Release date: May 7, 2013
Review book courtesy of Penguin Group

Robert Silverberg’s Tales of Majipoor collects together seven stories set in his world of Majipoor. They span thousands of years of history, from sometime after the arrival of the colonists from Earth, through several pivotal historical events (and a few more personal stories), to an excerpt from the life of Lord Valentine.

Disclaimer: I haven’t read Silverberg’s other Majipoor books (this happens sometimes when you review books—publishers can send you books from series you haven’t gotten to yet). On the one hand, it’s useful sometimes to have a fresh perspective, mostly so that new or prospective readers have some idea of where they can and can’t jump into a series. On the other hand, there were setting details that I had issues with, and I freely admit that they might be addressed within the other books. This does mean, however, that this book doesn’t stand entirely on its own. Individual stories do, and they provide a nice glimpse of Majipoor, but the whole of the book leaves some world-building holes.

The prologue briefly establishes the basic premise of Majipoor—how it was settled by humans even though there were natives already present, how the population exploded over time, and how other alien races also eventually came to settle there. It’s a quick introduction, and I thought it would be enough for me to grasp the setting, but after I read a handful of stories I was only more confused. I’ll start with the stories themselves, however, and come back to my confusion afterward.

End of the Line is the first story of the book and my favorite of all of them. It tells the tale of how Lord Stiamot became Coronal (sort of the secondary ruler of Majipoor). In this story he is a sympathetic character struggling through some difficult problems, and it’s interesting in later stories to repeatedly see him referred to as a legendary historical figure. It’s lovely to get a glimpse of his all-too-human self before seeing him in the mythical light.

The Book of Changes is a fascinating story with a hint of madness to it, but I felt little connection with the characters; the author seemed to hold them at a distance. In this story, Aithin Furvain is a lazy poet with an unusual talent for light verse. He ends up compelled (in several meanings of the word) to write a remarkably complex and detailed epic poem of the history of Majipoor. Visions of a mysterious man named Valentine guide him through the events of history so that he might know what details to write about. (It seems clear that this is Valentine of the last story, and of Silverberg’s novels, but there’s no hint in this book, at least, of how or why he might have appeared to Furvain. I’m hoping there’s an explanation of this in one of the novels.) Furvain’s work gets referenced in later stories, and again, it’s fascinating to see the reality versus the myth of a person.

The Tomb of Pontifex Dvorn introduces a historian and an archaeologist who receive an irresistible offer to examine the tomb of Dvorn, the first Pontifex (the reclusive ultimate ruler of Majipoor). This story strongly exhibits a particular style in which Silverberg writes many of these stories, a sort of sprawling, meandering stroll through events. It has a nifty flair of antiquity to it, but does serve to create a sense of distance between reader and characters, making it difficult to connect emotionally with characters or become invested in their travails.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice suddenly seems to introduce magic into the world—presumably something that would seem less abrupt were the stories not set so far apart. This is a tale of an apprentice who finds himself serving a particularly volatile sorceress to whom he is irresistibly attracted. It’s an odd piece, and I found it hard to sympathize with either character. It’s possible for unlikeable characters to still be fascinating and sympathetic, but in this case I just found them… annoying.

Dark Times at the Midnight Market is a bizarre little story of a sorcerer trying to make a living at a time when magic has lost its popularity. A man comes to him for a love potion, and Zwoll throws caution and good sense to the wind when he finds out how much the young man is willing to spend. Of course this can’t possibly end well for him. There was less of a sense of distance in this one, so it was easier to sympathize with Zwoll’s plight. I found it ironic that Zwoll is an alien and yet it was easier to connect with him than with the characters in the previous few stories. (Also, he didn’t feel particularly alien—I found it difficult to remember that he was.)

The Way they Wove the Spells in Sippulgar involves a missing conman and a suspect religion. It gives us the first real glimpse of any sort of religion on Majipoor, and once again the sense of distance made it difficult for me to either connect with the main character or develop any real feel for how religion fit into the lives of the inhabitants in general.

