Cookbooks Books

I wish I had known about this book when I first started to build my Todd Wilbur collection...I now have doubles of 1 of the books. This is great...it is actually 3 books in one, Top Secret Recipes, Even More Top Secret Recipes & Top Secret Restaurant Recipes. If you can find a copy, it's a handy resource and an economical way to start building your library if you are a fan of Todd Wilbur's recipes.

This is a wonderful resource for those that would like to recreate their favorite restaurant foods at home!

I love this cookbook and use it all the time!

I made the big mac that is in the book and I have to say, it came out better than I've tasted at McDonald's. The only difference here is the book is an older print, so for secret sauce he list 1000 island dressing. Although this might satisfy some people it won't bring you close to the taste of what the original is like. I went to the Youtube.com page (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqVCk2oDpSE) & watched his video of making a big mac in which he makes the secret sauce from half cup mayo, and a teaspoon each of Sweet pickle relish, white vinegar, french dressing, a lil sugar, salt, pepper & minced onion. This burger not only eclipsed the original, but I wasn't left with the need to dash to the bathroom an hour or so after I ate it. This is mainly cause I used all fresh ingredients. I highly recommend this rather hard to find edition of this book. Pick up up today!!

I have owned this cookbook for over 6 years now, and to this day it is still one of my best resource. It gives you 3 of Todd Wilbur's cookbooks in one. Every recipe I try come's out perfect. If you're not sure which Top Secret Recipe book to buy, start with this one. Like I said it gives you 3 book's in one.

In this book, you can truly taste the love that the chefs at Tru bring to the table. My husband took me here on our our engagement night and I received this book for our 6 month anniversary. I was blown away by the experience itself at the restaurant and this book touches on everything that intrigued me while I was there. You can truly see the passion that these chefs bring into the restaurant and the care and time they take in making dinner a very memorable one. I believe that this book will help me further my education in cooking and add on to my already burning passion for food. Highly recommend the book. You will get a better understanding and appreciation for the restaurant. If you haven't visited Tru already, an unforgettable experience awaits you...

I just ate at Tru for the second time and it was as amazing as the first time - actually this has become my favorite restaurant in the world (sorry Thomas Keller). I was excited to see the Tru cookbook and hoped that, like the stellar French Laundry cookbook, I might be able to use it to cook some of my favorites from Tru. I have read through the entire cookbook a few times and as culinary reading it is wonderful. Sadly in the past few days I have tried three recipes and had three failures. I am an accomplished home chef, not professional by any means but I am a heck of a recipe follower and can usually make any recipe from any cookbook. Unfortunately here it seems that some detail is missing from the recipes or that they are badly written. I'm planning on using this book for inspiration (there's so much of it in here) but will not be following any recipes verbatim. I'd say this was a worthwhile addition to your kitchen library for the reading pleasure alone but be warned that the recipes may not have the results you expect.

Great book
good photos
and great technical skills and also easy to read and use in the ktichen

`Tru' by Rick Tramonto, pastry partner Gale Gand and writer Mary Goodbody is a book purely for foodies and professionals. The sure signs of this are the fact that the recipes are presented almost exactly as they are done in the restaurant, with all the special ingredients and equipment a home cook is not likely to have available such as foaming canisters, caviar, truffles, and presentation dishes which are custom made for the Tru restaurant.

This does not mean this is a poor book. It only means that its audience is limited. It is more limited than even Thomas Keller's two restaurant books in that the `French Laundry' cookbook gives more insights into the phenomenology of eating and very high end food handling and preparation techniques. The new `Bouchon' cookbook gives a similar master class in technique along with a nearly definitive reference on Bistro dishes.

