Cooks Illustrated

For about a year now I have been getting a free sample of this magazine in my mail 3-4 times per year. I have enjoyed looking and reading through it, but have not yet succumbed to subscription. I am wondering if it is worth the price of about $25. There is too an online subscription but I don't know what that coast. Is it worth the $$ or is it more of a cooking version of Consumers Reports? thanks in advance.

[Robin Garr]

For about a year now I have been getting a free sample of this magazine in my mail 3-4 times per year. I have enjoyed looking and reading through it, but have not yet succumbed to subscription. I am wondering if it is worth the price of about $25. There is too an online subscription but I don't know what that coast. Is it worth the $$ or is it more of a cooking version of Consumers Reports? thanks in advance.

Bob, I used to love it, but I got over it. They accept no advertising in the interest of avoiding commercial pressure, like Consumer Reports, and they do some product comparison and analysis sort of vaguely like CR. I initially liked their approach of trying several ways to do a recipe in order to test the conventional wisdom, then reporting what they liked best.

But I found the concept wore thin after a while, and the publisher's notes from his small farm in Vermont got a little grating; they went from a very poor wine column to no wine column, and references to wine in the general magazine generally seemed uninformed. What really put the icing on the cake was their extensive tendency to spam, spam, spam in both postal mail and email, both before and after I let my subscription lapse.

I really enjoy Cooks Illustrated, both the magazine and the site. I used to subscribe but have not in years. I do pick it up occasionally on the newstand. I like their "here's the ultimate way to cook ____" testing.

I do subscribe to the site - one of those "too lazy to cancel" monthly hits to the cc for $3.95. It is very convenient to search the site for recipes and equipments tests, etc.

I'd say go for it on the actual magazine, especially at discounted initial subscription rates. One thing about the mag - there's no advertising.

I subscribed to it for about two years and really got tired of the "same old stuff". After a while you feel like your reading the same methods and conclusions over and over. When I did cancel, I subscribed to the site. Got tired of that too. I find I can usually post a question on one of the forums I visit and either get the recipe I want or other information.

I'm sympathetic to Robin. I was attracted by the TV show, and the sample they sent me was interesting. But the constant spamming...

Someone sent me a one-year compilation and I got a chance to really read through it. Very good content, but geez, Christopher Kimball spent waaaaay too much time in Creative Writing courses. I couldn't get through more than a paragraph of his over-written articles.

In the end, despite the strong positives, I decided not to subscribe- the spam just cannot be rewarded.

Thanks Robin, Fred, Karen, and Stuart. Somehow I get a consensuses that it is nice starting out, but it grows redundant after a while. I have found CR to be like that and dropped my subscription. So I guess I'll take the freebies so long as they will send them....

Bob,

I also subscribe to Cooks Illustrated but am dropping the subscription this yr for the same reasons everyone has listed. The first yr I thought was really interesting, but it's the same old, same old every yr. I've had the subscription for 3 yrs now, and haven't even read the last few magazines. The same thing happened with CR for me too...plus with CR, the last appliances I bought as their "Best Buy" recommendations ended being pretty lousy....but I digress.

I now watch America's Test Kitchen on PBS (same people as Cooks Illustrated) and really enjoy it. It is so much better to watch them make a dish and then read the articles...plus it's free .

We still get it, I think. Like Robin and Stuart, I like the articles but find Kimball's stuff to be nauseating. So I don't read it. Overall, I think it's worth having around the house.

Best of all, the subscription's in my wife's name, so I've never seen any spam from them whatsoever. Having to put up with that would likely change my attitude towards them.

I also subscribe to Cook's. I find their "scientific" approach appealing, but agree with others that after a while, the recipes begin to sound the same.

One measure for a cooking magazine or a cookbook for me is keeper recipes, recipes that I return to on a regular basis. Cook's has provided enough of those to be worth the price of subscription.

I used to get a lot of spam from them, but I don't anymore. I may have reset my preferences in a way to limit the spam from them.

I'm another former subscriber. I decided while I like their testing approach, the results tend to be like panel wine tastings- rewarding the lowest common denominator, not the recipes that take chances with flavors that not everyone might like.But I do subscribe to their free weekly email, and usually scan to see if anything is interesting. This was in last Friday's,and I recommend the recipe (since Betsy did all the work)>

http://www.cooksillustrated.com/recipe. ... =L8HN5BK00

Okay, not disputing that the result of this torta rec might be "fab"...but, it seems to me as way, way overcomplicated and am reasnonably confident I could achieve the same end result without all the myriad prissy steps as per the recipe, and oh yeah, in about half the time!
Bottome line is no matter how you dress it up, that this is a veggie casserole. Anyway, my '2 cents' & IMO.

Their clinical approach to what I consider art, is a real turn off for me.

And you get stuff like:
"Sure, we know the Bolognese have been making their delicious, slow cooked meat sauce for centuries, but we wanted to see if we could come up with a home version which we could prepare in ten minutes. Our panel agreed it was every bit as tasty as the traditional version."

I do find some value in the magazine, for example, when they compare cuts of meat in the same recipe, or test appliances or kitchen tools, a la Consumer Reports.
I keep it around, with very low expectations.

And you get stuff like:
"Sure, we know the Bolognese have been making their delicious, slow cooked meat sauce for centuries, but we wanted to see if we could come up with a home version which we could prepare in ten minutes. Our panel agreed it was every bit as tasty as the traditional version."

I think they're at their worst with such ethnic dishes.

I do a lot of recipe development and really REALLY appreciate technique analysis from them--why doing things a certain way won't work and doing it other ways will work...It's a nice jumping off point as I plunge into creating/crafting a recipe for other outlets...

So I guess I'm still a big fan.

b

Bob,

I gave up my subscription years ago for many of the reasons previously listed. I do have three of their books so if you ever need one of their product reviews or recipes, just let me know.

FWIW, I just asked my wife about the spam issues. She has the subscription in her name, so I figured she'd be getting a pretty good load of it. To my surprise, she said she's never even given them her e-mail address. Turns out we only get the print version - she hasn't signed up for the online access.

So there is a way to keep them from spamming you, should you decide the print version is worth the cost.

Their prose is about as interesting as a washing machine manual.

rwj