Cooks Illustrated Magazine

bettysnephew

I recently subscribed to this magazine as it appeared to have a common sense approach to a lot of recipes and equipment.  Is it worth its' price or not?  Kind of skeptical after seeing the Smoky Joe is a better cooking machine than the LBGE.

sumoconnell

I'd just be weary of brand reviews. They will protect their revenue stream.

egger ave

I have tried and like their recipes. Skeptical of some of their reviews.

Springram

I loved Cook's Illustrated for years but got tired of them always looking to get more $$ out of me. For example, you get recipes with a regular subscription BUT if you want to get the rest of their recipe bank, you have to keep upgrading from one level to the next. One thing you do not want to do is to start buying cookbooks from them .....you will be on the cookbook of the month routine.

Great information but I found their marketing practices too pushy.

Springram

Spring, Texas

Botch

I've been a subscriber for years, and have never been able to improve on any of their recipes (something I like trying to do).  

I don't understand the comment about "protecting their revenue stream"; the magazine itself has no ads in it (other than the pull-out mail-in cards for their own books, etc) and their TV shows have commercials by Fischer & Paykel (sp?) (which don't get good reviews in Consumer Reports) and I can't remember who else advertises with them.  

The only thing I'm not happy about is most of their magazine articles end with something like:

"We also developed two variations, Smoked Chicken with Eye of Newt and Smoked Chicken with Chocolate/Sauerkraut Chutney, which are available on our website".  Well, they charge more for access to their website, which I think is kind've tacky and I won't subscribe.  

Can anyone tell me in which issue they rated the LBGE?  I don't remember seeing that... 

 

EDIT:  Never mind, just saw the other post... 

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BigGreenBamaGriller

bettysnephew said:

I recently subscribed to this magazine as it appeared to have a common sense approach to a lot of recipes and equipment.  Is it worth its' price or not?  Kind of skeptical after seeing the Smoky Joe is a better cooking machine than the LBGE.

Oh yeah, and a Huffy is better than a Harley...

gdenby

I have a subscription, and find the mag. generally useful.  When I first "got serious" about cooking, I found CI to be the best mag. Learned a lot. The way they break down recipes, and re-build them to get more specific results is very helpful.

The product reviews are from a generalists point of view. They review items that are common in the market, that day to day cooks will often use. Let me think of an analogy...

Assuming I had the money, I'd love to go to a Mechellin 3 star restaurant, although I doubt I would fully appreciate the quality. I have visited 1 stars, and been most impressed. But the portion of their reviews I really pay attention to are called the "Bib  gourmand." Surprisingly good food, but perhaps there is no wine available, or no desert. And a lot easier to get a seat, and a relatively affordable price.

The Cen-Tex Smoker

its an awesome magazine. we learn something new every month. by far our #1 resource when trying something new (outside the forum, of course)

Austin Egghead

Good tasty recipes easy to adapt to the egg and my spices loving taste buds. Wealth of scientific cooking info and why certain foods play well together and other not.
They just showed their BGE cooking ignorance/bias. I am sure their are many of us on both forums that would be more than happy to teach them about the versatility of the BGE.