I liked this book because its main focus is analysis of how recipes work. If you want to get past slavishly following recipes and dreading slip-ups this book shows you the way. I found that the book gave me the confidence I needed to substitute ingredients and have a reasonable idea of what the outcome would be.

The book also has lots of good ideas on how to put together menus and plan ahead.

To me the most exhausting part of cooking is going to supermarkets and trying to find every last ingredient listed in a recipe. This book shows you how to avoid that trap with confidence.

Coming from South Texas as I do, I automatically cast a wary eye on any Mexican cookbook. This book contains recipes of wellknown restaurants from all around. It has expanded my own repertoire beyond just our own local version of Tex-Mex. And, the kids love making our own sopaipillas! Yummy!

Curtis Aikens has assembled some of the greatest recipes for vegitarians and non-vegitarians alike. I have enjoyed all of his recipes particularly, his pizza's. He makes cooking easy and fun. I am not a creative cook and he shows how to use herbs and vegetables - something I have never experimented with before. I highly recommend this book.

An all-in-one reference manual for those involved in customer relationship management. The topics covered are wide in scope and are really after enabling the development of effective customer focus.

Written in a refreshingly easy and readable format, the book begins with an introduction to the concept of customer care, and the changing nature of customer service. The book then goes on to discuss management's role in developing strategy geared towards effective customer service. What follows is a chapter devoted to developing tools geared towards generating and monitoring customer feedback and satisfaction - my favorite chapter, as this area is the usual point of slack in assessing an organization's quality of service. Pieces of advice are given in various areas including (but not limited to): appropriateness research methods to be used, questionnaire development, involvement of top management in the monitoring of action points taken from customers' feedback.

Empowerment, training and development, communications, and implementation of a customer-care strategy - concepts that are all indispensable to the customer care practitioner - are also covered in detail in this book. Real-life examples of concept applications are also incorporated so that the reader does not feel inundated with theories alone. Each section ends with a checklist of practical and applicable activities that can be used in evaluating the service that your company currently provides, and in assessing areas for possible improvement.

Finally, these wondrous routines from the alter-egos of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore are available in one delightful package. Those expecting the expletive-laden scatalogy of their DEREK & CLIVE dialogues will be disappointed, as the characters here are far more whimsical and wholesome. These routines detail the relationship of Pete and Dud, two cloth-capped proletarians from Dagenham, who muse and amuse about life, religion, sex, art, music and relationships in exaggerated cockney accents. Cook's amazing ability to generate spiralling nonsense out of the mundane suggests Samuel Beckett on laughing gas. Moore generally falls upon mad reminscences of his youth, but his cloying earnestness is kept in check by Pete's volcanic imagination and deadpan insults. Cook is a master at leading Moore will o' the wisp into heights of dazzling absurdity. All of these bits are better seen/heard than read, but "Art Gallery" is a howling masterpiece of half-digested art criticism. Pete admires Vernon Ward's duck paintings because the ducks' eyes follow him around the room. Dud points out that the ducks are flying sideways, and that only one eye is visible per duck. This doesn't faze Pete: "You get the impression, Dud, that their eyes are craning round the beak to look at you." "Dud's Dream" builds up to a hilarous climax in which Pete restages Dud's birth by sticking him in a wardrobe (closet), after which Dud becomes convinced his mother and the closet are one and the same. The only gripe I have is that their very first routine ("A Spot of the Usual Trouble," in which Pete and Dud recount being hit-on by sexy 1950s film stars like "bloody Greta Garbo") is not included. Nevertheless, one of the few substantial collections of a phenomenal, and almost forgotten, comedy team. A must for fans of British comedy, and a perfect companion piece to THE COMPLETE BEYOND THE FRINGE. I got my copy from A Common Reader.

If you're tired of playing with world-saving heroes who laugh at guns, knives, and thugs, then this is the book for you. Dark Champions focuses on the everyday kind of heroes who focus on making neighborhoods safe and on street-level violence. The rules are clearly laid out and the book is well-written, conveying great flavor for a street-level game. The author, Steve Long, does a great job of making the world seem to come alive.

The plaza, a shopping center in Kansas City, is festive dining the holiday season and Foster's Chocolates blimp just adds to the glittery atmosphere. Chef Heaven Lee and her friend Stephanie are eating at a restaurant in the plaza when they hear gun shots. Somebody shot at the blimp and killed the man operating it.

