Quite honestly dessert recipes from the people at Cooks Illustrated are my flat out favorite. What ever they do, I believe they are some of the best that you will try. Their chocolate chip cookies are delicious and about as close as to a wonderful bakery as you are going to get. This series of books disappoints me. Think the size of a large postcard, that is going to be the size of this book, its not thick either. The Dessert Bible would be a better choice many more recipes than what this has at not a great increse in price. I am disappointed at the lack of content in this boo. Great recipes, but not a great price.

If you love peanut butter cookies and want to make them, then buy this book for that recipe alone -- they are heavenly. I plan to bake my way through this little book over the next few months. As usual the Cook's Illustrated team provides excellent recipes and explain the how's and why
s of their testing in order to achieve this excellence. My one disappointment is the brevity of the book, but I would still recommend it because the recipes are wonderful.

When I was growing up, my mom made the BEST chocolate chip cookies. Yes, every adult thinks that his mom's recipe was the best, but I've now found a recipe that tops even my mom's. I loved hers because they came out really thick and chewy. I'm not a fan of the traditional tollhouse cookies which I find are too flat and boring. Mom said she makes hers with vegetable shortening because butter spreads too much. But butter DOES taste better, and in this book is a recipe that uses butter AND results in a thick, chewy, gorgeous cookie. Sorry Ma, but they got you beat! The book is worth it for this recipe alone. But the Sugar Cookie recipe is also a winner. I ate half the batch as soon as they were cool. YUM! My one criticism is rather ungenerous number of recipes. But I'll take quality over quantity any day.

(The following review by Reed Holland appears in the December issue of Texas Co-op Power magazine) --- Robbers falls within the genre of darkly comic, smart-talk thrillers of Elmore Leonard, James Ellroy and James Lee Burke. Cook, whose novel will soon be published in England, France and Japan, writes with evangelical rhythms and a sheer joy for words that can make his prose read like Faulkner¹s or Cormac McCarthy's: "Vast stretches of land to a horizon unbroken save for lonely trailer homes perched queerly in the stepped green-brown expanse, as if dropped from the sky as an alien afterthought." Cook, who lives in Austin, aspires to the literary noire. He finds it in wasteland along the Houston Ship Channel that once was a leper colony, a highway on the Bolivar Peninsula broken away by the Gulf of Mexico, and a hardwood overstory so thick in Jasper County that a deluge of rain roars on the canopy, slowly dripping through, as the action takes a hair-raising turn. Make what you will of Cook's antiheroes, violence and frank carnality, but here's a Texas writer whose eye is keen, and whose voice is sure and strong.

(The following pre-release review was published in the fiction section of PUBLISHERS WEEKLY on October 9, 2000) --- The harsh, foreboding essence of rural Texas dominates Cook's bloody, bittersweet debut novel, charting the adventures of two criminal drifters and their pursuer ... The boys' aimless adventure eventually includes Della, a woman who patterns her life on women's magazines and desperately aspires to middle-class respectability ... as crafty Texas Ranger, Rule Hooks, picks up their scent. Hooks, a tracker by training and instinct, relies on modern police methods as well as his gut instincts to sniff out his prey. Cook's plot tumbles from scene to scene with jarring brilliance, the pathos of his characters lending his otherwise brutal world a certain beauty. His imagery is striking, almost lyrical ... This gritty crime drama is not for the faint of heart, but Cook¹s prose sets it a notch above many like novels. The publisher compares the book to the work of James Lee Burke; if booksellers push this comparison, or if they aim the title at a hip, youthful readership, it could make out like a bandit.

"Robbers" is an astonishing debut novel. Cook is as easy with his craft and characters as if he had been at this for years. The East Texas honky-tonk, just-getting-by-but-not-quite, the On the Road ambiance is the warp and weave of this book.

