Williams-Sonoma Food Made Fast: Soup By Georgeanne Brennan ISBN: 0848731360 Publisher: Oxmoor House Publication date: Fall, 2006 Format: Hardcover List price: $17.95
Type: Single Subject: Soups; Quick; Series
Sample recipe: Greek Chicken-Lemon Soup (Avgolemono)
Ambitions
Intended audience:	novice	advanced beginner	good home cook	gourmet	professional
Apparent goal:	stocking stuffer	sampler	comprehensive	Biblical stature	coffee-table
Competition:	outclassed	also-ran	midrange	strong challenger	leads the pack
Content
# of recipes:	<50	<100	<200	<300	>300
Practical recipes:	<20%	<40%	<60%	<80%	>80%
# of ingredients:	<3	<6	<9	<12	>12
Ingredient hunt:	7-11	pantry	supermarket	online	airfare required
Recipe complexity:	baby steps	simple	medium	intense	professional
Instructions:	inadequate	bare bones	full figured	educational	verbose
Time conscious:	outright lies	speed of light	quick	takes time	takes all day
Photos/drawings:	skimpy	adequate	decorative	instructive	glorious
Recipe results:	dorm food	casual food	family meals	fancy food	fit for royalty
Flavor:	disappointing	fair	good	delicious	exceptional
Format
Layout:	ick	cluttered	clean	kind to cooks	work of art
Legibility:	microscopic	challenging	adequate	clear	brilliant
Production quality:	cheesy	questionable	years of service	gift-quality	stunning
Value:	ouch!	a little pricey	on the money	worth splurging	overpriced
Ease of Use
Page numbers:	invisible	hard to find	spotty	adequate	good
Table of contents:	missing	frustrating	passable	useful	helpful
Index quality:	none	tragic	adequate	good	excellent
Page flipping:	infuriating	tedious	acceptable	rare	never
Author
Writer:	hack	food writer	writer turned cook	comedian	auteur
Summary
Overall rating:	fair	good	really good	excellent	Ochef Top 100
Comments: If you think the best soups are long simmered and hearty and full of flavor (as we often do), you'll be happy to learn that quite a few very satisfying soups can be turned out in a jiffy. Each book in the series has a section of 30-minute dishes, a section of dishes that may take longer to cook but require no more than 15 minutes of your time, and a third section of big-batch cooking that will help you with dinner tonight and get a jump on one or two meals later in the week or month. The tips at the end of the book on shopping, stocking a pantry, general soup preparation, etc., are basic but useful. Some of the recipes in this book will take longer than promised; some call for pre-prepared ingredients (cooked rice or toasted pecans, for instance) that clearly add to the time it takes to get the soup on the table (though in some cases, these time-adding ingredients are optional). In many cases, soups in the third section will take many times a half hour to prepare, but that's often just the way it is with soups. Overall, a lot of variety in 40 fairly quick soup recipes.

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