Tramonto's book is primarily a biography of his five (5) year old restaurant in Chicago and a synopsis of Tramonto and Gand's professional career together. As Gale Gand is actually the more famous of the two due to her Food Network show `Sweet Dreams' and her light, very accessible small books on simple desserts, it is genuinely interesting to us Food Network junkies to know the background behind some of her TV recipe stories. In the course of the authors' acknowledgments, background chapters, and recipe headnotes, Tramonto seems to mention just about every major culinary figure on the planet if they in any way contributed to his business plan, culinary inspiration, or specific recipe. While this may seem like gratuitous name dropping, I actually find this a definite asset to an essay on culinary excellence. This is also just another sign that this book is written for professionals and foodies. Two years ago, references to the Troisgras brothers and to Michel Bras would leave me cold. Now, I can take Tramonto's Michel Bras inspired recipe and compare it with Bras' recipes in his own book. There is some subtly gratuitous selfbackpatting as when the author cites instructions to the wait staff to inhibit breakage, as a single broken piece of dishware will incur a sizable replacement cost.

Tramonto is clearly aiming for the kind of recognition given to a very small group of American chefs headed by Thomas Keller and Charlie Trotter. A quick look at the recipe chapters tells you this at a glance. These are Hors d'oeuvres'; `Amuse-Bouche'; Cold Appetizers; Hot Appetizers; Foie Gras; Soups; Fish and Seafood; Meat and Poultry; Game; The Cheese Course; Dessert Amuse Bouche; Desserts; Petits Fours; and Basic Recipes. This selection is a clear indication that the name of the game at Tru is `Tasting Menus', a relatively large number of small dishes all chosen to go together by the chefs.

I assure you Tramonto's recipes have a richer, more distinctive taste than preparations of similar dishes at your local country club dining room. If I had any doubt that this was possible, I lost those doubts when I made Thomas Keller's recipe for Mac and Cheese with wild mushrooms from `Bouchon'. There was actually subtlety in the taste of the Bechamel sauce carefully infused with onion, pepper, and nutmeg before being strained to smoothness and enriched with Emmentaler cheese. Similarly, Tramonto takes a normally complicated preparation such as lobster bisque and garnishes it with a rather complicated ceviche and prepares it with brandy and sherry in addition to the normal white wine ingredient.

Dessert recipes by Ms. Gand are consistent with the savory chapters in that many ingredients are unusual and procedures are fairly involved. These are not you typical Gale Gand `short + sweet' recipes. One simple amuse-bouche recipe calls for `Perfection' tangerines and basil blossoms. You can substitute clementines or pedestrian tangerines and do without the basil blossoms, but that is not how they do it at Tru.

Unlike celebrated culinary books by Tom Colicchio and John Ash, `Tru' does not go out of its way to highlight pedagogically interesting portions of recipes where new techniques are revealed. Yet, the book is a treasure chest of culinary techniques and unusual ingredients. You just have to read carefully to locate them. One general technique hidden in a recipe is Gand's method for roasting lemons to be used in a `lemonade shooter'. This is also the very first book I have read which uses the foaming technique pioneered by Spanish chef Ferran Adria. The book also makes use of a juicer to produce smooth fruit and vegetable juices in several recipes. The book is also the very first mention I have seen of the ingredient truffle flour.

Every savory entrée includes a detailed wine recommendation supplied by Tru's sommelier. While I am not a wine aficionado, I believe these suggestions are better than average, as they always are explaining the selection and often give an `everyday' choice plus a premium choice. Almost everything I said about the book in general is not true of the `Basic Recipes' chapter. Here we have detailed recipes for thirty-eight pantry items including twelve (12) stocks, five (5) glaces, and eleven (11) sweet and savory flavored oils. If one does not already own Keller's `Bouchon', this chapter makes this book worth its price to an amateur cook. There are some very common items such as beef, chicken, and fish stock and simple syrup and brioche, but there are also some uncommon items such as mushroom stock, lobster oil, and Beurre Monte. If you have ever made chestnut soup with a vegetarian guest, you can see the value of a mushroom stock.

This is a book of excellent recipes that I believe only amateur foodies and professionals will fully appreciate. The book's photography is sound, but not out of the ordinary. I found it odd that the author discusses his custom kitchen design at length and gives us no photos of this facility. The average list price of $35 is just about right for this good but not great book.

