About the books. The smell. When I was a wee lad my parents bought the entire junior and full blown set of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (ya ha ha that was in the 70’s). This set was hhhhuuuugggeee and was three shelves of 2 inch thick books for the main set and a shelf of 1 inch thick books for the junior edition. But you know what made me think of that? When you open the Modernistic Cuisine books is the smell… I am not sure what that is, but I think it is the ink. Also the pages are not glued into the book but sewn in like the Britannica, quality.

OK, I am two weeks into owning these and have done 300 pages of Volume 1. When you look at the advertisements for these books there is lots of hype about the pictures, but let me tell you that they contain tons of text. My first impressions is that for most people this first volume would bore them to tears, not really what I wanted to say in my first review of this set of books, but as Annie Lennox said:

Would I lie to you?
Would I lie to you honey?
Now would I say something that wasn’t true?

The first part of Chapter 1, History was entertaining and then I skipped a bit about different chefs. The section on History of This Book was good reading, at least for me. The next section on the how the recipes were laid out was interesting. They attack recipes more like a chemistry lab experiment than the traditional heat your oven, ingredients, step by step, but I liked the layout.

Chapter 2 on Microbiology for Cooks and Chapter 3 on Food Safety were a bit hard going. I guess this was mainly for restaurateurs and also to convince you don’t need to cook pork into a hard dry grey lump of fibre anymore.

Chapter 4 on Food and Health was quite an eye opener. As stated in the book, this chapter is probably the most controversial. Wow consider….

MSG is not bad for you.

Fibre is fibre and not a cure for colon cancer.

Fat in food for the most part does not affect your Cholesterol, but in fact the reduction in fat has increased obesity due to the increase in sugar in food.

Statins do reduce LDL cholesterol, but does not protect you from heart disease

The Southern European Diet does nothing for your heart, they all die the same as we do. Recent studies show they misdiagnosed the cause of death.

I studied engineering at Uni, so I am a geek and an engineer and a chef and I guess schizophrenic! Some of this stuff in Volume 1 gave me a refresher to stuff I “had” to learn in Uni. But on the flip side the high level and also low level at the same time coverage of “Heat in Motion” covering conduction, convection, radiation and then condensation was really good. I always thought that steam cooked the food but it is the change from steam to water again releasing the latent heat of vaporization that really cooks the food. The amount of energy to change water to different states is massive! On the opposite page was a discussion of the Fourier transform formula of energy (missed that bit out).

I am now reading the section on why Water is Strange and is very interesting considering most all the food we eat is water with some other bits thrown in.

All in all there are some really, really good bits so far which has made the purchase worth while.

More boredom later, if you can stand it VBG.

They are so heavy, you need a Laptop Desk to read them.

Looks like I need a larger light box too!

Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking

And here is the unboxing. I grabbed a quick to hand reference object so you could see the size of the package.

And you know what they were right it was

The book on the top was the waterproof recipe book, which does not have any pictures but is ring bound so you can open to the right page without breaking the spine. All the recipes were very clear and in a large font ( for us oldies). Here are some random recipe names from letting the book fall open:

Page 77 – Steelhead Trout Confit with a Fennel Salad
Page 127 – Green Garlic and Pork Sausage
Page 229 – Edible Films, next page spiced Honey Glass
Page 307 – Eggless Citrus Curd

Hmmmm.

A lot of packaging (all cardboard and ready for recycling) later we are almost to the other books.

So here are the rest of the books which were a bit of lifting to get out of the box.

But wait a minute you don’t realize how big these babies are… I will be right back as I create another reference for you to judge them by (glug). OK ready with the reference:

And here they are 1-5

Calling in sick tomorrow… ok maybe not.

Twice!!! Not only did I purchase the most expensive set of cookbooks ever by buying Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking (stupid #1). I then was too eager / greedy to wait for it in the UK so I purchased it at Amazon.com in the USA and had it shipped to unknown location, deep in the southern states of America (my mom’s house). Where I thought she could pop it on a plane and forward it on to me the UK (stupid #2).

Here are the physical characteristics of this order:
Product Dimensions: 18.4 x 15.4 x 14.6 inches
Shipping Weight: 46.1 pounds

Basically it is a block of wood that is a foot and half square and weighs almost 50lbs. Sorry Mom…

I am now trying to figure out how to get this block of wood from my mom’s to the UK, looks like it will take another couple of weeks until I can start reading – let alone reviewing this in any way.

a promise to review of Weber’s Time to Grill: Easy or Adventurous, It’s Your Call

I have been following Jamie’s recipes in his Recipe of the Week which you can sign up for at Weber Life.

