The New Cooks' Catalogue [Bargain Price] [Hardcover]

Burt Wolf (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 24, 2000

Updated, expanded, thoroughly revised, and now in full color--the definitive guide to cooking equipment and utensils

This book offers detailed evaluations of more than a thousand items of kitchen equipment--from paring knives to grill pans to espresso machines--providing you with practical information about brands, models, size, function, and performance. Each entry is accompanied by a color photograph and includes features and tips on care and usage. Also included are sections on what to look for when purchasing, as well as recipes and sidebars by more than a hundred culinary celebrities.

Whether you are setting up a kitchen for the first time or adding to a long-standing collection, you will find The New Cooks' Catalogue an invaluable and entertaining guide to making the right selections.

Contributors  include:

Bruce Aidells
Lidia Matticchio Bastianich
Mario Batali
Michael & Ariane Batterberry
Rick Bayless
Daniel Boulud
Terrance Brennan
Giuliano Bugialli
David Burke
Penelope Casas
Helen Chen
Julia Child
Bernard Clayton
Shirley Corriher
Marion Cunningham
Ariane Daguin
Rocco DiSpirito
Alain Ducasse
Florence Fabricant
Susanna Foo
Larry Forgione
Edward Giobbi
Dorie Greenspan
Jessica B. Harris
Marcella Hazan
Maida Heatter
Pierre Hermé
Ken Hom
Dr. Ernesto Illy
Steven Jenkins
Thomas Keller
Gray Kunz
Daniel Leader
Sarabeth Levine
Michael Lomonaco
Nobu Matsuhisa
Michael McCarty
Danny Meyer
Joan Nathan
François Payard
Jacques Pépin
James Peterson
Alfred Portale
Paul Prudhomme
Eric Ripert
Claudia Roden
Douglas Rodriguez
Michael Romano
Julie Sahni
Marcus Samuelsson
Nancy Silverton
Raymond Sokolov
André Soltner
Jane & Michael Stern
Christopher Styler
Jacques Torres
Barbara Tropp
Margaret Visser
Jean-Georges Vongerichten
Alice Waters
Nach Waxman
Jasper White
Paula Wolfert
Kevin Zraly

--This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Book lovers, research hounds, and recipe collectors rejoice! Twenty-five years after the original, The New Cooks' Catalogue has arrived. For book lovers, this enormous white hardcover is printed beautifully on handsome paper, filled with full-color photos of every piece of kitchen equipment you can think of, from a set of Endurance spice spoons to the Omega 4000 juice extractor.

For research hounds, and really anyone who thinks twice before picking up a new tool or appliance for the kitchen, this is a massive volume of Cliffs Notes. Thinking about a blender? Countertop or immersion? Cuisinart, KitchenAid, Waring, Krups, or Hamilton Beach? What should you look for in terms of design, weight, capacity, noise, power, speeds, and cleaning? What does the UL symbol mean? This volume provides the answers to questions you didn't even know you should ask. Burt Wolfe has been researching kitchen equipment since 1969 and there isn't a question he hasn't thought of. The chapters are broken up by tool category, such as measuring devices, griddles, grill pans and irons, and handheld utensils for beating, mixing, whisking, stirring, and lifting. Peppered with interesting, helpful information on subjects like Japanese knives, strainers, and baking and pizza stones, kitchen gods and goddesses will love nothing better than to curl up with their favorite beverage to peruse the contents.

Recipe collectors, do not fear. Wading through this wealth of information rewards you too. Each section includes recipes from famous chefs using that section's equipment. Use your fry pan to make Pork Chops with Cream and Calvados, use a skimmer for Poached Spiced Figs, slice Gravlax with Mustard Sauce with a fish slicer, and make Ginger Ice Cream or Buttermilk Sorbet in your ice-cream maker. With contributions from more than 100 of the world's leading food authorities, among them Bruce Aidells, Julia Child, Rick Bayless, Marion Cunningham, Francois Payard, Nancy Silverton, and Thomas Keller, to name a few, it really is like getting a bonus cookbook with your encyclopedia.

And everyone will be entertained by food-related cartoons from The New Yorker, so funny and appropriate you'll find yourself hunting them down when what you really need is a new proofing basket or crème brûlée dish.

