[.ca] The Yellow Farmhouse Cookbook (ISBN 0316496995)

From Amazon.com:
Christopher Kimball, editor and founder of Cook's Illustrated magazine, grew up during the 1950s in rural Vermont, where he spent many summers working as a farmhand. His most cherished memories were of the yellow farmhouse, where an eclectic gathering of workers met at noon for hearty meals of roast, potatoes, boiled greens, baking-powder biscuits, molasses cookies, and perhaps a pie. Kimball's memories of this time make for a book that is as good to read as it is to cook from. Kimball has painstakingly tried and tested hundreds of recipes for those childhood roasts, cookies, apple pies, and other nurturing farmhouse delights. In The Yellow Farmhouse Cookbook, he reworks them for the modern kitchen (olive oil and hand mixers are allowed), while still capturing "the spirit of farmhouse cooking, using simple ingredients simply prepared." Within each chapter, memories, recipes, and cooking techniques effortlessly roll into one another. In "The Dairy," we are whisked back to Kimball's 10th year, when he milked cows. Back then, "milk was stored in large cans set into a thick metal cooler filled with cold water." This description sets the perfect scene for milky recipes such as an American Baked Custard, several tapioca puddings, chocolate mousses, and cream pies. All adhere to the book's main premise: simple cooking with basic ingredients. Other chapters are solely devoted to meat, vegetables, baking, breakfast, cookies, fruit, and preserving, as well as a buying guide for purchasing the best cookware and kitchen tools. With so much research, and so many recipes and reminiscences, The Yellow Farmhouse Cookbook really is an act of culinary love and devotion. --Naomi Gesinger

Very good intro book:
The Yellow Farmhouse Cookbook is aimed for those with second houses OR startup kitchens. It is complete with what utensils and pots to buy, with reviews right out of the Cooks Illustrated Magagine. It gives lots of information on the science of cooking too. There are not allot of recipes in here but this is a basic book that lets you understand cooking & what to buy to get started. If you get this with the Joy and you'll be okay. The Cook's bible is the upscale version of the Farmhouse, the pots and kitchen equipment are more top-end; Farmhouse is how to make a kitchen on a budget -- your call.

Very Dependable:
A NYC Chef, I took this book with me when going down south to cook for 2 older southern gentlemen because I was informed under no uncertain terms that I would have to cook old-fashioned American country food. This book turned out to be very dependable. I am intrigued by the less than satisfactory reviews of the book. He definitely backtracks on some of his recipes in the Cook's Bible (he tells you where) but he also talks about how he improved the recipe here. To be sure, I have modifications in mind for my own taste on several of the recipes, and find the "master recipe" concept for things like mashed potatoes amusing, but this book's results are very enjoyable home-style cooking. One major feature for me was that I've been used to the organic produce and variety one finds in NY, but there, that wasn't available. These recipes came through because they are written for what one can find in a grocery store anywhere in the country.

I found this book at the library and loved it so much I had:
to order it (especially since I drive by that little yellow farmhouse every day). This is not dinner at Chantarelle. This is comfort-food for the long winter and picnics on the Fourth. If you like country cooking and doing things the old-fashioned way, this is the book for you. The index is a little funky, but this book belongs in every country kitchen.

Good for Novice Cooks:
I bought this book to read about Christopher Kimball's kitchen experiments. I love his writing style. I think this cookbook contains a lot of useful information for beginners. However, it contains nothing that good cooks don't already know. For that reason, I'm giving it 4 stars instead of 5.

Entirely dependable and entirely wonderful:
There is great comfort for any cook who finds a cookbook author he or she likes: you know what to expect, you trust their judgement and their recipes, you like their voice. That's the case with Christopher Kimball and me. Christopher Kimball founded and still edits COOK'S ILLUSTRATED magazine. I always learn something from COOK'S. Its laconic, thorough approach is Chris incarnate, and this unfussy spirit is echoed in "The Yellow Farmhouse Cookbook" as well. With its yellow-checked cover, an old-fashioned typeface (Poor Richard, perhaps?), and illustrations reminiscent of woodblock prints by Rockwell Kent or Barry Moser, this is a conscious visual effort to call up the gentle past. The recipes, however, are anything but nostalgic. Chris flatly debunks assumption after assumption about recipes we thought we knew. He is a demon tester, and has charted wonderful new paths to the same old dishes, making them bright and newly delicious in our mouths. Several "Yellow Farmhouse Cookbook" recipes have become family favorites in my home (especially the scalloped potatoes, which get requested on practically a weekly basis). This book is a stroke of good fortune for any home cook.