Customer Reviews

The New Food Lover's Tiptionary: More Than 6,000 Food and Drink Tips, Secrets, Shortcuts, and Other Things Cookbooks Never Tell You

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"The Food Lover's Tiptionary" is a collection of tips and techniques on basic culinary subjects, organized alphabetically. I believe there are about 500 separate entries, but the book doesn't say. The 6,000 tips referred to on the book's cover fall under the entries. The book covers specific foods, general food categories, kitchen utensils, and culinary techniques. Food entries are presented in the following format: Tidbit (either a definition or food trivia), Purchasing, Equivalents, Storing, Preparing, Cooking, and/or Using. Some of the food entries are accompanied by short recipes. The formats of other types of entries vary, and may be best described by example: The entry for "Cookies" provides extensive instructions on making dough, preparing pans, baking, finishing, and storing. "Ice" gives general information and instructions for various ice cubes for different occasions. "Baked Goods" includes general baking tips. "Pasta Shapes" describes 65 shapes. Food quotes by recognizable names are scattered throughout the book, wherever the subject of the quote is found. There are several charts in the book, such as metric conversion, oven temperature equivalents, and pan sizes. And there is a Recipe Index in the back, for the over 100 short recipes found throughout the book.

Every cook could learn something from the "Tiptionary", but I think beginning or moderately experienced cooks will find it most useful. The subjects, themselves, are pretty basic. "Gourmet" subjects are few, and ethnic foods not at all. The entries are thorough, though, and would be helpful to an experienced chef if he/she doesn't happen to have experience with a particular food that is included. The emphasis is on instruction in "The Food Lover's Tiptionary", whereas the author's popular "Food Lover's Companion" emphasizes definitions. The "Food Lover's Companion" describes nearly 6,000 culinary terms -ethnic, gourmet, and obscure included.

I got this book because I love one of this author's other indispensable books, the New Food Lover's Companion. Whereas I use the latter for everything from good conversation fodder to look up menu terms, the Tiptionary, for me, a "cook's" book, tailor-made for those who love to cook. On the other hand, I think it would be great for people who don't love to cook, as it shows you how to navigate through almost any problem effortlessly. This Tiptionary has so many solutions for cooking questions big and small. For example, I finally learned how to prepare artichokes correctly (the book even has the technique for eating them, although I knew that). Oh, and so much, much more. I highly recommend this book and wouldn't give it up for anything.

Well, I've always been a pretty good cook (or so I'm told) but I have to say I keep finding answers in this book to questions I didn't even know I had! Someone gave me a bunch of pomegranates recently--too messy to bother with, I thought. Then I checked the Tiptionary and found out not only how to open and seed them (without getting stains all over the place!) but what to do with them. Huzzah! Since the pomegranate "incident" I find myself reaching for this book often--it contains so many solutions to so many dilemmas. It's like having a pro (or a Mom who's a good cook) there with advice. I love this book and plan to give loads of copies as gifts during the holidays. Thank you, Sharon Tyler Herbst!

Well, this book is certainly a winner. I LOVE to cook and know a lot about the subject, but a friend gave this to me for my birthday and I can't stop reading it. It's the little things that count for me, like information on pan substitutions (different sizes that will work for a pan you don't have) and temperature and measurement charts, and a pasta glossary. And I love the fabulous tips on all the foods. For instance, corn and tomato season is coming up and I've been buying a lot. This book gives me all kinds of tips on how to buy, store and prepare them, not to mention what to do with leftovers! I even learned how to make a juicier, more tender and less caloric hamburger. And I finally learned how to handle my microwave oven, which has been sitting unused for months. Need I say more? I LOVE THIS BOOK, and I think most people will, too.

I got this book for a present about six months ago and can't stop picking it up. I heard this author on the radio recently and she was just as engaging and informative talking about burgers as she was about wine-and all the info she discussed is in this book, so I figure it's a darn good deal.

I've been cooking for a long time, but keep finding great info in The Food Lover's Tiptionary-whether for everyday cooking techniques (such as for subjects like corn, eggs, potatoes, tomatoes, etc.) or for tips for special event preparations (like how to handle caviar, or different ways to prepare risotto). There's even info on kitchenware and appliances-from knives to food processors.

Love the "tidbits" at the beginning of almost every listing-little informational "bites" (history, etymology, etc.) that add so much to the subject. In short, LOVE this handy, easy-to-read, exceedingly informative book!

I've long been a fan of Sharon Tyler Herbst's books (have "The Ultimate A to Z Bar Guide," the "New Food Lover's Companion, the "Wine Lover's Companion" and "The Ultimate Guide to Pitcher Drinks"). So, when I recently received the new edition of her "Tiptionary" I eagerly started thumbing through it. This one's absolutely fabulous, and is also arranged in an easy A to Z format, which is one of the reasons I like this author's books so much! My new hubby's a hamburger fanatic (I'll convert him, yet;) so imagine my delight when I found over two pages of info on the subject. Now I cook his burgers just the way he likes them. Of course, I've found oodles of other subjects that make ME happy, like corn. The "Tiptionary" gave me dozens of hints on how to buy, store and cook it, and it has a super recipe for "Grilled Corn Off the Cob," which my spouse loves! And that brings me to another favorite feature of this book--it has dozens of short recipes scattered throughout. Not to mention that it tells you what to do with leftovers of whatever food you're looking up. Add to that loads of charts (temperature, measurements, pan sizes, pasta sizes, etc.), and you've got a book that every cook should have. Thank you, Sharon Tyler Herbst, for another great one!

As a veteran food service professional and a devotee of the Food Lover's Companion i expected a little bit more from this book. It's full of fantastic tips and tricks, many known only in the food service industry, but i would be hard pressed to see this used as a reference book. It's interesting light reading. I expected more food science and chemistry and less 'Hints from Heloise'. The author's reliance on non-stick aerosol spray oil is a little unnerving.
It will certainly find a place in my chef's office, but more for the intersting tidbits of knowledge regarding beets than anything else.
Much of this information would be useful for the casual cook, but it lacks the 'must-have' draw of the Food Lover's Companion.

Well, I got this book for my wife for her birthday, but I think I've referred to it as often as she has (we both like to cook). It has become indispensable for both of us because it always seems to have the answer to some cooking problem that, before, we would have muddled through on our own. There is so much information in this fat, friendly book that, so far, there hasn't been anything we needed to know that we couldn't find an answer to (now we know why our low-calorie muffins and biscuits always taste like hockey pucks--it is because there's no fat in them, and fat tenderizes baked goods.) My wife calls Sharon Tyler Herbst the "Dear Abby" of the kitchen and, as much as I hate to admit that she's right (again), I have to agree with her!

I flipped open this book at random the minute I got it and learned something new . . . and I keep learning the more pages I keep turning . . . cooking tips galore for everything I can think of. Thought I knew a lot about cooking, but The Food Lover's Tiptionary just seems to fill in the spaces and then some. This book's a pip . . . loads of info . . . a huge thanks to this book's author for making me feel even more at ease in the kitchen.

Trivia? I don't think so. This is a winner, no doubt about it. Any good cook will undoubtedly learn something here they didn't know . . . any beginner can't be without it. I learned a lot just flipping through it. And the other night, when I needed to thicken a soup, I just flipped to the "thickeners" page and found what I needed. I love the easy format, arranged alphabetically so I can immediately find what I need. I'm with Julia Child . . . I love this book!