The Seventh Shrine is an excerpt from the life of Pontifex Valentine (8,000 years after the first story of Stiamot) in which he strives to solve the murder of one of Majipoor’s natives. He seemed one of the most realized characters of the book (except perhaps for Stiamot), but again, that sense of distance… Also, it’s mentioned that “[v]iolent death at another’s hands was no common thing on Majipoor”—while there weren’t a lot of deaths in earlier stories, I never had the sense that the violence level of the world was unusually low, so this seemed to come out of left field. The portrayal of magic was also different from previous stories, which threw me off a bit.

And therein lies the problem. I had a sense of logical inconsistencies about the world. They might be explained in the books, but since there’s no hint of an explanation here, it’s extremely confusing.

Where’s the technology? Only sporadic mention or use of any kind of technology is in evidence, and that mostly in the final story. This planet was colonized by settlers from another planet. Various alien races also settled on the planet at various times during its history. A society that should have started with a technological edge and had injections of alien technology at regular intervals somehow took 8,000 years to show much technological advancement at all. (Look at how far humans have come on Earth in that time, and that’s without the advantages the inhabitants of Majipoor should have had.) Most of the stories had a fairly standard fantasy feel with a bizarre little bit of sci-fi tacked on in certain places. Magic seems to come out of nowhere, and it’s never reconciled with the sci-fi aspect of the setting.

Please, someone, tell me that these things are explained in the books! Either way, if you have a tendency to be bothered by world-building holes, I wouldn’t recommend reading this book on its own, because the setting doesn’t stand alone within it.

Overall I found the stories and the sense of time passing to be rather fascinating. I loved seeing the contrast of the depiction of current characters followed by near-mythical views of them in historical contexts. The writing style, however, made me feel detached from most of the characters (perhaps the short form makes it harder for Silverberg to get into his characters? I’d have to read the novels to know for sure), which left me with little emotional investment in the book. Add that to the setting confusions, and overall this wasn’t my favorite book. I’d love to hear from someone who has read the novels and has a sense of whether this is an artifact of reading this as a standalone book, or a pattern from the novels as well.

Release date: May 7, 2013
Review book courtesy of Penguin Group

The clockwork plague reduced some people to mindless plague-spreading zombies, while elevating others to empathy-free brilliant mad scientists called clockworkers. As the clockworkers fall deeper and deeper into plague-fueled fugues, they lose touch with their humanity, often hurting, torturing, and killing people in their mad quest to build ever-stranger devices. Thaddeus Sharpe has dedicated himself to hunting and killing clockworkers, often destroying their automatons and devices in the process. When a mysterious young woman, Sofiya, working for an even more mysterious man named Mr. Griffin, hires Thad to steal a device from a clockworker, things inevitably go wrong. Thad cares more about killing the clockworker and rescuing a young boy than he does obtaining the device, and soon he finds himself forced further and further into Mr. Griffin’s dangerous schemes.

Those schemes take him, the circus he travels with, Sofiya, and the boy he rescued (Nikolai) to the palace of the tsar, embroiling him in court politics, assassination attempts, and one great, horrific clockworker plan that threatens everyone.

Steven Harper’s The Havoc Machine: A Novel of the Clockwork Empire is the fourth in the “Clockwork Empire” series. However, it sits somewhat apart from the events of the other books, and the opening notes specifically recommend it for new readers who haven’t read the other installments. I did find that it stood quite well on its own.

The details of the clockwork plague are captivating: one plague that creates a minor zombie menace, and a much greater two-sided boon/menace in the form of the clockworkers. They create astounding devices that can give their countries great power, but they also lose such touch with their humanity that they become incredibly dangerous to those around them. Thad is an interesting point of view character as the novel explores the idea of what it means to be a clockworker, and what it means to be an automaton.

Some of the ’secrets’ in the story are telegraphed a little too much, making it difficult to understand why the characters don’t pick up on them. Also, I found the tone of the book somewhat discordant: most of the tale is dark and gritty fantasy/steampunk, but the nature of the clockworkers occasionally veers into the silly end of comic-book mad scientist villain territory. It was also difficult to understand some of the tsar’s choices and decisions—sometimes they felt too convenient to the plot.

