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Is there a site that offers a "look inside" preview of the book "The New Best Recipe"? I checked both Amazon and Google Books, but I couldn't preview it in either.

The approach of the book sounds interesting, but before ordering, I'd like to see for myself how the recipes are laid out and how much explanation is given for why a particular recipe worked out the best. Also, I'd like to check that it contains enough recipes suitable for vegetarians to be useful to me.

If no online preview can be found, some description from someone who owns a copy would be useful too.

Rinzwind
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    Check your local library. I know it seems obvious, but so often people forget that the library either has, or often can get, almost anything you want. I am in Ohio, for instance, and my library lets me order online from libraries all over the state. In fact, in the middle of writing this comment I went and ordered it for myself. I didn't realize until then that this is a Cooks Illustrated book...while I don't own this one, I have several others and they have been universally and consistently good. – Doug Johnson-Cookloose Dec 30 '10 at 20:04
  • Thanks for the suggestion. I'm not in an English-speaking country though. I'm not sure whether the book has appeared in translation, or whether it's possible to get it through international inter-library lending (and I'm guessing the charge for that might not be worth getting a preview instead of just outright buying it sight unseen). – Rinzwind Dec 31 '10 at 01:38
  • @Doug : the generic term for borrowing from other libraries is 'ILL' (Inter-Library Loan); but I also know that specifically for the Cooks Illustrated stuff, my local library had subscribed to a service, so you could watch videos of America's Test Kitchen if you provided your library card number. – Joe May 19 '11 at 16:02

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It is an excellent book. I pretty much learned how to cook out of it. All the recipes are wonderful. My favorite thing about it is the discussion of what else they tried in order to get to a particular recipe. Finding out what didn't work about a recipe and why you're doing things the way you are has taught me more about cooking than any other single source. There are no pictures, if that's your thing. But I don't really find them necessary. The book has tons of standard recipes and is well organized. I highly recommend this book to everyone....

...except you. Actually, that's not entirely true, but the book has a strong meat focus. I don't know what the standard is for a vegetarian to buy an omnivore cookbook, but I'd guess that at least half the stuff in this one has meat. If you're comfortable subbing out ingredients and ignoring large portions of the book, then it's great. But you will need to ignore quite a lot of it.

yossarian
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  • Looking up online I noted that Jack Bishop (the America's Test Kitchen taste test guy...which is Cooks Illustrated) has a Vegetarian cookbook. http://www.amazon.com/Year-Vegetarian-Kitchen-Seasonal-Friends/dp/0618239979 – Doug Johnson-Cookloose Dec 30 '10 at 20:08