Negative Positive
Title: Look Elsewhere for a Better Book
Review: As one reviewer pointed out there are a few pearls of wisdom (the science of a good gravy) in this otherwise wordy and fairly patronizing book. I was looking for a book to explain the small nuances of how to improve a particular recipe or tweak an ingredient to bring out its fullest potential but I what I found was pretty much a garbled and condescending chemistry lesson -- and not a very good one at that. Wolke's side comments under "Techspeak" were both confusing and grating. This attitude is something I put up with while going through engineering school but I won't put up with it on my free time with a subject matter I love. Half-way into the book, I just couldn't take it anymore. This is quite a shame because Wolke is a technical consultant for one of the best cooking magazines around -- Cook's Illustrated. Thankfully for us, though, Cook's Illustrated has someone other than Wolke do the writing.
Is the review positive or negative? 