Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Review: Mark Bittman's Kitchen Matrix

I must say, I am bias towards Bittman. How to Cook Everything and How to Cook Everything Vegetarian have been my go-to's whenever I cook. By cooking, I mean looking in the fridge and seeing what's about to go bad, throwing it all together and making it work. Bittman's books have allowed me to make it work without it tasting like crap.

So I was excited to receive this book in the mail. First off, I gave it to my Chef husband, so we could dual review it, the thought being that his opinion about cookbooks would differ wildly from mine, but it wasn't as dramatic as I thought.

Him: "I like the layout of this book. It's organized in a way to make it easy for anyone to follow, and the base recipes allow people to expand upon their cooking techniques by providing a foundation. The variations on the recipes are pretty good as well. I do have an issue with some of the directions, for example, cutting meat. It's written, but there are no illustrations, and that's not something everyone would understand with written description only. "

Hrm. Good point, and something I didn't think about. So, that, coming from a Professional Chef. I looked over the book and read a bit, but then he snagged it and hasn't given it back, so it's apparently pretty sweet, regardless of any complaints.


 I appreciate the ease of all of Bittman's books, and this one allows you to be a little more creative, step out of your norm or go-to (which, for me, is something that ends up tasting vaguely Spanish). I also appreciated the 'what the hell to do with holiday leftovers' section, hehe. The photos, of course, are great, beautiful, clean, basically food porn, what I want to see in my cookbooks. 

OH. The cocktail section? That was pretty cool too.


(*this book was received free via bloggingforbooks.com
 

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