by Robin Donovan and Juliana Gallin
Viva Editions, $15.95, 193 pages
Many cooks prefer a no-nonsense cookbook with good recipes over those filled with high-quality photo illustrations, sidebars, extensive headers, notes and stories. Those cooks will very much enjoy following the recipes in The Lazy Gourmet: Magnificent Meals Made Easy.
The layout is cook-friendly with one recipe on a page or adjacent pages, the choice of recipes is drawn from a wide international repertoire by the authors and, the cook is promised, every one was tested by a small army of volunteer recipe testers. The first 27 pages introduce ingredients, kitchen equipment and helpful kitchen tips for the novice. In fact, the target readers are beginner to intermediate cooks who like to serve good, healthy meals without hours of kitchen work. All recipes are fairly simple, well written and easy to follow and most contain fewer than ten ingredients, none of which you should have trouble finding in your neighborhood store.
Reviewed by George Erdosh