On Cooking is a celebration of the culinary arts that will benefit anyone considering cooking as a profession, as well as serious amateur cooks who want to improve their skills--particularly in butchering and charcuterie. Wolfgang Puck, Mark Miller, and Alfred Portale are just 3 of the 30 chefs who share with us their combined wisdom and know-how. This mighty encyclopedia covers a wealth of subjects, including nutrition, food safety, and standardizing a recipe. The book does assume a fair amount of culinary knowledge and expertise when it comes to proper textures, cooking times, and accurately judging "doneness." There are recipes for more than 700 dishes, including classics such as Turnedos Rossini and Crabcakes Benedict--as well as the basics for making great sauces, stocks, soups, pastry, and so forth. New-style cooking also features prominently, with a delicious recipe for Duck Prosciutto with Fresh Mango being a fine example. On Cooking: Techniques from Expert Chefs is quite an achievement.