An avid cook I only recently was won over by the legendary Julia Child. And I have to say that "The Way to Cook" is one big, beautiful cookbook. The huge tome is filled with full color photographs of not just completed dishes (the so-called "beauty shots") but detailed shots of the step-by-step techniques needed to prepare the often complicated recipes--a feature I found extremely helpful.

I really liked this book, but I have to say the title is a real misnomer. This is NOT a book for beginners who want to learn to cook (for that I'd recommend "The Betty Crocker Cookbook" or maybe "The Best Recipe" from "Cook's Illustrated), it's an advanced course for wanna-be gourmets. If you don't love to cook, or don't enjoy making "fancy" dishes (though there are a few "basics," this book focuses on Child's forte, classical French cooking that's pretty enough to serve in a restaurant), then this cookbook isn't for you. But if you're ready to expand your cooking horizons, I think this title is perfect.

One more note ... a fan of Martha Stewarts television cooking segments I noticed that a great number of the techniques that Martha promotes come straight from Child. Something I never realized before reading "The Way to Cook."

"The Way to Cook" is the distillation of Julia Child's 40 years in the kitchen, her magnum opus. Definitive, gigantic in scope, and lavishly illustrated throughout with color photos, it is designed to replace "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" (which is still valuable for a few older French recipes). It is the one cookbook everyone must own.

People tend to think of Julia Child in terms of French cooking, but this book is not French. Rather, it is an American book based on French techniques, teaching American cooking with significant French and Italian influences. For instance, she provides a brilliant recipe for American meatloaf, BUT she places it next to equally brilliant recipes for French pates and for scrapple. She provides you with a basic beef stew recipe, and then shows how Boeuf Bourgignon and Hungarian Goulash are really just variations on the same idea.

Since the late 1970's, no one has used cookbook illustrations better than Julia Child. Here, the important techniques are photographed, as are the finished dishes, but the food stylists are kept at a distance. The photos show you clearly the steps you take and the results you get, but don't indulge in flights of fancy. Julia Child's concern here is food, not table settings.

Whether I'm looking to make a traditional roast, or onion soup, or braised veal breast, this is the book I turn to. I own over 300 cookbooks, yet if I could choose only one, this would be it. Buy it in hardcover: it will take quite a beating!

Julia Child's "The Way to Cook" is one of the essential cookbooks every kitchen should have. Julia's straight forward instructions, her outstanding recipes and the quality of the dishes she recommends make this and fantastic cookbook.

While Julia covers a wide range of dishes in this book (Soups, Breads, Eggs, Fish, Poultry, Meat, Vegetables, Salads, Pastry, Desserts, and Cakes & Cookies) her emphasis is definitely on French/European cooking. If you are looking for recipes from different ethnic groups, you will need to find other cookbooks to compliment this one.

In the last five years that I've owned this cookbook, I've made a wide selection of recipes and have never been disappointed. From simple dishes such as crepes to complex day-long affairs such as Lamb Stew Printaniere, her instructions have been complete, straightforward, and detailed. If you follow her steps, you're guaranteed to have incredible results.

The book includes both beautiful and useful photographs. This is important, because one of the big drawbacks with most cookbooks are that they have incredible imagery of the finished dish, but don't actually show you how things should look as they are being prepared. The way to cook does an excellent job at showing you both... which is one of the reasons it is such an outstanding book.

Julia's other books are also excellent. Both "Baking with Julia" and "In Julia's Kitchen With Master Chefs" are outstanding.

One last word of advice... if you ever make A Fast Saute of Beef for Two from this book, use heavy creame instead of cornstarch (she says you can use either). The cream will make the difference between a good meal and a great one!

Enjoy!

There have always been 2 different things, when it comes to cookbooks: on the one hand, cookbooks that focus on getting the maximum taste out of food. This usually means cooking rich, high in calories food, that tastes good because of the use of butter, lots of unrefined sugar, cream, etc. My cookbook shelf contains quite a few books focusing on this type of food, & they surely have a place in every cookbook collection. On the other hand, there have always been books focusing on "light" cooking, containing recipes that tend to use "light" ingredients & many vegetables & fruit. There's always been a need for a book that addresses the gap between these 2 types of cooking, & attempts to bridge this gap. "A new way to cook" is exactly this long-awaited book!

