You don't know how to cook until you can look at a pile of raw food an envision it cooked - without once looking something up. This book will help you to do that.

This is a great basic cookbook. I've completely adopted Anderson's method of steam-sauteeing vegetables as the every-day standard in my kitchen. But the format of recipes within recipes (for which you have to refer to recipes on other pages, or in other sections) is annoying and something I never like in a cookbook.
All of Anderson's books use this format, but her recipes are so good that it's worth the relatively minor nuisance. Still I had to drop a star off my review because of it.

I mean, come on. Look at the title. It's too ironic to look at without laughing. And Cat Cora hadn't even written Cooking From the Hip yet; if there's anything that describes this book better than its own title, it's Cora's title.

It's not a bad book by any stretch of the imagination. As it happens, it borrows a technique that's been used very successfully by cooking teachers for years, the "master recipe", whereby the writer throws out a recipe that demonstrates a general principle and then presents similar recipes as variations on a theme. This approach was developed to a high art by Julia Child in particular (The Way to Cook uses master recipes almost exclusively); Escoffier relied on it heavily, possibly the only way to make his Guide Culinaire of a manageable size; and the technique is the backbone of a great many Chinese restaurants and breakfast restaurants, where the key ingredients go together like Legos. (Oddly enough, this is not necessarily a hallmark of Anderson's alma mater, Cook's Illustrated; their nitpicky approach to dishes, while phenomenally successful, limits their ability to present master-variation recipes.)

So ultimately, where this book fails is that it promises something that it makes no sense to deliver. Improvisational cooking is certainly a useful skill, and it has quite the romance to it. But ultimately, lacking a good cooking teacher over your shoulder at all times, there's no real way to do it except to practice and study; Anderson's slightly-fuzzy, grossly mistitled book is only a first step. In my cooking life, I've never felt the need to learn to cook instinctually; I can do it for certain things, but nine times out of ten it's something I've learned to do by rote. And I tweak it sometimes, just like this book tells its readers to do. But this book wants you to believe that you can learn to fly solo. I have never done that -- I have always had a book or two around to serve as a quick reference -- and I don't think I can reasonably expect anyone that is able to read to do so.

What is in here is good. The teaching technique is well-tested and sound, and you can certainly learn to cook or refine your techniques using this. And there are a lot of creative recipes for sauces and the like in here. The section at the beginning on how to stock a well-prepared kitchen is valuable, if not exactly hard to find in other books, and will get you a pantry that can get you out of the weeds in short order. If that's all this book wanted to be, it would be a solid four-star book. But it had to oversell itself with a silly title.

I admit to being a cookbook-aholic - some are fun to read yet I don't actually use them, some are the opposite. This one is both. It's one of those cookbooks that I end up tabbing so I can go back for a refresher. The recipes are imaginative and do-able, and range from ambitious to embarrassingly easy (best example of this is the Warm White Bean Spread that takes about 30 seconds to make and tastes heavenly).
I especially like the way the book is organized, which is by method. For example she goes through sautes ("If you've seen one saute, you've seen them all") with basic methods for sauteing various meats. Then she provides a basic method for pan sauces, followed by several variations that can be made using the basic method. If it sounds too dumbed down, think again - her recipes are delicious and make it possible to serve imaginative and delectable meals to my family even on weeknights.
I always prefer photos, but in this case, the descriptions and then successful outcomes far outweigh that consideration.
I first saw this book at a friend's house; I am guilty of sneaking peaks at bookshelves, trying to get an idea of what my good-cook friends are using. This one was food-stained and dog-eared, the best indicator of a well-used resource. Sure enough, it's starting to look the same on my bookshelf; it's like having a kindly aunty in my kitchen, giving me great ideas for meals and useful tips for success.

How to Cook Without a Book: Recipes and Techniques Every Cook Should Know by Heart
By learning the basic techniques in this book, I'm able to sautee, for example, several different kinds of meats from my memory (and I don't have the greatest memory!) If I look anything up before sauteeing my meat, it's only to decide on a delicious sauce to accompany it. My family loves the Sauteed Boneless Pork Chops (cut from a boneless pork loin) with Orange-Dijon Pan Sauce with Rosemary.

The author covers everything from salads to side dishes to quick deserts. All of the chapters are fabulous, but I've personally gotten the most out of those dedicated to meat, chicken, and fish.

This book is wonderful and I'd recommend it as a starting point for novices as well as experienced cooks. I was an experienced cook looking for quick everyday meal ideas.