Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone

By Deborah Madison

Book Overview

A fully revised and expanded edition of the most comprehensive vegetarian cookbook ever published, from America's leading authority on vegetarian cooking. "Deborah Madison's thoughtful and modern... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0767900146
• ISBN13: 9780767900140
• Release Date: October 1997
• Publisher: Broadway
• Length: 752 Pages
• Weight: 4.33 lbs.
• Dimensions: 10.3" x 2.0" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

My new favorite cookbook

I've read all 83 (whew!) of the reviews here so far and find it quite interesting that only a handful of them are negative. That so many people clearly love this cookbook only confirms my own impression. I've made dozens of recipes from this book and now trust it so completely that I will make special company dishes without having tested them first - and this is the only cookbook I have that gets that honor. The roasted eggplant lasagna with garlic bechamel is sublime, the carrots braised in honey, butter and fresh thyme is a delicious new twist, the sweets in back will delight your taste buds, and the vegetable section is well organized by ingredient. The recipes range from very simple to more complicated, but no recipe is too intimidating, no matter what your cooking experience.The food in this book has led me more towards becoming a vegetarian than any of the other vegetarian cookbooks I've ever had. No dish I have made from it has turned out bad. I find Madison's approach to cooking refreshing, really allowing the flavors of the foods to take center stage, instead of relying on long ingredient lists, complicated sauce-ery, or other gimicks to do what the ingredients ought to be able to do alone. Yet none of the dishes sacrifice flavor.I bought this book in paperback three years ago and have used it so much, the spine is cracking badly. Just go ahead and buy it in hardcover - you won't be sorry. I've recommended it to friends who enjoy cooking and cookbooks as much as I do. None of us are vegetarians. But without fail, all of them have come to love this cookbook, and most of them are pretty sophisticated cooks.Unless you are a culinary cynic or have rigid opinions about cooking and food, I don't think you can go wrong with Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. It's a real winner.

My favorite cookbook

This has become my favorite cookbook. I have been vegetarian for nearly 20 years and I am an avid cook, and this book has provided nothing but perfect food, without meat, every time I have used it. I love good food. Food that is merely nutritious and not really good, also, is a bane to humanity. This food is not generally low-fat, but it is still whole, nutritious food. The desserts are great, the salads are great, the vegetable dishes are great. You name it, in this book, it's good.The other thing that I love about this book is that Deborah Madison is not only a great chef she also knows how to translate her cooking talent into recipes that really WORK. I am disappointed by some chefs' cookbooks because it's obvious that they are excellent cooks, but their recipe-writing skills are sub-par. These, on the other hand, are well-tested, well-written recipes.The food in this book is what I'd call fine food. Some recipes in other cookbooks are for everyday-type food that will get you by, and others are for trendy food that are novel to make once in a while. The recipes in this book direct you to make the kind of food that will have you talking the next day about how good it was, and they're not trendy. Most are also uncomplicated. The flavors are refined and you might call them sophisticated, but that's misleading because there's nothing pretentious about the recipes or the presentation. The sophistication comes from a cleanness to the palate that is presented here.I have a large collection of cookbooks (200+) and this one definitely stands out. If you have others of Madison's cookbooks, such as the Savory Way or the Greens Cookbook, which are also both excellent, I suspect that you will find this one more accessible. There's a hint of preciousness in those other two books that I find lacking here. Madison seems less concerned about impressing us in this book and more relaxed in her approach. This has improved her style and has improved her food, as well.