How to Slice an Onion: Cooking Basics and Beyond--Hundreds of Tips, Techniques, Recipes, Food Facts, and Folklore

If you can slice an onion, you can cook almost anything. That's the first premise of this book. There are dozens more, all underlining the happy thought that cooking is easier than they tell you it is.

The recipes and tips here--and there are many--are simple: it's flavor that counts, not a list of ingredients longer than a kitchen cabinet can bear. The methods are uncomplicated (mix vegetables and olive oil right in the roasting pan; why bother with a bowl?). Kitchen mythology, we lear…