Sally Schneider has put taste above everything else: she wants her food to look good & taste good. She also realises, though, that this cannot realistically be achieved through the use of lots of oil or butter or whatever else, since most people have health & weight considerations to take into account. So what she has done is this: she's experimented with lots of different cooking methods, trying to get the best possible taste out of a certain food, using the least possible calories. She does not exclude any ingredients: she just uses everything in moderation & proposes lots of inventive methods.

Something that is important is that her book never gets anywhere near boring, "light-cooking" recipes. She has a whole chapter on colorful, indulgent desserts, where you can find everything from lighter desserts using fruits to decadent chocolate cakes & tarts. Schneider's basic premise is that moderation, the use of good ingredients, & inventive, creative cooking methods are the key to good, healthy & yes- in the end, light eating.

If I had to live with only one cookbook, or were recommending a single volume for any contemporary cook, it would be this. While it does not cover in detail beginning cooking technique such as knife skills, basic cuts, and identification of tools, it provides substantive information and such an intelligent point of view that even a modestly-experienced cook could utilize it. Schneider's approach, not really new to readers familiar with the also wonderful Martha Rose Shulman and Rozanne Gold, among others, is nevertheless a practical way of eating healthy in delicious, sophisticated dishes.

Schneider endorses the practice of replacing heavy and often unhealthy fats with herbs and spices. By using wholesome fats judiciously, by highlighting intrinsic flavors, and by using taste rather than slavish adherence to tradition, she presents a mighty range of wonderful recipes. The recipes also turn out fantastically. Her straight forward, first person writing reveals her love of food and is devoid of pretentions. The recipes include informative introductions, exceptionally helpful notes about ingredients, variations and extensions, and guidelines for advance preparation. The book is gorgeous looking, with a beautiful lay out and user-friendly format. The index is complete and detailed, and each section of the book lists its recipes for the convenience of a cook looking for, say, ideas for tonight's soup.

The sections of the book include a great Vegetables chapter, Beans/Legumes, a wonderful Pasta chapter, Grains, Seafood, Meat/Poultry, Breads, a fantastic Soups section, Salads, Desserts, Flavor Essences, Broths, Oils, and Sauces. An appendix provides nutritional analyses of the ingredients and each dish (including calories, protein, carbs, fat, fiber, and sodium for dieters.) Large and weighty, the book would make a great gift and addition to any cook's library.

I love this book and if you like to cook with fresh foods I think you'll love this book too. It's not a no or low fat cookbook. The author instead tries to eliminate as much fat as she can without sacrificing flavor. She uses highly flavorful fresh herbs and spices to boost taste and then uses just enough fat to achieve the desired results. The recipes do call for several ingredients but they go together quickly and I've found the substitutes she often recommends lead to delicious results as well.

I've been cooking from this book almost exclusively for the past couple of weeks and everything has been great - the fish section has been my favorite with the tuna steak with coconut-cilantro chutney to the fish baked with fennel and served with orange sauce - I find with this book I welcome the addition of more fish to my diet.

A year ago I bought this book. I think it was my best Amazon purchase. It teaches everything you need to know to get started in the kitchen. With detailed tutorials, it's a foolprof book.
This edition is also very confortable to use.
It's divided in several chapters: Cook's techniques and Ingridients; Appetizers and Beverages; Breads (quick breads like muffins,biscuits, pancakes; yeast breads like french bread, challah bread); Cakes and Pies; Cookies and candies; Desserts (like Cheesecake); Eggs and cheese; Fish and Shellfish; Grains and Legumes; Meats; Pasta; Poultry; Salads and salad dressings (including the classic Ceasar's Salad and Creamy Coleslaw); Sauces, seasonings and condiments; Stews, soups and Sandwiches; Vegetables; Special Helps and Index.
In every chapter you'll find how to's and tecniches that will help you solve cooking problems. Every recipe has nutritional information like calories, fat etc. Some of them include a lighter version.
If you are an unexperienced, beginner, or intermidiate cook, this is a must have in your kitchen.

