The Town Tart

Cat Cora: Cooking From the Hip: Fast, Easy, Phenomenal Meals

Rating: A-

Buy it?: I'd say yes, if you are looking for a book that can give you things to cook for dinner fast and delicious. You need to like garlic.

Must try: Green Sauce, without a doubt, the Porchetta, and the Chickpea and Roasted Pepper Soup.

Margaret M. Johnson: The New Irish Table: 70 Contemporary Recipes

Rating: B

Buy it?: Yes, it has some decent, solid recipes. It would also make a lovely, inexpensive gift to a cookbook lover.

Must try: Potato and Leek Soup, Champ

Jamie Oliver: Jamie's Italy

Rating: B

Buy it?: Yes, if you love to read cookbooks as novels. Yes, if you are an adventurous eater. If you are neither, you might only use about 25% of the book.

Must try: All of his risottos. Gorgeous.

Antoine Bouterin: Cooking Provence : Four Generations of Recipes and Traditions

Rating: D-

Buy it?: For heaven's sake, no.

Must try: Spicy Olive Paste is the only thing worthwhile... and it is a goody.

Ina Garten: Barefoot Contessa at Home: Everyday Recipes You'll Make Over and Over Again

Rating: A.

Buy it?: Definitely. You will use it again and again, just like the cover says.

Must try: Summer Borscht, Coconut Cake, Seafood Gratin

Brigit Legere Binns: Polenta: Over 40 Recipes for All Occasions

Rating: A, if you are a polenta lover or polenta novice. If you're not, well, this book ain't for you.

Buy it?: Yes! See above.

Must try: Venison Medallions on Cranberry-Orange Polenta Diamonds, Crabmeat Polenta with Lemon and Chive Sauce

Victor D'Avila-Latourrette: Twelve Months of Monastery Soups

Rating: D

Buy it? Nah. If not one out of five soups tested in a soup cookbook is worth repeating, well, the book ain't worth buying.

Must Try: Nothing that I have discovered yet.

Jeffrey Alford: Mangoes & Curry Leaves : Culinary Travels Through the Great Subcontinent

Rating: A

Buy it?: Yes! Every recipe I tested, in my tiny, broken down old kitchen with two burners working, came out perfectly. This book is worth every penny. In fact, when it comes out in paperback, buy that too, so that you can take it into the kitchen and preserve the hardback!

Must Try: Prawn White Curry, Sri Lankan Beef Curry, Mountain Dal, Hot Sweet Date-Onion Chutney