OurColony.net

Great Book, Great Gift

Customer Rating:
This is a great cook book. Very well organized. It is bound in a 3-ring binder which is perfect if you want to add your own content and notes. The equipment and ingredient suggestions make this a good first cookbook for young people.

Good recipes, poor paper quality

Customer Rating:
I own many Cook's Illustrated cookbooks, and I love them - except this one. The recipes are fine - great in fact! However, what good are fantastic recipes if you can't see them? I spilled water (WATER!) on the book, and now so many of the pages are stuck together, it is unusable. The paper quality is extremely poor, and very thin. (Not the hefty paper stock of their other cook books.) When I try to separate the pages that are stuck together, they just rip. At this point, I can't read at least a third of the book. I feel like I really wasted my money on this one. The ring binders also don't fit together like they should, so pages slip out at front and back. It was a huge disappointment.

Gave "test kitchens" as gift....well received!

Customer Rating:
My mom loved this cookbook when I gave it to her a couple of years ago. I recently gave it to a girlfriend and she loved it too. Now I need to get one for myself.

Great book for beginning chefs

Customer Rating:
This is a perfect book for the person who is moving out on their own for the first time. Many cookbooks give overly complicated recipes for simple foods but don't provide the cooking temperature and times for chicken or show how to cook an artichoke. This cookbook gives the basics (a fantastic way to cook a baked potato that comes out perfect every time) as well as going into some more advanced cooking (making home made ice cream that will make your summer memorable). You won't regret buying this book unless you are Thomas Keller and I doubt he needs this book (unless he wants to cook a baked potato for himself).

My Cooking Bible

Customer Rating:
I've had this book for the last 2 years and it literally is my cooking bible. Great product reviews and straight forward instructions. I'm a very visual person and they have great photos to show the finished product and/or how to prepare something and best of all, the food tastes amazing! I've had to disclose several recipes to friends. It is a definite must have in the everyday kitchen.

Regarding the product tiself, the book itself is pretty sturdy. I've noticed that the plastic laminate is starting to peel and my book came with several pages that were not hole punched correctly (thus several pages are misaligned). Otherwise, for a recipe book that carries 700+ pages, it's as sturdy as it can get.