[.ca] Mexico One Plate At A Time (ISBN 068484186X)

From Amazon.com:
Rick Bayless is Mexican cooking's great American voice. An award-winning chef and author of bestselling Mexican cookbooks like Authentic Mexican, he's found a way to present honest recipes in a friendly, relaxed fashion that nonetheless touches every technical base. One Plate at a Time takes his approach a step further. Bayless offers more than 120 recipes, providing traditional versions of much-loved classics like Green Chile Chicken Tamales, modern renditions of the basic repertoire, and dish "anatomies." These detail what a given dish should taste and look like, when it's best served, and how American cooks should approach its preparation. This goofproof strategy will appeal to old cooking hands and culinary gringos alike. Ranging from soups and starters to entrees, light meals, desserts, and drinks, the chapters present a wide range of dishes, from the simple (such as guacamole, updated with roasted poblanos, garlic, and tomatoes) to the more complex (a classic red mole with turkey, for one, followed by Roasted Cornish Game Hens with Apricot-Pine Nut Mole). Other winning recipes include Seafood in Mojo de Ajo (with toasted, slow-cooked garlic), Smoky Chipotle Beans with Wilted Spinach and Masa "Gnocchi," and, for dessert, a definitive vanilla flan with instructions for preparing it in three versions: light, creamy, and rich. Throughout, recipes are followed by paragraph-long "postmortems" (is Mexican vanilla worth searching out, for instance) that further extend reader understanding. With 32 pages of color photos and an extensive glossary, the book is an inspired place to start or continue a Mexican cooking journey. --Arthur Boehm

Yummy but time consuming:
We love mexican food and heard rave reviews about this book. Be warned, though - you'll need some time to prepare most of these recipes. If you have time on your hands and want to prepare meals that are very authentic then this is a great cookbook. However, when it's 6:00 and you are trying to throw something together for dinner, this is not the cookbook to use. My other gripe is that he is very long-winded in his instructions. This lends to the authenticity of each recipe, but it can be hard to follow. Everything we have made has been delicious but we have learned to plan ahead!

You'll need some free time to try these recipes...:
Overall I think this is a good book and devotes a great deal of time discussing the history of Mexican cooking. The author is very thorough and offers detailed instructions and tips for sucessful dishes. However, I was slightly disappointed by the complexity of both the recipes and ingredients. There isn't a single "simple" meal in the entire book. This cookbook is most appropriate for the true Mexican food connoiseur. It is well written and thoughtful - but be prepared to spend some time in the kitchen!

This is a great cookbook:
This is a great Mexican cookbook. I can't recommend it enough. My husband asked for it on his birthday and since we like the dishes so much I plan to send a copy to my sister for her birthday. I find the recipes have a wide range of complexity and time required to prepare them. Although I will "cheat" and buy tortillas for my weekday menus instead of making them. We especially liked the Chipotle Chicken Salad Tacos which is a very quick and easy recipe for the weeknights. YUM.

Excellent:
If you want to prepare real Mexican food, this book is a must.

A Great Book:
This is a great book, no doubt about it. Unlike one of the other reviewer's, I did not find the recipes to be complex, just accurate. The hardest thing for me is that, since watching his tv show, I have a little Rick Bayless voice reading to me in my head when I pick up this book. And, what's the deal with that commercial for Burger King? I tried the sandwich based on Bayless's street credibility. It was disgusting. That 'baguette' turned out to be some sort of gummy bread-like product that no one would want to eat. I would expect him to have some input into the quality of any sandwich that he is helping to promote. This thing is junk. Why didn't they go with a bolillo or a telera? And why is he in a market in Los Angeles when the sandwich is called Santa Fe Chicken?