The question of free will in the context of automatons arises, but it seems to be handled a little inconsistently. Supposedly certain conditions have to be met before an automaton develops ’sentience’ as such (sorry for the vagueness, but I’m trying not to give away plot points), but there are minor automaton characters (such as Dante the parrot and Maddie the spider) that seem to exhibit such traits without the relevant criteria having been met.

There are some lovely plot twists and ideas in here, and a very nice exploration of the nature of clockworkers as well as the nature of their automatons. The circus felt a little stereotypical, but it had some good details to it as well. There is some minor dark material to be aware of (things occasionally get a bit bloody)—I say this simply so you can decide whether it’s a book that suits your tastes. The concept of clockworkers is brilliant, and I love how it’s handled. All in all this isn’t the best steampunk novel I’ve read (so far that honor goes to A.A. Aguirre’s Bronze Gods), but it’s certainly an engrossing and interesting read.

Release date: May 7, 2013
Review book courtesy of Penguin Group

Celine and Amelie Fawe are orphaned sisters trying to make a living in a destitute peasant village. Celine pretends to have her mother’s abilities to read the future, and Amelie protects them both with sword and dagger. Then one day an old woman pays Celine a visit and offers her money to predict a particular future for a particular young woman—an offer Celine can’t refuse, since it comes from the prince who rules the land with brutal efficiency. When Celine finds herself compelled to offer different counsel, the sisters are forced to flee their home and seek safety with the prince’s brother, Anton.

Prince Anton is contending with a series of mysterious deaths of beautiful young women, and he offers Celine and Amelie a place to live and work in safety if they can use their supposed skills to find the culprit. Suddenly two poor sisters are tossed head-first into a world of power, ambition, and money, in which even the best of people must be hardhearted and swift to act. Danger is all around them, and Celine has no idea how to prevent more girls from dying.

Truly the stars of Barb Hendee’s The Mist-Torn Witches are her complex, painfully flawed characters. Just when you’ve seen them at their best, their worst comes crashing through. Even Amelie and Celine, perhaps the two best-intentioned characters, mess things up and stubbornly press on through some fairly inadvisable courses of action. Yet even when I was cringing and thinking, “oh no, this just can’t end well,” I understood why they were doing what they did and it made sense for them. I didn’t even particularly like most of the characters, but they’re so well-drawn that I still cared about them, sympathized with them, and wanted very much to know what happened to them.

The pacing is quick and lively, and I had difficulty putting the book down for long. Always I wanted to find out what happened next, and there was never a dull moment. The story has some lovely and unexpected twists and turns; it never felt predictable. The fantasy setting is interesting, but most of the world-building attention goes into the strife-ridden governmental system. Otherwise so far it’s a standard medieval-style fantasy world. This isn’t really a negative—the setting mostly gets out of the way so the story can gallop along and the characters can take center stage.

I’m trying to avoid spoilers, so I won’t go into much of the plot. I will say, however, that this volume (the first in a new series) provides a satisfying wrap-up to the immediate plot while leaving plenty of material to expand on later. I eagerly anticipate what will come next in the sequel, but wasn’t subjected to the sort of cliff-hanger ending that frustrates me.

Hendee’s The Mist-Torn Witches is a gripping read with absorbing characters, and plenty of danger around every corner.

If your book is exciting and interesting enough, and draws me in enough, to leave me babbling to my book-loving husband about it, then it’ll almost certainly get a 5 out of 5 (maybe a 4.5 if I have one or two minor quibbles with the content).

If I can’t find anything in particular wrong with it but it doesn’t move me enough to want to share my excitement, it’s likely to get a 4 out of 5 or, at most, maybe a 4.5. If I give your book a 4 out of 5, please do not take that as an insult. Not every good book can spin me up that much, if just because writing quality is subjective. A 4 means you’ve written a very good book indeed. But if you get a 5 from here on out, you can be sure that your book completely wowed me.

Release date: April 30, 2013
Review book courtesy of Penguin Group

Celeste Ritsuko and Janus Mikani solve murders for the Criminal Investigation Division. She’s the division’s first female inspector, and an orderly, meticulous detective. He’s a sloppy, charming pain-in-the-ass with an extremely useful—and very debilitating—sixth sense. The two of them have forged an unlikely and delightfully symbiotic partnership as they work to protect people from harm.

