Cook's Illustrated

There are very few people who are not interested, at least in theory, in becoming better cooks. But cooking is certainly an art as much as a science, and it is a field glutted with huge amounts of often contrasting information. There are enough awful, ad-laden, unorganized cooking websites out there to make one break out the Spaghettios. Cold.

Enter Cook's Illustrated. A wonderful marriage of good cooking, clear directions and clean Web design, Cook's Illustrated is a great resource for any hip Web-surfin' beatnik looking to make a good Chicken in the Pot.

First, from a Web perspective, the site is well structured. Possibly a bit menu heavy (there are menus on both sides of the content you are viewing), but easy to navigate, either with the aforementioned menu bars, or just by plowing through with their search engine. Very effective.

The core of the website is its collection of good recipes — It was an epic recipe for 2 pounds of garlic mashed potatoes that got me excited about the site, but I became truly hooked on the two-page spread on different garlic preparation techniques. Inside the recipe for the garlic potatoes was a sub-level on what different types of potatoes will achieve in the recipe. You have to appreciate the thoroughness.

Cook's Illustrated offers more than just recipes though. Just last week, I got into a bar brawl over the quality of different zesters on the market. If only we had known about Cook's Illustrated's Consumer-Reports-style rating system of cooking equipment and ingredients, that poor woman would still have teeth.

Also, when appropriate, they are not afraid to drop some science on you — check out the piece on pasta quality to learn about the gluten levels of different types of wheat— not enough gluten will cause the noodles to leak out starch during cooking and become gummy. Yeah.

Something to note, however, is the subscription fee. It's $24.95 per year to non-subscribers of the paper version or, $3.95 per month. The charge may seem a bit hefty — well, not really, but still — but the website accepts no advertising, nor bribes from food manufacturers. So hey, get someone to give it to you as a cheap but useful gift. Or review it for a hip Web magazine.

So stop eating those Cheerios for dinner! Subscribe to this website, buy the $4.95 cake pan from Ekco and go kick some ass!

— Dan Norton)