Kitchen Sense: More Than 600 Recipes to Make You a Great Home Cook

I really like this cookbook. Even as a chef, I still pull this cookbook out frequently. It's not massive nor encyclopedic. It's not going to teach you everything you could ever want to know about cooking. But the recipes are creative and unique, and they aren't all that hard. This is the perfect cookbook to buy friends or family who enjoy cooking at home. It will show you new ways of doing things or prompt you to cook in ways you normally wouldn't.

This cookbook is genius! I use it all the time. It is easy to follow, and I have never had a problem with a single recipe. I get great praise from guests when I use the book for dinner parties. It also makes a great gift - people love it. Who are these people making comments about there not being pictures? I've never even noticed because the book is so incredibly useful.

I bought this based on the great reviews here. I was looking for a one-stop shopping type of cookbook and I hit the jackpot here. When it arrived I sat down and began highlighting recipes I wanted to try first and an hour later I still wasn't done. Everything I've cooked thus far has come out fabulously.

`Kitchen Sense' by James Beard Foundation Vice President, Mitchell Davis comes closer to my ideal cookbook than any other book I have reviewed. It is not perfect, and it is certainly not the only cookbook you will want, but it attains that happy medium of just enough of the right information for an excellent selection of both classic and interesting recipes to make it the first cookbook you reach for when trying to decide on what to make for dinner. If you have this book, you will still need an encyclopedic book such as `The Joy of Cooking' and a good reference such as the `Larousse Gastronomique'. If you are especially fond of ethnic cuisines, you will also still need Julia Child's `Mastering the Art of French Cooking', Marcella Hazan's `Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking', Rick Bayless' `Authentic Mexican' and David Thompson's `Thai Food'. If you like baking bread or cakes or pies, you will still need good books from Rose Levy Beranbaum, Nick Malgieri, or Maida Heatter. And, you will probably want to hang on to your specialized books on cooking fish, vegetables, meats, poultry, and eggs. Last but not least, you will still want your copy of Jacques Pepin's `Complete Techniques'. But, these are for reading when you want to plan ahead. On the day of..., you will always be able to rely on Davis book to come through with something interesting, presented in a way which is superior to almost every other general, non-professional cookbook I have seen including the tomes from `Gourmet', `Bon Appetit', Mark Bittman and `The New York Times' / Craig Claiborne. One way in which Davis seems to almost everything right is in the amount of detail he includes with each recipe. I always avoid even the thought of compiling my own cookbook because I'm sure I would include too much. Davis does not, for example, include nutritional analyses or wine selections. I think nutritional analyses in cookbooks are largely a gimmick, unless it is a cookbook for diabetics. And, I think that if wine selection is that important to you, you will bone up on what you need to know to make that decision for yourself. Like the famous early line in `The Hustler', I paraphrase `... this is the kitchen man. No gambling, no booze, and no billiards. We just cook.' Not only does Mitchell Davis include what seems like all the right stuff, and nothing extra, he even goes so far as to explain what you are to get from the various parts of a recipe. This is something I have never seen anywhere else, including from that supernerd of the kitchen, Alton Brown. This attention to detail does not stop with Davis' talking about his recipes. It extends to how each recipe is lovingly written, to a level of detail that may not have been seen since Julia Child's better recipes. Davis covers makeahead suggestions, which are done by many other cookbooks, but I think that combined with everything else he does well, his `makeahead' instructions are doubly valuable. He especially does not give any false

Kitchen Sense is an amazingly comprehensive book that offers an excellent combination of tips and recipes. The recipes themselves are extremely clearly written, detailed and informational without being pedantic, and complemented by Davis' often witty observations and suggestions. And the dishes they describe are far more interesting and sophisticated than the Joy of Cooking or any other general cookbook, covering a full range of ethnic cuisines as well as American classics with a modern twist. It's such a cliche to say that this is the only book you'd need to take to a deserted island (one with a full kitchen...), but in this case it's really true!