As a bride to be a little over a year ago and a cooking nightmare, this was the perfect gift for me. Betty Crocker's cookbook provides step-by-step instructions to everyday dishes and techniques. Included are explanations of what may have gone wrong if your cake/bread/etc. doesn't turn out. Friends have begun to rave at my culinary skills and I am loving the kitchen. The book is also a great reference on how to shop and cook various meats and vegetables. It is like having your mum or another great guide in your kitchen.

My mother gave this to me before I got married 2 years ago. It is THE definitive cookbook for the less experienced cookbook and is also highly useful for the more experienced chef.

The three-ring binder makes for easy flipping. Easy to read charts make it simple to find out about cooking times, cuts of meat, serving sizes, and a variety of how-to's. For example: preparing bread crumbs, dicing, snipping, roasting, etc. A glossary of terms helps familiarize the new cook with common terms found in recipes.

On to the recipes. This cookbook provides a variety of recipes that will please almost any appetite. Each recipe includes nutritional information on fat content and percentage of saturated fat, as well as protein and carbohydrate content. Some recipes even offer low-fat versions or simple alterations to jazz up the regular recipe. Any cook would appreciate the addition of this cookbook to his collection.

I was so proud of the meal that I made from this book! My friends said that they felt like they were dining at Charlie Trotter's restaurant! I'm a cookbook junkie, so that also makes me a tough critic. I have 50 or so books that I own, but never cook out of because the recipes are too complex. But Charlie Trotter Cooks at Home was so much fun to cook out of. He really made the recipes easy for the home cook. The photos in this book are very interesting as well. They are not the ordinary food shots of a recipe that you see in every other book. They make you look at food differently, which helps open up your culinary mind as well. This is a great addition to my cookbook collection!

Charlie Trotter does it again! His books are truly amazing. I have cooked from Charlie Trotter's cookbooks thorough out the years. The recipes are challenging and inspiring. But when I started to cook from this new book, I was delighted to discover how user friendly and doable the dishes really were! My 13 year old son even made me a meal for my birthday from the book! The panko and ginger crusted chicken was one of my favorites. This is a book that will certainly get a lot of use in my kitchen. Thanks Charlie!

When you think of Charlie Trotter's, you think of multi-course tasting menu using hundreds of ingredients from all over the world to build multiple layers of tastes and flavors. In this book, he focuses on recipes that he would cook at home and hopefully you will too. While many recipes offer a high degree of complexity, the motivated home cook is capable of preparing these meals.

There are two things which I loved about the book. First, he motivated me to make my own stocks (beef and chicken). Why make the effort to prepare a sauce and spoil it with the flavorless, fat-laden broth that comes out of a can? He provides recipes for very good stocks. (I personally recommend freezing stock in Glad freezer ware or making ice cubes of stock and putting it in a freezer bag.) Second, he introduced several interesting cooking techniques such poaching fish in oil and low-temperature slow roasting of salmon. These are interesting techniques to be used to preserve the flavor and texture of the food.

The book also helpfully provides 3 to 4 course menus for your next dinner party with helpful wine pairings. With this book in your kitchen, you can't fail to impress your family and friends at your next dinner party.

Ever felt like a vegetarian diet was too difficult to keep up? That there is not enough variety or taste in a vegan diet? This book proves that not only is it easy to eat delicious food, but that animals do not have to suffer in any way shape or form in order for us to eat. A lot of the recipes in this book take less than 1/2 hour to prepare. They produce better food than the average restaurant. They use fresh vegetables and soy products in some of the most delicious and healthy recipies available. This book provides excellent substitutions (try the "cheesy" macaroni!). It also opens the door for those new to a cruelty free diet by illustrating & utilizing the many different types of foods available to vegetarians/vegans. It changes harmful food attitudes & patterns painlessly!

I have been vegan for 14 years and have had this book for most of it. To this day, I use it all the time!

