Customer Reviews

Basics: The Foundations of Modern Cooking

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

For someone who is "kitchen challenged", as my husband says, this book is very helpful. It essentially explains, in easy terms, basic cooking techniques, what they are and how to perform them. There are some recipes that appear to be time consuming, but I love the book just for helping me to understand what "braising" is.

"The Basics" is a wonderful addition to a cookbook collection. It explains many techniques one might not be familiar with, alont with some one might never have heard of, but will be intriqued by. I learned a lot about methods I'd seen on Food TV but had never seen discussed in any other cookbook. The explanations were straight forward, and they made me want to try them, as well. Highly recommended.

I have given this lovely book as a gift to a young friend who is curious about cooking and has a strong aesthetic sense. Not only is the book a beautiful object with the gold edged pages, gold embossed lettering, red page marker and compact, black exterior it is illustrated with great photos and the pages are made of a substantial weight. The recipes are fun to read and consider as well as actually make and the skill level is varied. Perhaps this would not be the only cookbook on the shelf but it definitely deserves a spot.

The title of the books says it all: "The Basics". If you follow the directions of this book, you will have a firm grasp of basic cooking techniques, and you will be able to master pretty much any dish you wish to try in the future. This is actually the second copy of "The Basics" that we have purchased; our niece is a budding chef, and after seeing our copy, she begged us for her own. Now she is well on her way to cooking stardom.

This is a very sexy and marvelous book. The size is perfect; it nestles into your hand. The cover is a lovely simple black, the pages gold edges, with a gold ribbon to mark your place. It's full of breathtaking photos of food, shot masterfully. That it's in English and actually *useful* is just gravy.

I bought it the French version "La Base" a few years back when I was in Belgium, knowing full well I couldn't read all of it (I learned all my French via Tin Tin.) It's food porn at its finest (and a lot less heavy that The French Laundry Cookbook.)

My introduction to the book was on Martha Stewart. I looked for the book at Borders, but they were out of stock. In addition, the price was $30.
I purchased three copies. I plan to give them as xmas gifts. One to a novice cook, one to an experienced cook and one for me. I love the book.
Dollars well spent!

I bought a book for each of my sons and daughter-in-laws. It's a great reference book for anyone!

The introduction to ' the basics ' convinced me that it had been well thought out. So my first experience was when I wanted to make Sweet short crust dough - P.234 In the first line it calls for two sticks of butter. Uuugggggg??? How many grams or ounces is two sticks?? Was this written for the US market? and anyway since when does any professional not describe in grams or ounces - pints or litres etc. Oh well I bought it as a remainder so it was inexpensive.

Get real Filip or stay in the kitchen. Let someone else do the writing.

Pilgarlic aka Bruce Hart.

You think you know how to make mashed potatoes? You have no freaking idea. Anyone who knows anything about food loves this book and you will too. Julia Child leads up the JV cheerleading squad for bouillabaisse. Get back to basics.

I saw the author on Martha Stewart and was impressed by him. I had high hopes for his book, but was sadly disapointed. It doesn't really go into "the basics" in any detail, and is fairly useless as a cook book. I wasted my money.