I'm Just Here for More Food Book

I was waiting to review this until I had tried a recipe and tonight I did. I made the peanut butter cookies. I have made many batches of peanut butter cookies over the years and have never had a bad batch. Alton's are very good cookies, but not my favorite. They're kind of crunchy, and I like a chewier cookie, but that's just me. Don't get me wrong; AB's are excellent, too.

The real reason I'm giving this book 5 stars is that it's just such an interesting read for someone who loves baking. I had a lot of "Ah ha" moments reading about the chemistry and physics of baking. Actually, I knew I had a touch for it, and now I understand more clearly what I have been doing right. And I definitely have picked up some valuable pointers for improving.

The writing is light and amusing and easy to read but gives some really solid information. It's almost a "dummies" kind of read, only you're not pretending to be stupid because there happens to be an area in which you're not expert, which I think is the problem of the concept behind the dummies books. You're not a dummy just because you don't know Photoshop or antique coin collecting. You're a dummy if you are interested in one of those things but won't read up on it. So anyone reading a dummies book has proven, ironically, that they are not. Wow, what a digression. What I'm saying is that Alton uses a similar light touch with humor and helpful diagrams but without insulting you for not already knowing it.

Some people might not like his insistence on unusual methods, like weighing ingredients by volume. There are little things to pick at in this book like that. He also insists that you have a stand mixer if you're going to bake cookies. He says handhelds don't cut it and neither does manual mixing. But I mixed manually on cookies for years when I was young and poor and they always came out great. Then I used hand mixers for many more years and my cookies were, of course, fine. So he's kind of unrealistic in his expectations for the equipment of the average Joe's kitchen. But it's fun to dream of one day having all that stuff and knowing you would have this book to help you know how to use it.

To recap: only made one recipe and liked it. But the book (and there's quite a lot of text, this is far more than a cookbook), is a pleasure to read.