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| Publisher: Boston Common Press
List Price: $35.70
Buy New: $26.95
You Save: $8.75 (25%)
Rating:  77 reviews
Sales Rank: 150
Format: Magazine Subscription
Type: Consumer magazine
Subscription Issues: 6
Subscription Length: 12 Months
Issues Per Year: 6
First Issue Lead Time: 12-16 Weeks
ASIN: B000069YW9
Release Date: June 28, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 2 to 4 months
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| Customer Reviews:
 Limited information, but useful if you are a beginner June 1, 2006
Amalfi Coast Girl (Mid-Atlantic, USA)
24 out of 43 found this review helpful
I should preface this reveiw with the fact that I am an accomplished home cook. I have been cooking for 25 years and own more than 500 cookbooks. I do not buy commercially prepared products like breads, crackers, mayonnaise or salad dressings. I make these items myself. I suspect that I am not the target audience for this publication.
The May/June 2006 issue is 32 pages in length in total. Given that there are only 6 issues a year, I was expecting a little more than a mere 32 pages.
The May/June 2006 issue contains the following information:
Simplifying Moroccan Chicken
Bringing Home Fish and Chips
Grilled Tomato Salsa
Grilled London Broil
Main-dish Vegetable Stir-fries
How to cook pasta
Foolproof Veal Scaloppini
A new Twist on Chicken Salads
Garlic and Olive Oil Mashed Potatoes
Utimate Turtle Brownies
Best Strawberry Cream Cake
The Scoop on Vanilla Ice Cream
A review of tongs
If you are an experienced cook their isn't much about cooking in this issue that will be new to you. This issue contained not a single piece of new information for me about cooking. However, I enjoyed the equipment reveiws and did find them informative and useful.
This magazine would be helpful if someone is an inexperienced cook. Bottom line, I will not be renewing my subscription unless future issues have a little "more meat" in their content. I think that this magazine is overpriced for what you receive. I would suggest saving the price of the subscription and buy their "Best of" cookbook instead. It costs about the same amount, contains many more recipes, has many of their equipment reviews and is bound in a hard cover so that it will hold up longer. Additionally, check out an issue of "Fine Cooking" which is another test kitchen type of publication, just with more depth.
 Poor Customer Service, Tiresome Format September 16, 2006
Robert Brian Lamm (Englishtown, NJ USA)
24 out of 43 found this review helpful
I subscribed to Cooks Magazine some years ago, back when it began publishing again. I had problems with issues that failed to arrive, and wrote to them about it - never received a reply or any note of concern.
Since that time, I occasionally glance through it at newsstands to see if there are any articles of interest. Even by dint of casual glance, I've begun to tire of the formulaic articles in which some drone takes me on a torturous journey through the addition/deletion of various ingredients in order to finally arrive at the "perfect recipe". I now skip right to the "perfected" recipe, and decide whether its worth committing to memory. I should mention that some of the "perfect" recipes are mediocre - after all of that torment and flailing around. Some of the explanations for the success or lack thereof of the inclusion or exclusion of a particular ingredient are not well thought out. They should keep a copy handy of one of Harold McGee's excellent books on the Science of Cooking.
There are also two other areas of this magazine that have disappointed me:
1. Product Reviews: They range from just plain wrong to idiotic.
The KitchenAid Pro 600 stand mixer was hailed by Cook's as the best in its class for many mixing chores. Yet, Amazon reviews tell a different tale - one of a short lifespan when used to mix bread dough because of a plastic gearbox cover that deforms and finally comes apart, a fatal event that allows the metal gears to separate.
Christopher Kimball (the editor) once made an evaluation of cookware in which he calculated the price of the cookware per pound of its weight. No, I'm not joking. In that evaluation, Le Creuset was deemed a good buy simply because it was heavy, and therefore cost the least per pound. All-Clad, even though it conducts heat very evenly, suffered for not having as much heft, and therefore was judged pricey on a pound weight basis. I might add that I have Le Creuset and All-Clad - both have great heat distribution - but why penalize a saucepan if it can distribute heat as well at half the weight? It seems as if Mr. Kimball likes to come up with comparisons just for the sake of developing ratings, but not necessarily to measure anything relavent.
