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Summary: The Cookbook I've Always Wanted
Review: This wonderful cookbook by Pam Anderson covers everything that you need to know about cooking, technique, and new recipe ideas. I consider myself a cook in training. I'm still fairly young and just starting to cook for myself and close friends. So, my expertise is limited. I have found this book to be enormously helpful and full of wonderful things. Pam Anderson is a wonderful teacher and I have learned so many new things. She breaks it all down, takes cooking into a world that anyone can do, and makes it lots of fun. I would recommend this book to anyone. It's well worth the money.
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Summary: How to Cook Without A Book
Review: A terrific cook book. I consider myself a good cook and someone who likes to cook, but have trouble coming up with dinner seven nights in a row, which as I live, eat, and work in a boarding school mainly means summertime. This book has given me the opportunity to add new foods to our basic menus and enhance the variety of foods that I put on the table. For the weeknight cook this book is invaluable.
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Summary: Perfect for a young, busy career woman (or man, or anyone!)!
Review: I love this book. I'm just recently out of college and fairly new to cooking. This book has helped break my bad convienence food habits. Pam's writing style is so friendly and her recipes so non-threatening that you believe that you too can make fast delicious meals! It has inspired me to try new things I thought were too time consuming like my own salad dressing and pasta sauce! So much better than bottled and now, I'll never go back! Thanks Pam!
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Summary: Easy to follow recipes reap maximum rewards
Review: I bought this book recently because I felt that I really wanted to learn how to make my "own" food without always looking up recipes. It is fun to browse through books, but it is a great feeling to be able to just make something when you have the ingredients on hand. I made one of the supper soups last night (a chicken vegetable noodle) and it was delicious. My friend said it was the best soup he had ever had. With this book, you can take it section by section and never feel intimidated. The stir-fry chapter is especially helpful. The variations are kept short and allow you to be creative, because the master recipe is the most detailed. Maybe the intended audience includes mainly busy mothers with families, but as a young single person, I can say that this book has just as much value to me. Most of the people I know who are my age don't cook very much and are in awe of anything homemade because it "looks so hard." With this book, you can learn basic recipes and techniques that you can use forever, well through cyclical changes in food fads and trendy gadgets. The layout of the book is excellent and very readable. The directions get right to the point and offer helpful memory devices. I don't think there is a section that I won't use in this book. It is funny that the author wants you to buy this book, then cook "without" it, but I can say that this one will be a permanent reference in my house.
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Summary: I love this book
Review: Bravo, Pam! I have been cooking for over 12 years now, and have also amassed a large selection of cookbooks. I suppose I have been searching for "my style" in the kitchen. Well, it's right here in "How to Cook Without a Book". My mother and my grandmother rarely used recipes in their fabulous cooking, which was really frustrating when I was learning to cook because they would tell me things like "cook until it's done", or "mix until it looks right". Pam does a super job of defining what "right" should be. I was really expecting a more rigid style considering her Cook's Illustrated background, but I was wrong--it really is a relaxed (but definitely not sloppy) method. Many of her techniques for time saving and short-cutting I learned through the process of many mistakes--I would have saved many hours in the kitchen if I had had this book years ago. But, I believe, that enhances my appreciation of her work because I know from experience that what she is saying works. Don't go through the trouble of learning on your own, buy the book.
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Summary: Quick and tasty meals!
Review: If you want a cookbook that will teach you to be a gourmet chef, this is not the book for you. But if you want proven techniques for preparing authentic home cooked meals in record time, this is the book for you. If you're new to cooking and would like to learn the techniques to make home cooked meals on a hectic schedule, look no further. I just celebrated an anniversary and prepared Rib-eye Steak with a mushroom, brandy and blue cheese sauce, garlic mashed potatoes, and steamed green beans with Creme Brulee for dessert. It was wonderful, but it took a lot of time and effort to get just right, but was worth it for a special occasion for my wife. But for everyday cooking tips and techniques, I turn to this book time and again. By the way, the section on sauces can help you to elevate ordinary dishes to the next level. It makes a great gift for the beginning cook!
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Summary: A solid method for getting dinner on the table
Review: "How to Cook Without a Book" is directed at a specific target audience -- the home chef who is charged with the task of getting dinner on the table every day...after working all day, every day. For this person a strategy is needed, and Pam Anderson's book offers that strategy. This is not a collection of fancy "30 Minute Gourmet" recipes; it is exactly the opposite. Anderson suggests that the home chef de cuisine learn a few core recipes that can be executed quickly and build off these with whatever ingredients happen to be on hand. It's an ambitious undertaking and one that requires the reader to have both good equipment and a solid base of culinary fundamentals. After all, if you don't know how to properly sauté, and don't have a good pan to do it in, you're not going to do real well with the sauté recipes. And if there's a weakness to the approach, that's it. Simplified core recipes put a lot of emphasis on both fundamental culinary technique and a well equipped and organized kitchen. Absent either of these, this method will not work for you. But if you really want to put the effort into moving away from someone else's recipes and unleash your own culinary creativity, this book is an excellent starting point.
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Summary: This book is a lifesaver!
Review: I DO know how to cook very well! And I have a hundred cookbooks already! But when I get home after a very busy, stressful day, I am TIRED and HUNGRY. I don't want to spend an hour looking for a recipe to make perfect god-knows-what. I WANT TO EAT. NOW. I don't want 6 million choices! When I saw this book I laughed at the title. Then I looked through it. It's terrific! It makes everything so easy and simple. And it is delicious! In the three days since I got it, I have cooked two dinners, and both were terrific, fast, easy. And all the ingredients were already in my kitchen. Sure, there are some things I already know how to do, and might do differently, but if you want good food fast -- this is your book. Let's face it -- one basic "supper soup" recipe and twelve variations -- you don't get that anywhere else!
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Summary: A Wonderful Book for Getting Dinner on the Table Nightly!
Review: As soon as I read a review of this book...I knew it was for me! I sat down and read it straight through in 2 nights. While it won't help with fancy cooking...it's basic recipe with variations format (and memorable rhyme) will get you through those weeknights where all you want to eat is a simple home cooked meal. The chapter on Pan Sauces alone is worth the price of admission!
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Summary: Good if you need very basic help.
Review: Pam Anderson is very good at what she does. Just make sure you realize what this book is about. If you have spent any time at all cooking, it is doubtful you will need a recipe for a salad that contains exactly two ingredients: lettuce and "Thousand Islands" (presumably store-bought) dressing. And if you know how to boil water and slice garlic, it's doubtful you'll need to read how to cook pasta with broccoli and ... red pepper flakes. (!) I also must confess that I have never seen a cookbook rely so heavily on things like canned low-salt chicken broth, especially in things like soup and risotto. The book (at least the first half or so) is also sloppily written in parts, especially the introduction and first chapter. And the rhymes that open each chapter may get on your nerves. My advice is to skip this one and get the author's The Perfect Recipe or Christopher Kimball's The Cook's Bible or Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything.
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