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[orichalcum]

Sorry about the delay; yesterday was crazy-hectic. Also, I have a sore throat and lost my voice after 2.5 hours of lecturing. Trying to not talk today.

So, today, I'm asking for recommendations of experts - whose wisdom do you seek (ideally online, but whatever works) when you want to know reliable precise detailed info about a specific topic? (

Comments

[ladybird97]

Mark Bittman's book How To Cook Everything. It really does tell you how to cook (almost) everything! If I find an unfamiliar vegetable at the farmer's market, that's where I go for advice on how to treat it and what goes well with it. I also find that it's a good place for basic recipes that can be adapted fairly easily.

[jendaviswilson]

Cooking: www.cooksillustrated.com. Not for everyday cooking, mostly for special-occasion stuff. They go by taste, which usually ends up being too heavy.

Home purchases: www.consumersearch.com. A Meta-review site that compiles and analyzes reviews and recommendations from Consumer Reports & user reviews.

Fiction: Julian. I don't have the same taste always, but if I read a book Julian recommends I know what I'm getting. He's predictable.

Everything else: whatever is the opposite of Yahoo! Answers. After I heard that Google will show you stuff you click on higher in search results, I have stopped ever clicking anything from Yahoo. Complete waste of internet.

[orichalcum]

Totally agree on Julian - by now I know well what a "Julian book" is. :)

I do find that CI has a lot of butter - though not as much as my new Essential NYT cookbook, which is 150 years of recipes from the NYT and wow, did they use a lot of butter and cream in the 50s and 60s.

[julianyap]

Hey, didn't I recommend you both "The Blind Side" and "Liberation"? I feel like those are totally different.

But, okay, fine, I'm predictable. It's part of the charm.

[orichalcum]

It's less a genre thing than a stylistic thing, I think? And I suspect it helps that Jen and I have large data sets to work with.

[karakara98]

For movies, I go to Joe Morgenstern in the Wall Street Journal. He has taste that I consistently like, and his tastes span the "critically acclaimed" dramas, comedies, action movies, super hero flicks and sci fi. I just enjoy reading his writing about movies as well.