Bob Blumer's Surreal Gourmet is one of the most-used cookbooks I have. Blumer's irreverent style is matched only by his recipes. Particularly good are the ceasar salad, steak au poivre, and herb butter, just to name a few. Bob's art is worth the price alone.

I love this cook book. It's simple and easy to follow. Bob explains why it's best to use certain ingredients that will make a difference in the overall flavor, like using sea salt or fresh herbs. I love the black olive spread, the eggplant spread and the caesar salad. But, I also learned some great simple techniques like using a good wooden bowl for making the caesar. I also liked the tips at the end of each recipe, for wine, music etc. This cook book has so much to offer, good food, lots of useful tips, great artwork, and it's so much fun to read.

This book might be fine if you have a dog or two. If you only have cats, as I do, there's not enough in it to justify the price. You have to wade thru many pages of material on dogs to find several sentences on cats.

There are also only about four recipes for cat food -- very repetitive and all using clams.

This is an excellent book on animal nutrition. It's clear enough for a layperson to understand, as long as they have some background in biology and nutrition. If you plan to feed your pets home-prepared diets, this book is a must-have reference. You will probably want to look at the Pitcairn book as well.

Strombeck used a computer to balance his recipes. This results in some awkward portioning, and some odd yields. Be prepared to use a pencil and paper to adjust the recipes to your needs, especially if you intend to make more than one serving at a time, or if you have multiple animals. The ease of use issues here lose him a star.

Faults aside, this book is refreshing in its objectivity. Strombeck backs up every single point he makes with hard science, unlike most other books on the subject. In a world where most animal care professionals learn their nutrition from materials provided by Hills, this little 300 page volume is invaluable.

So buy two copies: one for you and one for your vet!

For those of us who believe in and enjoy feeding our dogs whole foods, enjoy cooking for our dogs, and want to ensure the nutritional content of your home-cooked meals, this book is an answer to a prayer. It's filled with nutritional information and easy to follow recipes. The author has provided a chart for finding out the optium number of calories to feed your dog or cat, based on their weight, and the recipes have the number of calories listed. Very, very few of the commercially pet food labels provide the number of calories in their food. The book will provide you the basics, your own initiative can fill in for a little creativity with the recipes. Most important, you can assure no additives, no preservatives, no sugar, etc. for your pet. And for those of us with pets that tend to be chow hounds, you can monitor the number of calories easily. The author provides recipes for overweight dogs and cats, and for those with various medical problems. The author, Donald R. Strombeck, has been a vet for 40 years, and tells it like it is about most commercially prepared dog food. This book is not for those who advocate a raw meat diet for your dog or cat. The book is a must for those that are serious about home cooking for your pets and want balanced, sane, nutritional information, and to have a guideline to measure against to ensure you are providing what your pet needs.