Eating a meal at Campanille is a pleasure. The food is wonderful, better every time, rustic, aromatic, lusty and rich. The cookbook helps you recreate their food.

The Gravlax recipe is my favorite. It is easy to prepare, very impresive, and has the silkiest texture.

Beautiful photographs, well laid out lists of ingredients, not a book for someone just starting out as cooking instructions are pretty terse.

"Good taste is one of those elusive qualities that most people find hard to define, even though they know it when they see it. In general, however, it denotes quality, simplicity, and ease. When applied to food, taste is also present when good ingredients are cooked in an honest way that highlights the essence of their taste, texture, and appearance." -Chuck Williams

Chuck Williams' philosophy is to celebrate the pleasure of cooking. He opened his first store in Sonoma, CA in 1956 and now more than 200 stores have opened in the United States. He has literally helped to revolutionize cooking in America.

My first introduction to a Williams-Sonoma store was when some friends bought me the cutest Les Garcons Dinnerware as a wedding present. French artist Guy Buffet is renowned for his whimsical impressionistic style and creates the porcelain plates, each with a different waiter. They are made exclusively for Williams-Sonoma and are a favorite collectible.

Later, while walking through Bellevue Square in Bellevue, WA I saw the plates there and then fell in love with cooking stores.

The Best of Taste is a 320 page compilation of the favorite recipes from the first year of Williams-Sonoma TASTE Magazine. Many of the world's greatest chefs have made a contribution to this cookbook. Marimar Torres, Joyce Goldstein, Nancy Silverton, Patricia Wells, Deborah Madison, Jean Georges Vongerichten to name a few.

Throughout this cookbook, you will find 250 beautiful, larger-than-life photographs. Fascinating pictures of a bakery in Paris or a honey farm in Manhattan. There are also photographs of the techniques in the recipes to illustrate the food preparation steps.

Each recipe has the most gorgeous picture and a full page with an easy to read ingredient list and numbered instructions.

The contents include (with recipe selections):

Introduction
Drinks - Guava Colada to Tropical Delights

Starters - Spicy Crab Cakes, Endive with Crab, Bacon wrapped dates, Balkan Meat-Stuffed Potato Pastries, the cutest Caviar Purses, Sizzling Shrimp with Garlic.

Soups & Stews - Gorgeous Avocado-Cucumber Soup, Spanish Garlic Soup, Beef and Onion Stew.

Salads - Marinated Zucchini and Goat's Cheese Salad, Apple, Celeriac and Chestnut Salad, Kidney Bean and Chicken Salad.

Entrees - Matambre, Stuffed Lamb with Eggplant and Feta, Veal Involtini with Grilled Anaheim Chiles, Fish Baked in Salt, braised Short Ribs with Bok Choy.

Sides - Green Garlic and Spinach Soufflé, Butternut Squash with Dates and Pistachios, Hot and Spicy Roasted Pears (from the cover), Stir-Fried Eggplant.

Desserts - Buzzy Bees (cookies), Chocolate Chunk Cherry Biscotti (talk about heavenly), Chocolate Rum Truffles, Nun's Breasts with Pumpkin Cream (a pillow of pumpkin pastry cream atop a crunchy cornmeal oatmeal cookie, showered with powdered sugar), Plum and Grape Cobbler, Cherry -Almond Cake, Orange Custard, Pomegranate Sorbet and a divine Chocolate Soufflé.

I feel a little heady just typing all those delicious dessert names.

A definite collectable you will actually want to cook from! Also perfect for coffee table reflection. Just as fun to read as to cook from. Your heart will beat a little faster while you read (or one could say: "devour with your eyes") this cookbook.

Truly an Exciting Cookbook filled with delicious recipes! If this book doesn't get you into the kitchen, nothing will!

easy-to-do menus, I've made about 40% of the menus in the book ... non-complicated and creative recipes, delightful!

I don't think I'll ever make a "white bread" sandwich ever again! These recipes are time-consuming, but easy. They are also not your average ingredients that one may just pluck out of the cupboard or the fridge. This is a great book, but if you're going to make one of these yummy dishes, you gotta take a list to the supermarket or better yet, the local farm stand. I'm from Long Island, so we don't have all the fresh fruits and veggies that California does, but that doesn't mean you can't make these deliciously. In addition, the author also gives us several oils, spread, etc., that are out of this world. Try the book, and kiss your old PBJ good riddance!

While many of the recipes in this book are just too elaborate for me to try, I still enjoyed reading them. And the photos were works of art in themselves. As the book description says, these are recipes for gourmet meals that just happen to be served on bread!

The author divides the sandwich recipes into open-faced, closed face, sort-of sandwiches, tea sandwiches, and several other categories.

I am especially interested in trying the Pan Bagna, the Peppered Beef with Sauteed Greens and Caper Onion Mayonnaise, and the sandwich made with asparagus, poached eggs, prosciutto and fontina cheese.

The Grilled Autostrada sandwich was yummy (four cured meats, peppers and provolone) as were several of the grilled sandwiches.

The book also contains interesting food background information and some useful tips for adapting the recipes.

Nancy Silverton has made her culinary reputation in the pastry kitchen, and in the Sandwich Book, with the assistance of Teri Gelber, she expands her repertoire to sandwiches, which are a gourmet meal on bread. From Beef Brisket Hash on Toast to Croque Madame and Piled-High Pork Sandwich, these are easy to make and loaded with unusual flavor blends. Photos add to their attraction.

