work, but the recipes are GREAT! If I had to go through the 250+ cookbooks I've collected over the years and only got to keep 5, this would definitely make the cut!
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