Rating: 
Summary: Delicious food and a great looking book
Review: This book is not only beautiful, it really has great recipes. I've cooked the roast duck, and the pot roasted shoulder of lamb, and the baked chocolate pudding -- and all of them turned out brilliantly, and looked just like the pictures which I can't say for very many of the cookbooks I own. I like the way the recipes are divided by technique -- that's why it works well as a cooking course. But it also just has great recipes so it's good even for people who really know how to cook. .
Rating: 
Summary: Diverges from the formula
Review: This book was released last year in the UK and I got it as a present for Christmas. So I've had several months to digest this one!
Fans of the telivision series "Jamies Kitchen" be warned, this is purely a cook book and not a guide to the series. For those who don't know, the TV series was a documentary on Jamie Oliver starting a restaurant with 15 youngsters who he trains to be chefs. While it was very entertaining, it was in no way a cookery program. Having said that, some of the recipes from the documentary do feature in the book - the pan fried Salman with vegetables being one example.
Fans of Jamie's previous books be warned also. This book marks a departure from the formula that has made Jamie Oliver a household name here. Jamie has gone up market! Gone are the "Toad in the hole" sytle recipes, and in are more recipes you would expect to see in a restaurant. Coupled with far more sumptuous photos, this may become an excellent coffee table piece for the less adventurous cook or a great source of inspiration for those with more daring!
Nice one Geezer!
Rating:
Summary: Diverges from the formula
Review: This book was released last year in the UK and I got it as a present for Christmas. So I've had several months to digest this one!
Fans of the telivision series "Jamies Kitchen" be warned, this is purely a cook book and not a guide to the series. For those who don't know, the TV series was a documentary on Jamie Oliver starting a restaurant with 15 youngsters who he trains to be chefs. While it was very entertaining, it was in no way a cookery program. Having said that, some of the recipes from the documentary do feature in the book - the pan fried Salman with vegetables being one example.
Fans of Jamie's previous books be warned also. This book marks a departure from the formula that has made Jamie Oliver a household name here. Jamie has gone up market! Gone are the "Toad in the hole" sytle recipes, and in are more recipes you would expect to see in a restaurant. Coupled with far more sumptuous photos, this may become an excellent coffee table piece for the less adventurous cook or a great source of inspiration for those with more daring!
Nice one Geezer!
Rating:
Summary: Skeptical but Surprised
Review: When I got the cookbook as a Christmas present I was a little skeptical. Okay maybe alot skeptical. The recipes looked a little too vague; not enough precise measurements; "add a glass of wine" (big glass? small glass? 'what's up with that?')Quite frankly, it made me nervous. Cookbooks aren't supposed to be like that.But I gave the recipes a whirl and lo and behold, they turned out! The recipes were different yet familar. A nice twist on things (sorry, no pun intended). Jamie creates recipes with layers of flavor and texture; recipes with color and style. And what is more, they were relatively simple to make. I've received rave reviews from friends and family. But the real surprise and joy was that Jamie's approximate portions and measurements allowed me to become more of my own chef, so to speak. I guess I always felt compelled to stick to the rigidity of a receipe. What I discovered is that I was more or less forced to I play with the amounts and I did not feel that I was somehow making a mistake when doing so. It was okay to toy with this ingredient or that. This gave me confidence to explore variations. In short, it made cooking even more fun. This is how I think the great chefs really cook: they have a game plan but they have intuition, gut instinct. When you watch the great chefs on TV rarely do you see them haul out a measuring spoon or a cup. They go by eye, by experience and by gut. And I think this is what Jamie Oliver's book has done for the reader. Buy it, experiment with it, have fun with it.
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