Reviews for How to Boil Water: Life Beyond Takeout

The average rating for How to Boil Water: Life Beyond Takeout based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-04-16 00:00:00 Thomas F. Cataldo, Jr. four stars because the food network is my guiding angel, and i support any book or magazine they put out because they have always been inventive in their recipes, clear in their directions, and i love the photography in this, and all of their books. but, it is a cookbook for beginners, so if you are practically a celebrity chef like me, a lot of the techniques and tips will be old news. but - man - those pictures. for example, i make an amazing lasagna. but the picture of the one in here still makes me a little wistful. although i am sure mine can kick its butt. when i make lasagna, that pan weighs the same as a three-year-old with a twinkie habit. and there is a vegetable gratin in here that is so beautiful with its alternating layers of green and yellow squash and red tomatoes,that i almost don't want to cover it with slabs of meat. almost. and i am definitely going to use the recipe for migas next monday. but i will probably irish it up with some black pudding instead of chorizo. 'cuz us celebrity chefs have pizazz! this is one of those books i drool over while already eating my monday-afternoon big breakfast. it makes no sense to read cookbooks while eating, i know, but it's just something i do, my version of relaxing with the crossword over coffee. and i love that even though i know a lot of this stuff already, it is all gathered together for easy access should i suddenly forget how long beets need to be roasted, or what baby spinach is good for. there are still some valuable recipes like pb&j wings, which i think is why i initially bought the book. i have a serious weakness for all things pbj. and although i did say i loved all the food network's publications, and love to support them in all they do for the world of food, i would be a bad friend to greg if i didn't include this picture: sorry, food network, even my love has limits. now i am going to go lie down and frantically try to digest all that i have forced into myself. i am like a giant snake...full of breakfast meats and tomatoes...

Review # 2 was written on 2015-12-18 00:00:00 Joseph Place My parents LOVE to cook. They love to bake, they love to grill, they love making food in general. They also love teaching their kids. My mom taught me to use a computer before most of my classmates knew how to point and click. My dad put me on a bike and held me up, and after I finished my tantrum because he let go when he PROMISED he wouldn't… I knew how to ride a bike. Unfortunately, their cooking skills and their teaching skills don't really mix. My mom's idea of teaching me to cook was "don't touch that and get out of my kitchen." My dad's was more along the lines of "Sure. No, let me do that. I got this. Here, let me- okay, you're in my way." So when I moved out and got to college I was a MASTER of using the microwave. I could make some gourmet level microwave stuff. I could even cook pizza rolls without them popping and spewing lava all over the microwave. And that was fine for the dorms. I wasn't allowed anything more than a microwave in my dorm room anyways. Not even a hot plate. BUT after a year of wanting to murder my roommate, we decided to move into an apartment and I was met with my foreign nemesis: The Stove. And their trusty sidekick: The Oven. I was terrible. My roommate and I turned cookies into hockey pucks. We turned baked apples into convincing meatball doppelgangers. We seared things INTO the pans. It was a disaster. Spaghetti sauce on the walls (one roommate was baffled by the idea of turning the heat down on the stove), blackened and charred pans. And if you can believe it, my sister was even worse than me. Somehow. Yes guys, those are my actual attempts. But I still really wanted to cook. So I learned the hard way via trial and error and recipes and the internet. And I am proud to say I can now cook, or you know, at least not be a fire hazard and piss off my neighbors with the smoke detector. I also now have a lovely guy who also loves cooking. So this book was originally a gift for him because, like me, he had never actually learned how to cook. He just learned how to not blow the top off a pressure cooker and into the ceiling. Fortunately that's not his handy work. But anyways I got him this book and he left it laying around my apartment so I read the book. This is a great little cookbook whether you're just getting started or already have a little experience with cooking. Aside from including a bunch of great recipes this book is FULL of information. It talks about how to pick out meat, produce, etc. what to cook with, how certain seasonings interact with different foods etc. There's also a list of cooking utensils and appliances that any kitchen should be stocked with. And yes, it does in fact teach you how to boil water... I really wish I had a book like this when I was starting out because it would have saved me (and my roommates) a LOT of hassle, albeit at the cost of humorous stories and pictures. Even now though, I still learned a good deal from looking through this book. It's easy to understand, it has some really great information, and it's colorful, fun, and full of pictures. So whether you're just starting out (or know someone just starting to live on their own), or already have a little bit of expertise, this book is definitely worth having a look through. I highly recommend it!