I recommend this book to any new veggie *or* a parent who doesn't know what to cook for their newly veggie kid! Here are a few reasons why:

1. This is family-friendly food. There are vegan versions of favorites like pancakes, birthday cake, chili, etc.
2. None of the recipes are difficult, so they work fine for a young cook.
3. They only require ingredients that you can find at a regular grocery store (except a few things in the small asian section, and also powdered egg replacer, which can be found at any health food store, in some regular grocery stores these days, or ordered online).
4. All of the recipes are vegan.

I wish you well on your veggie journey! :)

I have been vegan for 14 years and have had this book for most of it. To this day, I use it all the time!
I recommend this book to any new veggie *or* a parent who doesn't know what to cook for their newly veggie kid! Here are a few reasons why:

1. This is family-friendly food. There are vegan versions of favorites like pancakes, birthday cake, chili, etc.
2. None of the recipes are difficult, so they work fine for a young cook.
3. They only require ingredients that you can find at a regular grocery store (except a few things in the small asian section, and also powdered egg replacer, which can be found at any health food store, in some regular grocery stores these days, or ordered online).
4. All of the recipes are vegan.

I wish you well on your veggie journey! :)

P.S. I've tried dozens of recipes in this book, and they all came out yummy, except for the vanilla frosting (which was too "buttery" instead of sweet), but there are other good frosting recipes in the book, and oodles on the web, so it's no big deal. ;)

I would give Mr. Cook's book 6 stars if I could. It blew me away. It provides excellent diagrams, pictures, and ideas, as well as manufacturers and part numbers for all of the neccessary components. It assumes no background whatsoever in electronics or robotics.

Electronics have always piqued my interest, though I have never really been able to get into them. Some of the books I have bought previously have been absurdly complicated, requiring backgrounds in fields such as linear calculus. I have a head for numbers, but being only a high school freshmen taking Geometry can be limiting.

Robot Building for Beginners really brings the art of constructing autonomous creations down to the basic, hands on level. It starts with the basics, down to what one's workspace should include, etc. You won't find any cryptic series of equations, graphs, or complex diagrams in this book. All of the electrical components are explained on a "what-they-do and how-to-use-them" basis.

For instance, I picked up another book, Teach Yourself Electricity and Electronics, and attempted to teach myself about simple things like how a circuit works, and what resistors do. The book immediatly overwhelmed me with so-and-so's laws, this rule of physics, this logarithmic equation, etc.

Mr. Cook's book , on the other hand, explained resistors simply, essentially saying that they were devices to limit the amount of current to a place in the circuit, because too much current simply fries your components. No fancy equations, no graphs, just simple - like it is.

It is for all of the above reasons that I highly recomend this book to anyone who's ever considered dabbeling in electronics (for robots or not).

I wish I would have had this book when I started out! The author has made a large complex subject very easy to digest with a variety of chapters on each possible subject.

As the title implies, this is a book intended for "Beginners". You won't find advanced path-finding algorithms nor will you find advanced distance sensor building. It's about _beginning_ robotics. But that doesn't keep some serious electronics theory from getting put into the book. There is plenty of in depth explanations of transistors, comparators, LEDs and other useful components for the robot builder. I learned several useful "rules of thumb" about choosing resistors that I didn't know before opening this book.

I particularly like the concept of this book being an instruction manual for building a robot. If you are a beginner, you can have a reasonably "intelligent" line following robot built by the end of the book that uses many of the mechanical, electrical and logical concepts introduced in each chapter.

Unlike several other books out there, the author isn't selling you a kit at the end of the book, which I liked. Mr. Cook also gives you the source for each part he uses and its respective part number. This is immensely helpful if you would like to build the robot in the book since you can easily obtain each part needed.

In sum, this book is a great value and a great text for the robotics community! Thank you David Cook!

The author, David Cook, naturally steps inexperienced readers through the robot building process. A lot of books unsuccessfully assume you already know something about electronics, or expect you to go buy a different book to learn how. Instead, this book alone informs the reader about each step and part necessary, from electronics, to mechanics, to aesthetics, through testing.

