Customer Comments

Pretty, but not a very useful guide to quilting. While there are several lovely modern quilts to look at in this slim volume, a bible it is not! The text instructions are minimal, and actually even difficult to read because they are sized in a tiny font, artfully placed on largely blank pages. I think the design team hijacked the concept here; definitely the design of the book is more interesting than the minimal, not-beginner-friendly text. I should have just gone on Pinterest and saved myself $20.

Really happy with this book. I am not a total newbie to quilting, so was mostly looking for a book that would provide plenty of clear patterns and projects to try. This book does that and I especially appreciate that it purposefully ramps up the complexity - a 'start at the beginning' and work your way up to the beautiful, huge quilt gracing the cover. The author does move quickly over the basics - so if you were totally, totally new to quilting it might be too confusing when it comes to the basics. For example, the basting is presented in a way I'm not at all familiar with; a few more explanatory images would have been great. The patterns themselves have plenty of pictures to accompany the text instructions so there is no mystery there. Almost zero suggestions on the actual quilting process so there is a lot of room to be creative with the final project.

This is a pretty good cookbook, although you can tell it was hastily written: the instructions aren't very precise, which could definitely lead Instant Pot newbies into troubled waters. Specifically, the author never specifies whether to seal or vent, which initially drove me nuts. Now that I'm used to my IP it's not as scary to trust myself in the face of limited instructions. There are also no photographs, and sometimes it feels like they've been lazy - ex, the fried rice recipe in the Vegetarian chapter is exactly the same as the Pork Fried Rice of the Meat chapter (just add meat, who knew?). What makes up for it is that this cookbook contains numerous simple and practical recipes I haven't found elsewhere, such as pork fried rice and beer-braised German sausage. And there is a handy chart in this slender book which I've gone to more often than any of my other IP books. If you just want some solid, quick recipes, this short book will give you many simple options.

I'm totally addicted to my Instant Pot, and this is by far my favorite cookbook. It is what I recommend everyone starts out with because each chapter explains how the crazy thing actually works, followed up with superb recipes and very clear instructions on how to make them (which is critical, because the Instant Pot is not intuitive!). I have learned how to adapt recipes thanks to Shumski, while other books just tend to give you recipes to follow (which rarely make allowances for the size of your Pot - Shumski teaches you why the size matters, so to speak ha ha, so you can fine tune). There are lots of wonderfully simple basic recipes like polenta, rice, yogurt, and variations on the more 'advanced' stuff like barbacoa pork, beef stew, pork ragu, etc. Everything we've made using this book has been pretty awesome and definitely no other book goes into so much detail on the glorious options available for your fresh, homemade yogurt!

I don't usually crave fried food, but my husband does, so I had to get him and air fryer. And then a cookbook because we had no idea what to do with it. So far we have put this book to good use. Hubs can follow its simple fried chicken recipe, and the fresh french fries recipe has gone into our regular rotation (by the way, he has forsworn Fry Daddy in favor of the much easier Air Fryer, claiming he happily can't tell the difference). But I also appreciate Laurence's recipes for pork schnitzel, air fried tofu, and quick roasted veggies. On our to-try list will be baked salmon and poutine! Recipes are nice and simple, no fancy ingredients required. This is a solid overall guide to get you started.

Food porn! Get ready for lots of gorgeous photos of banana ice cream! And really poorly written introductions to each recipe, punctuated by exclamation points!!! Perhaps partly the fault of poor translation! I really wanted to like this book as it seemed to offer some unique takes on clean eating, using weird ingredients like maca powder - mostly because I have a ton of maca powder and no clue what to do with it. But probably 1/4 of the entire book consists of variants on banana ice cream. AKA, bananas + milk + blender. She loves bananas! I get it. Bananas are tasty. But beyond the fact that it makes for an unimaginative chapter on what makes a healthy breakfast, I became increasingly annoyed by Damaso's disconnect between eating healthy and being a thoughtful consumer. I mean, those bananas come from somewhere, right? Somewhere like maybe... the banana republic? You know, the one characterized by child labor, clear cutting, environmental destruction, and a long history of cultural suppression and exploitation? This 'cookbook' earns one star, because she takes beautiful photos. She should really just stick to that.

Bread machines! Another of modern life's worthwhile conveniences. I was looking for an expansive cookbook so that I could go beyond the five or so recipes that came with my machine... and went with Hensperger's comprehensive tome. There's a great variety of recipes here, and so far it seems that they are very compatible with my machine (I was a little nervous buying a slightly older book, but I guess bread technology hasn't really changed much). Good bread is good bread. This isn't the kind of book where you can say, "I feel like some bread, I'll make some right now!" Ingredients aren't exactly exotic (dried potato flakes, vital gluten flour), but also stuff I would not normally have around the house. In fact, I really haven't gotten to use it too much because I keep realizing I'm missing one darned ingredient (vital gluten flour, by the way, is NOT easy to find... I found a tiny bag of Bob's Red Mill at Zupan's for nearly $8). But. It's nice to know I have a ton of possibilities sitting on the shelf, including gluten free options.

Excellent, excellent cookbook. Every meal I've made thus far - braised seitan with red wine sauce mushrooms, veggie pot pie, Hoppin' John - has been delicious and very accommodating to my 10 hour work schedule and 6 qt cooker (even when they call for less time and a different sized cooker). Many recipes call for seitan, which at first sent me to Whole Foods for $4 boxes of wheat meat... but the good news is that there's even an awesome seitan recipe included in the book! I tried it yesterday and made four batches, which is so convenient! Looking forward to trying all the recipes I can manage... and making use of the handy final chapter, 'the electric punchbowl.' Grogg!

As a non-lawyer forced to buy this very expensive text for a class in Art Law, this is only somewhat useful for those of us toiling in non-profit arts administration. The breadth of topics which fall under the scope of art law - repatriation, antiquities, Holocaust plundering, copyright law and artist's rights - are nicely grouped together, and this book contains a very solid selection of important cases pertaining to each topic. But that's pretty much it - the commentary is limited, so it's really "food for thought" for the law school set; not a "how to" for administrative professionals. Still, it's a classic, and impressively comprehensive - and if you have any interest whatsoever in this field, you're bound to run into good ol' Merryman.