Then a daughter of one of the great Houses goes missing, and they’re under the gun to find her—or else. When she turns up murdered in a particularly unusual and gruesome fashion, traces of magic polluting the scene, Ritsuko and Mikani realize they’re hunting a madman. And if they don’t find him soon, losing their jobs will be the least of their worries.

Confession time: in the abstract I really love steampunk, but in practice little of it truly catches my heart. I love certain portions of the atmosphere, but I don’t particularly enjoy some aspects of the Victorian milieu that so often accompanies it. So when I run across a book like Bronze Gods (An Apparatus Infernum Novel) by A.A. Aguirre (A.A. stands for Ann and Andres, a husband-and-wife writing team), that blends steampunk with fantasy and only a touch of the Victorian style, I’m thrilled.

Aguirre’s steampunk world has a gorgeous backstory that’s revealed in flashes of dream and tidbits of story detail. To boil it down to an overly simplistic premise, ships carrying humans long ago washed up on the shores of a land ruled by the Summer Court and the Winter Court, the Ferishers—essentially, the Fey Folk. The Iron War threatened to decimate both races, until an accord was reached. In order to seal it, the royalty of the Ferishers took humans to wed. Thus was born the first ten great Houses. This happened a long time ago, and only a handful of people can still claim enough Ferisher blood to exhibit certain unusual abilities; most of those live within the Houses, which also retain control of most technology. After all, it’s their ability to bind elementals into tech that allows steam engines and many other devices to function.

Inspector Mikani inherited enough Ferisher blood to gift him with an unusual ability to read emotions and scraps of information from people and objects, a gift which helps him immensely in his work. Most ordinary people would shy away from someone with gifts like his, so he hides the obvious deleterious effects behind a penchant for drink and seemingly erratic behavior, and with the help of his partner, Ritsuko, who draws attention away from him when he uses his gift. The partners have developed a remarkable symbiotic relationship, with signals and shorthand speech that allow them to function as a fantastic team. Mikani steps forward when Ritsuko judges that someone would deal with her poorly due to her gender, and Ritsuko steps forward to allow Mikani to linger in the background and use his gifts—not to mention to smooth over ruffled feathers when his lack of tact gets them into trouble. They’re wildly different people linked by a love of their work, a sharp sense of humor, and mutual respect. They also gradually find themselves dancing around the issue of how exactly they feel about each other. It’s a relationship that would all too easily drift into stereotype (Mulder and Scully provide the obvious example), but the authors deftly avoid that pitfall. The complex and supportive relationship they’ve developed, as well as their mutual sense of humor and the confusion with which they approach their feelings, make the relationship and characters beautiful, fresh, and delightful.

As for the plot, it speeds along with plenty of action, tension, surprises, heart-stopping moments, additional delightful supporting cast, and fantastic attention to detail. I became completely engrossed in the tale, turning pages quickly to find out what would happen next. I absolutely loved the manner in which details unfolded. Bronze Gods is the first in a new series, and it ended in my favorite manner for series books: by bringing the current plot to a satisfactory conclusion, but leaving plenty of unanswered questions to lead into the next novel.

I only have two, small negatives. One is that I sometimes became confused as to which partner was talking when. The other is that I’m now very impatiently waiting for the next book! (Okay, that last one is really a positive, but hey.) If you enjoy steampunk, fantasy, mysteries, or thrillers, I think you’ll find plenty in here to enthrall you. And I, for one, definitely want to see more of these characters and this world!

Thank you for your understanding!

Review book courtesy of Penguin Group

Xandra is the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, and royalty to boot. Great signs and portents heralded her birth, which is why no one can understand how it is that she can’t do the slightest bit of magic. Fleeing the increasingly dangerous attempts of her mother to bring out her latent power, Xandra ends up in Austin, Texas, where she’s perfectly happy running a hugely popular coffee shop. Everything’s going just fine—until warlock Declan shows up in town. Suddenly her simple life is blowing up in her face. She’s following compulsions that lead her to dead bodies and force her to relive the women’s last, horrific memories. The women bear a resemblance to her, and versions of her own mystical tattoo appear on their bodies. Sparks fly—literally—when she and Declan get close, but he walked out on her once, and she doesn’t particularly trust him now. To make matters worse, it seems that her magic has finally decided to show up, but definitely not in any way that anyone could have predicted. And if she doesn’t get a handle on it soon, the killer might get to her before she can figure out who he is.