I have had a copy of Don's TTL Cookbook around and handy ever since 1984. During one digital electronics course I took, it just happened to be the textbook used for the course.

This book is by far the most practical and well written electronics book I have ever seen, or run across. The methods and rules to follow for using TTL are spelled out so that one can build reliable circuits. The examples given are explained so that one may draw their own conclusions, and use the examples as building blocks or teaching aids to develop one's own circuits.

Time and again, I return to this text as reference. It, along with the CMOS Cookbook, make a powerful set of tools for anyone who wants to build high-reliablility digital circuits.

This book was current and hot in the mid-'70s, when I was new to computing, but had a ham radio license (so I knew a bit about basic electronics). It was like a grimoire or spell-book: each example made me say "Wow!" in a way no non-fiction book had or has, before or since. It made logic _real_. I even built TTL gizmos that were more advanced than the book's examples, simply because I learned enough from reading to be able to do so (and I was 15 years old at the time). It made me realize I _could_ turn ideas into hardware. It made me understand what "if/then" was all about. It gave me confidence. As another reviewer beautifully put it, "If I had not read this book, I don't think I would have succeeded as a programmer." Well said, bro'.

TTL Cookbook is a crucial electronics text. It will have you understand semiconductors, digital logic, and computers at a fundamental level. I've been in IT for 25 years now. TTL Cookbook is the best technical book I've ever read. If I had not read this book, I don't think I would have succeeded as a programmer. TTL Cookbook opens up the black box. I read this book when it came out and immediately started building my own homebrew computers from scratch.

I learn about this book from the technician at my university. The book contains many "ready to use" circuit (well, it is a cookbook) and they are very useful and handy for projects. (It is great for a "digital person" who needs to work on analogue circuits.) One can use theses as examples, or modify them as needed. It convers clocking, flipflops and other topics. For example: how to use a 555 chip to create a 10kHz TTL signal.

It serves well as a reference book. The first few sections of the book gives some introduction of logic and circuit theory. However, if you are new to electronics, then look for an actual circuit theory book.

I use the cookie recipe all of the time. I used to make them for the wrestlers at my old high school and they loved them. 30 wrestlers can't be wrong!

This book is the most functional, utilized, and worn cookbook in my library of cookbooks. Which translates into: "This is the one I actually use."

I use it, but most importantly my two teenage daughters use it too. They love to eat, but hate to cook. This cookbook, with its simple, informal, and casual recipes is quite suitable for beginners as well as experienced cooks.

I recommend it highly to my relatives and friends.

....Great Book, and everyone will enjoy and use it often.

Reality Check-Cooking is a straightforward approach to cooking. It provides a cook with the recipes that a family would enjoy and affordability that today's economy mandates. As you page thru, reading each recipe gives you insight into the love each cook has for the cooking experience and the pride they put in each dish they prepare. It also plainly shows the love and respect these sisters have for each other.
When others may have given up, Claudia and Juliet "Just Did It" and continued to do what they love---cook.
Thank you for sharing your recipes and thoughts with all of us.

This is a truly 30 minute cookbook with wonderful recipes and colored photographs that will guide you, step by step in your preparation. Most of the recipes in the book have cook's tip inserts which are really useful. Unlike most 30 minute cookbooks, this book not only covers vegetarian dishes and salads but has many fish, shellfish and chicken dishes, as well as recipes for soups and deserts. Furthermore, almost all the dishes could be prepared with readily available or everyday ingredients. This is truly a cookbook for today's busy professionals.

Fast and fabulous is how I describe this cookbook. I cook alot..and have quite a collection of cookbooks...this is one of my favorites. This cookbook has great pictures of all the prepared recipes...which is a "must have".

