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******************************* WINNER OF THREE MAJOR SPIFFY AWARDS FOR WINE SATIRE !!

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Book Review: 1,001 Complete Meals That You Can Whip Up in Less than 20 Minutes...

            1,001 Complete Meals That You Can Whip Up in Less Than 20
                              Minutes while Drinking Two Glasses of Red Wine,
                              That Everyone in Your Family, From the Vegan to
                              the All-meat Eater to the No-Fat Fanatic to the
                              Picky-Just-For-Picky's-Sake, Will Happily Consume,
                              That Contain Only Ingredients You Always Have on
                              Hand Anyway, Are Relatively Healthy Meals, and Cannot Be
                              Burned or Undercooked or Ruined in Any Other Way,
                              with a Special Supplement and Menus for Weekend or
                              Holiday Entertaining crafted by Some of North America's
                              Finest Executive Chefs. Third edition. (Pandemic Press, 2011, 781
                              pages,$49.99 CND hard covers) is by Roz Chast. It has
                              been authorized by the Professional Food Network
                              Television Cooking School. The title says it all.
                              There are full-page, full-colour gastroporn photos
                              by 12 international food stylists, and the book has been
                              endorsed (logrolled) by Charlie Trotter, Mario Batali, Gordon Ramsay, Rachel  Ray                              
                              and Emeril Lagasse. All recipes have ingredients
                              listed with every known weights and measures
                              system in the world. Bold face type fonts are used
                              where appropriate, and there are twelve wine
                              recommendations for each dish and budget. The last
                              chapter has several thousand tips and advice on
                              how to get others to clean up the kitchen and put
                              out the garbage (most of these involve enslavement
                              of the kids and pets). The book concludes with a
                              source list from every country in the world, plus
                              a comprehensive massive bibliography.
                              Audience: any cook in the land
                              Some impressive recipes: foie gras terrine for
                              under $10; oysters with chewable shells; no-veggie
                              salad; double chocolate mousse with triple creme
                              cheese augmented by a quadruple bypass; Chateau
                              Petrus alfresco bagatelle.
                              What I don't like about this book: the pages are
                              stiff and don't photocopy very well
                              What I do like about this book: the 100,000 items
                              index really works, especially the internal
                              seventh layer of the cross-references.
                              Quality/Price Ratio: 98.