I got this in the mail a few weeks ago.  On the cover it says that since I am a cooking enthusiast I was chosen to receive this preview issue.  Since I love cooking magazines, Simple and Delicious from Taste of Home is my favorite, and Everyday with Rachael Ray isn’t far behind, I was thrilled to check out this new magazine.

Their big claim is NO ADS, and while that is true, there are A LOT of fillers.  Tips for home cooks, how to get the perfect cutlet, an entire article about pizza on the grill.  While all of that is great, I want recipes in a cooking magazine, and while there are a number of recipes in this issue, it’s nowhere near what you would find in one of Taste of Home’s issues.

There are some good tips in the ‘tips and techniques’ section.

-To avoid scorching your pan while you heat up milk, rinse the pan with cold water, but don’t dry it.

-instead of greasing pans, and then flouring them, use sugar.  Apparently it spreads easier, and gives the bottom and sides of the cake a sweet taste.

As I mentioned above, there is an entire article about cooking Pizza on the Grill.  Ok, great…do we need four pages on that?  How about two or three paragraphs and then get right to the recipes?

Same with ‘perfect cutlets.’ I don’t need two full pages on how to pound the perfect cutlet.  A few paragraphs will do, and then of course add the suggestion that you can always just buy them at the store.  Their recipe for Chicken Piccata sounds great, and they add pictures to illustrate each step, which is nice for the novice cook.

There is an interesting article about the different types of salt, and what you should use each one for.  They mention something called red algae Hawaiian sea salt…sounds interesting, though I have no clue where you get something like that.  I looked in Walmart and Target, no luck…so i am guessing you need to go someplace a little more upscale…Wegmans, William Sonoma, someplace like that.

There are some good recipes, but I don’t need to read a full page articles about each and every one.  I do think there are some good tips, and the illustrations are nice, especially if you are a novice cook.  And for what you get I think the price is quite high..5 dollars an issue.  For a dollar less you can get three or four times as many recipes in one of Taste of Home’s magazine.  If you like to read interesting little articles along with your recipe, Southern Living is a much better bet as well.