I learned to cook when I found myself living alone for the first time in a tiny sublet that had a food processor. My mom sent me a copy of The Moosewood Cookbook, not because I was vegetarian but because it was easier to learn to cook on vegetables. I was so ignorant that I had to ask a foodie friend whether a clove of garlic was one segment or the whole head. (She never forgot that. Never mind that I’d been pretty sure of the answer, and was just checking to be certain. Years later she still laughed.)
It was a few years later that another foodie got me a subscription to Cook’s Illustrated. I’d read other cooking magagazines before–Food and Wine, Gourmet, and Bon Appetit. I liked them fine, though I found them largely the same. Cook’s Illustrated, though, was something else. It had no ads, just a few recipes per issue, plus a tasting and an equipment testing. Best of all, they were obsessed with food, so that when they published a recipe, they let you know just how many times and what variations were tried before arriving at the final recipe. It was like the Consumer Reports of cooking. I have been a subscriber now for about ten years.
A few years ago they began a show on PBS, America’s Test Kitchen. I was surprised to find that the show was a good complement to the magazine. It highlighted just a few recipes, plus one tasting and one testing. It featured staff from the magazine, and they were fun to watch. The style of the show was like the magazine–straightforward, not fancy, and above all, informational.
Last summer I spent a lot of time away when we sold our condo and bought a house. I decided to sign up for Cook’s Online, which includes all the recipes, as well as searchable databases. It has been a useful subscription even when I’m home and have access to all my back issues of Cook’s.
Finally, last year Cook’s sent out a solicitation for their new sister magazine, Cook’s Country, which a friend has jokingly called “Red-State Cook’s”. I was going to pass, since I felt one subscription plus online was enough, but was swayed by the “try it for free” offer. When it arrived, I prepared to write cancel on the invoice. That is, until my husband waved the magazine in my face and said excitedly, “Have you seen this? There are about seven recipes I want to make in here!” And so we became subscribers to Cook’s Country, as well.
We were converts to the Cook’s empire, then, but I’d managed to shed other cooking magazines and shows. Then a friend recommended Everyday Food, a digest-sized mag from the Martha Stewart empire. I checked it out, and found it had good photography and simple recipes that were true to the title. I also found they had a cooking show. The show, though, like the magazine, features a lot of recipes. It goes through them very quickly. There are some tidbits of information, but they are mostly very basic cooking tips, like generously salt water for pasta, and save some pasta water to thin the sauce if necessary. It isn’t a bad show, but I found it redundant to the magazine for me. Perhaps it would be more useful to someone newer to the cooking learning curve, however. I am going to give the magazine a try, though I’ve had a hard time tracking it down in stores. It features simple, straightforward recipes that would be ideal for weeknight cooking. I think it could be a good balance for Cook’s, which favors quality above all, sometimes resulting in longer cooking times.
