My Cooking Coach: Cooking Knowledge at Your Fingertips

By Charles Delmar

Book Overview

It has been said that, "If you can read a recipe, you can cook." The sad truth is that many cooks today do not know enough of the basics of foods and cooking to translate recipes to cook with confidence or success, let alone creatively. My Cooking Coach is a 500 page cornucopia of cooking knowledge that provides, as its slogan states, "Cooking Knowledge at Your Fingertips " All of this cooking knowledge comes from a revised version of The Essential Cook, by Charles Delmar, winner of the prestigious "Writings" award from the International Assn. of Culinary Professionals (IACP). This new edition has been re-named and re-formatted in "bite-sized" pieces so it can be read as a quick reference from its Glossary/Index of more than 1,100 cooking terms - an important consideration for today's cooks who don't seem to have the time or the patience to read a textbook. Of course, it can also be read "Top-Down" as a book that one reviewer described as "A really good, and informative, read. Another reviewer, award-winning restaurateur and author, Bill Neal said of the first edition, "The Essential Cook", "This is the book people who buy "Joy of Cooking" think they are going to be getting ... but they don't ""From Part One, First You Steal a Chicken: How to Plan, Select, Store, Prepare, Cook, Flavor and Serve most foods, through Part Three: How to Set a Dining Table and Other Facts of Life, with How Good Cooks Do It: Basic Cooking Methods and Techniques in between, My Cooking Coach uses clear, direct language and more than 400 informative illustrations, along with "Master Recipes," to explain the basic How-Tos and Whys of foods, ingredients and cooking. There are no conventional recipes in My Cooking Coach. Rather, the author uses what he calls "Master Recipes" that provide step-by-step instructions for cooking almost any food you can think of by any of the basic cooking methods usually used to cook that food: Dry Heat, Liquids, and Frying. "Master recipes are the themes, of which recipes are but individual variations," says author Delmar. Now, using abundant page number cross-references and more than 5,000 Bookmark/Hyperlinks, readers have the cornucopia of cooking knowledge in The Essential Cook literally "at their fingertips".

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0985014628
• ISBN13: 9780985014629
• Release Date: August 2013
• Publisher: Cooking Coach Corp. LLC
• Length: 501 Pages
• Weight: 2.54 lbs.
• Dimensions: 11.0" x 1.1" x 8.5"
• Age Range: 16 years and up

Customer Reviews

Excellent reference to the home chef

Just about everything that the home chef needs to know about the craft of fine cooking is covered within the pages of this book. I can't stress enough the importance of first principles in any discripline. Advancing one's skills in the kitchen becomes second nature when the practices are founded on a firm command of the basics.

This book deserves to be a bestseller.

When I was growing up, mothers did not ordinarily teach their sons very much about cooking. After all, women did all of the cooking. Right? ...WRONG!!!...This book teaches you what Mom could have but didn't, the basic principles of cooking. Why are some foods boiled in water, while others are fried in oil or roasted in the hot air of an oven? This book explains why, and it explains a hundred other principles that serve as the foundation on which to build your repertoire of recipes, but are also complete enough so that you can prepare many types of meals "from scratch", in absolutely basic form or with your own variations. I love this book!

Fantastic reference guide.

Outstanding reference for beginners or experienced cooks. Covers everything about basic cooking techniques, sanitation and planning. Takes very basic "core" type recipes and offers suggestions for hundreds of variations. Out of print and hard to find, but well worth the effort. I recommend it highly.

A "Joy of Cooking" of cooking techniques and practices.

I've had this book for years, and I am constantly returning to it. Not only does it have a sound foundation of classic techniques, but it covers all aspects of dining, from how to plan a menu, to preparation of all kinds of ingredients, to setting the table, to basic sanitation and kitchen organization. It really is like a "Joy of Cooking" of cooking techniques.