Comments on: A Stack of Cookbooks for 2012…

By: Footloose

Footloose — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 15:54:12 +0000

Here is Frank Bruni, an ex NYT food critic, reacting with two recently published cookbooks of chefs he knew through their restaurants. Might be of interest to those enamored with famous chefs’ cookbooks. Spoiler alert, quite revelatory with respect to duplicating restaurant dishes at home. You simply cannot do it mainly due to differing equipment but trying to pull off certain Chinese dishes at home revealed this disappointing fact to most of us a looong time ago. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/01/the-power-of-chef-cookbooks/250014/

By: pilar

pilar — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 15:06:57 +0000

Holy smokes! You have the Modernist Cuisine! It’s like the new-age encyclopedia for chefs and cooking enthusiasts! Looking at the pictures alone is magical. A very generous gift indeed!

By: apple

apple — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 15:56:46 +0000

I’m so jealous! :)

By: s

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 10:38:02 +0000

hey! happy new year! you are in Town & Country’s jan/feb issue. :)

By: Pam

Pam — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 09:45:08 +0000

Wow, MM. What a collection. I am sure Booksale will get more customers after reading this post. : ) MM, I think it’s time you come out with your own cookbook, but please do it like how you do your blog, which focuses not just on recipes, but mostly on proper techniques and fresh ingredients. My main complaint about our cookbooks is that they focus too much on recipes instead of using the recipes to illustrate to people how to use a cooking technique or ingredient. I am so sure that if done this way, your cookbook will be a big hit.

Footloose, I agree with you. Like almost everything, easier to make than to sell. Then again, we can never know what the market wants. In the end, it’s always the customers who position the product. I do think that MM’s cookbook will sell well as long as it’s distributed properly just because there is a need for such a cookbook.

By: Footloose

Footloose — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 07:33:11 +0000

Yep, if there’s anybody I know in this world who is most likely to get this behemoth set as a gift, it would be you.

As to your own, the majority of fellow Market Manila fans will probably execrate me for this but I read just very recently that it is a lot less troublesome to write and publish a cookbook than to sell it.

By: Mart

Mart — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 07:23:51 +0000

Just wanted to pipe in and say that I just finished watching the same Top Chef episode that esubijano mentioned.
A lot of the chef authors in MM’s impressive book list have also been guest contestants and judges in past Top Chef (and Top Chef Masters) seasons.

$450-$600 for that set of books seems rather steep unless you really do eat, live, breathe cooking. It would be like owning the some great 5 volume set of piano sheet music but only being able to play “chopsticks”.
I think I’d rather eat Php19000 worth at MM’s Zubuchon. Not all in one sitting of course. :-)

By: esubijano

esubijano — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 01:19:37 +0000

I caught an episode of Top Chef last night and saw these same stacks of books as the prize on the quickfire challenge. The chefs’ dishes were judged by non-other than Nathan Mhyrvold — the principal author of the Modernist Cuisne collection. Had to do a double take as the name definitely rang a bell … sure enough, wikipedia.org says he used to be the CTO at Microsoft. Still wondering what else this man can not do well; his resume is quite revealing. Check it out at

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Mhyrvold

By: foodie

foodie — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 21:41:19 +0000

These books were the prize for the Top Chef winner in last night’s segment. The author was one of the judges.

By: Bambini

Bambini — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 13:27:37 +0000

re goldilocks cookbook: i thought it was good because heny sison wrote about it in one of her columns.