Cook's Illustrated Magazine

[DJPoLo]

First and foremost, the recipes provided in the articles are fantastic. If you like how Alton Brown breaks down chemistry vs. cooking you'll love the magazine.

Plus, the editor runs a very right-ward slant on his editorials which are really just a New England gossip column, which I love.

-Chet

[bierman]

I LOVE that magazine. No ads, so they don't care about pissing off advertisers when they evaluate products. If your gizmo sucks, they say it sucks. And yes, I like Christopher Kimball's editorials as well. Learned a lot of great stuff from that magazine. Cook's Illustrated, Front Sight and Brew Your Own are the only 3 magazines I get anymore.

[kimel]

And a subscription to the Cook's Illustrated website is a must-have. Every recipe/review ever published in the magazine and then some.

I do the majority of the cooking in our house and I get stumped for something for a nice dinner now and then. A bit of browsing through the site and a menu comes together nice and fast.

When I first started getting that magazine I was kind of shocked at how rightward leaning the editorials were. I was expecting more of the liberal bias toward things given their association with NPR. Pleasant surprise!

[8ring]

I love the magazine. It explains both the art and science of cooking. For a birthday present I gave my wife a series of cooking classes at Cook Street in Denver. The instructors there highly recommended it. A family friend who is head chef at a leading Italian restaurant swears by it.

Chris

[Merlin Orr]

Just got the online subscription....

[BigDave]

Worth every penny, in print, online and on TV. Everything I've ever made from their recipes has been wonderful and every product recommendation has been spot on. Best holiday gift I've received the past couple of years.

[ima45dv8]

Christopher's TV show, "America's Test Kitchen" comes on our local PBS stations on the weekends, and is an absolute favorite of mine. His team delves deep into the why's and why-not's of various techniques and recipes and brings you the real scoop.

As for Alton, he's a local boy for us. On one of his shows this year (something to do with roasts, I think) it shows him and the crew on a gun range firing a round into some gelatin. That was filmed at out host's range where we hold out Tuesday night league.

One of the guys who works there was telling me they rented the range for many hours, made many attempts at shooting the block with 230 gn. .45's, only to have them all rip out the far end and find their way to the bullet trap. They finally stuffed a fired round into a block and extracted it in front of the camera for effect.

So, a ballistician, he ain't. But he *did* incorporate a gun range into a cooking show, and I think that's pretty damn cool!

[3GunF1Guy]

I've been getting the magazine for about 10 years now and love them. I just look through the stack of mags and read the front cover to find something to make for dinner. But like Merlin I have now gone digital, with everything on line it's great. I also get the weekly newsletters email. Not everything is GREAT. They did a cooked pear desert with balsamic vinegar, black pepper and Gorgonzola cheese - not for me!! If I'm going to make desert it will include boatloads of cream, sugar, butter and chocolate... well at least 2 of those anyway.

Scott