I was just on John Berardi's website and saw this Gourmet Nutrition book on there. Does anyone here recommend it? It looked like there were some pretty tasty recipes in it, but thought I'd see what people here thought first. Thanks!
Great recipes that I use all the time, although some of the instructions are lacking. If you're already familiar with cooking you'll be able to follow them, though.
__________________ The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves happy. The amount of work is the same. -- Carlos Castaneda
I didn't care for it. It's very nice for what it is, it's just horribly overpriced for what it is. You could get 2-3 pretty nice cookbooks that include macros = 10x the recipes for the same price.
There's some good information in GN, but most of the recipes aren't really to our taste. I've basically taken what I've learned from GN and the rest of the PN package and adapted the things we enjoy eating to comply with the program.
That said, if you're relatively new to cooking beyond the basics, you might find GN a useful place to start expanding your horizons. gobbla is right about the number of recipes for the price, but for someone who wants to assure he sticks with the program as he gets started, it may well prove a decent investment. You can expand from there.
__________________ "May you live every day of your life." - Jonathan Swift
JB's program and website may not be for everyone. I like the PN system and materials. They are useful as is, or can be expanded based on your prior understanding. It is somewhat pricey, but it is a good purchase in my opinion.
I use the GN cookbook to make all Breakfasts, Lunches, and Suppers throughout the week and take care of PreWO/PostWO shakes and snacks myself. I typically freelance it on the weekends, though (healthy of course!).
I absolutely love cooking so to cook healthy stuff that I wouldn't necessarily think of is fantastic!
__________________ An optimist is a person who sees a green light everywhere, while the pessimist sees only the red stoplight. The truly wise person is colourblind.
I'd echo the opinions of several other here. If you are new to cooking healthy stuff, then PN/GN is a very good way to show you how to cook and eat better. When we were new to it we had alot of difficulty being able to cook healthy meals and keep things interesting.
If you already know how to do all this, then I'd bet that you can take a normal recipie and "healthify" it no problem.
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We don't know all the answers. If we knew all the answers we'd be bored, wouldn't we? We keep looking, searching, trying to get more knowledge. Jack LaLanne
I think the book has some good recipe ideas. Most of the portions are gigantamous, and if you eat as per the guidelines outlined in the beginning, could easily be consuming 3000+ kcal. The recipes tend to be fat heavy, as John limits carbs outside of the immediate post-workout period for most individuals, so keep this in mind if your diet calls for something else.
I was just on John Berardi's website and saw this Gourmet Nutrition book on there. Does anyone here recommend it? It looked like there were some pretty tasty recipes in it, but thought I'd see what people here thought first. Thanks!
It's not cheap but it's a nice cookbook - tastefully done with nice pictures. The instructions on some items could be better (as others have stated) but it's not rocket science.
I have 8 cookbooks:
-The New Professional Chef (it's a great reference)
-Death By Chocolate (from the Trellis in Williamburg)
-The Trellis Cookbook (Trellis)
-I'm Dreaming of a Chocolate Christmas (Trellis)
-French Bistro
-Classic Techniques on Italian (Bugialli)
-Cucina (it's in italian, I bought it in my home town of Oria)
-Escoffier
Between these, which take up 1/2 of a bookshelf, I can cook anything. Some of it isn't too goof for you, other parts are. You can take pretty much any recipe and clean it up. I make a lot of sauces but I always cut the butter way down or cut the portion way down.
Escoffier is my favorite. 5000 recipes in one thick tome. Most are a paragraph long and tell you how to cook the item with no details. Like "prepare a daube of beef in the way of (some town), serve with (veggies) and a sauce made of (base sauce) highlighted with (another reduction).
Get in the kitchen and just cook. It's a good skill to have. Ladies love it.
It's not cheap but it's a nice cookbook - tastefully done with nice pictures. The instructions on some items could be better (as others have stated) but it's not rocket science.
I have 8 cookbooks:
-The New Professional Chef (it's a great reference)
-Death By Chocolate (from the Trellis in Williamburg)
-The Trellis Cookbook (Trellis)
-I'm Dreaming of a Chocolate Christmas (Trellis)
-French Bistro
-Classic Techniques on Italian (Bugialli)
-Cucina (it's in italian, I bought it in my home town of Oria)
-Escoffier
Between these, which take up 1/2 of a bookshelf, I can cook anything. Some of it isn't too goof for you, other parts are. You can take pretty much any recipe and clean it up. I make a lot of sauces but I always cut the butter way down or cut the portion way down.
Escoffier is my favorite. 5000 recipes in one thick tome. Most are a paragraph long and tell you how to cook the item with no details. Like "prepare a daube of beef in the way of (some town), serve with (veggies) and a sauce made of (base sauce) highlighted with (another reduction).
Get in the kitchen and just cook. It's a good skill to have. Ladies love it.
I love daube of beef.
I have to agree and disagree here. Not on your list, since I don't know a lot of those, but as I've been cooking since I as 12, I tend to look at any recipe and naturally make it my version of healthy.
Healthy cookbooks are a great start for people who are new to cooking, though. Without a background to fall back on and plenty of failed dishes, they won't know where to start.
Even with a couple of healthy cookbooks, there's no denying the value of a good ol' cookbook on your shelf. I have a couple of standby cookbooks that you just can't find anymore, but here are some modern day basic ones.
Jamie Oliver, Cook with Jamie: My Guide To Making You A Better Cook. This book teaches you some simple little things. I made my own mayonnaise, for instance. This is a good cookbook.
Bobby Flay, Grilling for Life These are fairly healthy and you really see how simple healthy (or healthier can be). He shows you that the key to a great tasting healthy dish isn't trying to make it the same as the non-healthy (e.g., traditional) way. You make a different dish that's better because of the differences.
Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook Why "new?" I don't know. I have three versions of this book (35, 20, and 5 years old). They all say "New." Anyhow, it has pictures and charts and you can use it as a reference to cook anything, then change it around to suit your own tastes. This is a starter cookbook. The one you give your son or daughter when they move out. This is like the Joy of Cooking, but better. I don't like the Joy of Cooking. To be honest, I don't really even like the word "joy."
3 days of cooking for this one. It's pretty impressive and the GF loves it. That's how I managed to get onto her radar...she had that, some gratin I made then a slice of Chocolate Temptation. Boom.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lost Dog
Healthy cookbooks are a great start for people who are new to cooking, though. Without a background to fall back on and plenty of failed dishes, they won't know where to start.
A lot of community colleges are a good place to start, too. Many offer some sort of culinary classes, ours has a basic cooking class.
In the summer I do a lot of grilling. The rest of the year, too. I grilled a steak for my daughter's birthday on Thursday. It was 23 out, I stood there with a cigar in one hand and a glass of Maker's Mark in the other. She was impressed.
If I may suggest, a cookbook I think everyone should own is The Improvisational Cook by Sally Schneider. There are recipes, but there are also lots of pages about cooking theory, how to combine flavors, how to start with a basic recipe and modify it in various directions, and cooking methods. Well worth picking up if you're learning to cook, or if you've been cooking for years.
I bought PN/GN for around $150 and was a bit surprised when my "coffee table quality" cookbook was basically spiral-bound photocopies of recipes. The recipes I have made have all been very good, but as others have said, you need to know how to cook because the directions leave a bit to be desired. So, yeah, I felt the fee and the quality of the bound materials had a disconnect. I think maybe they have re-done GN and it is actually bound with real photos printed by a "real" printer, but I don't know for sure. Overall, I think the material is good and the forums are also helpful on the PN site.
Gourmet Nutrition book
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