Shhh! Its a secret…

I really could buy a thousand cook books – ironic seeing that I rarely follow a recipe, avoid measuring things and have little to no storage room for them.  This is a book that reads like a blog – quick, sweet, practical.

Each tip is about 2 small pages (the book is just larger than your typical CD case) and is collected from a different chef from around the culinary world.  Small chef bios educate us to who the contributors are, what makes them what they are and help provide insight to the tip.  There are quirky comments and out takes from each Chef who shared their tips with Francine Maroukian (who has also contributed to CHOW).

This well organized book breaks fast facts into 8 chapters:
Technique
Meat & Poultry
Fish & Shelfish
Produce
Rice, Beans & Past
Kitchen Staples
Desserts & Baking
Equipment

More than 75 small articles in this lovley little book.  The illustrations are endearing and the advice is very practical.  I have benefited from these quick and easy tips – including finding new ways to dry parsley, bringing pork (so simple and interesting), improve your sauces, fold burritos, improving tomatoes and more.  It is well indexed and each tip will take no more than a few minutes to peruse.  The book is remarkably priced and available from the publisher in addition to many of your typical on-line sources, often at a discount.  At $17USD you are in for a treat indeed!

You can read this much like a novel as opposed to a cookbook – a lovely lunch date in my opinion.  I have sipped slurpped many bowls of pho and browsed these pages at random.

I got my copy at one of the most lovely stores in the world (and in Toronto to boot) named The Good Egg.  More about them at a later date!