Ode to a Cookbook

Dear World,

I have two things to say.

First, IT CAME! and secondly, I am going to spend the rest of this post singing its praises from the mountaintops, shouting from the rooftops, declaring my adoration from the, um, sand hills of San Angelo.

Because, dear reader, this cookbook is perfection.


You may recall that I bribed myself with this Cook's Illustrated Cookbook a while ago. It came earlier this month, and I've been reading it ever since. Have you ever heard of those wonderful people at Cook's Illustrated? Because if you haven't, they certainly warrant a thorough explanation seeing as they've created the best cookbook ever.


Cook's Illustrated is a magazine published by America's Test Kitchen. The people at CI take a unique approach to food. They gather many variations of a recipe, then test them and refine the techniques until a perfect result is reached. It's a brilliant marriage of the scientific process and cooking.

The resulting recipes are perfection, and that's no exaggeration. If you follow the recipe exactly, you will have a stunning result. There is no guesswork involved. Some of the recipes take a little time, but the end result will taste so amazing you'll forget any work leading up to it and instead be transported into foodie nirvana. Not a bad trade-off, hmm?

Case in point: I made an apple pie recipe from this cookbook the other weekend. It was the brightest, most perfectly balanced pie I've ever had. And believe me, I've eaten a fair amount of pie in my day.

Here are a few (of the two thousand!!) recipes that have caught my eye as I've been flipping through it: Pumpkin Cheesecake with Gingersnap Crust, Creamy Leek-Potato Soup, and Horseradish-Crusted Beef Tenderloin with Cream Sauce.

I'm going to stop now because I'm making myself hungry, but you get my drift. The recipes are awesome. And I know that even though I've never made cheesecake or tenderloin before, if I follow the recipes exactly, they'll come out perfectly. I just love guarantees like that. Life needs more of those, wouldn't you say?

So, all that to say: if perfection is your thing, you need this cookbook. If reliability is your thing, you need this cookbook. Heck, if eating is your thing (and who doesn't eat?!), you need this cookbook.

It's completely, utterly worth it.

Not a paid advertisement. Cook's Illustrated doesn't know who I am or that I plan to make their Pumpkin Cheesecake as soon as possible.