Browsed through this for a few seconds the other night in a bookstore (before I had to go corral the brood), and it looked pretty good. I don’t yet own Harold McGee’s On Food and Cooking or the Cook’s Illustrated The Best Recipe, or even Pam Anderson’s The Perfect Recipe or How to Cook Without a Book. So, if I’m going to add one of these to my bookshelf soon, which should it be? I’m fairly comfortable with basic kitchen techniques, but there are big gaps in my knowledge and abilities, so there are plenty of topics on which I still need instructions “adapted to the meanest understanding”. As you may have discerned from the choice of candidates, I’m not interested in collections of recipes (I’ve have never followed any recipe exactly in my life, except for certain baked goods), but in general techniques and explanations of why foods behave as they do and how to make them do what you want. I like the emphasis on food science that McGee and Corriher have (I do own McGee’s The Curious Cook, and had his chapter on beurre blanc come in quite handy recently, when I found myself with no cream while cooking a dish that called for it and was able to concoct a passable substitute by making a beurre blanc without any flavoring).
So which one should I choose? Or is there yet another candidate you’d recommend over these?