Everything I Know About Cooking I learnt from the CWA of NSW
“With tried and true recipes for a perfect sausage roll snack, a succulent Greek-style roast chicken for dinner or honeycomb cheesecake slice for dessert, Everything I know about cooking I learned from CWA is the perfect kitchen companion, in a deceptively small format. Offering a range of tried and tested recipes to suit both the beginner and the expert cook…”
I put off reviewing this book because I wanted to cook some things out of it to really get a feel for its usefulness. In the end though, I didn’t cook anything out of it because I just didn’t have the motivation to go search out the ingredients, and I also don’t eat many of the items in it (like slices or some veggie dishes).
The index in this book is useless. I wanted to make scones (a CWA staple as far as I’m concerned) so I looked under ‘S’ for ‘scone’. Nope, no scones. Oh! But there is a chapter labeled ‘scones’. But then the recipe… When have I ever made scones with no butter, and with powdered sugar? For me, scones start with the irritating process of using a fork/fingers to work the butter into the flour. I didn’t end up making the recipe.
I’m not sure how many people actually use cookbooks anymore in print format. Why would you go finding a recipe in a cookbook when you can just ‘google it’? I certainly do, unless its a recipe I have use many times, in which case I have a small box of recipe cards. And I have a tome of a recipe book (The Encyclopedia of Cooking) that I use for other popular things I make.
So who would I buy this for? I’m not sure. Its value is probably its nostalgic quality, and it could be a good starter cookbook for a beginner cook just learning on their own.
Murdoch | 1st April 2018 | AU$16.99 | hardback