Ex-cons Eddie and Ray Bob, "runnin' buddies," stop at a convenience store for cigarettes. Eddie is a penny short of the price, and the stuffy clerk is adamant, and Eddie shoots him. It is hard to tell who is more amazed, Eddie or the victim. Eddie carefully lays down four one dollar bills and goes back to the car whereupon Ray Bob rushes back, cleans out the till (and retrieves Eddie's four dollars) grabs snacks, cartons of cigarettes and sandwiches. When he ambles back to the ragtop Caddie (stolen?), he announces, "You can't steal from a dead man." Their odyssey has begun, a rampage of raiding convenience stores and leaving dead clerks. They are shot with luck, as there never are any witnesses and things go well until they pick up Della, who has had a spot of trouble of her own.

Ray Bob is vicious, highly intelligent psychopath who is jealous of Della coming between him and his runnin' buddy. Eddie, a sweet dim bulb with the soul of an artist, is clearly over his head with the murderous Ray Bob and infatuated with Della. Della, an almost "babe" (her eyes are too close together) is a combination of low down schemer and "what's a nice girl like me doing with thugs like you."

You get to know these three like members of your family (though you wouldn't want to admit you knew them.) There is a Texas Ranger grimly trying to trail him, and victim's husband who is a religious zealot and a gun nut who is following the ranger, but Ray Bob, Eddie and Della are blissfully unaware. Texas wraps around you like a sandy scarf. You think this is going to end up like the gunfight at OK Corral, but Mr. Cook has many surprises in store before you reach that last page. When you close the book, you will think long and hard about justice, in the abstract and in the particular.

"Robbers" is wonderfully written, and I would choose it as my second favorite book of 2003 (after "Life of Pi"). There have been many comparisons made from Faulkner to James Lee Burke, but I'd have to say Mr. Cook has his own unique voice, and a very good one it is.
-sweetmolly-Amazon Reviewer

christopher cook is a pretty good regional writer. he writes the local excellent, and the dialogue is pretty close, and the people, the people are vintage east texans. and i know, i live in southeast texas. there's nothing wrong with being a regional writer, it's just that i don't think those outside of this area are going to be interested. the stories are only ok. at times he seems to be celebrating religion and at times satirizing it. cook is trying to make a statement, you can tell by the way he closes his stories, but he just doesn't quite get there. i felt 'lawbreakers in bethlehem' was the best story in the collection, followed by 'screen door jesus' an excellent satire of east texas fundamentalism. 'arc of flesh, ascending' 'the serpent' and 'a tinkling cymbal' fall far short of quality storytelling. the shift to first person narrative in the final story is a bit abrupt, doesn't close the sequence the way it should. all in all, cook has a lot of potential as a texas writer. i'll keep watching what he produces to see where he goes from here.

Christopher Cook may set his stories in a particular region of the country (East Texas, where he was born) but he's a lot more than a regional writer. For one thing, he lives in Europe. These stories really deal with universal human experiences, and they are powerful. They just happen to be expressed (sometimes tragically, sometimes hilariously) through the framework of the Southern fundamentalist culture. Just take a look at this review, which I picked up off the Dallas Morning News web site and agree with 100 percent:

The Dallas Morning News
Book Section
January 6, 2002

"Christopher Cook slyly examines religious factions and fractions"

By Bryan Woolley/ The Dallas Morning News

Early in the title story of Christopher Cook's new collection, the narrator - a 13-year-old Houston boy exiled to his grandparents' house in a small Southeast Texas town for the summer - describes his new cultural environment: "Mostly what they did was religion. A church on every block. Soon as one built up to a hundred members they'd fall into a fight, as if there was some critical mass beyond which people couldn't get along, and they'd form two new churches, like molecular division. Such disputes were said to be doctrinal. But Grandpa observed that if you peeled away that notion and looked underneath, what you'd find was a clash of personalities and American democracy in action."

All 10 stories in Mr. Cook's book are set in Bethlehem, a fictional burg in the steamy swamps and forests northeast of Houston. (In his magnificent thriller, "Robbers", published last year, a Texas Ranger pursues two serial killers through this same country.) In all the stories, the people of Bethlehem are "doing religion."

