Cooks Book of Essential Information or Thawed

Cook's Book of Essential Information: A Kitchen Handbook

Author: Barbara Hill

Everything you really need to know about buying, cooking, and storing food is here in one easy-to-use volume. Packed with essential information for both the experienced and the beginning cook, this is a kitchen encyclopedia to keep handy when you need fast, accurate answers to your food questions.

Publishers Weekly

Among other things, this title addresses the small, practical problems that at times plague the home cook. Can the casserole be frozen? What does the recipe mean by ``proof the yeast?'' Which part of the lemon is the ``zest''? How many pounds to the cup? What's a substitute for cake flour? How many minutes comprise ``cook until done?'' Hill provides the answers to these and other questions in seven ambitious chapters. Also included are a dictionary, a concordance of ingredients, menu-planning strategies, advice on food storage, tables of equivalents, descriptions of kitchen equipment, tables of nutritional values, andone of the book's most intriguing featuresan appendix listing many common food additives. As a whole, Hill's work is comparable to Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking but geared to novices. Inevitably there are gaps, but at this price it's a bargain. (July)

Interesting textbook: Uptown Country or Gourmet Gardener

Thawed: A Collegiate Guide to Food

Author: Christine Ravago

This ends the perpetual cycle of food ignorance! Christine Ravago brings to your apartments what mom forgot to teach you about food and cooking. Thawed contains the fundamentals of cooking through easy recipes, photographs, and basic guidelines for buying and storing food, grilling, and entertaining. After the first few years of college or even your first years starting a career and after you've had enough greasy pizza and microwave dinners, Thawed serves as a fool-proof start to your cooking repertoire. Thawed fuses timeless recipes with sugar and spice to bring you excitingly modern meals to pass on for generations. The recipes featured in Thawed have been tested and tasted by your peers, and the results are in...it's easy! Whether it's to impress the girl you just started dating, to gather friends together for a round of juicy gossip, or to celebrate youth, Thawed provides you with the cooking know-how and elegant meals that will leave your guests utterly astonished.