I finally got a chance to sit in the sun and have a good read of all the recipes in this book this afternoon. My overall opinion is that it is well written and covers not only BBQ but cooking in general, and good value for money. The reason I say it is more than a BBQ cookbook is that the first section, on Grilling Basics, is 30 pages of information that any good cook should know. For example, I did not know how to butterfly / spatchcock a chicken which is covered well in text and pictures. Jamie has broken each recipe into a quick method on the left facing page of the book and a more adventurous on the right facing page. In my opinion skip the shrink wrapped “BBQ” food in the cold section of supermarket and buy this book to learn how to use raw ingredients to create quick or adventurous creations for the BBQ which will taste twice as good.

The book is broken down into sections:
Grilling Basics
Appetizers
Red Meat
Pork
Poultry
Seafood
Eggs
Vegetables
Deserts

So I will follow the same layout in my review.

Grilling Basics
This is a really good overall summary of the equipment and techniques you should have to prepare food for the BBQ, which can be the toughest bit for most people. The section on rubs, marinades and sauces is a more general set of recipes. Throughout the book these are used but also other sauces and marinades are introduced.

Appetizers
I found these recipes a bit too fiddly for me, but it was not a large section either as it was only 20 pages of the 300 page book.

Red Meat
Since Jamie is American the cuts of meat may not be the same that you are used to, for example Tri-Tip. Also this section covers several recipes which use minced beef, but BBQ meat loaf…hmmm not quite sure about that one. This section also includes lamb and one of the recipes I am going to try is Lamb and Chorizo Burgers with Jack Cheese and Poblano Chiles served in pita bread. I never thought of cooking kofta on the BBQ but it makes sense as I grill it indoors. When covering steaks Jamie has many sauces included in the cooking instructions. One sauce which caught my eye is where he discussed making Béarnaise sauce and “that is usually strikes fear into the minds of amateur cooks” followed by a discussion of using raw eggs in sauces can cause salmonella. He does spark my attention every once in a while with “I never thought of that on the BBQ”, for example Nachos. I am definitely going to try Churrasco Mixed Grill which has pork, chicken and chorizo, as I wanted to eat the picture right out of the page. I think the American influence of the book has also has brought with it the Tex-Mex side of cooking. For example Queso Fundido which is a chunky Mexican cheese fondue, but I am not sure where I will find at cotija cheese. There are lots of pork chop recipes again with different sauces: Whiskey-Mustard Pork Chops, Buttermilk-Brined Pork Chops, and Moroccan-Spiced Pork Chops, Pork Chops stuffed with apricots and raisins and Miso-Ginger Pork Chops. He has a couple of nice recipes for pulled pork one quick if you are in a hurry and another if you have a nice afternoon and some cold ones in the fridge to spend 3-4 hours to cook the pork. The ribs section has a great tip on how to remove the membrane from the back of ribs using a table knife.

Poultry
This section starts with lots of recipes using chicken breasts. There is a new twist on beer can chicken which used lemon-lime soda, but this also has some tips on how to actually implement the can and liquid. This section also has several turkey recipes, but quite a few of them have a pre-cooking brining step.

Seafood
Prawns and scallops play a major part of this section. It has a really gorgeous paella recipe so I might actually use the speciality pan I bought about 5 years ago. There follows a plethora of salmon fillet recipes with many different sauces. Then something that makes you go wow, Salmon Sliders! Sliders to me are a Illinois thing when I was growing up in America, on Fridays we used to send someone off for 50-60 sliders for lunch. Tuna is next and using mainly steaks with sauces again, but there is a twist where Jamie does a cedar plank recipe. I have never charcoaled one side and then put the food on and finished it off, but I am going to try it. Note Jamie cooks his tuna rare, but if you are like me and only like beef that way give a few more minutes.

Eggs
Huh what is this all about, they will fall between the grates! Oh further reading means you will need a cast iron skillet to do most of these recipes. But a skillet may be worth the investment if you consider Jamie’s thought of a lazy sunny weekend morning’s brunch, and maybe a bucks fizz (I added that bit).

Vegetables
The first really nice recipe that hits me is Asparagus and Potato Napoleons with Tarragon Vinaigrette which is a short stack of potato pancake, asparagus, goat’s cheese and repeat… nice. Another wow hits here with Roasted Brussels Sprouts marinated in lemon olive oil. I want to try this for sure but don’t know where I am going to find champagne vinegar. What follows is lots of eggplant recipes so I kind of glazed over.

Deserts
I did not really look to closely at this section because, after all the work of prep and cook a proper BBQ someone else can do the pudding.