Years ago a copy of Cook's Illustrated fell into my hands. This cooking magazine reads like the researchers and writers at Consumer Reports decided to hang out in Martha Stewart's cooking studio for a while. Cook's Illustrated was created by Christopher Kimball and released its first issue in 1993. The magazine, like all of the projects stemming from that initial endeavor (e.g., Cook's Country, America's Test Kitchen is a very serious and disciplined approach to cooking (but also very guaranteed to deliver spot-on results). In Kimball's own words, he set out to make recipes bulletproof after having identified most home cooks' impediments of 1) being haunted by a fear of failure and 2) not following recipes to the letter. Having tried many of his recipes throughout the years, he accomplished his goal.
Because the magazine does not rely on advertising or insulting product placement, the subscription is a little pricey. However, CI recently released The Cook's Illustrated Cookbook containing 2,000 recipes over the last 20 years for the reasonable price of $28.00. (If you are a subscriber to the America's Test Kitchen newsletter, you received the offer for $24.00.) Give it a look.
Visit the Cook's Illustrated website here, and you can read about the interesting Kimball here. My favorite part is a former editor describing Kimball's awkwardness by saying, "Maybe he doesn't say hello to you in the hall the first two years, but who else is going to let you run up a $1,000 meat tab to make ribs?"
No comments:
Post a Comment