Sauce basics 87 recipes illustrated step-by-step

Owing to the popularity of food-focused TV programming, the effective arrangement of the "My Cooking Class" series (which also includes Steaming, Chocolate, Middle Eastern, and Pasta Basics) will have you wondering why it has taken cookbooks so long to get visual. Beyond a one-page preface, an ingredient index, and concisely measured instructions, you won't find much text here, but this does not mean the books lack detail. Each recipe is pictured step-by-step with the crisply reductive clarity of a minimalist still life. Vassallo (coauthor, The Diabetes Everyday Cookbook) identifies all sorts of roots, stalks, leaves, pods, and seeds and serves up a fusion of ethnic recipes, from Onion Flan and Panzanella to Tzatziki and Chocolate Zucchini Cake. Black (Sugar & Spice) moves beyond the classic sauces to illustrate prep techniques for salad dressings, condiments, foams, and sweet dessert sauces such as coulis and creams, then puts them to purpose with recipes like Roast Beef with Apple Horseradish Sauce, Whole-Wheat Spaghetti Arrabiata, and Crepes with Caramel and Whipped Cream. VERDICT This series of stripped-down pictorials worth a thousand words is the missing link between elementally vague text-based cookbooks and video instruction you can't slow down enough or take into the kitchen. Elegant design you can't help but devour. Highly recommended for all experience levels.-Ben Malczewski, Ypsilanti Dist. Lib., MI (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.