Pam Anderson
Author of How to Cook Without a Book: Recipes and Techniques Every Cook Should Know by Heart
About the Author
Pam Anderson is the food columnist of USA Weekend Magazine and the former executive editor of Cook's Illustrated. She lives with her husband and their two daughters in New Hope, Pennsylvania
Works by Pam Anderson
How to Cook Without a Book: Recipes and Techniques Every Cook Should Know by Heart (2000) 635 copies, 12 reviews
Cook without a Book: Meatless Meals: Recipes and Techniques for Part-Time and Full-Time Vegetarians (2011) 85 copies, 4 reviews
Three Many Cooks: One Mom, Two Daughters: Their Shared Stories of Food, Faith & Family (2015) 40 copies, 6 reviews
Associated Works
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1957-07-11
- Gender
- female
- Occupations
- food writer
- Organizations
- Cook's Illustrated
USA Weekend
Runner's World
AARP - Short biography
- Pam Anderson is the monthly food columnist for USA Weekend, contributing editor to Fine Cooking and Runner's World magazine, as well as the 2008 "Celebrations" food columnist for Better Homes and Gardens.
She is the author of five books -New York Times bestseller and IACP award nominee, The Perfect Recipe for Losing Weight and Eating Great, as well as Julia Child award winning, The Perfect Recipe, and James Beard Award nominees, How To Cook Without a Book and Perfect Recipes for Having People Over, as well as CookSmart. - Nationality
- USA
- Associated Place (for map)
- USA
Members
Reviews
How to Cook Without a Book, Completely Updated and Revised: Recipes and Techniques Every Cook Should Know by Heart: A Cookbook by Pam Anderson
2018 edition
Excellent for the right audience. My husband, despite being great with 'scrambled eggs with stuff in them' and despite my introduction to the book, did not understand it at all, couldn't understand the idea of templates, refused to consider looking in the fridge to see what kinds of combination to come up with... he's still the kind of recipe follower who can't substitute green onions for scallions.... :sigh:
My middle son, otoh, is avidly trying to learn how to free himself from show more recipes, and when I see him next I'll show him this book. I think he'll love it.
I do this all the time, but I still got several good ideas so I made myself a cheat sheet.
And this time I'm not going to tell you what those ideas are.
Instead I'm going to encourage you to check this out yourself. And if your library doesn't have it, ask them to buy it. It's the kind of thing more of 'today's busy families' really need so they don't rely on take-out and don't waste leftovers. Gift it as a housewarming present if the person hasn't already mastered everyday cooking. show less
Excellent for the right audience. My husband, despite being great with 'scrambled eggs with stuff in them' and despite my introduction to the book, did not understand it at all, couldn't understand the idea of templates, refused to consider looking in the fridge to see what kinds of combination to come up with... he's still the kind of recipe follower who can't substitute green onions for scallions.... :sigh:
My middle son, otoh, is avidly trying to learn how to free himself from show more recipes, and when I see him next I'll show him this book. I think he'll love it.
I do this all the time, but I still got several good ideas so I made myself a cheat sheet.
And this time I'm not going to tell you what those ideas are.
Instead I'm going to encourage you to check this out yourself. And if your library doesn't have it, ask them to buy it. It's the kind of thing more of 'today's busy families' really need so they don't rely on take-out and don't waste leftovers. Gift it as a housewarming present if the person hasn't already mastered everyday cooking. show less
The concept of this book intrigued, and the author's background with Cook's magazine seemed a good recommendation. I've been doing this kind of cooking my whole life, so I wondered what I would learn. I learned a lot, actually.
I liked the author's writing style and her emphasis on methods that bring together a good, classic meal in less than an hour (though I think my all-gas stove may have different temperature ranges and some of the time/temp notes were off-- pork chops cut from the loin show more as she specified needed 5-6 minutes per side rather than 3).
