Customer Reviews

The Best of Gourmet: A Year of Celebrations (20th Anniversary Edition)

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`The Best of Gourmet 20th Anniversary Edition' by the editors and writing staff of `Gourmet' Magazine appears better to me than I was expecting, especially if you are fond of entertaining between 8 and 12 people at a clip. If you are a regular subscriber to `Gourmet', I guess this book can be something of a tough decision, as virtually all the material herein is from the magazine. In fact, I would be willing to bet that practically all the recipes from the magazine in the last year are in this volume. I suspect it should be labelled `Everything but the Duds'.

The book has three main sections. The first, `Celebrations' is a collection of nine (9) menus based on specific common plus unusual twists on common events from around the world such as `A Russian Easter Feast' and `A Bohemian Thanksgiving'. Two things which immediately appeal to me about these menus aside from the excellent selection of themes is the large number of recipes per menu and the fact that the recipes are written to serve up to 10, rather than the usual 4 to 6.

The second, `The Menu Collection' is also recipes organized by seventeen (17) different themes conceived by season and occasion with some additional international themes and some menus for a somewhat larger than usual home entertainment gathering. Samples are `Dinner for a Dozen' and `A Modern Irish Supper'. I'm hard pressed to really see the difference between these two sections except that the first section is generally more formal.

The third section, `The Recipe Compendium' is organized like a conventional cookbook, except that it covers some topics such as breads and sandwiches which is not usually covered in conventional cookbooks.

Although I subscribe to `Gourmet', I have never found it as good a source on general cooking as `Cooks Illustrated', `Saveur', or `Fine Cooking', but it is a very good alternative to, for example `Cooks Illustrated' in that its recipes are created more to impress than to be practical for the amateur cook. Like all recipes published in periodicals, they have the advantage over individual authors in that they are reviewed by a standardized vetting process carried on by both culinary and literary (copy) editors, and I happen to know the `Gourmet' copy editor is very, very good.

For those of you who may not be familiar with the magazine's recipe style, I find they typically have little commitment to doing ethnically accurate recipes, but they are never entirely `easy' or entirely uninterested in ethnic recipe sources. On the one hand, for example, their recipe for the Spanish (Catalan) condiment, alioli is not only revisionist in the sense that it includes eggs, it is totally un-Spanish by including bottled mayonnaise as a principle ingredient. On the other hand, the recipe for Russian Easter bread which I have made several times and which I have compared to `authentic' versions is quite similar to recipes cribbed directly from the steppes. This book does me the special favor of being able to discard my worn copy of the `Gourmet' issue with this bread recipe, and I can ignore the mayonnaise alioli and rely on my various Spanish cookbooks for the real thing.

With a few exceptions, `Gourmet' generally doesn't go out of its way to give you quick versions, although the truly excellent index common to all recent `Gourmet' collections makes a point of identifying those recipes which can be done in 30 minutes or less. For all recipes, it does give the `active' time and the total time from start to finish. I suspect these times are for the experienced amateur cook. These books also have a truly excellent reference in the back for where to get any and all unusual ingredients or kitchen tools.

If you reallylike `Gourmet' magazine and you don't have a lot of cookbooks, this is an excellent `value added' collection of their recipes, which takes up less space than 12 issues. If you already own 500 cookbooks, it still has value in that it has some of the best entertaining material I have seen this side of Martha Stewart. I believe that if entertaining dinners is your thing, a complete set of these books may be as good or better than many books on entertaining, except for Miss Martha's classic `Entertaining'.

Better than I expected!

...that we had to own the 20th Anniversary Edition. Our 10th Anniv copy is well-worn. We love that book for its Four-Cheese Baked Bow Ties recipe alone. Gourmet offers remarkably clear, detailed instructions. We also enjoy the organization of the books.

As life progresses, my taste for good food is being refined. My New Orleans Creole heritage is connected to good food, so encountering a great cookbook that adds to my life is always a joy. The Best of Gourmet: 20th Anniversary Edition, A Year of Celebrations, will be more than a fancy cookbook to place on your shelf for its beauty. I found inspiration on the pages and, of course, new things to cook as I embark upon maintaining my health (as a baby boomer). Try the Stir-Fried Chinese Broccoli (p. 132) or the simple pound cake with blueberries and lavender syrup (easy to make and not hard to modify).
Produced by Conde Nast Publications, the book offers sections on celebrations, the menu collection, the recipe compendium, in addition to tips for using the gourmet's recipes. If you are a cook or simply a lover of food, The Best of Gourmet: 20th Anniversary Edition, A Year of Celebrations should be on the top of your list for new experiences as your life evolves.

I do not claim to be a gourmand. Or a chef. Or a cook. I did happen to cook for my family, and later just for myself. What prompted me to purchase this book was a recipe that I found in a homestyle magazine. Recipe good, book, eh. At this point in my life I want simple and good. To me, most of these recipes involved ingredients I could not easily obtain or involved a degree of work that was not welcome.

The main vibe I got from this book is that it will do very well on the East coast.