If you are a serious cook who likes tasty and well presented dishes this cookbook by Jenni Fleetwood is a "must have."Each recipe is on a page or half page and is presented with a photographic display of just what your finished product should look like. And, the photography is well done and distinctly helpful. Step by step guide to preparation is offered for each recipe. Unlike many "quick" cookbooks this one lists ingredients that are easily obtainable at your local grocers and yet are not "instant" type foods. This is truly a gourmet cookbook for the gormand cook. May be the most useful book in my cookbook arsenal and I have hundreds of them. Most I never use but this one will be used on a regular basis.

My family and I share cooking responsibilities and time and time again we go to this cookbook for inspiration. We have tried probably half of the recipes and THEY HAVE ALL BEEN WINNERS!!! This book is excellent: the ingredient lists are short, the instructions are well-written and the photographs are BEAUTIFUL!!! With a well-stocked pantry of easy-to-find condiments and fresh food in the frig or freezer, you can find a recipe for tonight's dinner and make it in 30 minutes or less!!! NO KIDDING! We're ordering several more copies to give as gifts -- it'd be a great wedding gift or for the kids going off to college!

This is my favorite book because of its design. I use it in the graphic design classes I teach to show how a recipe, its arrangement on the page, and pacing of the pages in a book can transcend mere instructional information and offer wildly wonderful emotive experiences. The subtlety that the designers impart with a combination of hand-wrought text and typeset text in the colors of olive green and black, and shades of those two colors is a joy to behold. All this AND the best recipes ever, and the philosophy of using our senses to reawaken ourselves to life's beauties are folded into this truly wonderful and life-changing book!

Before I begin, let's get one thing straight: I don't cook. I HATE to cook. I grew up dodging my mom's requests for help in the kitchen, reasoning that if I never learned to cook, I'd never be trapped in the domestic drudgery of slaving over a stove for myself or anyone else. Eating disorders, weight wars, and a long ambivalent relationship with food ensued.

This book was one of the best things that happened to me after I started healing myself from these woes. La Place pares down the processes of "cooking" to their essence: choosing, preparing, and enjoying the nourishment we all need to stay alive. She lists simple tools that bring the cook into direct contact with the lovely colors, shapes, smells, and textures of food --- a sharp knife replaces the food processor, for example --- and suggests a basic pantry of ingredients to have on hand for a nearly endless variety of delicious combinations. There are also shopping tips, ideas for reducing waste in the kitchen, wonderful memories of favorite meals, excerpts from classic writings on food, and more.

La Place's writing is inspiring yet down to earth, and the recipes are lovely, wholesome, and extremely simple. This, I suspect, is why this book is out of print --- there's no hype here, no trendy ingredients or complicated gadgets required, and thus, not much to sell. Too bad. It's held a place of honor in my kitchen from the day I got it, and would no doubt add a healthy dose of simplicity to many more.

If you're lucky enough to find a copy, get it.

Unplugged Kitchen is a romp through the Italian countryside. Viana La Place is not a pretentious culinary snob, but a down-to-earth woman you'd find behind an apron with olive-oil drenched hands. Her writing and her recipes are exquisite. I read the book for pleasure, and everything I've made is simple and clean and delicious. Forget the machinery and assortment of kitchen gadgetry. Get back to the food and the land--and this book will make this journey and elegant delight. It's one of my favorite cookbooks--stains and all. It's been well-used and well-loved.

What a refreshing presentation of foods in their healthiest and most delicious forms. This is just plain good reading, never mind great cooking. LaPlace lets the beauty of the foods shine through.

If you care about food, I mean really care about food, order VARIATIONS & IMPROVISATIONS right now. In this beautifully produced cookbook, the writers claim as their guiding principle, "no cream of mushroom soup as an ingredient in any recipe." The result is dishes that sparkle with flavor. Fresh foods are used in fresh ways, and the tastes just burst in your mouth. A handful of these recipes are complex and time-consuming, but the majority are a snap to prepare, and the instructions are clear and straightforward. The largest section is Preludes, filled with a wide variety of appetizers and starters. The Lemon-Rosemary Wafers are beautiful with a glass of red wine. The Bleu Cheesecake with Rosemary Walnuts is heavenly, and the Calypso Soup has an intriguing taste of the islands from sweet potatoes, pork sausage, and a few spices. And who could resist a recipe called Goat Balls? If you enjoy simple entertaining that allows you to thrill your guests without hiding in the kitchen all evening, if food for you is about taste above all, if you want to go home tonight and create something special out of what's right there in your pantry, get your hands on this book. You'll be thanking me for a long time.

