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(More customer reviews)`Kitchen Sense' by James Beard Foundation Vice President, Mitchell Davis comes closer to my ideal cookbook than any other book I have reviewed. It is not perfect, and it is certainly not the only cookbook you will want, but it attains that happy medium of just enough of the right information for an excellent selection of both classic and interesting recipes to make it the first cookbook you reach for when trying to decide on what to make for dinner.
If you have this book, you will still need an encyclopedic book such as `The Joy of Cooking' and a good reference such as the `Larousse Gastronomique'. If you are especially fond of ethnic cuisines, you will also still need Julia Child's `Mastering the Art of French Cooking', Marcella Hazan's `Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking', Rick Bayless' `Authentic Mexican' and David Thompson's `Thai Food'. If you like baking bread or cakes or pies, you will still need good books from Rose Levy Beranbaum, Nick Malgieri, or Maida Heatter. And, you will probably want to hang on to your specialized books on cooking fish, vegetables, meats, poultry, and eggs. Last but not least, you will still want your copy of Jacques Pepin's `Complete Techniques'. But, these are for reading when you want to plan ahead. On the day of..., you will always be able to rely on Davis book to come through with something interesting, presented in a way which is superior to almost every other general, non-professional cookbook I have seen including the tomes from `Gourmet', `Bon Appetit', Mark Bittman and `The New York Times' / Craig Claiborne.
One way in which Davis seems to almost everything right is in the amount of detail he includes with each recipe. I always avoid even the thought of compiling my own cookbook because I'm sure I would include too much. Davis does not, for example, include nutritional analyses or wine selections. I think nutritional analyses in cookbooks are largely a gimmick, unless it is a cookbook for diabetics. And, I think that if wine selection is that important to you, you will bone up on what you need to know to make that decision for yourself. Like the famous early line in `The Hustler', I paraphrase `... this is the kitchen man. No gambling, no booze, and no billiards. We just cook.'
Not only does Mitchell Davis include what seems like all the right stuff, and nothing extra, he even goes so far as to explain what you are to get from the various parts of a recipe. This is something I have never seen anywhere else, including from that supernerd of the kitchen, Alton Brown. This attention to detail does not stop with Davis' talking about his recipes. It extends to how each recipe is lovingly written, to a level of detail that may not have been seen since Julia Child's better recipes.
Davis covers makeahead suggestions, which are done by many other cookbooks, but I think that combined with everything else he does well, his `makeahead' instructions are doubly valuable. He especially does not give any false hopes about holding dishes in advance of serving them, as when he chides us to serve guacamole immediately upon preparation, as it simply does not keep. This brings us to leftovers, something practically no other cookbook author treats in a systematic manner. And, he brings up a major truth about leftovers. They generally simply do not taste the same the next day. Now for lots of dishes, such as soups and stews, this is a very good thing. But, for thinks such as steamed or boiled rice, gratins, or salads, what you find the next day may range from unappetizing to simply inedible. One of my major lessons in cooking for only two people is in teaching myself how to perk up leftovers, such as in making day-old macaroni and cheese as creamy delish as it was 10 minutes after it came out of the oven. Davis covers this skill for many, many recipes.
One of my greatest pleasures in reading through this book is in the number of classic dishes presented here. And, they are presented in a way that is equal to or superior to any other treatment. One prime example is his recipe for the famous Spanish tapas dish, `Tortilla Espagnole'. I have read whole books on Tapas with up to 10 recipes for this potato `frittata', and none of the recipes are quite as well written as Davis presentation. That is not to say these other recipes will produce poorer quality dishes. In fact, part of my admiration for Davis treatment of the recipe is the way in which he remains true to the classic Spanish dish, without trying to `improve' it or make it more interesting. The same is true of many other classics. I was especially pleased in Davis' headnote to my favorite dish, Potato Gratin, when warns about undercooking the dish.
Yet another symptom of the book's quality is the fact that I agree with virtually every book the author cites in his bibliography. His four restaurant cookbooks by Thomas Keller, Judy Rodgers, Tom Colicchio, and Alfred Portale are among my top 10. His citations for ethnic cuisines are also excellent.
There are only three minor aspects of the book to which I would suggest the author address. First, Davis stresses that one of his objects is to make you want to cook, or at least to make you hungry. In spite of the superb recipes, there is not quite as much `joie de vivre' in the writing you find from the Brits such as Jamie Oliver. Second, I think the author's definitions of knife cuts are not standard, so his `chop' and `dice' and `mince' instructions may be a bit confusing Third, these general cooking instructions are in the back of the book, and not in the front, so you read them before you get to the recipes!
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