The Silver Palate Cookbook

the only cookbook you'll ever need
If you can't find it in this cookbook or on [...], you don't need to make it. All of my favorite recipes--the ones friends and family beg for--are in this book. Its style is fresh ingredients with sensible, practical instructions: preparations simple enough that you can have a glass of wine and talk to your guests in the last forty minutes as you serve your hellacious dinner. You'll seem like a mircle-worker.

This is actually my second copy of the book--I used the other one (paperback) until it fell apart.

What???
Recipes I have been borrowing "forever" in this book...time to have my own!

A Classic
This has been one of our favorite cookbooks since it first came out. Our family and friends have been wowed for the past twenty-five Thanksgivings by our turkey, which is (closely) based on the recipe in this book. The new edition has all the recipes in the old one and more. We'll use it regularly for the NEXT twent-five years!

Excellent Collection from True Culinary Pioneers
Long been a Rosso/Lukins fan, especially fond of their New Basics effort, it still is one of my old reliables. So thought I'd give this classic a try and it is a good collection of fun recipes with some good color photos.

Especially fond of such as: Lentil and Walnut Salad; Spinach-And Ricotta-Stuffed Tomatoes; Brie Souffle; Medieval Apple Tart. There are many more like this that are wonderful, unique and full-flavored dishes which are not your everyday sort of fare, but for special occasions where you feel in the mood and have time to do something a little more special that is unique, flavorful and will bring in compliments for enjoyable cuisine.

They provide their standard well done and tested recipes with helpful subject callouts of information.

A standard for recipes and menus for entertaining.
`The Silver Palate Cookbook, 25th Anniversary Edition' by former caterers and current cookbook authors, Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins is a cookbook classic, of just slightly less stature that `The Joy of Cooking' and Julia Child's `Mastering the Art of French Cooking', and comparable to or superior to the `Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook' and to various Martha Stewart publications. In fact, it is fitting that the 25th anniversaries of both this book and Martha Stewart's empire founding `Entertaining' book both fall at about the same time, as the two books are wonderful compliments to one another. Contrary to what one may think if you read the many blurbs on the cover from such luminaries as Daniel Boulud, Eric Ripert, Thomas Keller, Ina Garten, and Miss Martha herself, this is NOT an all-purpose cookbook like `The Joy of Cooking'. It is a great complement to `Entertaining' simply because it reflects the authors' roots as owners of a successful catering business. Therefore, the overall focus of the entire book is recipes and menus for entertaining, complementing Stewart's book which covers the organization, planning, staffing, and decorating for entertaining functions.
One of the great pleasures and anticipations to reviewing a book of this pedigree is that there is no pressure to determine if the book is worthy or not, since time and market success have answered that question. My goal is to determine what it is that is good about the book, and try to convey that to you. The second goal is to use this book as a yardstick to evaluate newer books which cover the same topic. For example, this book is clearly superior to Ina Garten's similar early books on cooking for entertaining, which arose out of an identical background of Catering cooking for her Barefoot Contessa firm in the Hamptons. It is also just a bit better than Sheila Lukins' book of a few years ago, `Celebration', which addresses the same general audience, but in a less useful and more highly structured way. All three books are good, but the `Silver Palate Cookbook' is the best, setting the standard for others in the genre. And, it does not hurt one bit to see the 450 page `Silver Palate' coming in at less than $30 list, while Ina's much slimmer books list for $35.
My appreciation for the book developed slowly, which is odd, since I can generally identify very good and very bad book within five minutes. `Silver Palate' had a few early glitches which created some doubts about its value. For example, the very first recipe for a simple appetizer actually had an easily detected error, where the ingredients list required eight slices of cooked ham, and the procedure called for sixteen. Oops! I was also initially put off a bit by the typical Workman cookbook layout style, which tended to split procedure write-ups between good, but annoyingly placed sidebars. This style may work for a breezier subject, but it gets in the way of a book where you want to lay out the book on your kitchen table on a regular basis and follow the recipes from the text. But then, I've found little mistakes in recipes from some of the very best cookbook writers, and this error was easily detected, so I did not let that taint my overall impression.
When I appraised the real focus of the book, I began to appreciate its value. It begins with a long chapter on `To begin a great event'. On the face of it, this was simply an opening chapter on appetizers. Not too unusual for any cookbook. But this chapter was over 50 pages. As I read further, I saw many recipes, tips, and menus for entertaining many different functions. One can wish the authors had provided us with a special table of all the menus by event. They do, however, appear in the Index under names such as `Thanksgiving Day Menu'.
With some important exceptions, the book is not really heavy on technique. It is not a `teaching' cookbook like those from Julia Child or some of Martha's better `Handbooks'. An outstanding exception is the long instruction on how to make an omelet. Just like Elizabeth David, they start by saying that there is too much fuss over how this simple dish is done, and then proceed to give a two page recipe. My favorite part of their description is their statement that an omelet is nothing more than eggs, butter, and body English, and, like bowling or billiards, it takes practice to get that body English right.
Offsetting some of the annoying aspects of the Workman layout style are the especially good photographs, Ms. Lukins' drawings from the original edition, and the many worthy quotes from notables spread about the book. And, those sidebars are really pretty useful for the primary purpose of information for entertaining. We get better than average surveys of things like olives, charcuterie, and cheeses.
Most recipes in this book are excellent versions of both international and domestic standards. And, contrary to some of the cover blurbs, there is nothing strongly `American' about the selection of recipes, although there is a strong orientation to recipes from Europe and the Mediterranean. One unusual aspect of the recipe selection is the very high number of recipes, including lots of savory recipes, which use berries, especially blueberries and raspberries. While there is nothing especially `healthy' about the recipe selection, one can do worse for a great selection of blueberry recipes (such as mayonnaise, soup, and chicken dishes) for that anti-oxidant hero.
For such a cheap, attractive, and useful book, one simply cannot go wrong by adding this to your cookbook library.

I should point out that I have not seen the original book, but another reviewer has, and remarks that the recipes are virtually identical. So, my evaluation stands if you never owned a copy before, or your original copy is in tatters.