"Martha Stewart Cooking School" news and stories

Okay, hardcore Stewies, this is it: the moment you've been waiting for. Martha Stewart is ready to teach you -- really teach you -- how to cook. Of course she's been doing so for a couple of decades and counting, but in this book the Martha School reaches its figurative and literal peak. Martha Stewart's Cooking School: Lessons and Recipes for the Home Cook is just exactly what the title claims: an Escoffier-style cooking tome, organized as cooking schools are and presented with flawless clarity and beauty for all cooks, regardless of experience. The only requirements for admission are interest in the subject matter and the intention to use what you learn.

As cooking school should, class commences with kitchen basics: equipment and technique. Here we learn by description, instruction and illustration the fundamental skills that every cook should bring to the kitchen. Pop quiz: name and describe the six basic vegetable cuts. Extra credit: what are two of the four specialty cuts? The answers are on pages 14 -- 15, clearly and beautifully illustrated by both technique and result. And so we go through herbs, spices, onions, garlic and citrus before arriving, as we would in a classroom, at stock and soup.