A great reference guide for kitchen tool collectors and aficionados, as well as anyone outfitting a kitchen from scratch, Wolfe has included so much information, both general and specific, that even when the models described are out of date, you'll still know what to look for, and how to find it. --Leora Y. Bloom --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

Picking and choosing the correct kitchen implements can affect the outcome of a dish as much as its ingredients. The New Cooks' Catalogue gives color and black-and-white photos of all sorts of kitchen equipment, from measuring spoons through stockpots, paring knives through meat grinders, and pie pans through turbot poachers. For the amateur cook, this compendium of all instruments culinary reads like the ultimate wish book. Cartoons from the New Yorker and occasional recipes lighten the text's prodigious technical data. A highly useful reference tool for answering questions about obscure cooking implements. Mark Knoblauch
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 528 pages
• ISBN-10: 0375406735
• ASIN: B0001GMIQW
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 9.1 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,250,896 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nothing Else Like It!, December 22, 2000

By 

J Keistler "[e-mail]" (Lake Jackson, Texas USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The New Cooks' Catalogue (Hardcover)

I still have my original Cook's Catalogue, bought when I was in college. I wasn't new to cooking then, but I sure hadn't seen devices like he showed in that book! I fell in love with it then, over the next 20+ years purchased some of the equipment in there, and wondered if there would ever be a followup.

Well, here it is, and it is as inclusive as the original! Unlike a prior reviewer, I enjoy reading about the arcane and unique pieces made for cooking. I don't want a book of this scope written like Consumer Reports. In the first place, even Consumer Reports' product evaluations are usually subjective. Plus, their prices aren't accurate. Yes, I rather wish Mr. Wolf had at least given some range of prices for items in the book. However, I don't consider it a real drawback, as prices do vary enormously even on the web.

I found the recipes and other inserts pleasing and practical. The color photos were also welcomed for this edition. There is literally no way to cover all kitchen products on today's market, but Mr. Wolf goes further than anyone else I've seen in trying.

I tend to be a kitchen gadget and utensil freak anyway so this book is right up my alley. Otherwise, and particularly for the novice in cooking, I have doubts about its utility.

32 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Every cook's essential tool guide!, November 9, 2000

By 

Michael Fletcher (Murrieta, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The New Cooks' Catalogue (Hardcover)

Kudos to Burt Wolf for creating an indispensable collection of kitchen cookware, gadget, tool, electrical appliance and everything but the kitchen sink reviews for both the new and experienced cook. There are tons of books dedicated to recipes and cooking, but this book gives you wonderful information on what cooking equipment to buy. I feel so much more informed and confident in my purchases since I've used this book. It has reviews and information on kitchen essentials all the way to esoteric gadgets you never knew existed. It's a great way to inventory and stock your kitchen. I also love the fact that it includes pictures and descriptions of currently available items with reviews written from an unbiased viewpoint. Also included are insights from many well known and talented chefs.

This should have been called, "The Kitchen Equipment Bible." It's that good! Highly recommended.

38 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Nice But Disappointing, December 14, 2000

By 

jerry i h (Berkeley, CA USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The New Cooks' Catalogue (Hardcover)

The New Cooks' Catalogue Review

NICE, BUT DISAPPOINTING

I regret to say that I was disappointed by this 25th anniversary update of a venerable old classic. It seems to be chock full of information, but when you look up a specific category, remarkably few items are actually reviewed. The author states in the Introduction that many thousands of products were tested, and there was not enough room to list all of them. Granted, but there seems to have been plenty of space for tangential stories, recipes, and cartoons. I also object to the emphasis on obscure and rarely used tools; they are quite interesting, but also quite superfluous. Please note that the items are not ranked or compared in any way, nor are there specific recommendations as to what to buy (except in a couple of rare cases, and even then they do not come right out and say that you should have one of these) or what to avoid, so this book is only marginally useful as a shopping guide for kitchen tools. In this edition, they have also decided not to include prices. The stated justification for this is that the prices become out of date within weeks of publication. True, but very expensive and very inexpensive tools are listed side by side, and some indication as to their costs would be a big help, as many buying decisions will be based on price. A simple warning in the preface would have sufficed about constantly changing prices. I also find the reviews of electrical equipment to be suspect; for these, I recommend you stick to a tried and true resource, like a consumer magazine. It also lacks a beginner's list of essential kitchen tools to have. This can be a problem, as a kitchen novice might draw the conclusion, after reading this book, that many hundreds of tools are necessary kitchen basics.

Still, I greatly enjoyed going through this elegant coffee table book. I even learned a couple of things, like the $40 cooking spoon, the griddle made of green soapstone, and the vacuum pot coffee maker. I found out about the $40 price not from the book, but when I tried to buy one at a nearby kitchenware store. The most valuable part of this book is the list of recommended cookbooks at the back. At $30 or $40 a throw, there are far too many mediocre cookbooks in print today.

If you approach this book as an all-inclusive, everything-including-the-kitchen-sink encyclopedia of kitchen tools, it works. However, if you are interested in a list of basic items to equip a home kitchen or some type of buying guide, you will have to look elsewhere.