I brought this book home in hopes that its subtitle "Meals you can make in under an hour" was accurate. The book fell open to a Chinese menu. Good, I understand Chinese food. The first item on the menu was dumplings, for which you are supposed to make the dough from scratch, let it rest for half an hour, then roll it out and stuff the dumplings. I've made Chinese dumplings. It's not a one-hour job. The next item involves deboning two Cornish hens! You have to do it quickly, because they have to bake for 45 minutes.

Ms. Stewart does not inform us of the size of kitchen staff necessary to complete these menus in an hour or less.

The one hour claim is risible, and the book does not take it at all seriously. The individual recipes lack the "Preparation x minutes, resting x minutes, cooking x minutes" information that is regularly provided in magazines, much less the parallel timeline often seen in quick menu cookbooks ("mix together ingredients for recipe A, while it is marinating mix recipe B, while that one is baking assemble recipe C"). I can never cook as fast as those estimates, but it gives an idea of what to aim for and where the stumbling blocks may occur. Not in this cookbook.

In short, this is fairly typical Martha Stewart, not to be attempted unless you have access to the specialty shops of a large metropolis, a great deal of money for exotic ingredients, and unlimited amounts of time (or a devoted staff) for shopping and cooking. ( )