Top Magazines
Don't Miss Out!
Cook's Illustrated
- Our rating:
- Regular cover price:
$35.70 - Best price found: $26.95
- Number of issues: 6
- Issue frequency: Bi-Monthly
- Subscribe & Save Now!via MagazineAgent
Cook's Illustrated Magazine Review
By: Dan Joseph - CookingZines.com Editor
If you enjoy cooking, and consider it something enjoyable rather than a chore, we suggest you add Cooks Illustrated magazine to your kitchen bookshelf.
Cooks Illustrated says they are all about “recipes that work” and we agree they are. There’s no advertising, so their takes on various recipes and kitchen tools are objective and honest. They even review packaged items. They might offer reviews, then, on everything from beef broth to frozen pizza. We consider it to be the Consumer Reports of the kitchen.
We give this culinary masterpiece of a magazine five out of five stars. This is an excellent magazine full of recipes guaranteed to work. You’ll feel like a pro as you prepare the perfect recipe for garlic shrimp and the best crispy oatmeal cookie you’ve ever tasted (or baked!).
The way they do it is revolutionary when you think about it. Unlike other cooking magazines, Cook’s Illustrated is developed through many hours of recipe examination, testing and preparation. The result of all this recipe tweaking is an in-depth article that gives you the best recipe, tips for preparing it and even tips on what kitchen products work best for that particular recipe.
Often food magazines have advertising which could make a reader question product evaluations. Are they truly unbiased? But because there are no ads in Cooks Illustrated, you get objective reviews of cookware and other kitchen tools. They can be honest and objective because there are no outside influences. Just their take on how well things work.
They do all of this at their Test Kitchen Facility, which is a 2,500 square food kitchen outside of Boston. If you’ve seen the PBS show “America’s Test Kitchen”, you’ve seen the kitchen. Here more than 3 dozen cooks test recipes (until they believe they have the “best” recipe), kitchen tools and packaged food.
If you love reading cooking magazines, you’re probably used to many glossy photos that go along with recipes and make the food look really good. Cook’s Illustrated magazine doesn’t offer that glossy look. Instead, they offer many diagrams and illustrations that show you not only the food you’re cooking, but how to cook it. If a chicken needs to be cut up, the diagrams show you how.
This magazine is more analytical than most we’ve read. In fact, at first glance you might think reading the magazine is a lot of work. There’s a lot of writing that comes before the actual recipe. One recipe might require 3 pages. But then you realize that’s what makes Cook’s Illustrated different. By the time you get to the actual recipe, you know a lot about the method behind the recipe, the various problems you might have and the yummy end result you can expect.
Cook’s Illustrated magazine does have a higher price tag than many other cooking magazines. But we find this a small annual price to pay for the wide array of objective information you get. Because there’s no advertising, subscribers have to pay more to help keep the magazine alive. Someone has to pay those 3 dozen chefs who make this magazine such a success! We think it’s well worth it knowing the recipes will have superb results and the reviews are honest and objective.
Subscribe Now to Cook's Illustrated Magazine and Save
Reviews | Review this magazine
Be the first to review Cook's Illustrated! We want to know what you think!