Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Pim's blog is pretty fun and interesting. This book is, in parts, pretty fun and interesting. Unfortunately, it comes off as more of a print version of the blog than as a useful or interesting book.
She's an engaging writer and there are some lovely photographs in the book. Some of the recipes are wonderful; all the recipes are well-written and appear to make sense (I didn't try them all).
In the end, however, I think this book isn't really worth it. I just found it too annoying.
One problem with the book is that it's written like a blog, where the various parts have only a thematic connection. Another problem is that there's a bit too much self-aggrandizement for my taste. I don't need to know how amazingly popular the Pad Thai recipe on her blog is, especially when that popularity is illustrated with the number of links to it. Who cares? It's either a good recipe (which it is) or it's not. You got the book contract, honey, stop trying to sell us on your credibility.
Another problem is that there's an awful lot of generalization from her own experience to what other people should do. As others have pointed out, this last problem is well-illustrated with the "50 Things" list. First off, lists of 50 things (or 10 or 23) with only a flimsy connection between them work a lot better on blogs than in books. Worse, after assuring us throughout the previous part of the book that every "foodie" gets there in his or her own way, and admonishing us not to think that we have to do specific things to be a "foodie", she tops the book off with a list of specific ideas. Eat this dish at that restaurant! Return this food item even if in its out-of-seasonality, it sings to you of memories of another season, just because she said it's out of season!
All she had to do, really, was relabel that list as "The Top 50 Experiences That Made Me A Foodie" and she'd be home free. But turning that into a prescription for the rest of us at the end of a book telling us that prescriptions can't make a foodie is just self-indulgent and ridiculous.
Finally, although the recipes seem solid (and in a couple cases, even brilliant), they fall short of her goal. She starts out "How To Cook Like A Foodie" by asserting that there it's better not to cook from a recipe, and then launches into a series of recipes. I agree with her premise, but that doesn't mean I never read or use recipes. It means I know how to take a recipe and twist it to make it my own. If that's what she wanted to teach people to do, she went about it wrong. For instance, she talks about how she learned to make a roast chicken, and then she says that her way is the one, the only way. Seems like she's contradicting herself. If she'd said it was the one, the only way for her, fine. But her point started out being that the idea is to find what works for you and then hone it.
This whole section would have worked better if she'd offered recipes and then talked about how that process of twisting a recipe to make it your own. So here is a method that makes a basic roasted chicken. Here are some ways that you could personalize it. Try it, try some of the variations, see how they affect the outcome. Over time, you will discover your own "best roasted chicken". Then do it again -- here is a recipe for a basic fruit tart. Here are some ways to fiddle with it. Here are some things you might find handy to know when fiddling with baking recipes. Try some of the variations, keep the limitation in mind, and eventually, you will have a "best fruit tart" approach of your own.
Overall, I think that this book proves Pim is a great blog writer but not a very good book writer. Faults that are charming in a blog weigh down the book and make it not very good in the end.
Personally, I'd skip the book and stick to the blog. It's a great blog.P.S. The word "Foodie" is so stupid that I almost couldn't open the book at all. The most passionate eaters and cooks I know despise that word, for a reason. This review is not very good, but it's quite frankly far more positive than I would ever have expected to write about a book with that title.
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Product Description:
From Pim Techamuanvivit, knowledgeable foodie and "queen of the food bloggers," comes this engaging guidebook to all things food-related. Pim has toured the globe to bring hungry people up to date with what's happening in the food world through Chez Pim, a Web site that attracts 10,000 hits a week. In The Foodie Handbook, she collects tips, secrets, anecdotes, and recipes from the world's top chefs, including Anthony Bourdain and Fergus Henderson. Food lovers everywhere will relish Pim's sage advice, including tips on outsnobbing the staff of a Michelin three-star restaurant, preparing simple but intensely flavored dishes at home, and eating street food in any city in the world.
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