: I have been posting and raving about him here for quite some time. BUT I : seem to notice that his cooking times are off. I blamed myself at first. : But the other night I did a chicken and rice from MB Cooks at Home. : After sauteeing onions, then rice, you're supposed to add boiling water : and raw chicken parts (which have had no other pre-cookign, browning : etc.) and then cook for 20 minutes. That seemed awfully short to me, but : I thought hey, I've cut the breast into 4, and separated wings and leg : parts. : : Of course the drumstick was still bloody after 20 minutes, and even the : rice was still crunchy (regular white rice). It needed more like 45 : minutes. : : When I checked his other book for chicken and rice, I found arroz con : pollo, chicken parts pre-browned, and cooking time with rice of *30* : minutes, i.e. more time even though chicken already slightly cooked. : : I don't want to tell you how badly I misjudged the timing on the : Christmas roast because I followed his instructions to the letter. Had I : compared notes on timing with other cookbooks, and maybe asked somebody, : I would have realized that his times were way too short to cook that : prime rib. I had to keep putting it back in the oven for another hour, : while the Yorkshire pudding collapsed, and the thing was still barely : cooked. (My in-laws read my posts, and had I only asked them, they would : have told me. So now my humiliation is revealed...) : : Can it be that he doesn't test his recipes? He seems so precise and : organized... : : Others have posted about problems with his recipes. I feel so let down! : His philosophy and _style_ and techniques make lots of sense to me, so I'm : disappointed. : : (I do wonder why I take these cookbook crushes so personally...oh well, : who else would understand besides you guys?) : : Leila : I have about 50/50 split on successes and failures with Bittman's How to Cook Everything . I love the french bread but found the deep-dried onion rings to be ghastly. I think some of the recipes have not been tested at all. I don't use this book at all anymore, I just got tired of the hit 'n miss recipes. I also would never recommend this to a beginning cook. Stick with Joy of Cooking, a much better choice.

Others have posted about problems with his recipes. I feel so let down! His philosophy and _style_ and techniques make lots of sense to me, so I'm disappointed. I'm a complete novice trying stuff out of _How to Cook Everything_. Generally, it's been pretty good so far. I think you're right about the timing on some things though. Once recipe called for cooking minced shallots 3-4 min until soft. This made no sense to me, so I just cooked them until they looked OK. I've just started to use my own judgment when I get confused. There's been some failures, but almost no outright disasters so far. Except for the Pad Thai. I can't get that to come out at all edible. Aaron

: : Leila : I have about 50/50 split on successes and failures with Bittman's How to Cook Everything . I love the french bread but found the deep-dried onion rings to be ghastly. I think some of the recipes have not been tested at all. I don't use this book at all anymore, I just got tired of the hit 'n miss recipes. I also would never recommend this to a beginning cook. Stick with Joy of Cooking, a much better choice. I can see where there might be variations due to oven temp, size of roast, etc., but the chicken and rice recipe's times were inexcusable, unless he intended it for *BONELESS* chicken parts and didn't say so. Regarding the Christmas roast - I'd never cooked one before. You don't normally spend all that money on a test drive recipe - I wanted to get it right the first time. Always risky, and luckily my family is very forgiving. I needed more info than I got from Bittman's roast recipe. I should have stuck with Joy of Cooking, but Bittman's recipe seemed more cued to exactly the cut of meat I got, the same size, the same _style_ of preparation. He called it prime rib, while it seems to me JoC called it something else.  Ah well, live and learn.... I can understand problems with the run of the mill cook book, but How to Cook Everything presents itself as a definitive, all-you-need-to-know cookbook for beginners to old pros. You don't want to have failures (especially high visibility ones like the Xmas prime rib). An old pro might know better (as I did on the chicken recipe) but a beginner doesn't. That said, I still use the book for many other recipes. I bake his french bread all the time. I like his beef daube recipe. I have done numerous other recipes out of HTCE. Now I'm a bit gun-shy, however. Leila Leila

The main problems for offending authors are: deadlines, lack of staff(writer is responsible for proofing the recipes, not the publishers), too challenging a schedule for the authors. And then there's bad translation. I have some in Swedish, that are translated from English. Sloppy translation usually gives bad grammar, and I can live with that in a cookbook. But when they get the ingredients wrong... The worst example so far is one I have about mediterranean cooking, where anchovies throughout the book is translated into ansjovis