This cookbook is a must for anybody who loves cookbooks. Not only is it great to cook by, but it is also fun to read! The music selections to cook or eat by are a great idea, one that I've never seen in other cookbooks. Also, I love the last chapter of Improvisations. The "5 Minutes and A Cup of Mayonaise" recipes made the book worth it. I intend on giving this book as a gift because it would be great for a wedding, birthday, anniversary, etc.! And the price is right! Try it, you'll like it!

Artwork! Literary quotes relating to food, cooking, and dining! Musical selections to cook, serve, or dine to! Wine suggestions. Advice for planning dinner parties! And over 400 recipes that are elegant and can be adapted to varying tastes and ingredients! And last but certainly not least, it is hardcover with a metal, spiral binding so that the book lays flat and stays open to the page you're working from--no small matter for those of us tired of breaking the spines of some of our other cookbooks or using cutting boards to try to anchor the pages on less cooperative volumes.

P.S. The Salmon Baked Alaska is to die for!

This is by far the most amazing community cookbook I have seen in some time! Each recipe is thoroughly written and wonderfully exciting. The flavors and combinations thereof are fresh and creative. A must have for the adventurous cook. There is truly something for everyone! If you love fresh ingredients, then this is the book for you!

There's a section at the front of the book that explains most of the ingredients - where to buy, how to store and use - great for people who are a little shy about using new ingredients. It's a good book for beginners or people who are experimenting with adding more vegetarian options to their diet. There is a section on planning meals at the back that lets you put together a menu of complementary items and makes it easy to ensure good and balanced nutrition.

Directions are clear and interesting information is given about food and its uses, as well as easy-to-follow instructions for creating some kitchen basics so you don't have to succumb to store-bought preparations.

Only criticism is, I wish it was spiral bound or had one of those lay-flat bindings to keep it open on the countertop.

Highly recommended.

Using mostly kitchen shelf ingredients, Ms. Lemlin's book has provided our family with wonderful breakfast lunch and dinner recipes. Honestly, there is not one bad recipe in the bunch. I first took this book out of the library, paid lots of late fines and eventually, reluctantly, took the book back. My daughter bought it for me, and now I am buying her and her sister a copy of the book. The techniques are simple, the ingredients easily available and the outcome is consistent every time. I highly recommend this for either vegetarians or those who simply enjoy wonderful interesting food.

This cookbook is a superior value, especially for casual cooks who wish to increase the number of vegetarian meals in their diet. It presents an excellent variety of dishes which avoid the preconceptions of a vegetarian regimen by presenting a wide variety of vegetable, grain, bean, and pasta dishes, avoiding a heavy concentration on the expected vegetable proteins. Herein lies the irony of the book's title. By successfully including a very wide variety of recipes and by having no reservations about using dairy and egg products in the recipes, Ms. Lemlin probably ends up with a volume where `classic' vegetarian dishes are very much in the minority. I think a major hint that the title was given simply for marketing effect is the fact that Jeanne at no time gives a definition of what she considers a `classic' vegetarian dish. I certainly don't know what that definition may be. That said, let me repeat that this is a very good cookbook.

When I began reading this cookbook in order to review it, I set out with the deliberate intention of finding things which would justify fewer than five (5) stars, since I seem to be giving a lot of five star reviews lately. I am happy to say I did not find any egregious errors aside from the inappropriateness of the title. I will not hold that against the book. I will only warn you again, dear reader, that the title may be misleading.