In particular, I learned a better way to 'saute' and 'sear' meats... but I admit my kitchen's puny fan doesn't really have the oomph to cope with the smoke from her searing method. I like her steam/saute vegetable method, though I found it worked better with greens than broccoli-- but her suggested add-ins were great. We tried her butterflied roast chicken, and again had a smoke problem, but the chicken itself was outstanding and a 6 pound chicken cooked in 60-70 minutes. Her suggestion for marinating stir fry meat, even if only briefly, in a soy-based marinade made a huge difference in my stir fry; and her instructions for making a classic pan sauce raised my technique several notches while giving me scope for my 'what have we got in the cupboard and what goes well together' fun.
Some of her choices seemed incongruous-- using spaghetti for pad thai because you can't depend on getting rice noodles? And yet expecting that the reader will have access to unfried papadums? (The papadums in particular seemed a wierd throw-in to round out one of her sample menus.) But I look forward to trying her pad thai recipe, and using the various add-in and sauce suggestions. Warning: thi is not a diet book: there's plenty of fats and carbs in her dishes, though there are also salads and near-plain veggies. show less
I liked the author's writing style and her emphasis on methods that bring together a good, classic meal in less than an hour (though I think my all-gas stove may have different temperature ranges and some of the time/temp notes were off-- pork chops cut from the loin show more as she specified needed 5-6 minutes per side rather than 3).
In particular, I learned a better way to 'saute' and 'sear' meats... but I admit my kitchen's puny fan doesn't really have the oomph to cope with the smoke from her searing method. I like her steam/saute vegetable method, though I found it worked better with greens than broccoli-- but her suggested add-ins were great. We tried her butterflied roast chicken, and again had a smoke problem, but the chicken itself was outstanding and a 6 pound chicken cooked in 60-70 minutes. Her suggestion for marinating stir fry meat, even if only briefly, in a soy-based marinade made a huge difference in my stir fry; and her instructions for making a classic pan sauce raised my technique several notches while giving me scope for my 'what have we got in the cupboard and what goes well together' fun.
Some of her choices seemed incongruous-- using spaghetti for pad thai because you can't depend on getting rice noodles? And yet expecting that the reader will have access to unfried papadums? (The papadums in particular seemed a wierd throw-in to round out one of her sample menus.) But I look forward to trying her pad thai recipe, and using the various add-in and sauce suggestions. Warning: thi is not a diet book: there's plenty of fats and carbs in her dishes, though there are also salads and near-plain veggies. show less
How to Cook Without a Book, Completely Updated and Revised: Recipes and Techniques Every Cook Should Know by Heart: A Cookbook by Pam Anderson
3.5 stars
This book basically gives tips on cooking. The idea is that if you know how to do a few things without needing a recipe, you can change up those things to make it interesting, and you don’t need as much time to cook. The tips are more than the “formulas” for cooking the various things without a recipe; there are other time-saving tips, as well.
It was good. I had the ebook that I looked at on my 2nd generation Kobo (Touch), so the photos, unfortunately, were black and white. I show more bookmarked some things to make a note of before returning the book to the library (though it says “without a book”, it will take a few tries to make some of the things before I can go from memory).
I don’t like cooking. Some of these things will still take more time than I’d like, and I rarely eat meat, so I kind of skimmed over some of those parts. I did appreciate that for some things, she did make vegetarian/vegan suggestions, as well. In addition to the formulas, the author gave examples. For instance, a formula might say XX amount of starches, XX amount of protein, etc. Then she would also list a bunch of starches or proteins you can use (which is helpful when you don’t cook!).
I don’t tend to just read cookbooks, so I was glad that this book was more than that. Although it says “without a book”, I do feel like this is a useful book to own to go back to for the tips. That being said, I don’t plan to go buy it. show less
This book basically gives tips on cooking. The idea is that if you know how to do a few things without needing a recipe, you can change up those things to make it interesting, and you don’t need as much time to cook. The tips are more than the “formulas” for cooking the various things without a recipe; there are other time-saving tips, as well.
It was good. I had the ebook that I looked at on my 2nd generation Kobo (Touch), so the photos, unfortunately, were black and white. I show more bookmarked some things to make a note of before returning the book to the library (though it says “without a book”, it will take a few tries to make some of the things before I can go from memory).
