I like this cookbook. I made one recipe and it was just fine. I checked this out from the library. I wouldn't mind owning this, but it wasn't compelling enough for me to purchase my own copy. I enjoyed the tips and tricks sections. ( )

There are some good points in this book, but there are also things that should be here, and were not. It seems like the Dummies editors are taking short cuts and not making their books for dummies but for a select few.

The Dummies series was great at one time. Not comprehensive about the subject but it not only got you started, but you would be pretty well advanced by the time you were done with a book. Her Lacalamita is very enthusiastic about his passion.

But he is repetitive and that eats into the space he should be teaching. Then he has packed the book with recipes. Such a relation of recipes to material that it is more cookbook then guidebook.

And cookbooks have pictures. What do these meals look like when they are prepared? Who knows. The Author did not include that.

What about the accoutrements for your kitchen to make this journey doable. They are described, and the author does supply on occasion teensy drawings that you can't tell what the additional equipment you need is. So he doesn't show us all, or show it well.

And with all the recipes he doesn't show you what you should be preparing.

You will get some recipes and they will probably be good. You will get some general knowledge that he will repeat and repeat and repeat. The book has an index. He certainly did not need to hammer home the relationship of food to water more than twice.

So middle of the road. The book should have about 100 photographs and illustrations that it does not. Or it should be half the size that it is. ( )