I first picked up a review copy of the original MtoF cookbook when I worked in a bookstore and found it one of the most well-written, creative, practical, consistently good cookbooks I have ever used. I bought the Pasta book for my husband when he was learning to cook -- We both love it!!! Michelle Urvater provides a wide variety of recipes and always has suggestions for playing with ingredients and what to do with leftovers.

My wife and I absolutely love this cookbook. If you are looking for a quality cookbook with simple yet substantial dinners taking less than a half-hour to complete, then this is the book for you. Save your money going out to dinner and prepare a meal from this book that will accomplish the same goal.

I have used this cookbook for more than a decade, and I consistently return to this book by Urvater and Liederman for the best of clean, elegant and richly satisfying recipes. The recipes include very simple and easy meals with little preparation, as well as complex, highly detailed concoctions, all of which are beautiful and tremendously gratifying. The detailed descriptions for making stocks and glaces come first, as they form the basis of many of the sauces in their recipes to follow. Time-consuming but easy, these stocks provide a richness and depth to their cuisine found mostly in elegant restaurants, without relying on excessive butter, cream or cheeses. Most important, the recipes are painstakingly edited. I have never had a recipe fail for me, as long as I followed the directions. I keep this book on the same shelf as Julia Child, The Joy of Cooking, and The Splendid Table as the cornerstones of my cooking library.

I have lots of cook books but this is my new favorite hands down. I wish there were cards of the recipies so I could pick a random card and have a great dinner. Michele has done it again!

Michele Urvater's "Chocolate Cake" is subtitled "150 Recipes from Simple to Sublime." It briskly trots the globe from Austria (Walnut Chocolate Torte) to France (Reine de Saba, or Queen's Cake) to Mexico (Aztec Devil's Food Cake) to Hungary (Rigo Jancsi). Naturally there are scores of prototypically American cakes too, from Pillsbury Bake-Off finalists to cheesecakes and beyond.

Urvater came to write her cookbook in a roundabout manner. After having spent years working as a chef, hosting television programs on cooking and so on, she decided to enroll in New York City's famed French Culinary Institute. After having earned her FCI diploma as a pastry chef, she had a new, more specialized outlook on her work.

Despite her considerable expertise, Urvater doesn't scare off the home cook who has never made anything other than a boxed mix before. In fact, the book is a calming presence in the kitchen. "Chocolate Cake" is arranged so that the easiest cakes are in the beginning. One wonderful recipe called Wacky Chocolate Cake is an excellent start for any beginner, and is particularly well-suited to a child baking with minimal adult supervision (my 7-year old and 4-year old actually made it ALL BY THEMSELVES--all I did was read the directions out loud to them and preheat the oven--an added bonus of this cake is that it's eggless, perfect for times when you need to serve dessert to someone with an egg allergy or cholesterol problems). All the cakes have a degree of difficulty indicated--one star denotes easy, two stars intermediate, and three stars advanced.

Urvater is relaxed about her chocolate choices. She prefers bittersweet chocolate to any other kind, but admits that when it comes to unsweetened chocolate, "Any one of the national brands is acceptable. At various times I have used Baker's, Nestle's, and Hershey's unsweetened chocolate. I tend to buy the cheapest one."

What kind of niche does a book like "Chocolate Cake" occupy in a world where anyone can pick up a very decent cake at the bakery or even the grocery store? It will give pleasure to the experienced baker who wants to round out her repetoire with more dessert recipes, but it will also give confidence to the inexperienced cook who wants to make something splendid for a special someone's birthday. My only complaint is that I would have preferred more photographs--but overall, this is a super book.

This is an excellent book for those who like to make chocolate cakes but may not be a skilled, experienced baker. If you are an average person who is trying to bake that chocolate cake at home, then I can happily recommend this book.

The most important feature of this book is that all recipes are rated according to difficulty. Those who are beginners can choose easy recipes, while those who are already adept at angel food cakes and butter cream frostings can go directly for the complicated ones. Bakers of all abilities will be able to find a recipe that fits your skill level. For example, she correctly identifies French butter cream frostings as difficult. Other recipes that are impressive and seem to be hard are actually easy to do, and this book will rate them as such.

This book has a lot going for it besides the rating system. The first 50 pages or so give you just the right amount of information so you can do the recipes. It is also very good about telling you what kind of equipment you will need for the various recipes. The recipes are clear and easy to follow most of the time. It also has a good dissertation on various types of icings and frostings, and matching them up to various cakes. The only short point here is the subject of matching up refrigerated versus cakes that can be stored at room temperature and what icings and frostings will match them.

There are a few problems, but they are minor. The description of semisweet and bittersweet chocolate is not correct. The statement that margarine can be substituted for baking in all recipes is also not correct, since the margarine can have wildly differing amounts of water that will have unpredictable results on any one recipe. The author is a trained, professional baker. This is often good, as the instructions are based on tried and true professional techniques that really work (which is sadly not true of many books about baking), but she often overestimates the abilities of beginner bakers. The vocabulary can have professional terms or techniques not otherwise explained, and the difficulty rating of some of the recipes should be increased; for example, anything that involves whipping and folding egg whites should be intermediate, not easy.

My sister gave me this cookbook knowing my passion and weakness for chocolate and I am so happy that she did. I immediately tried the coconut cake and although there were many steps, it was clear and easy to follow and it also produced a delicious cake. Just reading through the index makes my mouth water and I can't wait to try more of the recipes. This is a great baking book for those of you who love desserts and wish baking recipes could be more clear. Well done Michele. Thanks

I had bought this book with intent to use it when I moved out on my own. When I married I pulled out the book to find new recipes because all I knew how to cook was rice and my husband only knew how to cook macaroni and cheese!

It's great! My husband & I went through it looking for recipes that sounded good. The directions are straight-forward and there's no guess work at how long it will take to cook up a meal. We'd be home from work by 6pm and eating by 7pm. We'd take turns cooking and even my husband can follow the instructions. There are tips for what to have in your pantry and what type of pots and pans and utensils you'll use more often.

I highly recommend this book to people that are just learning to cook or for those people that love home cooked meals but don't have a lot of time in the evenings.

The only reason I didn't give it a full 5 stars is because I have found a couple of recipes that didn't come out right or just didn't taste right at all.

Michelle Urvater designed her book for those who want to eat good tasting food, but in less time. She succeeded! She begins her book by making suggestions on how to run a kitchen in today's fast paced world. Take these suggestions! She follows with a number of recipes that use ingredients easily stocked in one's kitchen. The recipes indicate preparation and cooking time, and are carefully layed out for easy reading. She offers creative use of leftovers as well, which become a new, tasty meal in themselves. This book is good for both meat-eaters and vegetarians alike.

We received this book as a wedding gift and mistakenly ignored it for several years. Two years ago, we rediscovered it and have been using it almost exclusively ever since. An incredible range of recipes, from 30 minute start-to-table meals to more elaborate menus for when you are entertaining.

It's a great cookbook for the person just learning to cook as well as the more experienced chef. Michelle includes several chapters on how stock your pantry and kitchen equipment (I never learned that in Home Economics!) as well as well-organized recipes that make menu planning easy. I have given this book as a gift to most of my family - my four siblings and parents, too!

I do have one complaint - we've exhausted the recipes in this book! So, am going to buy the M2F Chicken and/or M2F Pasta book to supplement. Hopefully that will keep us for another 2 years!