There's as many different ways to make sourdough bread as there are bakers in this world. I have read *lots* of books on baking, and while I believe while her intentions are good and her methods sound, Nancy is very much over-complicating a very simple thing. An example is, it is very easy to establish a vibrant starter within 5 days and be baking with it on that 5th day. Her method takes 2 weeks. Not saying it's wrong, I'm sure it works wonderfully, but all of us aren't professional bakers, and don't feel like waiting 2 weeks to bake. And hey, who wants to feed their starter 3 squares a day, at 3 cups of flour per day??? Maybe if you mill your own flour.... I've sucessfully maintained a healthy wonderful starter on 1 feeding a week for a long time now. Also, another thing that put me off a little bit was that she really neglects recipes using yeasted doughs, making it seem like everything has to be sourdough. She obviously hasn't tried pain a'l'ancienne, from Peter Reinhart's Bread Baker's Apprentice book. What a wonderful bread that is so easy to make! All in all, it's an interesting read, but just another bread book in my opinion. Don't expect to get into her methods unless you're a stay-at-home baker, or as the title suggests, a connoisseur. :)

This book allowed me to catch wild yeast on my very first try. That, the basic white bread, whole wheat walnut, and the pumpernickel recipes are worth the price of the book. Silverton is very specific about the instructions, which are helpful for starting, and especially for catching the yeast, but are a little obsessive and impractical unless you are baking semi-commercially. It is not hard to adjust the feeding schedule to your schedule, and the bread is very forgiving, unlike bread made from commercial yeast. That said, use unwashed organic grapes and unclorinated water for the starter; and after it is established, refrigerate the starter for a week between feeding before bread making. I have given starter to friends and relatives, and now they won't make bread any other way... I think that speaks volumes for the value of the book. (and p.s., you don't have to use rye or whole wheat starters for the walnut or pumpernickel loaves...)

This is an excellent book for those who wish to pursue baking bread armed with technical and practical information in addition to their own yeast starters.

I have yet to encounter a book that provides so much information on the making of bread and using of natural yeast starters. This is not a book for those who expect to do quick breads. For the person who wants to know how to make artisan breads at home this book is for you.

The use of starter yeasts is extensive covering white, rye, and wheat. The only other book that gives you more information about "creating" starters and sourdough is _World Sourdoughs From Antiquity_ .

The design of the book is pretty simple. Description of ingredients in detail; tools used; yeasts, starters and sourdoughs; recipes which are broken down by which type of starter used. The recipes themselves are broken into multi-day sections so that the process is more clear. Example would be the challah which is a 2 day bread. The steps themselves don't take that long but you learn the value of planning.

In essence to get something close to your favorite artisan bread you must spend time and a certain amount of patience. This book is quite honest about that and does not use shortcuts at the expense of the quality.

But what about the bread? It is good. Sometimes not as picture perfect but even the "failures" have been tasty.

A must for the baker's library. A wealth of information and interesting recipes too. Not bad for a book that is 251 pages (not counting sources and index).

Nancy Silverton's Pastries from the LaBrea Bakery is a mouthwatering delight. The book is divided into ten sections: quickcakes and quickbreads; savories; cobblers, crisps, and crumbles; cookies; scones; muffins; tarts; morning pastries; doughnuts; and confections. The recipes all sounded delicious, and I was eager to start making many of them.

However, I found the recipes to be overly complex, particularly for the more rustic offerings. Most recipes require unbleached pastry flour, which can be difficult to find (unbleached all-purpose flour is an acceptable alternative). Ms. Silverton uses extra large eggs, while most other cookbooks use large (no recommendations are made on how to substitute one for the other).

Most vexing was the repeated use of odd measurements, such as "1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar". When making an apple crisp, is it really necessary to measure ingredients that precisely? I suspect that these odd measurements come either from scaling down larger recipes, or from converting ingredients measured by weight to volume equivalents (with the exception of butter and a few other ingredients, weights are not provided).

This is a good book for ideas and as reference. It could have been much better with more consideration of the needs of the home baker.

Nancy Silverton sure doesn't like anything--she hates pumpkin pie and Rice Krispie squares--and most Americans who don't have access to her pricey bakery. Considering she just sold her baking enterprise for 55 million to an overseas conglomerate, this cook-book is only a small piece of a sideline.

This book is very fun to read but it's very hard to follow the recipes if you're not a very experienced baker with a raft of equipment. Pity the poor bride who gets this as a wedding gift!

Rose Levy Birnbaum's Cake Bible and Pie and Pastry Bible are much more detailed, with clear directions that walk the novice baker through the steps.

If you're a big-time foodie, this book is no doubt a must, but since most foodies aren't going to actually cook from their prized volumes, the caveats about the receipes won't matter. If you actually want to learn to bakr, I'd look elsewhere.

I've tried numerous recipes since I received the book last fall. And they all came out simply magnificent... however it helps greatly if you're an experienced baker. If you are new to baking, seek other books such as Lora Brody's Basic Baking, etc. Silverton's new book is full of treasures...many of them are now staples in my kitchen - crumb biscotti, dunkers, almond pound cake, bran muffins, pumpkin pie..to name a few. Check the apple pie recipe in Silverton's other book The Food of Campanile..its absolutely the best apple pie ever created!