The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook: Featuring More Than 1,200 Kitchen-Tested Recipes Review

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(More customer reviews)Let me say right off that I love Cook's Illustrated and its sister publication, Cook's Country. They are one of the prime reasons for my reputation as a fine cook and baker. When I heard that this book would soon be published, I got very excited. I have waited for years for them to publish a general-purpose cookbook. I will treasure this book, but it's not without its faults--faults that came from taking the cheap way out.
Unlike other books put out by Cook's Illustrated/America's Test Kitchen, this book contains many new recipes developed over years expessly for this book. It may seem a little dishonest to review a cookbook without trying many of its recipes, but I can say after many years of using their magazines and books that their recipes are the most foolproof out there. My only quibbles usually just come down to differences in taste. Their recipes work and they are usually a cut above the rest. This book has over 1,200 recipes and is loaded with photographs and tips. Like all their publications, you'll find the book fascinating and you'll learn a lot that will improve your cooking results. Unlike many of the recipes in their other publications, this book's focus is on everyday cooking from the basic stuff on up. Think of it as a better-researched Betty Crocker or Better Homes and Gardens, but with higher standards.
I really hate to see excellence compromised, and that's what Cook's and their publisher have done. The design, layout (except for the dividers), thought, contents, etc. are all excellent and you can tell that years of preparation and work went into this book. If it had just been printed on thicker, glossier paper this book would be an instant classic. As it is, the paper is so thin (not as thin as Bible paper, but in waving distance) that it can be hard to turn a page without messing it up. And since the paper doesn't have a glossy finish, the photographs didn't reproduce well enough to show all the detail they were designed to do. Now, they don't look as bad as the crummy reproduction you see in, say, Better Homes and Gardens Magazine, but this lousy choice of paper has definitely COMPROMISED the overall quality of this book--and it's a shame. Also, the many dividers--although of thicker stock--aren't sturdy enough to really use their tabs to open to a section. Plus, they are not in alphabetical order--something that Betty Crocker learned long ago is necessary to make a cookbook handy--and with as many extra divisions as Cook's has put in this book, it just makes it that much harder to find what you're looking for. I realize that the choice of paper was almost certainly made to keep down the cost and bulk of the book (it's approximately 850 pages), BUT they made the wrong choice. I sincerely hope that Cook's gets enough complaints that this book is soon reprinted properly.

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