Reviews of Great Cookbooks

Perfect Pasta & Sauces

by Jean Pare

Companys Coming Pub Ltd
Spiral-bound
ISBN# 978-1-897069-63-9
Suggested Retail Price: $16.99 or as low as $16.99 from Amazon.com!

Jean Pare shows us how to make splendid meals with the basic building blocks of Italian cuisine - pasta and sauce. She covers the basics - raviolis, lasagnas, linguinis, and tortellinis, but she expands the usual fare with great cheeses, spices, and meats to give you something new to present to your friends and family. Then you get to the good part - the sauces! There are dozens of different sauce recipes that really let you soar in the kitchen. There's a Thai Curry Sauce, a Tofu Pesto Sauce, a fun Fennel Orange Tomato Sauce, and many more. The recipes are jam-packed into this small spiral-bound cookbook, so each page is a new delight.

Mom's Big Book of Baking

by Lauren Chattman

Harvard Common Press
Spiral-bound
ISBN# 978-155832395-7
Suggested Retail Price: $21.95 or as low as $2.69 from Amazon.com!

Lauren Chattman gives us over 200 recipes for the aspiring baker. Baking naturally brings up thoughts of desserts, of course, and this notebook-style cookbook features dozens of luscious recipes for cakes and cookies that range from the simplest sugar cookies to biscotti. The book actually begins with breakfast fare, offering the obligatory recipes for pancakes and waffles. Then we proceed to some real baking with a section devoted to muffins, biscuits, and quick breads. Then we go through the cookies, bars, and brownies. That's followed by the sorts of recipes that give home cooks trepidations - pies, quiches, and cobblers. Then comes the graduate-level work with yeast-based recipes for things like bread and pizza dough.

This is almost more of a textbook than a regular cookbook. The author is showing you how to bake, rather than simply presenting an array of baking recipes to try. There's lots of easy-to-follow instructions with a great section on what the well-stocked pantry should include. I also appreciated the fact that most of the recipes tell you how long the food should keep, even though few desserts last more than a couple of days in my house. I always like cookbooks like this one that include the classic dishes, so I can find references when I'm trying something new. Just a superb cookbook for anyone who wants to learn how to bake from scratch.