[.ca] Book of Soups: More than 100 Recipes for Perfect Soups (ISBN 0867308427)

From Amazon.com:
Creamy bisques, fresh vegetable purées, hearty meat-and-potato potages--soup delights one and all. Recognizing its primal appeal, The Culinary Institute of America Book of Soups provides over 100 exemplary recipes for the adored dish as well as detailed technical information all cooks can use. The book concentrates on the whys and hows of soup production; over 50 step-by-step photographs display basic methods for preparing a complete range of soups, from broths and cream soups to bisques, chowders, cold soups, and more. The soups themselves are enticing and include supper specialties like Purée of Split Pea, elegant specialties such as Cantaloupe Soup with Lime Granité, refreshing cold soups like gazpacho, and down-home treats including Cream of Tomato Soup and Seafood Gumbo. Soups from the global kitchen are well represented, too, with recipes for the likes of Thai Hot and Sour Soup and Leblechi, a delicious Tunisian chickpea soup. With recipes for dessert soups--one made with strawberries is particularly pleasing--and for accompaniments like Cheddar Rusks and Sage Dumplings, the book is a completely informative exploration of a dish much loved but too often neglected. --Arthur Boehm

Wow!:
Let's face it: most cookbooks have maybe two or three recipes you incorporate into your repertoire. I must admit the Culinary Institute of America imprimatur put me off (I'm a *cook*, not a chef, and I associate the CIA with the Arugula Heresy and the California Cuisine Abomination). This, along with Beard on Bread, the original troika of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Marcella Hazan, and various Louisiana and Chinese cookbooks has definitely got a permanent place on my shelves. I've tried 10 recipes so far from the various categories (Broths, Hearty Soups, Cream Soups, Pureed Soups, Bisques & Chowders, Cold Soups) and not only haven't found a dud, but have been brought to food overjoy. I admit that I've chosen with an eye to avoiding stuff I don't like (like split pea, which traumatized me as a child, or puree of carrot & orange, which simply sounds vile to me, rather than intriguing -- the California Cuisine Abomination again). With a Cuisinart or similar appliance, none of these things are very hard, especially if you keep stocks around. If you don't, buy a package of stock at your grocery store, which I do when I don't have the time to roast and simmer. I've seen more specialized books (there's one very good one devoted to chowders, whose name escapes me right now), but this is the best general-soup book I've used.

Book of Soups:
The Culinary Institute of America Book of Soups contains over 100 recipes for soups including soup basics, broths, hearty soups, cream soups, pureed soups, bisques and chowders, and cold soups. This book also includes recipes for a variety of soup accompaniments such as breads, biscuits, crackers, dumplings, and vegetable chips. As I was looking through this book, I realized how uneducated I was on the wide variety of soup possibilities. Though I enjoy soup, particularly homemade soup with fresh ingredients, I hadn't really ever considered the fact that soup came in so many different varieties, textures, and tastes. For best taste results, I suggest using garden fresh vegetables and fresh seafood. I also suggest making up large quantities of the various types of broths for use as you need them. As many of these soups are freezable, I am making up large qualities of different soups using fresh seasonal ingredients and then freezing them for later use. This way, I can have some really delicious soups even when the ingredients are no longer seasonally available.

My new favorite cookbook:
I haven't tried many of these recipes yet, but the ones I have were fantastic. The Potato and Fennel Chowder, in particular, was exceptional. My husband, to whom little is better than "pretty good", asked for a double batch the next time! The instructions are pretty clear and easy to follow, and it's just generally a nice book to have around.

If you only buy one cookbook, this should be it!!:
I cook extenstively and own a wealth of cookbooks but when I want to make a failsafe recipe, this is THE ONE. Not one dud to date (there is no other cookbook I can say that about). Always worth the effort. If you only buy one cookbook, make this it, you'll never be sorry.

Excellent reference for culinary students:
I am a culinary student and this was one of the books used in my culinary hot foods class. It was very helpful because the pictures were clear and the recipes were easy to comprehend and precise. For my baking class I used the following study guides which are on amazon: Study Guide for Baking: Key Review Questions and Answers with Explanations by Melissa Heilman Study Guide for Advanced Baking: Key Review Questions and Answers with Explanations by Melissa Heilman These two study guides were quite on target with the kind of questions asked on my baking exams in my culinary school. These 3 books get my highest recommendations.