Now You're Cooking: Everything a Beginner Needs to Know to Start Cooking Today [Hardcover]

Elaine Corn (Author), Daniel McClain (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1994 | ISBN-10: 1883791006 | ISBN-13: 978-1883791001 | Edition: 1St Edition

Here is a great introductory cookbook for intelligent, otherwise competent adults who never learned how to cook. Included are 150 easy-to-prepare recipes, plus a basic look at cooking techniques and equipment. A special section answers all the questions a beginner might have about ingredients, methods, and more.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

If you're not sure what all those cooking utensils in your kitchen drawer are for, Now You're Cooking: Everything a Beginner Needs To Know To Start Cooking Today is for you. With straightforward instructions for everything from boiling water for pasta to what to do with a colander, Elaine Corn, a food writer, cooking teacher and author of Gooey Desserts, guides the novice through the ins and outs of the kitchen, offering 120 simple, but delicious recipes along the way. The book won the 1995 Julia Child Award in the General Category.

From Library Journal

For those who are terrified by the word saute or don't have the faintest idea of what to do with a colander, this is the perfect book. Corn is a food writer, cooking teacher, and author of the irresistible Gooey Desserts (LJ 11/15/93). Her new book grew out of a newspaper series, and it explains, in an extremely unintimidating manner, everything from how to boil water for pasta to the easiest way to clean up the kitchen. Along the way, there are 120 recipes, all of them simple but most of them intended to be served to company (as well as family). In the same vein as Lora Brody's The Kitchen Survival Guide (LJ 5/15/92) but more "grown-up," this is recommended for most collections.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 319 pages
• Publisher: Harlow & Ratner; 1St Edition edition (October 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1883791006
• ISBN-13: 978-1883791001
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #121,169 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Helped Me Change My Life - Really!, July 9, 2005

By 

Victor L. Peters (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Now You're Cooking: Everything a Beginner Needs to Know to Start Cooking Today (Hardcover)

This book has been wonderful! As a 29 year-old bachelor I have never learned to cook and lived for years on pre-made foods. As I'm settling down now with my love, I decided I had to learn to cook. But in the past I found cookbooks and friends who tried to show me to cook very frustrating because rather than truly teaching, they assume that you know a lot of things and haphazardly tell yuo what to do on a certain recipe.

I wanted to learn to cook in a methodical well thought out way from the bottom up. This book was the solution! It starts with descriptions of essential cooking preperation techniques and what ingredients and tools you should have in your kitchen. It goes through very simple recipes and gradually builds to harder recipes. Each recipe explains the fine points of how to prepare it. In other words, it really "teaches" you to cook rather than "telling" you how to prepare a recipe. And it does it well!

I only found two small downsides. As I went through the book, sometimes I craved a few fancier and stronger flavored recipes, but the recipes were all very enjoyable and designed at an appropriate level of difficulty. It also would be nice if they had pictures to illustrate and inspire.

Over the last six months, I have gradually gone through 80% of the recipes. I'm excited becasue some of the best recipes are still to come, and now I'm looking forward to what cookbooks I'll start studying next!

This book was what I needed to help me go from a non-cooking bachelor to a cook for life. I hope it will help you too.

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars fantastic, July 18, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Now You're Cooking: Everything a Beginner Needs to Know to Start Cooking Today (Hardcover)

This is the best cookbook I have ever owned. It was one of the first cookbooks I bought, and my experience with it (rave reviews) convinced me cooking was not hard and I could master this art and really go to town for guests. I have just emerged exhausted and humiliated after exploring the high end, fancy, haute-cuisine cookbooks in an attempt to impress, and after disastrous attempts at bistro cuisine, realize that its back to the basics with Elaine for me- her recipes are delicious, foolproof, and because I grew up refusing to learn how to cook, a true lifesaver.

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars For beginners AND the "well-seasoned", May 22, 2003

By 

George Bragg (Toronto, Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Now You're Cooking: Everything a Beginner Needs to Know to Start Cooking Today (Hardcover)

I've been cooking for almost 20 years (in university, I lived with two guys who couldn't boil water without detailed instructions, so I did all the cooking), and I've successfully pulled off small-scale dinner parties (up to 8 people). So I know which end of a melon-baller to use.

I still found this book helpful - it demystified some things, and gave me a few new ideas - and a few more rave reviews at Easter dinner!

The only thing this book lacks (and it's probably too big a topic to cover) would be a brief examination of some of the more popular spices, what flavours they impart, and what foods they go best in/with.

VERY strongly recommended!!!