Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

About 50% of this book offers advice that is either useless or dangerous. A few potted geraniums on your windowsill will NOT keep away mosquitoes. You do not make "Homemade soap" by squashing together the remains of previously-used soap. Ditto for "Homemade cheese". Anyone who tries to "save" rancid butter by massaging in a few tablespoons of baking soda and water is just asking for a bellyache. Do you have any "Spanish White" around your house? Neither do I. If I'm going to make a special trip to "any local hardware store" to pick up a tube of Spanish White and a vial of "methelated spirits" so I can blend them into silver-polishing paste, why wouldn't I just snap up a cheap tube of silver polish and save myself the added expense and mixing effort? The worst advice in the entire book is this: "Give your apricot, plum or cherry jam an almond taste by cooking a few crushed fruit stones, enclosed in a small muslin bag, at the same time as the fruits." That almond taste you've just added is CYANIDE, a deadly poison found concentrated in fruit pits and usually used to execute gas-chamber prisoners in a really horrible way. Do you really want to add that to your jam? Wouldn't you rather use an inexpensive and non-poisonous almond extract, almond milk or even marzipan paste instead? And for those of you who argue that a little can't hurt - how much arsenic or lead do you usually like to add to your food? Cyanide is MUCH worse. How much is too much? The authors certainly don't say. They don't even mention that it's poison. If anything, the photographs in the book are exquisite, and if you study them for decorating ideas, gardening ideas and color combinations, the book is certainly worth a dent in your credit or library card. The prose, however, needs more than a little tightening up and perhaps some fact-checking.