[.ca] The Best American Recipes 1999: The Year's Top Picks ... (ISBN 0395966477)

From Amazon.com:
If you have a friend who thinks of Ritz crackers and cheese spread as a meal, you aren't likely to go there for unbelievably delicious recipes, are you? But what if you are pals with Fran McCullough and Suzanne Hamlin, two of the mighty among food editors and food writers? Then you'd be on the receiving end of the best recipes they can find and test, recipes annually culled from every source imaginable--newspapers, magazines, books, e-mail, backs of boxes, advertising inserts, Web sites, word-of-mouth, fortune cookies, subway graffiti. Figure on two recipes a week for a year with two weeks vacation thrown in: that'd be, oh, 100 recipes, wouldn't it? And that is what you get when you dip into The Best American Recipes 1999. Within you'll find starters and drinks, soups and stews, salads, main dishes, side dishes, breads, and desserts. These aren't your common, everyday, what'll-I-feed-the-kids-for-dinner recipes. That's why you get two a week for a year (albeit, all at once; you divvy them up however you want). And as a bonus, you get the authors' choices for the top 10 whatevers of the year. Comeback of the Year? It's cheese. Condiment of the year? Finally, it's salt. Cooking technique of the year? Only fitting that it's brining. Be sure to try the Salmon in Sweet Red Curry, one of the top 10 dishes of the year that ran in the Los Angeles Times. Or the Brazilian Seafood Stew, a little something from Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger. Nancy Silverton's Definitive Hot Fudge Sauce is here and may be the price-of-admission winner. And so, too, is a delicious Moroccan Tomato Soup from Barbara Kafka's Soup: A Way of Life. But here's the bottom line: any book that publishes a recipe by the Bay Area's fabulous Niloufer Ichaporia King, Parsi Deviled Eggs in this case, is indeed a book you want to use. --Schuyler Ingle

Great recipes:
Now that I have gone through this cookbook, I need to go back and find the similar recipe books McCullough has done for the last four years. If this one is any indication, I predict that I will think I died and went to heaven. I cannot wait to try some of the recipes that I earmarked in this book--including some unusual soups, the Garlicky Sun-Dried Tomato Spread (looks good AND easy!), a salad made with prosciutto and sugar snap peas, an Italian beef stew, and more desserts than I have any right to want to taste! I especially liked the conversational tone of the book, the way the recipes are introduced and the tips that accompany them. It's kind of quirky, and I liked that!

Great Techniques -- Great Recipes:
I am one of those cooks that has never had any formal training (beyond my mother/grandmother) -- so I appreciate the teaching and conversation beyond the recipe. For example, the book details homemade chicken soup and the technique for making an excellent base. This lets me experiment and expand on the ingredients that I like -- so that I can build my "perfect" recipe. The recipes have all turned out well and at the same time, have taught me a lot about cooking. This is an excellent book for an aspiring home cook.

Collection from multiple sources of Great Recipes:
Here is what some of us do--collect recipes from all kinds of varying sources, sorted through and published in book form. Tried few recipes thus far, and each lives up to rating: Scallop and Corn Chowder, unique Ricotta Hot Cakes with Honeycomb butter, Port-and-Black-Currant Glazed Chicken Thighs,Roasted Potatoes with Garlic,Lemon and Oregano. For a different closing meal treat, try "Roasted Apricots with Sugared Pecans and Dulce de Leche. It's simple and sooo sooo good! Unique--simple--- zipped up kind of cuisine, with outstanding variety of cuisines and sources--- great collection for varying levels of cook levels. Neat feature is wine offerings with each entree suggested.

Best Recipes:
This series is great. Don't be put off by the boring format. Not one recipe tried has been less than it promises. I like them so much I've bought them all.

Best Recipes for Jan 2002 - Oct 2002 ONLY!:
I own The Best American Recipes 1999 & 2000. The recipes I have tried from those books are very good (Pan Roasted Carrots & Creamed Scallions). While I had already made (and loved) some of the other recipes listed from several books in the series (because I have the cookbooks they were pulling them from), I have a huge issue with the newer publication of this seemingly successful book. How can a book claim to have the best recipes from all the varying resources for 2002 AND 2003... when it was published in October 2002?! I am noticing this in Jan of 2003, while we still have an entire year of new recipes yet to be released... and this book will clearly not have any of them. Since I cannot give this 2.5 stars (5 for the recipes and 0 for the misleading title), I opted for 3 because despite the title, it's a good book.