Another thing I like about the book is that it encourages readers to make their own robot from scratch out of commonly available parts. Unlike the low-quality kits (from which you learn nothing) being hoisted upon budding scientists, the robot presented in this book really becomes the reader's creation.

A practical and useful feature of the book is that each circuit is first shown as a schematic (or wiring diagram) and then a labeled photograph on a solderless breadboard. It makes it simple for me to reproduce the circuit on my board by counting the holes or comparing locations to the photographs in the book.

A terrific book!

From the back of the book "Amid the awesome temple in Egypt's Valley of the Kings a fabulous Treasure is waiting to be discovered, a treasure worth dying- or killing - for.

This book contains a little bit of something for everyone. It's a little mystery, adventure and romance. Like the title says, this is not a typical Robin Cook medical thriller. I found the book to be extremely enjoyable. It was easy reading and fascinating. Erica Baron travels to Egypt to escape/get away from a romance that she isn't sure she wants and to fulfil her dream as an Egyptologist what could go wrong. During a visit to an antique shop Erica meets Abdul Hamdi the proprietor who shows her an authentic life size statue of Seti I. But what she didn't bargain for was seeing Hamdi murdered before her very eyes. This starts a trail of intrigue, romance, and danger as Erica decides to help do something about the black market trading of Egyptian antiquities.

As usual, Mr. Cook's characters are colorful and seem so true to life. He brings the story alive and sets the various scenes without wasting words on descriptions. The characters are few and you don't really know who is friend or foe.

Again, don't be fooled. If you're a fan of Mr. Cook and are looking for his usual medical thriller this isn't one. Don't leave it off of your reading list though. For you die hard Cook fans, this is one of his earlier works and may be hard to find. I this book and read it in one day at the beach.

Mr. Cook, this book shows that you definitely have the ability to venture into other areas of writing rather than just medical thrillers. I will be placing this book on my shelf alongside your other novels. You are a great author in my opinion and greatly enjoy your works.

I gave this book 4 stars because I felt it could have been a little more exciting and was just a little slow starting. I highly recommend this book for anyone who enjoys mystery, romance and intrigue.

Other books I have read by this author include Fever, Brain, Outbreak to many others to list here.

Again don't leave this book off of your reading list.

When I saw this book in the library, I picked it up immediately as I am both a fan of Robin Cook, and interested in ancient Egypt. This book is not a medical thriller. I'd say it's half way between a drama and thriller.

I really enjoyed reading this book, and read the whole thing over two days. I could hardly put it down. I have personally spent time living in Egypt, and can tell you, Robin Cook has really done his research, making his Egyptian characters come to life, in the way that Egyptians REALLY DO think and act. Most novelists would miss this, as they don't understand the Egyptian personality. This really made the novel realistic to me. I absolutely loved the hereoine, and could really identify with her. I could imagine being an Egyptologist, and going to Egypt in her place. I also liked it that she stood up to her doctor boyfriend, had her fling there as well, and comes out in the end having learned a lot about herself, and about Egypt. A good mix of drama and adventure, sent in modern Egypt.

Sphinx is not a medical thriller like almost of Robin Cook's book. This book showcases his abilities in a completely different light.
The story is exciting , never boring.
The story is about a woman called Erica Baron, who is interesting in Egyptology and goes to Egypt. In a souvenir shop, she saw a murderer, and then she investigates about the murderer and because some precious object disappeared in the black market.
There are a lot of suspense and action .
Two people try to kill her, if you want to know more, read it !
All in all, it's a good book

In "Using Excel 2000", Patrick Blattner sets new benchmarks for clarity, thoroughness, and progressive teaching of its subject matter. It is actually a joy to read its 1000+ pages.

I was probably a low-end intermediate user of Excel when I purchased the book. I started at the beginning of the book to refresh and upgrade my understanding from Excel 97 to Excel 2000. I constantly found myself amazed at what I was learning and there were several times when I actually felt drawn in to reading 20 or 40 more pages than I had originally intended to read at one sitting because I wanted to see what came next. Within the first couple of days of owning this book, I was committed to reading the book cover-to-cover and moving up to becoming a power user of Excel.