Foster's Chocolates is celebrating its fifteenth anniversary in business when a man trying to destroy them is murdered on the property. Heaven, always interested in solving a murder case, does a little snooping. She discovers that the Foster family is divided against itself and everyone had a motive to kill the man. Things turn really weird when Foster's Chocolates and Stephanie's Chocolates shop are vandalized, but Heaven is incensed when somebody trashes her restaurant too. She's very determined to find out who the perp is and bring that individual down.

This culinary mystery should come with a calorie warning: Do not read when hungry. The recipes, mostly chocolate, are easy to follow and taste delicious (don't say a word). The who-done-it is excellent because there's seems as many legit suspects as the number of carbo grams in any of the recipes. Lou Jane Temple has written another tasty amateur sleuth novel.

Harriet Klausner

I have kept the paperback version of this book nearby ever since it was published. It acts as an antidote to the warm and fuzzy image of 'Ike' as everyone's weekend golfing grandad, and restores a sense of the Cold War's origins and global strategies to Ike's presidency that pursued it covertly in the Western Hemisphere [Guatemala.] Wiesen Cook's scholarly treatment is anything but sensational; its long footnotes often contain the most startling revelations. Revisionists are often simply realists, and this study's realism is long overdue as a corrective of the highly PR-spun 'memorialization' of The Eisenhower Era.

Another gourmet winner for Delia!

Here is the second in a series of three cook books where you can't go wrong, and you do not have to slave over a hot stove all day to present a wonderful meal.

Informative: so you have background knowledge on the whys and wherefores of why you are using this, and how to do that.

Standardised proceedures: ingredients are clearly listed and subdivided where necessary.

Brilliantly simple recipes such as Roasted Fish with a Parmesan Crust or Oven Fried Onions - why hadn't I thought of that!

Delicious standards, Salade Nicoise, Shepherds Pie - note it's made with minced lamb, hence the name. A chicken stir-fry made different by the addition of coconut.

Exquisite, so simple deserts, in Eton Mess or Toffee-Fudge Bananas with Toasted Nuts. You can even present the good and the bad together in Chocolate and Prune Brownies!

Whether you are inexperienced or a pro these recipes work and the bonus is they are delightfully delectable.

Anyone would be greatly impressed at this collection of three early Denali (preferred name of Mt. McKinley) climbing stories. This is not one of those cheap "facsimile" books that are so common in public domain works. This is truly re-typeset to perfection! Photos have been reproduced with crisp contrast at full size to compliment the overall fine layout. Pages are soft; they lay open effortlessly to allow effortless reading.

A remarkable value to find these days. This is the combination of three works that would be prohibitively expensive to own as original editions, yet cost less than one of these, that I am aware of, that is in reprint. The experience is one of handling the original editions because there is so little of the domineering "New introductions" some egomaniacs burden this genre with.

The value of all three in a single volume has a powerful effect on the childish Cookie (Fred Cook) version that both offended and inspired Belmore Browne. He had a passion for exposing Cook and trying to climb Mt. McKinley himself. Recently Bradford Washburn lived up to his objective of "nailing Cook's coffin shut" (See: The Dishonorable Dr. Cook) with his devastating photos of exactly where the fakes occurred - many miles from and miles below the Denali summit. Now look here at Stuck's primitive, but authentically powerful pictures and Cookie becomes even more of a joke. All Fred Cook had going for him was compulsive lying coupled with sickening "poetic descriptions" that lulled weak minds. Not so Stuck! His group can be likened to early, primitive "Sir Edmund Hillary" style mountain climbers. Theirs is a thoroughly satisfying expedition that delivered the real photos, data, and supporting descriptions.

This is a brilliant trio of Denali classics that makes one appreciate Washburn's extraordinary efforts to nail that coffin shut by providing a context to understand why Belmore Browne was so offended with the Fred fraud. Denali is a magnificent natural wonder; Cook's self-serving exploitation of Mt. McKinley was like a dog taking a poop on a rare Persian carpet. Thankfully there were men of character, men with the determination of Browne and Stuck, who sought the reward of reaching that summit in the clouds.

Hats off to everyone who worked on producing this excellent publishing effort. While Washburn nailed the coffin, this book makes you want to grab your own hammer & nails to whack in a few more for good measure. Fun reading, excellent browsing, this is the ultimate reference companion on Denali. Bravo!!! Bravo!!!