The No Recipe Cookbook: A Beginner's Guide to the Art of Cooking

What has happened to cooking? Where has it gone? For most people, it is left to the experts in restaurants and on television. Thanks to the constant availability of takeout, frozen dinners, and fast food restaurants, for the majority of Americans, cooking has become a spectator sport—an entertaining activity you watch on television, but not something to try at home. The No Recipe Cookbook is a warm and funny instructional guide that addresses this issue head-on. Rather than simply collecting recipes, author, chef, caterer, and nutritionist Susan Crowther offers people something even more useful—an understanding of how to cook. The No Recipe Cookbook is a commonsensical and creative approach to preparing delicious meals, focusing on principles, intuition, and integrity. Cooking is also explored holistically, incorporating aspects such as local ingredients and “green cooking.” Each page explores culinary virtues of patience, adaptability, and love next to principles, utensils, and procedures.

From preparing simple salad dressings to simmering soup stocks to kneading dough for bread, Crowther takes the intimidation factor out of cooking by giving readers the basic information and tools they need for culinary success. Once you understand a few basic rules and generally what ingredients in what proportions are necessary for certain dishes, you’ll be free to confidently experiment with all sorts of culinary creations. With a handful of easy-to-follow cooking time charts and shopping lists, plenty of warm advice, and a pinch of humor, Crowther welcomes aspiring cooks on a fun and exciting culinary adventure.

Susan Crowther is the author of The No Recipe Cookbook, The Vegetarian Chef, and Lifestyles for Learning. Chef Henin taught Susan at the Culinary Institute of America. Susan has worn several professional hats: cook, chef, caterer, nutritionist, massage therapist, health educator, college professor, and mother. Susan and her husband Mark recently moved from Vermont to Elizabethton, Tennessee.