chiffonade, I respect your opinion however, I do have to attribute
[URL=http://www.cooksillustrated.com/]Cook's Illustrated for ignighting my own interest in cooking. In fact, it was this 3 page article (the first article I ever read from CI) which won me over. I'd always wanted to know why and how and 'why not' this and 'why not that'. When your clueless and people respond "Oh, a little of this and a dollop of that", it doesn't do people like me any good. We all have to start somewhere and for me it was that article.
I agree that it is annoying to have to pay separately for access to the entire website. It's a fine line. I'm not in their shoes and don't know the cost of supporting the overhead, equipment, staff, technicians, etc. Obviously, the information is propriatary. The question is,
is it worth it to the individual who want's to pay the money? Seeing as it is about the cost of one trip to McDonalds a month. It's cheaper than some other sources of info of less quality and I can think of worse ways to spend my money.
Ironically, I stumbled onto those "samples" while looking for a recipe. If you go to the home page and can find the same page from there, let me know the route.
I respect that there are no ads in their publications. If I need to pay a little more for that and what I feel to be information which is useful to me, then I'm more than happy to do that if I can afford it. After all, it's the American way! You could always subscribe for a single month and download as many recipes as you can. In the meantime, I'll diligently check the
Kitchen Detective article on a weekly basis for as long as it is made available.
I also appreciate that they try to make each recipe work as universally as possible no matter what quality equipement you have. And that when they test products, more money doesn't mean it's better.
I like the fact that I can go to one primary source and expect a certain methodology by which information is derived. Of course CI is not the "end all". If nothing else, it teaches some of us who would not necessarily know or care about a topic until addressed. For others, it challenges us to support our own methods and/or consider and/or incorporate new ones. It is impossible to please everyone and I don't think that is their goal. I think they do the best they can with the materials and methods and time constraints allotted. I don't think it's right to disregard everything they write simply because I completely disagree with one article. How many times have we made a dish knowing we could have used a better ingredient, or if only we'd had more time and we are unfortunately judged based on that meal? Or how many times have we done that to someone else (thinking they can't cook!).
People approach cooking in different ways and they
learn in different ways. I believe CI appeals to people of a very logical mindset. Not everyone has to agree with them but that's like any other publication on any other subject. I don't see much competition on the market which fills the niche CI does. I think it would be fantastic if Shirley O. Corriher who wrote
CookWise had her own show on
FoodTV. Until then, I'll have to stick with shows like
America's Test Kitchen and
Good Eats to answer those questions I've wondered about, those I'd never even considered, and educate me enough to make me ask some more...
:)
Kitchen Detective Don't know why that's doing that above.