Some are practicing a sanctimonious, hypocritical, claustrophobic Main Street fundamentalist piety, a religious expression of narrow small-town minds and lives. Others are doing the Bible-thumping, weeping-and-moaning, hellfire-and-brimstone, washed-in-the-blood fundamentalism practiced in the little white frame Pentecostal and Baptist churches that are tucked amongst the trees along the two-lane highways of the Big Thicket and the Piney Woods. It's a simple and ruthless religion in which Satan is present and angels and demons fly among us. It's a religion in which the Antichrist and/or Jesus Christ may appear at any moment.

Neither religion allows for subtle shades of knowledge or interpretation or belief. Neither permits tolerance. Every word of the Bible is literal fact or it's a lie. A sinner is saved and headed for eternal heaven, or he's damned by his unbelief and bound for eternal torture.

Both faiths are replete with miracles and curses, punishments and dark emotion. Sometimes they're funny.

In "Screen Door Jesus," Mother Harper, while watering her gladiolas, beholds the image of Jesus in her screen door. This miracle, which she perceives at first as a blessing, turns into a curse. In "And I Beheld Another Beast," Veralynn Cunningham surreptitiously has her visiting grandchildren baptized at the Holiness Tabernacle, precipitating a crisis with their father and his new Catholic wife. In "Star Man," three oil-field hands who are driving to work on a cold Christmas Eve encounter a strange child and his mother in a roadside Waffle House. In "A Tinkling Cymbal" - a gripping fictional meditation on the Good Samaritan - a righteous and prudent banker refuses a loan requested by a down-and-out fellow church member, with dire consequences. In "Heresies," one of the funny stories, a couple of Pentecostal security guards eavesdrop on a gathering of liberal Protestant ministers at the John Shelby Boone Ecumenical Retreat Center.

Underlying all 10 of Mr. Cook's stories is a deep and fearless understanding of the Bible. As in Robbers, he's a master of setting, characterization, dialogue and narrative. The man knows what he's doing, and why.

Gather some insight into what the kitchen is really like at Dixter! Christopher Lloyd shares his secrets on when unusual fruit are ripe to pick from the tree, and how to cook some of those less common garden fruit and vegetables.

i love this book becase i has the best guide lines on how to make the best pies i made a great pie the best i had in my life. it is a great cook book and i think that it sould be more of a cook book than a book ...i may sound like i am pojest with cook books but i like to cook!

I've had this book for awhile, and finally decided to try it out. I followed the recipe for Beef Stew with Mushrooms, Bacon, and Pearl Onions ( and yes I tweaked it some, cause I can...), and it still came out great.

This book offers sensible information about the qualities that make a stew a stew. It offers a general format for making a stew, and I found the recipes to be flexible. I added some extras to the above recipe, and still enjoyed my end-product very much.

I initially made this purchase, because of the quality of product and information that Cook's Illustrated has provided me over the years. I find that the information is precise and simple enough to improve anyone's cooking level. C.I. will help you simplify the choices made in purchasing items ranging from cookware and appliances, to cookbooks and various food items/products. Thank you.

Like other reviewers, I was bowled over by the fantastic photos throughout this book. They are really beautiful and take me back to the year I spent in Brazil. My problem with the book is simple: There is no way anyone actually cooked by the majority of these recipies!! Ingredient amounts don't make sense, bowl and dish sizes don't make sense, cooking times don't make sense. Let me give one of the more egregious examples: In the recipie for Bolo de Aipim, the author proposes putting 2 pounds manioc root, 2 cups sugar, 4 eggs, 2 cups milk, and 2 cups coconut milk into a 9"x13" pan. These ingredients wouldn't fit into a pan twice that size! In addition, there is way, way too much liquid. This cake would take over an hour to firm up, not the 30 minutes he recommends. This is just one of dozens of examples.
I am tempted to recommend this book as a coffee table fixture, but I can not even do that. It is irresponsible of this author to write a book with grossly untested recipies. It is a waste of my money on ingredients and my time in the kitchen.
I do not recommend this book to anyone. There are many better choices for Brazilian cooking.

