A Quality Cookbook Amidst a Lot of Mediocre Ones
I recently have had to become gluten and dairy free. Since I have always done my own cooking and baking from scratch it naturally meant I'd have to learn some new skills. Behavioral research tells us it takes 10,000 hours to gain beginning mastery over a newly acquired skill. Think apprenticeship hours. Since a lot of skills transfer if one is already in an adjacent activity, I figured it should only take about 500 to become proficient at gluten-dairy free cooking.
In doing my research and practice, towards acquiring my hours, I've discovered that like any other type of books, these specialty cookbooks aren't all equal. And many authors copy from each other, often repeating an error as proof of their amateur standing. One example is the use of a pre-cooked flour and milk slurry being called a "roux" by many authors, when in fact, it is a "blanc mange." These are the author's whose skills and imaginations are limited at best and so their products are limited - in the kitchen and in their writing.
In contrast is this book by Audrey Roberts. It gives me everything I look for in a cookbook, especially an e-book. This includes a table of contents, an index, good quality photos, interesting recipes, tempting combinations of ingredients, variety of recipes, scientific and dietary background, glossaries of ingredients by type, measurements and equivalents.
I'm looking forward to trying out the bagel recipe later this week and getting the last of my 500 hours.