Sometimes I like to start reading a book at my favorite cafe over coffee. This works great, unless I start in on a book like Tessa Adams’s Soulbound: A Lone Star Witch Novel. It drew me in so thoroughly and quickly that I had an awful lot of trouble putting it down long enough to get home so I could read the rest.

To be honest, I’m a little worn out on paranormal romances right now. It’s just that there are so many of them, and it’s getting harder and harder to see much difference between them. This certainly isn’t the first witch-themed book I’ve seen recently, although at least that vein hasn’t been mined as thoroughly as vampires & shifters. This isn’t to say that these things can’t be done well; just that it’s getting harder and harder to stand out from the crowd. Still, Tessa Adams manages it with this book. I’m used to complex wizardly organizations, witches who manage to keep their wild powers hidden from modern man, etc. There are plenty of tales of people who start out thinking they’re powerless, only to find out that they have no idea just how powerful they can be. And dark, brooding love interests are a dime a dozen. Yet Soulbound still managed to stand out.

Part of its appeal is in its characterizations. Declan isn’t entirely what I expect from the dark, brooding, dangerous love interest; he too is stumbling his way through figuring out what he’s doing. Xandra does a grand job of trying to creatively cope with an impossible situation without losing her mind. And Xandra’s mother definitely steals a few scenes of her own—I can’t even begin to explain how simultaneously scary, funny, and frustrating she is. She certainly makes it easy to understand much of where Xandra’s coming from. I also adore (and I can’t stress that enough) the new, fresh, and unusual take on two characters who are ’soulbound’. These days it’s become a cheap plot device to bring together two seemingly incompatible people in series book after series book and force them to figure out a way to make things work. Instead… well, I this is another plot I don’t want to spoil, but let’s just say that in some ways Declan and Xandra fall in love despite their bond, instead of because of it, and there are some details about the bond that are very unique.

It’s Soulbound’s pacing, however, that really revs things up. I was swept up from the very start, and just had to keep turning the pages. The pace of it moved along quickly enough to smooth over any tiny rough edges; although I don’t need to have every last thread wrapped up in a book, there were a few details I wanted a little more explanation for. I won’t go into more than that as I don’t wish to spoil any of the book’s events.

Quick warning: in addition to some hot, but not-too-wild scenes between Declan and Xandra, the story touches on some rather dark material. The serial killer in this book does terrible things, and they aren’t glossed over. It’s appropriate to the story, but not for everyone.

Not only am I hooked on Soulbound, but now I can’t wait for Adams’s next book in the series!

Review book courtesy of Penguin Group

Eve has a difficult new case to crack. It isn’t particularly gruesome, but the victim was a mother, a wife, sister-in-law to a judge, and much beloved by those around her. For once, Eve can’t find any hidden enemies, resentful spouses. Yet everything indicates that this woman was specifically targeted, and her death wasn’t the mugging-gone-wrong it was supposed to look like. Investigating the murder takes Eve deep into the confusing world of accounting, investing, and big business, where she’s sure to anger some very wealthy, very well-connected players.

The premiere of the movie dramatization of one of Eve’s old cases is coming up fast, and Eve is trying desperately to find a way to duck out of the unwanted glitz and glamour. Usually she gets out of such things by running off to deal with a murder investigation. This time she’s going to have to get much more creative. As usual, J.D. Robb (Nora Roberts) deftly interleaves Eve’s disdain of glamor, the wish-fulfillment trappings of the world she now lives in thanks to her uber-wealthy husband, and the excitement those around her enjoy on her behalf. Thus providing a little bit for everyone: the snark and irritation for those readers who hate high heels and impractical dresses, and the glamorous dress-up for those readers who love it all. This is one of those hallmarks of the “in death” series that truly impresses me.