I have lived in Brasil for 2 years and I cook everyday. I recieved this book as a gift before I came here. Certainly the photos are nice, and maybe nice reading for some, but it is not a cookbook. THe ingredients are easily obtainable for me, obviously, but the recipes are overly cumbersome, and seem inacurate to me. I've tried a number of them and it seems like whoever the author got the recipes from didn't give him all the secrets. The idea is right, but following these recipes I seem to get a modified version of the real thing. Some of the fruit is inacurately identified. Sao Paulo has thousands of resturants, some are very good, some have big reputations for over priced dishes and unfortunately the author seems to concentrate on these resturants. Food is plentiful in Brasil, the land is rich, and the inventive Brasilians produce a vast variety of wonders to choose from. It is sad that the author missed the opportunity to include the everyday variety and great dishes of the common folk of Brasil.

I am from Brasil and disagree with the statement that this is not an accurate book. Yes, some recipes have been modified, but they have been modified so that they can be made with ingredients found in the US. I think it's a very colorful and well planned book. I like how it looks at the different foods from the different regions. I myself am from the state of Parana where most of the coffee is grown and a lot of the cattle. I highly recommend this book.

I normally am an advocate of any book or magazine published by Cook's Illustrated magazine. Unfortunately, this series of books are too small and the print too tiny to be practical. You have to hold it very close to your eyes to read it which makes it totally impractical for putting in your cookbook holder to refer to while cooking. Since the pages are so small, the recipes span several pages which isn't great for the cookbook holder either! I find it ironic that the subtitle says " An illustrated step-by-step guide to perfect potatoes every time.". There are only 8 illustrations in this particular book.

If you have ever tried to make a potato salad or french fries you will find that the process may sound simple, yet without a few tried and true methods you may end up with less than desirable results. This is the beauty of Christopher Kimball's books. He not only tells you which potatoes work best in each recipe, he explains the proper method for cooking and storing them. You will find a great secret on page 50 when making potato salad. You will also enjoy the descriptive writing these tiny treasures are so famous for. The only thing I would add to this book is the idea of serving the baked sweet potato with butter and maple syrup. If you are tired of boring baked potatoes, this is the book for you. I also recommend The Best Recipe by the same author.

I agree with most of the other reviews here, not too great. I got this at the same time I got Lucky's Collectors Guide to 20th Century Yo-Yos and I have to say it is a pale shadow of luckys book. Chriss Cooks book can't have more than 40 or 50 yo-yos listed, in comparison Lucky's Collectors Guide has photos of over 1000 yo-yos, and thousands of prices, extensive history. Heck, its amost a half inch thicker and its 8-1/2x11 inchs Its huge. I think I would have liked this book a lot if I had not seen Lucky's Collectors Guide.

Seems this book has gotten some bad press because it's not as big or text-rich as Lucky's Guide.

Phooey!

Many of the photos (and it's mainly a photo book) are bigger and clearer here than in Lucky's book...and there are quite a few which aren't in Lucky's book.

If you liked Lucky's book, you'll enjoy this one too. If you're a collector of yo-yos or yo-yo history, you'll need both books.

Neither are as helpful as Bill Alton's CARE & OPERATION OF THE NOBLE DISK (the best yo-yo book on the market), but they have many more pictures.

*jeep!

This a great book for those of you out there like me. I'm a yo-yo-aholic. This book has many strong points, there is a description of almost every yo-yo made in the US from the 20's through the 70's, the descriptions are brief but to the point, with destinctive markings etc explained. There is even a price range given for each yo-yo. The big draw back of the book goes alone with it's strongest point.....the photos. There are numerous photos of yo-yos, the problem....not enough....although I must add to have enough is probably immpossible for me. Bottom line, if your a collector get this book. It will help you price those yo-yos you've been eyeing at the local antique shop.