quick and easy

If I am about to cook something that I am not completely sure about, I will spend a few seconds looking it up in this book first. My cooking has improved dramatically since I have been using this and Bittman's wonderful "How to Cook Everything," which I find to be more exhaustive than this terse treasure. Brilliant is a joy to leaf through, a reliable reference, and a wonderfully instructive kitchen guide. My dining guests are envious of the skills I have gained from this book and I am constantly tempted to try new dishes and old ones prepared in novel ways. I recommend this as the most rewarding cooking reference to reach for first.

How many tablespoons of juice are in a lemon? What size dish is a "two-quart casserole"? For questions like this, you turn to "Brilliant," a truly great reference that belongs on the shelf with "The Joy of Cooking" (if you haven't ordered the latest edition, be sure to; there are lots of new recipes that no one had heard of when my first copy was published in 1963).

"Brilliant" is a pure kitchen reference book that is as useful as any dictionary, encylopedia, or the Internet. Buy it and then browse through it to familiarize yourself with the contents. You'll be amazed at how often you refer to it.

I have only three cookbooks that I use regularly and this is one of them. I highly recommend it if you're a good cook who sometimes needs some guidance or suggestions. For example, for a new twist on tuna cakes, the recipe in this book calls for condensed cream of mushroom soup - the cakes were delicious. In fact, everything I've made has been great. The book's format is especially useful when you need to substitute an ingredient (say, you ran out of buttermilk and have only regular milk) or need to use up an ingredient or whip something up on short notice.