One issue of Cooks boasted on its cover "Unsweetened chocolate -supermarket brand beats others". Apparently, Hershey's was designated best. Not too many months later, Callebaut Unsweetened was recommended above all others, and Hershey's was judged barely acceptable. Feeling manipulated yet? I've always used Callebaut unsweetened and bittersweet in cooking. Pity the poor soul to takes these capricious ratings seriously and sprints out to the store to buy the latest and greatest, only to find that the same product is at the bottom of the list a few months later.
2. Finally, there are those dreadful editorials by Mr. Kimball. Rambling, painfully written, Mr. Kimball seems to be a Garrison Keilor wanna-be. I recommend that he take a lesson or two on writing from Ruth Reichl. In contrast, Mr. Kimball writes as if he is chanelling Helen Gurley Brown, but donning red and black flannel watch-plaid and without her sense of play. If I read another story about 'old Mr. Jeepers' down the road or the local square dance....yawn.
 For *real* cooks, absolutely the best! July 31, 2003
Michael K. Smith (Gonzales, Louisiana)
22 out of 23 found this review helpful
Shortly after the last kid left home six years ago, I took early retirement and began doing almost all the cooking for the two adults remaining in the house, plus occasional guests. I'm a pretty good cook out of sheer self-defense, because I really enjoy good food. But I'm not a gourmet; I don't do peacock tongues and I consider fads like "vertical food" pointless affectations. But I do a mean jambalaya, and my spaghetti carbonara is always in demand at family parties, and whenever the kids come home to visit they insist on my biscuits and sausage gravy for breakfast. For all these reasons, for the kind of cook -- and eater -- I am, COOK'S ILLUSTRATED is simply the best kitchen magazine around. They deconstruct classic recipes, figuring out what *makes* the "best" version of something the best, and going through piles of ingredients until they get everything exactly right. They expect you to pay attention to what you're doing, but the ingredients and the implements are never unobtainable, and the methods are never bizarre. The letters to the editor often consist of questions to which the staff will chase down a canonical answer. There's no advertising (except for their own books, several of which I own) and the beautifully executed pen-and-ink drawings are far preferable to photographs in demonstrating methods and pointing out details. I'm also pleased that I can nearly always recognize the mystery tool featured in the "What Is It?" column. And if that's not enough, Christopher Kimball's editorial page essays, usually about people and food events in his small home town in Vermont, are modest gems.
Good beginner magazine for the home cook - you can't get off their list September 25, 2006
J. Zimmer
19 out of 21 found this review helpful
This is a good magazine for the home cook that wants to branch-out from the standard Family Circle or Good Housekeeping no risk recipes.
My BIG problem with this company is once they've got your contact information, you will receive more junk mail than you thought one company could generate; hawking every single publication they produce, relentlessly.
I stopped subscribing and it took a year to stop receiving their snail spam; and there's no way to 'opt out' online
Excellent for beginners to experts December 10, 2002
Devon Kelly (Frisco, TX USA)
17 out of 18 found this review helpful
This magazine is an extremely useful tool for anyone wanting to learn how to cook, learn new techniques, or understand the nuances involved in many different types of dishes.The writers and testers do an excellent job of demystifying many recipes that were thought to be too complex for the home kitchen. They make an effort to empathize with the average cook by explaining every technique and exploring every short cut. They don't assume a technique is correct "because that is how it has been done". They question every aspect of the recipe from technique to individual ingredients while documenting their own foibles along the way. I've noticed errors in some of their recipes/techniques, but they usually are prudent about addressing the errors found by readers in the next issue with unabashed modesty. Cooking is a science and they understand this. In acknowledging this, they show the reader that even they can learn something and are excited to improve their skills while informing their readers in order to save them the same headaches. I have been a subscriber for over 5 years and recently gave a subscription to my grandfather who is an accomplished homestyle cook for many years. He, like many cooks, refrain from many cookbooks due to their hoi polloi attitude, just the facts descriptions, or odd just-to-be-published variations. But he was genuinely excited to read this magazine because it adds so many layers of understanding to the craft. It's one thing to know six different ways to roast a chicken, but if you understand the advantages of each technique and ingredient, then it allows for a greater creative spirit and style in your cooking. So if you're just looking for a magazine to help you get started or expand the depths of your culinary wisdom, this magazine is a must.
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