The Best American Recipes 2003-2004: The Year's Top Picks from Books, Magazines, Newspapers, and the Internet

This review is of "Best American Recipes 2003-2004." I write this because sometimes a review of a different year gets mixed in by Amazon.Fran McCullough is a longtime cookbook editor with an eye for the tasty recipe and a spot-on reliable palate. How lucky for me to have her reading thousands of recipes a year and testing them so I don't have to.B. Marold's bizarre review prompted me to write this. First, the boring rebuttal: It is clear Mr/Ms Marold didn't actually cook anything from the book before reviewing it. His/her comments are generally petty and besides the point. No, I don't use Rachel Ray as my ultimate food authority. The American food scene is made up of chefs, cooks, writers, journalists, critics, purveyors and the public. Not just a couple of publications and the Food Network. Actually, some of the better food shows never sold out and stayed on PBS. Yes, it was a bit depressing to see convenience foods listed as a food trend, but I have no basis with which to argue with Fran on that one. No, I don't expect every cookbook writer to work in the style of the Cook's Illustrated staff. (I adore Cook's Illustrated, but it has its limitations. If you're a very experienced cook, you'll see that each author might skip options you could think of in the Cook's Illustrated series). Yes, there is no dust jacket this year, and sodium in solution and used as a preservative always has a partner, like tripolyphosphate. Who cares, as long as you know not to buy the scallops with "sodium something"?Back to the point:McCullough has an impeccable palate, and once again this year she scours the country for wonderful recipes and finds them. Printing things that were just re-published from old favorites happens in most editions of this series, and is O.K. with me because Fran does it sparingly, and always for a reason. Besides, sometimes the author is Elizabeth David, or one of the other greats, and it reminds me to re-open the original book.The recipe descriptions are accurate as always, and the cook's notes are very insightful.Once again this year, a great book in an outstanding series. These Fran McCullough books are so reliable, she is becoming like an old friend (if only in print). So:Fran, if you're listening, I vote you keep on doing these! And while you're at it, please bring back the suggested menus with each recipe, and make a multi-year index!! I know you put your whole Thanksgiving dinner in here. Don't leave it to me to figure it out!!! If you need Hamlin to do the menus, then bring her back! The dust jacket and high grade paper was more stylish, so you might push back on your publisher for that, too.Cheers!

This latest in a series which I believes goes back about five (5) years breaks no new ground in presentation or insights about the American culinary scene. All that means is that this book is fun to read and may be worth a purchase from the deeply discounted pile of books at the entrance of Borders. But, it adds little of substance to one's permanent cookbook library.At the top of my list of reasons not to pay list price for this book is the fact that it gives no criteria by which the editors choose their best of winners. You have nothing like the closely reasoned thinking you get from the Cooks Illustrated magazines or books. You do not even get any rationale for how sources are chosen. On top of this is the very few recipes from Cooks Illustrated or other `best of' sources.Next on my list of complaints is that when a recipe comes from a periodical, the editors do not give enough information about the source which would enable you to find that particular issue. This may be useful especially for recipes from Savour or Gourmet, where recipes often accompany articles on countries or restaurants and you may be interested in reading about the recipe's source.Another irritation is that all the copyrighted sources show that they were published in 2002, not 2003. This irritation is doubled when I find recipes from republished material, such as new editions of works by M. F. K. Fisher or memoirs including old material such as `Between Bites' by Jim Villas. I really like both authors and I think they deserve every credit coming their way, but I already own their works, so I don't need to see their old material rehashed here.Yet another irritation is in the Foreword by guest contributor Alan Richman. Like Tony Bourdain before him, he was primarily enlisted to provide some opening comic relief. The problem is, at least some of his humor is based on plainly false observations such as a mythical difficulty in finding shallots at an American grocery. Unlike the author, I find shallots at every store stocking vegetables in my middle-sized city. Bring back Tony Bourdain. At least I know where his cynical sense of humor is coming from.I always look forward to some insights from the editors' trends of the year. This year, I flatly disagree with their identifying a movement toward can opener cooking exemplified by Sandra Lee's `Semi-Homemade' rubric. I think that with the recent popularity of Rachael Ray's books and TV show, I would more likely identify the trend as a strong interest in cooking at home and the search for ways to do it quickly without having to rely too heavily on prepared foods. The observation about Sandra Lee is doubly ironic in that her Food Network TV show started in 2003, and, as cited above, all the recipes presumably reflecting this trend are from 2002.The last annoyance with which to burden you are my finding inaccurate statements in the editors' notes to some recipes. One I found was the statement that scallops are stored in solutions of sodium to preserve them. Sodium cannot form a solution. Only sodium salts can form a solution, and, I believe the salt used to preserve scallops is not the most common sodium salt, sodium chloride, but some less common compound.In spite of all these nuisances, this book is fun to read, if not worth the expense to own it. If I were to fall back on a quote from Joseph Conrad, which says that the sole purpose of a cookbook is to increase the amount of happiness in the world, I believe this book can do that, especially if acquired at a deep discount or from the library.In the books defense, I cite with favor the editors' notes accompanying each recipe. This levels the quality of the entries, balancing sophisticated stuff from Jeremiah Tower with material found on the back of a bread crumb can.Recommended, with reservations.

BLB's Mini Blts, the one recipe I've tried from this book, is a great hors d'oeuvres. I am intending to try Pomegranate-braised Brisket with Onion Confit at the earliest appropriate opportunity. As an earlier reviewer noted, this collection is fun and useful because it is compiled from so many different sources. Sophistication is here. Earthy simplicity is here. Funky quirkiness is here. Ethnic diversity is here. Buying the current edition of this series every year is an efficient and economical way of updating my culinary skills.