Ebook: Notes on Cooking: A Short Guide to an Essential Craft

Notes on Cooking is an essential primer of immediately useful and utterly relevant guidance that can help anyone become a better cook — without a single recipe. The book’s 217 “notes” deliver indispensable culinary truths, the highest standards of conduct, and timeless gems of cooking wisdom that have been taught and passed down by top chefs for generations.

Here is what every cook needs to know, beyond the recipe. In assertive, no-nonsense language, the notes provide explanatory commentary, helpful examples, and insights from Alice Waters, Daniel Boulud, Georges Auguste Escoffier, Leonardo Da Vinci, and many others. The notes also include life lessons — about how to bring delight, how to recognize quality, and how to see beauty in simplicity.

Until now, such enduring good advice has rarely been found outside a professional setting or textbook. For the beginner wanting to improve, the seasoned expert looking to review the highest culinary standards, or the food lover seeking a fascinating glimpse into the pursuit of epicurean excellence, Notes on Cooking provides a unique and invaluable apprenticeship.

“Concise, focused, and sensible…full of useful advice.”
– Jacques Pépin, Chef, Cookbook Author, and PBS-TV Cooking Series Host

“Indispensable advice, experience, and know-how. A superb addition to the library of any passionate cook.”
– Daniel Boulud, Chef, Restaurant Daniel

“Notes on Cooking is exactly what it says it is: a short guide to an essential craft. There’s enough wisdom here to inspire any home cook or seasoned professional.” – Dan Barber, Executive Chef / Co-owner, Blue Hill

“Every cookbook should have this short book as a preface. The message and guidance are invaluable to all who dare to enter the delicious world of food preparation.”
– Lidia Matticchio Bastianich, Host, Lidia’s Italy

“I wish Notes on Cooking had been written about 35 years ago, when i started cooking professionally. it is an ex- cellent source of level-headed, practical and essential advice; indispensable and wonderfully succinct.”
– Michael Romano Chef, Union Square Hospitality Group

“It’s amazing how much cooking wisdom, sense and technique is crammed into this little book. it’s like Mom, James beard and Julia Child, Harold McGee and Escoffier all together in the expurgated version.”
– Gael Greene, insatiable-critic.com