I've been moving this book from house to house since before the Millennium. Finally read it. By this point in my life, 95% of the content was common sense. Still, highly recommended - especially for those only now learning how to cook.
I learned a lot from reading this, and it's safe to say that I was already a huge food-facts nerd! It really will help me bake and cook better because I understand more scientific principles. I recommend this to anyone who enjoys spending time in the kitchen. The format makes it extra easy to read - it's basically in FAQ form so it's easy to skip around to the topics you're interested in and skim where you feel like it. The author has a pretty interesting tone and matter-of-fact sense of humor that was refreshing.
Thanks to my friend Aaron for loaning me this one. I'll have to get my own copy; there was simply too much useful information in here for me to remember. As a novice cook, there are a lot of kitchen basics of which I am simply ignorant; this book was the perfect manual for all the simple things I never knew.
I'm not going to finish this, not because it isn't good, but because in 50+ pages, I haven't encountered anything new. Good book on the science of cooking, but Altan Brown already taught me this stuff.