Dear Home Cook,
I am a good home cook but pretty lousy at planning menus or selecting recipes for a particular season. Sure, I can handle the big ones – I’ve got Thanksgiving, Christmas, and our annual 4th of July barbecue down – but which recipes and menus make sense for spring or early fall? What about a dinner party in February? I’d rather bone a chicken than have to spend hours sorting through back issues of Cook’s Illustrated or any of the hundreds of cookbooks in my library. So I often end up trying to ignore the menu planning until the very last minute when it is too late.
Well, experience has shown me that procrastination isn’t the answer, so in an effort to provide one, I decided to publish a new magazine, Entertaining. Published four times a year, Entertaining consists of four double-sized issues featuring recipes from the archives of Cook’s Illustrated, one for each of the seasons, focusing on entertaining. These 64-page, double issues contain what we consider to be an excellent collection of appropriate recipes and menus. We’ve also included relevant Quick Tips, condensed equipment and ingredient ratings, as well as our invaluable Kitchen Notes column.
Now, these are collections of recipes from past issues of Cook’s Illustrated, not new recipes. But we have gone back though our archives (which now number over 3,000 recipes) looking for the best dishes to suit that season. But Cook’s Illustrated subscribers needn’t worry, for none of the recipes have appeared in the magazine in the past two years. For me, this is extremely practical since I can quickly find both recipes and menus that make sense for any time of year. That might mean a simple Spring Lasagna Dinner (Asparagus and Mesclun Salad, Spinach Lasagna, and Strawberry Cream Cake), a Fourth of July cookout (Cherry Tomato Salad, Stuffed Tex-Mex Burgers, Ultimate Oatmeal Cookies, and Homemade Lemonade), or a Dickens Christmas Feast (Prime Rib au jus, Yorkshire Pudding, Spinach Salad with Mushrooms, Croutons, and Warm Lemon Dressing, and a Classic Trifle for dessert). Of course, you don’t have to heed our menu suggestions; you can simply pick and choose seasonal recipes from the dishes in each collection.
We pounded, fried, and buttered our way through a coop’s worth of chicken to develop our foolproof Chicken Kiev recipe with a leak-proof, crisp-breaded coating and evenly cooked chicken interior.
PROBLEM: Tender butter cakes can’t support filling.
SOLUTION: A chiffon-style cake combined the rich flavor of a butter cake with the light-yet-sturdy texture of a sponge cake.
PROBLEM: Weak, one-dimensional strawberry flavor.
SOLUTION: Making a flavorful berry “mash” and reducing the macerated juice in a saucepan helped concentrate and round out the flavors.
PROBLEM: Filling squirts out when cake is sliced, and layers fall apart. SOLUTION: Fortifying the whipped-cream filling with cream cheese provided extra cohesiveness.
We tested 18 brands of vanilla ice cream, some all-natural (cream sugar, eggs, and vanilla) and some not-so natural (guar gum and diglyceride sundaes anyone?) to see which scoops up the accolades of our finicky tasters. Surprisingly, our top-rated brand, Turkey Hill Vanilla Bean, contained emulsifiers and stabilizers, but they actually helped create a smooth, clean texture and a “just right” vanilla taste. Some of the all-naturals tasted harsh by comparison. We also learned not to trust our eyes — don’t count on vanilla bean specks to gauge vanilla flavor. While the ice cream looks pretty, the specks are simply pulverized pods of spent vanilla beans, and carry little or no flavor.
Entertaining is published four times per year, one for each season: Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter/Holiday. They are available on the newsstand, but you can receive a FREE TRIAL subscription to all four editions at the special Charter Subscriber price of $19.95, which is a 37 percent savings off the newsstand price. And, of course, we deliver your copy each season right to your door—no need to drive around trying to find a copy at your local newsstand or bookstore.
Entertaining is a simple and inexpensive way to let the food editors at Cook’s Illustrated sift through our recipe archives looking for just the dishes and menus that make sense that time of year. Not a bad proposition at all. So if you would like to expand your menu repertoire — or cut down your time spent hunting through back issues to put together the perfect seasonal menu — Entertaining is the simple solution. You can browse through our selections and come up with your own menus or let us do it for you but, either way, at least you know that the recipes will work the first time and every time.
So, order your FREE TRIAL issue of Entertaining now. We will ship you the latest edition of Entertaining for your review. Don’t like it? Just write cancel on the accompanying invoice and return it in the postage-paid envelope; the first issue will be yours to keep absolutely free. Either way, it’s a fair deal and a small investment to make menu planning a pleasure, not a chore.
Good luck with your next dinner party or family gathering!
Cordially,
Christopher Kimball
Founder and Editor
America's Test Kitchen
P.S. Don’t forget that these are special double-sized issues, twice as large as regular Cook’s Illustrated issues. So you will receive the equivalent of eight regular issues per year at a very fair price of only $19.95. Also remember that this is a free trial offer so you may return the invoice marked cancel and keep your FREE TRIAL ISSUE ($7.95 value) absolutely free.
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