Debbie Puente, "Your Shirt Is Not An Oven Mitt"

Every so often I run across someone who sheepishly confesses that they don't have the slightest clue what to do in the kitchen.  I have to sheepishly confess that I was once one of those people, myself.  In the future, I will simply point them in the direction of Debbie Puente's wonderful and authoritative Your Shirt Is Not An Oven Mitt.

The topic of "cookbooks for beginners" is fraught with peril.  You have two extremes: the first assumes that you need information not only on cheddar and bleu cheese, but on strange exotic cheeses with French names.  The other extreme is embarrassingly insulting, and tends to make awkward use of slang like "yo dawg" and "to the extreme" which comes off about as convincing as when your dad does it.

Your Shirt Is Not An Oven Mitt manages to deftly avoid these pitfalls by simply giving clear instructions for simple foods.  It presumes no prior knowledge, and starts with the basics.  First it begins with an FAQ answering some of the common newbie questions (What's the difference between baking soda and baking powder?  Why does gravy get lumpy?).  

It then moves on to a list of staples you should always have on hand.  And unlike every other list of "things you must absolutely keep in stock in your kitchen," I agree with this list.  This is the part where I was first impressed by Puente, because she kept the list short and to the point.  The temptation for many authors is to go off on weird tangents (curry powder) or on their favorites (tinned artichokes).  By contrast, Puente's list is indeed the critical basics: flour, sugar, salt, and so forth.

I hesitate to call the contents of this book "recipes."  They tend to be more like instructions.  For example, the chapter on eggs is wonderful both in its comprehensive scope and in its clarity.  Oh how I wish I'd had this book at hand when I tried boiling eggs for the first time.  She walks you through how to tell fresh from hard boiled eggs by spinning them, moves on to instructions to rinse them in cold water to stop the cooking, and ends with an injunction to never boil eggs on the highest setting.  From there, the chapter proceeds to basic egg forms like fried, scrambled, and so forth.

I was prepared for her chapter on ramen recipes to be silly and frivolous, but it really is quite clever.  For example, she advises saving the packets of pepper flakes from pizza deliveries, and using those to season your broth.  If some of her advice struck me as a bit peculiar (halved grapes in cold curried chicken salad?  Really?) the bulk of it is solid and no-nonsense.

Most people assume the Joy of Cooking is the best place to start in the kitchen.  My experience is that this is not the case, and that there is a stage below Joy of Cooking where the completely clueless (like I was) need to start.  Your Shirt Is Not An Oven Mitt is that stage, and it does its job with flair.