Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Let me just start off by saying how much I love the smitten kitchen blog. I've been following it since around 2008, and I've made (and loved) countless recipes from the site over the years. I've been eagerly anticipating the release of this book ever since it was announced back in 2015. I'm so disappointed to not be leaving a glowing review, because I absolutely adore Deb. Like a few of the other reviewers, I just didn't find many recipes here that I want to make. One of the greatest things about Deb as a food blogger is her obsession with making the "perfect" version of a given dish. In her quest to get it just right she will test and re-test until she gets there, often taking the best parts of several recipes and combining them into her own perfect one. Her blog is often my first stop when searching for a specific recipe, because I know that her version is always great. Things like her "ethereally smooth hummus", "favorite brownies", peach pie, pecan pie, double chocolate banana bread, "perfect blueberry muffins", "better chocolate babka" (and so many others) have become go-to recipes that I'll never deviate from. Other dishes, like the chicken pho, carnitas, consumate chocolate chip cookies, pork ragu, root vegetable gratin etc. are not her own, but carefully chosen, perfect recipes from other authors that I would not have discovered otherwise. Unfortunately, there is far more pressure to be original when publishing a book instead of a blog post. I think the book suffers from this need to make something "brand new", when her strength lies elsewhere. I also think the title of the book is unfortunate; many of the recipes are indeed very fussy. Looking at the breakfast chapter for instance, barely any of them can be done in less than one hour. The "loaded breakfast potato skins" are truly perplexing to me. Who on earth is spending 60 minutes baking a potato for breakfast? The "jam-bellied bran scones" also seem needlessly fussy to me. The point of making scones for breakfast is that they come together in five minutes. Why spend all this time carefully making jam-filled ones when breaking open a perfect, warm-from-the-oven scone and slathering it with butter and jam probably tastes better (with much less work). The same goes for the "granola biscotti". It looks very similar to the granola recipe from the first book (that I've made many times), just more fussy and gimmicky. Like I mentioned, I generally found very few recipes that I'm tempted to make. Obviously, this is very subjective, and other people might find plenty of things they want to cook. Personally, I was particularly let down by the "Salads" and "Vegetable mains" chapters. The salads were not appealing to me at all, while many of the vegetable mains are more like side-dishes (pommes anna, zucchini with salsa verde, roasted halloumi and vegetables etc). The blog recipes are often vegetarian, so I was surprised that these chapters were not better. (Also, please no more fritters!). It is not all bad though. I will definitely be trying the "chicken and rice, street cart style", the "ricotta blini with honey, orange and sea salt", "Manhattan style clams with fregola", and the "meatballs marsala with egg noodles and chives". But that's probably also all..