Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Full Disclosure: this is the first cookbook I have ever reviewed. I don’t consider myself a cook, but rather one who so far has stayed the hand of starvation with things that do not habitually make me sick. With that understood, I ventured forth. Cookbooks for me are what I grab when I am trying to cook for other people and purchase all the ingredients for the dish. Alternatively, I find myself grabbing a cookbook to see if there is a recipe for the limp parsnip, left-over chicken, snow peas frozen in the last decade and the potatoes which are looking at me uncertainly from a corner, amounting to all the food in the house, and wondering if I am going to go hungry. I like to think I am practical, perhaps even prosaic about cook books. The real point of this book is that it stands as a companion work for the “Instant Pot Cooker,” a device combining a saute pan, stew pot, slow cooker and pressure cooker all in one. Where has this been all my life? I was convicted that I could hardly do the book justice if I did not get the “Instant Pot” and did so, getting the Tayama TMC-60XL 6 quart model, the cheapest one I could find. (This is just a book review, I am trying not to make big personal decisions at this point in my life.) Now another thing you have to know is that I grew up inculcated with a fear of pressure cookers. The big pot was reserved for the seasonal canning my mother did (starting by sending her children out into the wilds of suburban Philadelphia to capture the wily wild blackberries, neighbor's cherries, and friend's peaches). My brother and I literally had skin in these endeavors. We were shooed out of the kitchen for the duration of a pressure cookers operation. I have never trusted them since. Technology has, as it should, sublimated by fears. I tried several of the recipes. First and most importantly, the book is well organized, critical to my way of cooking. I can go from ingredients to recipe and recipe to ingredients in a trice. The book is extensive with five hundred recipes to experiment with. I chose Garlic Lamb Shanks with Red wine. Growing up, lamb shanks frequently emerged from my British-Canadian mother’s kitchen. She was against wine on principle and garlic by inexperience. I figured if it didn’t turn out well I could still drink the rest of the wine. The recipe was straightforward and with no surprises. Just what I like. Moreover, it was delicious, tender, with well-balanced seasonings and I overate. That points to my only reservation: how does one change the settings based on changing the portioning? In summary, as well as my diet can abide, I am working my way through the recipes at least two a day. Highly Recommend both the cooker and the book. Well done! (pun intended)