I don’t like cooking. Some of these things will still take more time than I’d like, and I rarely eat meat, so I kind of skimmed over some of those parts. I did appreciate that for some things, she did make vegetarian/vegan suggestions, as well. In addition to the formulas, the author gave examples. For instance, a formula might say XX amount of starches, XX amount of protein, etc. Then she would also list a bunch of starches or proteins you can use (which is helpful when you don’t cook!).
I don’t tend to just read cookbooks, so I was glad that this book was more than that. Although it says “without a book”, I do feel like this is a useful book to own to go back to for the tips. That being said, I don’t plan to go buy it. show less
Three Many Cooks: One Mom, Two Daughters: Their Shared Stories of Food, Faith & Family by Pam Anderson
I like reading about cooking and I like biographies and memoirs, so this book should have worked for me. And I did find it somewhat interesting, but not as much as I'd hoped.
A mother and her two daughters write of their lives and how they have been influenced by food and cooking. There relationships are not always smooth, especially those of the two sisters. Having a sister I love dearly but can and have butted heads with, I can relate to that, although even at our most childish, I don't show more think we ever drew blood, unlike the authors!
There are recipes interspersed, and some of these sound good but I didn't get this book for the recipes and have not tried them.
What I absolutely hated was the description of cooking lobsters:
“Mom tried freezing the creatures before boiling them to disorient their little brains and relax their muscles. She tried stabbing them in the head to make the kill quick and merciful before cooking. She even tried putting them in the pot and slowly raising the heat, but the scratching inside was pretty unbearable. To prevent their tails from curling up during cooking, my dear mother rammed a stabilizing chopstick up their ass, all along the tail and into the body.”
I will never understand how someone can treat an animal that is going to be eaten in a way that would have them arrested for animal abuse if they did it to a non-food animal. Especially women who are supposed to be of faith, and therefore, one would think , compassionate. Not if you are a lobster!
While this is “their shared stories of food, faith & family,” the faith part didn't proselytize, which I appreciated. Their view of male/female roles in the family was a little too traditional for me, but that's okay too.
What I didn't like about the book, aside from the lobster-cooking, was that on occasion, a little too much hubris showed through, and that sometimes the book just plain bored me.
I was given an advance reader's copy of this book for review. The quote may have changed in the published edition. show less
A mother and her two daughters write of their lives and how they have been influenced by food and cooking. There relationships are not always smooth, especially those of the two sisters. Having a sister I love dearly but can and have butted heads with, I can relate to that, although even at our most childish, I don't show more think we ever drew blood, unlike the authors!
There are recipes interspersed, and some of these sound good but I didn't get this book for the recipes and have not tried them.
What I absolutely hated was the description of cooking lobsters:
“Mom tried freezing the creatures before boiling them to disorient their little brains and relax their muscles. She tried stabbing them in the head to make the kill quick and merciful before cooking. She even tried putting them in the pot and slowly raising the heat, but the scratching inside was pretty unbearable. To prevent their tails from curling up during cooking, my dear mother rammed a stabilizing chopstick up their ass, all along the tail and into the body.”
I will never understand how someone can treat an animal that is going to be eaten in a way that would have them arrested for animal abuse if they did it to a non-food animal. Especially women who are supposed to be of faith, and therefore, one would think , compassionate. Not if you are a lobster!
While this is “their shared stories of food, faith & family,” the faith part didn't proselytize, which I appreciated. Their view of male/female roles in the family was a little too traditional for me, but that's okay too.
What I didn't like about the book, aside from the lobster-cooking, was that on occasion, a little too much hubris showed through, and that sometimes the book just plain bored me.
I was given an advance reader's copy of this book for review. The quote may have changed in the published edition. show less
Awards
You May Also Like
Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 9
- Also by
- 1
- Members
- 1,507
- Popularity
- #17,057
- Rating
- 4.0
- Reviews
- 27
- ISBNs
- 19
- Languages
- 1
- Favorited
- 1