Christopher Kimball's Milk Street: The New Home Cooking

Following a controversial departure from America's Test Kitchen with pending litigation, cooking instructor Kimball (Fannie's Last Supper) launched Christopher Kimball's Milk Street, a food multimedia company and cooking school based in Boston, offering a website (177milkstreet.com), bimonthly magazine, and TV and radio shows. This first cookbook promises reliable, boldly flavored dishes "that will change how you cook forever." Its 125 recipes, however, often fall short. A chocolate cake steamed inside of a Dutch oven introduces an intriguing method but cooks up surprisingly bland. An avocado salad asks for spending upwards of 20 minutes pickling mustard seeds, only two tablespoons of which are needed for the dressing. Many other recipes feel more overly simplified than memorable, and they'll underwhelm cooks expecting revelatory tastes and techniques.