I have been raving about the quality of Blattner's book to clients, associates and friends and highly recommend it to Excel users of any skill level. For the first time I actually look forward to reading future books by a specific author of books on computing. Patrick Blattner is that caliber of a writer. I also look forward to what he and Que put on their respective book websites to expand my Excel learning experience

The CD is a gold mine of Excel Workbooks from the book, and contains many additional resources worth at least the cost of the book. My only disparaging remark is that Que choose to include a .PDF copy of the book on the CD with the copy, past and print functions disabled. A fully functioning .HTML version would have been so much more valuable. I got spoiled reading the .HTML chapters of the book at the mcp.com BetaBooks site before it was published. I used those chapters like I use the hard copy of the book by highlighting text and inserting comments, etc. and I miss capability with the .PDF and will therefore only use it when I am on the road without my hard copy. I am sure Que choose to do what they did out of concern for intellectual property protection but I think their logic is faulty and encourage them to switch formats in the future.

Using Excel 2000 by Patrick Blattner is probably the most useful book for Excel users.

Although this book covers everything from formatting cells to VBA it is especially practical for those who are looking for ideas and guidelines on how to make use of the numerous charting functionalities of Excel. The author introduces methods that combine Excel's interactive elements with graphical functions. Particularly one example about dynamically creating charts was an enormous help. In addition it is shown how to create 3D and even 4D Matrizes by bringing together advanced layout possibilities and Excels mathematical power.

Another topic that this book covers is the use of Excel as a planning tool. Patrick Blattner shows how Excel can be used to create GANTT charts that usually can only be created with Software like MS Project.

Needless to say that every example mentioned in the book is on CD-Rom as well. 5 Stars for a book that is definitely worth it's money.

Special Edition Using Excel 2000 is a must have for any serious Excel user. The authors' employment of over 1000 screen captures attests to the rich "visualness" of this book. "How to" steps for achieving some tasks are simply not laid out numerically; the reader is gently interrupted after some steps, and given a picture of what his/her screen should look like.

In addition to the visual illustrations, the authors follow up most tasks with practical everyday examples of where one might utilize a particular skill to expedite Excel usage. As an instructor of Microsoft software, I am always searching for additional instances for applying a particular skill out in the workplace; their examples are invaluable.

Many of the book's examples are contained on the accompanying CD, which means they become interactive for the reader. Load these examples onto your computer, and practice the steps outlined in the book.....experiment with other scenarios and check that your outcome mimics that shown in the book.

Speaking of the CD, it contains not only the entire book which makes searching electronically very quick and easy, but it also has in essence......another entire book! One of the authors - Patrick Blattner - has included a 388 PowerPoint slide presentation, which takes Excel's chart building capabilities beyond the obvious. All the tricks to massaging a chart into a finished polished product are included in this step by step presentation.

I have carefully examined many competitive books covering Excel 2000 and found this edition to be far superior. With its over 1000 pages of instruction, over 1000 figures, tables, and drawings, and extensive use of cross references to lead the reader to previous illustrations or further areas of study......this is the book I take to the classroom and recommend for anyone eager to use Excel to it fullest!

Rebecca Marsh - Catapult Instructor

Robert Wolke seems to mean well. He tries to present some basic science at a 3rd grade level and connect it to food. But by limiting himself to 3rd graders, his text becomes wordy and tedious. An author writing for foodies might have decided to keep the science in the background and focus on food. Wolke is better at this, but he is far more interested in what he can say about food than about tasting it.

If you are interested in food and science, Wolke's book is gruel to Harold McGee's miche.

It turns out that you can view cooking as a kind of chemistry mixed with biology, physics and (in the case of some French pastries, engineering.) It's no accident that the author Wolke is a retired professor of chemistry. Chemistry and cooking really do go together. After all, cooking creates chemical and physical changes in foods.