Calculated in Death sends Eve down the accounting rabbit hole, where she has to rely on Roarke and a few others for insight into the world of audits. There’s still plenty of fun for Eve, however: she needs to figure out which business big-shots are lying to her, who actually did the killing… and oh yeah, she’d better catch the guy soon, because he’s gotten a taste for it now and is upping his game. “Loose ends” are getting tied up at a gruesome rate.

Calculated in Death eases off a little from the somewhat over-the-top confrontations with Eve and Roarke’s pasts, while providing enough reference to them to maintain good continuity. The focus is mostly on the case, with fun character stuff for all involved courtesy of the movie premiere. We get to see Peabody cut loose a little more as she continues to stand more firmly on her own, and of course there’s some lovely romance and semi-abstracted luscious sex between Eve and Roarke.

There wasn’t quite enough “edge of your seat” tension to put this at the top of the series list. Also, it would have been nice if the overly impulsive killer had been at least a little surprising in his actions when Eve set her inevitable trap for him. However, the case is fun, the character interactions are enjoyable, and there’s plenty of Robb’s trademark hilarious dialogue to keep things moving.

Pros: Fantastic recipes, useful charts and tips, clear and easy instructions
Cons: So-so recipes, bad “…and next ten ingredients” instructions
Rating: 3 out of 5
Originally written: Jul 07 ‘00

This is one of my favorite healthy cooking cookbooks. My fiancee and I don’t often repeat recipes. We like variety, and we love to explore new tastes. However, there are a number of recipes in here that we’ve made over and over again. This cookbook isn’t perfect. There are a number of recipes in it that aren’t particularly appealing.

The potato skins with cheese and turkey bacon are very good. Particularly with the nonfat sour cream and the cheese, I actually quite liked the turkey bacon. This dish tasted surprisingly like traditional high-fat potato skins.

The honey-mustard glazed meatballs were sweet and wonderful, although we found that they didn’t tend to hold up as meatballs. They’d be better as a meat and sauce to go over mashed potatoes or bread.

The buttermilk pancakes with fresh orange pancake syrup were fantastic! The buttermilk makes them lowfat, while contributing wonderful flavor. The orange syrup made a great addition, since after all, buttermilk pancakes can be found in a lot of cookbooks already.

The peppercorn beef tenderloin was absolutely outstanding. It uses a mix of various ground peppercorns (pink, green, and black), with ginger, cardamom, and garlic.

The pasta with roasted peppers and basil is very good. If you don’t want to deal with roasting peppers you can buy store-bought, or you can even just use fresh peppers without roasting them – add them when you add the tomatoes so they get a little soft. This recipe is actually quite good that way.

The fettuccine alfredo is good, but not amazing, as are the lasagna and the linguine with garlic-red pepper oil. The tortellini with cherry tomatoes and corn was passable, but the texture left something to be desired, and it didn’t really have much flavor to it somehow. The pasta recipes are the least useful part of this cookbook, in my opinion. The couscous with currants is the one really good pasta recipe, but I’d use a little extra currants and tomato and leave out the scallions.

The creamy potato salad is fantastic – the mayonnaise, yogurt, pimento, and other ingredients combine in a marvelous sweet, tart, wonderful dressing. We substituted cider vinegar for the white wine vinegar for even more flavor.

The potato dishes are, overall, wonderful. I wouldn’t use parsley as the main stuffing ingredient in the Indian stuffed potatoes, though, unless you REALLY love parsley. The creamed pumpkin potatoes are exquisitely smooth, rich, and creamy. And the sweet potato casserole…oh, the sweet potato casserole. The only differences we made were to use 2% instead of skim milk, to leave out the pecans, and to double or triple the recipe. You’ll want enough to last the entire week. We’ve made this recipe over and over and over again, and the entire cookbook purchase was made worthwhile by this one recipe.

The desserts are also well-chosen. The apple crisp with macadamia nuts was rich, sweet and satisfying. The lemon macaroon tartlets were perfectly tart and flavorful. The mocha pudding cake came out perfectly, and we’ve made it more than once as well. The triple-berry trifle is another one of our repeat visitors, too.

The book has some useful tips and charts. Finally now I know what all the various salad greens look like!

