Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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60 of 68 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent reference and recipe book, October 14, 2007
I just bought this book over the weekend on a whim. Holy moly - out of the 40 or so cookbooks I own, this is the first that I have decided that I *must* cook every single recipe within, a la Julie and Julia. This is a great reference manual (not for the absolute-beginner cook, however), but the recipes contained within promise excellent meals, and probably a 75 pound weight gain over the next year.
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133 of 157 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Superb Introduction to Cooking. Buy It NOW!, October 18, 2007
`Cook with Jamie, My Guide to Making You a Better Cook' by the British culinary wunderkind, Jamie Oliver, is a long drink of cool water for fans of Oliver, and a joy to read for any dedicated foodie, who enjoys reading cookbooks. It is a special treat to read two manuals on `how to cook' in the same month from such distinguished practitioners such as Oliver and Alice Waters.
At 447 pages, plus fabric bookmark sewn into the spine, this is obviously a serious book, especially since it lacks some of the graphical razzle dazzle and cutie pictures which have cluttered some of Oliver's books in the past. As Jamie himself says, this almost seems like it should be his first book instead of his seventh. Oliver even goes so far as to hope he has created `a timeless, modern-day classic' manual on how to cook.
The book has much which would qualify it for consideration as a `timeless classic'. Unfortunately, the bar for `timeless culinary classics' is pretty high, set, among others, by Oliver's compatriots, Elizabeth David, Jane Grigson, Claudia Roden, and Nigel Slater. So, while I don't believe it achieves those Olympian goals, it is still a very, very good cookbook, especially for younger readers and students.
The thing which sets Oliver apart from practically everyone else who chants the `fresh, seasonal, organic, local' mantra is that Oliver is committed to these principals in his heart and soul. He is not just repeating a party line. And, that commitment jumps off of almost every page in this book. This and his overall `joie de vivre' are simply infectious, and they bring his cookbooks alive with enthusiasm. Like many of his other books, especially `jamie's Italy' and `jamie's kitchen', one is almost surprised at how many original culinary insights one encounters on his pages. Given the pedagogical objectives of this book, they are more common (and certainly more highly expected) in this book than in his others.
My five favorite sections in this book are:
The Salads chapter. I would line this up with the comparable chapter from salad specialist, Alice Waters in `The Art of Simple Food', and I believe Jamie would match her point for point. Oliver and Waters both arrive at roughly the same place, but Oliver has the skill of getting points across just a bit more dramatically than Miss Alice.
The Fresh Egg Pasta section. Oliver here does things which are missing from even the best pasta instructions from Marcella Hazan. Hazan may demonstrate the basic technique more effectively, but Oliver gives excellent pictorial instructions on making six (6) classic fresh pasta shapes.
The Selection of Dried Pasta Recipes. This, of course, is Oliver's real forte. With his apprenticeships with Gennaro Contaldo and London's River Café, I believe his selection of pasta dishes is second to none in tastiness and originality.
The Diagrams on Cuts of Meat. Almost all other diagrams of this sort you see are more complicated, and the diagram of the chicken cuts is a bit misleading, but the simplicity of the hoofed animal parts is remarkably illuminating, especially in the way the loins are depicted.
The Vegetables Chapter. Oliver rhapsodizes about vegetables with as much or more virtuosity he applies to salad greens. Sir Jamie cleverly concentrates his attentions on those vegetables which are most familiar to UK, Irish, Aussie, and American tastes, with several different recipes for potatoes; carrots; peas; leeks and onions; broccoli and cauliflower; cabbage and zucchini.
I must also give honorable mention to the sections on custards and meringues in the chapter on desserts. The chapters on pasta, vegetables, and salads alone are worth the price of this book. Everything else is pure gravy.
For those of us who have not seen Sir Jamie since his `Jamie's Kitchen' TV series, the introduction brings us up to date on his `Fifteen' project where he subsidizes the culinary educations for deserving teens who have had something of a tough time of it in the world. There are now five `Fifteen' restaurant / apprentice shops, with three in the UK, one in Amsterdam, and one in Australia, and all the profits from this book will go to support that endeavor.
While I love the book, overall, it is not quite the great tutorial on how to cook that Jamie may have been aiming for. It has great insights, fine sections on choosing equipment, food safety, and herbs and spices, but it simply does not cover everything you would expect in a textbook. The treatment of pastry, breads, shellfish, soups and stocks and egg dishes is too light. There is very little on serious knife skills, and there is no bibliography. If I were to recommend a single culinary manual to an earnest, inexperienced amateur, I would suggest Waters' `The Art of Simple Food' unless the person had a serious Jones for Italian cuisine or they were in high school or middle school.
But that does not mean this is not a dandy book. More than any of Jamie's earlier efforts, this one really deserves your attention if you love food, and especially if you teach younger people about food. Aside from its snappy insights, the rich photographs are more likely to appeal to an inexperienced cook. The only thing which may be lost on a newbie is the great originality of so many of Oliver's dishes, many of which were developed in the `Fifteen' kitchens. For this virtue, the book stands as a great cookbook in itself, even if you ignored the pedagogical material.
My final word on Jamie's book is that unlike most writers, Jamie can evoke in the reader with his enthusiasm those special flavors and sensations so important to working with food. He does not have the literary elegance or encyclopedic range of Elizabeth David, but he certainly gives Nigel Slater and Nigella Lawson a run for their money as a pretender to David's throne.
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Jamie describes his favorite recipes, April 29, 2008
I just love to watch Jamie on his BBC program, and this is the first of Jamie's books that I've purchased. (I'd now like to order one more of his famous books).
Anyhow, what I simply love about this particular cookbook are all of Jamie's wonderful HINTS and GOOD INFORMATION that Jamie lays out for the reader at the very beginning of each Chapter and also within each sub-category.
Because I've seen Jamie on TV so many times, I am very familiar with his (rather cute) lingo, such as "dollop" and "knob",for example. His lingo does not turn me off,as some have stated, but rather, I like his way of speaking because it makes Jamie seem more REAL to me! .....And because Jamie projects such an approachable personality, the readers (and TV viewers) are, of course, instantly drawn to him and his cooking style.
YES, there is a photo of every single recipe, and YES, that is a good thing!....As another commentator stated, "there is alot to be said for photos of every recipe".
Some of the recipes would be hard for a beginner to duplicate , or even to comprehend. For example, "The Squash Sage and Amaretti Risotto" would be a difficult recipe for a beginner cook to visualize. Yes, the photos are tantilizing, however, some of the combinations may be hard to phathom (from a novice cook's perspective). Another example is the "Squid with Black Pudding stuffing and sticky tomato sauce" (hum???), or the "Perfectly Cooked Crispy Duck with Spiced Plum Chutney". Would a beginner "get it" or be turned off? (Just something for beginners to keep in mind).
However, if a reader of this book has seen Jamie actually cook on TV and has seen how his chosen flavors can actually "work", then MOST of the recipes in this book are very doable,FUN,and exciting! These are some of my favorites:
~~Summertime Tagliarini , p. 68
~~The best Onion Gratin, p. 333
~~Must-Try Red Cabbage, p. 358
~~Overnight SLOW Roasted Pork, p. 174
~~Rib Roast, p. 154
~~White Fish, p. 222
~~Black Cod, p. 226
~~Lemon Drizzle Cake, p.383
~~Easy Shortbread, p. 412
~~Schnitzels, p. 182
~~Baked Ham Shanks, p.162
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