So what if you are NOT a fan of sciences? Will this book bore your or excite you? Well, I think most anyone could enjoy this book because there are quite a few bits of information that make for fascinating reading. And some of it is helpful for healthful cooking. For example, the green on potatoes is a chemical called solanine and forms in sunlight under the skin of the tuber. This is an alkyloid that's toxic, so keep your potatoes away from light and toss those green meanies.

The section on methods of cooking; pressure cooking, microwave, and induction cooking ranges was useful. These are common methods of cooking but how many of us really get an explanation of what's happening?

If you are tutoring your kids in science at home, or teaching them to cook, this book is invaluable. If you are curious about the "why" of cooking, this book is for you.

I LOVE THIS BOOK! I got it for Christmas and thought that I wouldn't learn much from this book as I have many other similar books (Cookwise and so on). How wrong I was! This is a well-written, easy-to-read book for anyone with an interest in why cooking works or doesn't work. It contains a few recipes for you to 'experiment'. The author is the most engaging and entertaining science professor I've ever heard (I wish mine were like this at school), he can explain ions, density, sugars, starches and much more with great clarity and humor! As a pastry chef, premed student and mom I shall be using many of his ideas (like why two cups of sugar 'fits in' to one cup of water) for my kids and my own pleasure! I especially like the Q&A style which means I can read a bit and read more later when I have more time!

I used the excuse of ordering some books for my Dad's Birthday to pick up a few for myself. "If You Can Stand the Heat", (Tales from Chefs & Restaurants) by Dawn Davis is the one I'm reading first.

Written a couple years ago, it's a pretty good overview of what's going on today in food and restaurants. It includes brief but well done interviews with chefs and food industry professionals, and manages to focus on many different aspects of the food business.

The interviews cover a wide range of topics like training, chefs as entreprenuers, restaurant location, mentors, regional cusines and such and are interesting to read as well as informative. The book also includes some recipes following each chapter, and has useful appendices with sources of information about the food business.

Among those interviewed are celebreties like Tony Bourdain, Rick Bayless, Bobby Flay and Thomas Keller but the roster consists mostly of people best known only to the inner circle of foodies.

This would be a very interesting and useful read for somebody new to food literature or thinking of entering the business.

Dawn Davis's book is a treasure trove of information for all kinds of foodies -- from the professional chef to hopeful beginners like myself who just love to read about all things food. The stories from the chefs are fascinating -- intimate enough so the reader feels like he or she is in that chef's shoes for the moment. The back of the book is filled with really useful stuff, like names and addresses of cooking schools (both stateside and abroad), lists of cookbooks by the chefs profiled, and information about trade publications. This book makes you feel like a real food insider, which in NYC (or any area for that matter) is a very cool thing to be these days. The recipes are unusual and surprisingly easy to make (not to mention yummy). Impress your friends! The photos are stylish as well. This is a book you will want to display.

This collection of career profiles of well-known chefs posits itself as a guide for those who fantasize about starting restaurants themselves. Chefs ask repeatedly: Have you got the stuff?. The family who founded Boston's French-Cambodian restaurant, the Elephant Walk, recounts a story of immigration and struggle. Harvard graduate Andrew Pforzheimer, who now owns three restaurants in Connecticut, trained, among other places, at a "jewel-box" restaurant (kitchen staffed by immigrants) in Beverly Hills, and Marc Jolis of Atlanta's Cafe Sunflower studied at a culinary school. None of the chefs makes the work sound easy, although Anthony Bourdain's tales of "snorting rails of coke that we'd run from one end of the bar to the other" may appeal to some. Davis includes informational sections such as a list of the 10 culinary schools with the highest enrollment and the top four reasons that restaurants fail, according to Gary Goldberg, director of the New School's Culinary Arts program. Each chef interviewed contributes one or more recipes (Marc Jolis's Sweet and Sour Lemongrass Saffronated Pasta with Apricots and Strawberries; Alan Wong's Grilled Lamb Chops with Macadamia-Coconut Crust, Cabernet Sauvignon Jus and Coconut-Ginger Cream), which are interesting but seem discordant with the body of this fairly encyclopedic vocational tool. BOMC selection.