Directions are generally short and easy. Ingredients are almost always easy to find. My only gripe is the recipes’ tendency to say things like “mix cream cheese and next ten ingredients together” – it’s irritating to have to count them up all the time, and it means that if you’re off by one or if you misremember how you counted, you can end up with some interesting results.

While this book has some unappealing recipes, I’ve found that to be true of any cookbook. And unlike some, this cookbook has recipes that deserve to be made over and over and over again.

Also posted on Epinions.com.

My husband and I love to cook. So I got him a copy of the book set “Modernist Cuisine at Home” for the holidays, and he got me a few of the gadgets that go with it, like the Sous Vide SVK-00001 Supreme Water Oven. I know, it seems like overkill—it seems like an expensive one-use item that’ll just take up needed counterspace. And yet, it’s totally worth it if you love to cook.

First of all, if you don’t know whether it would be worth it for you, then I encourage you to try one of the water bath recipes that doesn’t require an appliance (there are a few that go for a short enough period of time at a low enough temperature that you can do them with stuff you probably already have at home)—such as How to Cook Salmon Sous Vide in Your Kitchen Sink. Try it. If you don’t think the resulting salmon is THAT MUCH better than other preparations, then the SousVide Supreme probably won’t be worth it for you. When we tried it, we made one salmon fillet with the water bath/finish on the stove method, and made one using another standard cooking method. The difference was far greater than I’d imagined. The salmon was the perfect just-done temperature throughout; there was no dryness whatsoever; the flavor was divine; the texture was buttery-flaky; and the step of finishing it off in a pan of butter and seasonings gave it just the right touch of flavor and surface texture.

Method

You fill the sous vide bath with water such that it won’t fall below the minimum line nor go above the max line (there’s a lot of leeway there, so it isn’t tough to manage). You program the desired temperature and let it heat up—this stage can take a half hour plus or minus, depending on the temperature. You put the food to be cooked in a ziploc bag (if the temperature is low enough and you’re using good-quality bags), press out all the excess air, place in the rack in the water bath, cover, and allow to gently cook for anywhere from 20 minutes to several days, depending on the application. If the temperature is higher, a vacuum-sealer (such as the FoodSaver) is a must.

The lid of the sous vide supreme can double as a platter/staging area where you can open up the bags when done. It also has an insulating pad that can double as a trivet when the lid is hot. There are offset handles on the sides to enable you to more easily pour the water from one corner after it has cooled (note that this does take some arm strength). There is a built-in timer, and temperature can be read/programmed in either F or C. The temperature stays within 1 degree of the programmed temperature, and convection currents ensure that all of the water remains properly heated.

Usefulness

Okay, so it’s awesome at producing tender salmon, perfect rare steak, and a delightful pork loin. Again, all because you cook it to the same perfect temperature throughout; you keep all the juices from evaporating (which also prevents volatile flavor compounds from cooking off); and you don’t have to worry about overcooking as long as you’re heating it at the target temperature. Still, that sounds like a kind of narrow-use item so far.

It shouldn’t be too surprising that you can use it to cook tough cuts of meat for long periods of time (this is where that multi-day cooking time comes in), producing a surprisingly tender result.

You can also, however, use it to produce some other rather surprising items. For example, infused oils. Also, there’s a recipe in the aforementioned “Modernist Cuisine at Home” cookbook/technique book that produces the most incredible soft “scrambled” eggs—first you cook them sous vide, then you puree them. If you have a whipping siphon, you can then further turn them into a sort of foam. There are also some other surprising recipes that use eggs or yolks that have been cooked sous vide, such as a fantastic pie/tart crust, and a delicious pastry cream. It’s the perfect way to avoid curdled egg, since it never gets too hot.

Although we haven’t tried it yet, you can also cook vegetables sous vide (that comes next!).

The oven is incredibly easy to use. It requires a little prep time for heating up, and it can take a while to cook depending on the application; this definitely isn’t for people who just want to whip up a 10-minute dinner after work. It’s for folks who really enjoy spending some time in the kitchen and who want to get every last bit of flavor and perfect texture out of their food. It makes an awesome gift for your favorite foodie!