Take a look at Goodreads
The other day Ted called me from the office to share an interesting little tidbit about our son Charlie. Charlie, who is a voracious reader, apparently posts book reviews on a site called Goodreads. I'm not talking about an occasional review. He has reviewed close to 200 books over the last year and a half or so. Some of the reviews are for books he's read for classes and some really reflect what he likes to read in his free time -- that is if you can call Ralph Ellison leisurely reading. He's even been reviewing books he's reading in German while in Berlin although the reviews are all in English. What can I say? He's far more erudite than I am.
Anyway, once Ted told me about this I started surfing around Goodreads, not only to read Charlie's reviews, but to see what else was on the site.
Well, it turns out that there's a section dedicated to reviewing cookbooks. It practically had my name written all over it. If there's one thing I like doing more than cooking, it's reading cookbooks. Cover to cover. And fantasizing about actually cooking everything in a cookbook. In order. A la Julie and Julia.
As you know, I have hundreds of cookbooks and I have something to say about each one. Who am I to deny to cookbook reading public my opinion?
New Classic Family Dinners by Mark PeelMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
I have a litmus test for all cookbooks. If, in the bookstore, I open the book to at least three recipes that I want to make, I buy the book. New Classic Family Dinners passed the test and has turned out to be one of my current favorite cookbooks. While I doubt that I will ever make every recipe in the book, the recipes for Tuna Noodle Casserole and Stuffed Shells made this a worthwhile cookbook purchase.
Mr. Peel's attention to technique and quality of ingredients is what really sets this cookbook apart. New Classic Family Dinners is a great addition to any kitchen library.
View all my reviews
For the record, as much as I wish I had read 200 books in the past year and a half, I've read somewhere between 50 and 60 (which might not be a fully accurate count) in the past year. A lot of the books are just things in my room that I've read (even if they are from years and years ago). A lot of my reading isn't independent--you won't ever catch me dead reading Schiller in the original unless I absolutely have to--and a majority of the stuff that I have read in the past year came during the summer.
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