Everyone’s Time To Cook: How To Start A Love Affair With Cooking-Robert Blakeslee

Everyone’s Time To Cook: How To Start A Love Affair With Cooking Robert Blakeslee Square One Publishers, Inc., May 30 2013, $24.95 ISBN: 9780757003790 The title accurately describes the premise of this wonderful easy to use cookbook that is divided into two major sections: “Getting Started” and “The Recipes”. Though Square One Publishers calls “Getting Started” as “Cooking Class 101; I would differ as this category is a delightful descriptive remedial Cooking Class 099 that uses pictures and easy to understand text with tips to introduce the reluctant novice to the kitchen. “The Recipes” are divided into fourteen categories that are similar to many cookbooks but with the additions of numerous pictures and simple step by step instructions. My husband learned to cook in a Bronx JHS; my daughter-in-law is a superb chef; I have known my way around a kitchen for over four decades. None of us are ideal candidates to test Robert Blakeslee’s underlying principle. So I asked my son, whose résumé consists of peanut butter and microwaving compounded by a deep need for overwhelming detail, to make for the four of us a day after Thanksgiving meal. For breakfast, he made from scratch excellent pancakes and so-so coffee (admitting he didn’t follow the book by reverting to how he always made coffee). He also baked a tasty pumpkin pie. Though anecdotal, my son said this was an easy to use book in an enabling style that he wishes would be applied to other milieus; and promises us Christmas dinner a la Blakeslee. PS: like all good guests we left him the dishes. Harriet Klausner