The only issue of substance I have with the book is it's treatment of rice dishes. There is not a single risotto recipe in the whole book. And, what, I ask you, may be a more classic meatless dish than mushroom risotto made with a vegetable stock. Otherwise, the treatment of rice is also a bit skimpy. The author relies on the conventional wisdom of two parts water to one part rice for cooking white rice. Even a cursory glance at the back of the Uncle Ben's box shows this is not strictly true. Many sources concur that a less than two to one ratio is always better, and the relative amount of water should decrease as the amount of rice increases. Fortunately, there are numerous books specializing in rice cookery which I recommend you consult. An especially good discussion of plain rice cookery can be found in John Thorne's book `A Pot on the Fire'. Another minor rice gaff is when Ms. Lemlin says arborio rice is very short grained. I believe it is actually a medium length rice. Still very good for risotto of course.

As this book has some 300 recipes and can be bought for less than $12 dollars, I consider this a great bargain, considering the quality of the recipes. For the hard cover at $30, I would give it only 4 stars. For the paperback, I give it the full five!

I've been collecting vegetarian cookbooks for years. Some I seldom use except for a favorite recipe or two. But Jeanne Lemlin's cookbooks are on my favorites list and I use them often. Her recipes are delicious, easy to prepare and satisfying to vegetarians and non-vegetarians alike. I own all of her cookbooks and would rejoice if she were to publish another one.

Friends introduced us to this cookbook, knowing that we eat vegetarian and follow the Mediterranean diet. What a joy!

My only problem to date (I've made 4 recipes to date - our friends an additional 3 or 4) has been a major typo in one of the recipes that left me unsure how to layer a casserole. I went with my best guess, and it was very good!

Highly recommended. Great flavors, great variety. I get tired of people saying that to not eat high-fat (especially "bad" fat) foods like burgers, fries, bacon, etc., is bland and boring and somehow to be disdained. WRONG! We eat so much better than that! and will eat even better now that we have this book.

I adore this cookbook! It is witty, fun to read, full of healthful insight and provides an excellent history not only of the regions of the Mediterranean and their culture, but how the residents of this area developed a healthy diet out of necessity. The selections are outstanding and I am enjoying this cookbook immensely. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in healthy eating, diabetics and vegetarians. I have a new found desire to live in Greece or Italy, shop at the market daily for my day's meals and work in the olive groves!

I have had this cookbook about a month and made 7 recipes...they have all been wonderful! I can't wait to buy more Veggie Times cookbooks!

This book is truly wonderful. I love to make dishes from this cookbook all of the time. This is a "must have" for vegans and vegetarians!

this holiday i decided to make the recipe for monkey (pull apart) cake from this cookbook. it's been a hit everywhere! (so far i've made 4 cakes for 4 different functions).

the best thing, is that it's super easy to make. i don't cook, so i appreciate easy to understand recipes.

that's the good thing about all of these recipes. they're simple and straight forward. with all the recipes i've tasted from the JWC cookbook, i haven't been disapointed yet. yum!

The Virginia Hostess is a fabulous guide for anyone! Whether you are an experienced chef or a novice, this cookbook is more than the average collection of recipes. It features themed chapters with beautiful historic sketches from Virginia. Each chapter has complete menus for different occasions, including showers, children's parties, formal dinners, picnics, holiday occasions and more! An educational and comprehensive wine selection section is included. I highly recommend this beautiful and resourceful cookbook and entertaining guide!

The menus ideas are terrific! I enjoyed all the recipes and was glad to have a cookbook that covers most any occasion. The layout is superb and makes a great bridal or hostess gift. This book has really made my life a lot simpler when I am called to entertain. I own a lot of cookbooks but this one is well worn and used often.

I've owned this book for a couple of years now, and have reallyused it alot! It has great recipes in it, but in addition, it hasmenu and entertaining suggestions, a list of Virginia wineries, and even ideas for kids' parties. (Who knew how to make face paint?) I also like the fact that it comes from a community service organization, so I know part of my purchase price went to a good cause.