What is Reddit's opinion of Martha Stewart's Cooking School: Lessons and Recipes for the Home Cook: A Cookbook?

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Keep up with your chores and help out all the time. Learn to cook. Get this book:

Martha Stewart's Cooking School

I love her cookbook "Cooking School", it taught me alot of basics when I was just starting to cook on my own. I think online she has alot of different contributors and less control, so the quality has gone down.

Martha Stewart's Cooking School: Lessons and Recipes for the Home Cook: A Cookbook https://www.amazon.com/dp/0307396444/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_i_3VQTV3WV6K71FJVBQXVK?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

<em>Cooking School</em>, Martha Stewart.

Say what you will about Ms. Stewart, Cooking School is a highly technical resource for those who are seeking the how and the why. The recipes therein are her best--she did not pull any punches-- and replete with all of the unnecessary Martha Stewart things that she does. But most of the time, it's just solid advice and extra work that's worth the effort.

So many of her recipes for staples like white/brown chicken stock, pot roast, mac, chicken soup are the basis for my own cooking.

i'm fully aware that a lot of people think martha is kind of passe at this point, but i still love her and <em>martha stewart's cooking school</em> is a good testament as to why. not only does it break down everything scary about cooking, but in addition to the explanation of various tools and techniques, it includes recipes following the techniques, so that you can actually put the techniques to use. i've been cooking since i was a child and only just learned, from this book, that what i thought was a butcher's knife for meat only, happens to be the only knife i should be chopping anything with. i never thought i'd ever be able to pan-sear a steak and whip up a nice red-wine shallot sauce to go with it, but that's the first thing i learned to make with this book. super, super useful.

Although I don't like Martha Stewart, her Cooking School book is a great reference tool. The book has a lot of photos and goes through many basic techniques...but some of the recipes do get rather complicated (don't be discouraged). A large portion of the book is dedicated to meat preparation and cooking methods which I've found very helpful in the past. Even with the in-depth recipes, I think the book is worth the money and something you'll refer to if you decide to buy it.

I have two cooking instructional books that I want to do step by step but I never find the time.

Martha Stewart

Jacques Pepin

Besides joy of cooking, there are other 'Cooking school for Beginners' type books too! Check out these:

https://www.amazon.com/Martha-Stewarts-Cooking-School-Lessons/dp/0307396444

https://shop.americastestkitchen.com/new-cooking-school-cookbook.html

https://shop.americastestkitchen.com/young-chefs-cookbook.html

I was about to list out all my favorite resources, the ones where, looking back, I can point to as being the bedrock of all the cooking knowledge I've cobbled together over the years, and I noticed they have one thing in common: PBS. The cooking shows that air on PBS (and their companion materials) are just awesome. They're not gimmicky, they don't have puppets or catch phrases, but they're reliable. There are other great sources of food knowledge, but if somebody's on PBS, you know they're the real deal.

If I had to learn it all over again starting today, here's what I'd be looking at, in rough order:

Martha Stewart's Cooking School

Martha's got a great new show and companion book to go along with it. The reason I'd start here is because it's structured the way you want it: an emphasis on technique, with clear goals for each lesson. Just about every one of your topics listed above is covered in here, and the recipes are almost secondary. Like, a show or chapter will be about braising, not about boeuf bourguignon. Pretty heavy emphasis on French and European cuisine, but some nice forays into other cuisines, too. Covers all the basics: equipment, stocks, sauces, cuts of meat. Lots of good reference sections, too, like charts on cooking techniques for different rices and grains.

It's mostly pretty traditional stuff. No "hacks" or "science", but she will occasionally throw in some neat updates to a traditional technique. In particular, her hollandaise method is the best I've ever come across. Almost completely traditional, double-boiler and all, but she uses whole butter instead of clarified. Really easy and probably tastes better, too.

Incidentally, most of the substance of the show probably comes from editorial director for food at Martha Stewart Living, Sarah Carey, who happens to have an awesome YouTube channel.

Julia Child

Julia needs no introduction. She made French cuisine accessible to us servantless American cooks half a century ago, and I don't think anyone has done it better since. You'll want to watch every episode of The French Chef you can get your hands on, and also grab a copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

You could start with Julia, but her show seems to focus on the recipe first, followed by the technique. So Julia's episode on boeuf bourguignon will be about boeuf bourguignon. She'll teach you all about technique, too, of course, but I think it's easier to start with Martha if you want a run-through of the basics of a technique.

Jacques Pepin

Probably the most talented cook to ever appear on television. The man elevates mincing an onion to an art form. Probably the best shows of his are Essential Pepin, Fast Food My Way, and Julia and Jacques Cooking at home (which used to be on Hulu, if you have that).

Every show he'll cook through a bunch of recipes, and he'll make these off-the-cuff comments on why he's doing what he's doing. How to peel a carrot. How to puree garlic with a chef's knife. Adding a splash of water to a covered skillet to steam the contents from the top while cooking them from below.

There's also a lot of his older stuff on YouTube that will show particular techniques: parting and deboning a chicken, preparing an omelet, and so on. He's remarkably consistent, so if you just watch enough of his stuff you'll get the spiel on every topic eventually.

Jacques does have a compilation of technique, but frankly I think Martha's is better. The photography in Jacques' book is pretty poor, and he devotes an awful lot of space to techniques that have probably been out of fashion for forty years. That said, there's a lot that's still useful in there, so it's worth at least checking out from the library.

(By the way, while you're at it, you should read My Life in France and The Apprentice, Julia's and Jacques autobiographies, respectively.)

There's a lot more to learn, but if you start with Jacques, Julia, and Martha, you'll have a rock-solid foundation upon which to build. Once you've got the basics down, my favorite new-fangled cooking resources are Serious Eats and ChefSteps.

Happy cooking!

Check out Martha Stewart's Cooking School. Great book that covers just about everything.