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Traditionally, modern cookbooks give very precise recipes, often involving multiple steps and a lot of time, to create a chef-worthy dish. There are some that specialize by offering three-ingredient recipes or thirty-minute meals, but those are part of their own niche market. This book doesn’t fit in either category. With few measurements and fewer temperature recommendations, it somehow pares cooking down to a more natural state and ends up freeing the would-be cook to be more original, creative, and fearless. It reminds the cook that knowing several essential ingredients and how they work in the kitchen is a foundation for countless opportunities in taste.
Finnegan’s personality, bold and unapologetic, is the driving force behind the writing in this book. She includes several mini essays such as the history of cheese, eggs, and pepper. These are interesting and help the book read more like a non-fiction work one can read from cover to cover rather than a cookbook used in an informational, reference manner. The book leaves the reader with the feeling that learning these cooking concepts, or building blocks, is much like having a grounded understanding of how an engine or electricity works. There was a time when people used to send their children or a newly married couple a basic Betty Crocker cookbook. If that tradition still lived, it would be beneficial to include this book as well. This is easy to recommend to someone interested in cooking, new to cooking, or maybe a little burnt out with, or overwhelmed by, the modern cookbook.
RECOMMENDED by the US Review