Taqueria: New-Style Fun and Friendly Mexican Cooking

Professional Australian chef Paul Wilson has written an authentic Mexican cookbook based partly on his on his culinary repertoire and partly on regional Mexican cuisine. Taqueria is a nice, well-written cookbook with clear recipe instructions and a huge variety of recipes, from basic salsas, guacamoles, and salads through main dishes to Mexican beverage mixes. If you are new in the kitchen, forget about this book—most recipes are not simple and easy (even though the book subtitle claims friendly cooking). The list of ingredients in most is long, and preparations are lengthy, often requiring several separate independent steps. Wilson’s guacamole alone has eighteen ingredients. Since this is an Australian book, measurements are in metric but also in American units, both weight and volume. For American cooks, this is inconvenient unless you have a good scale to measure, say, 2¾ ounces. Besides, cup sizes are not the same as in the US. Most ingredients are not hard to find (but where do you look for elk lettuce?). The illustrations are beautiful, mostly photographs that look like watercolors mixed with occasional real watercolors. It is inconvenient that page numbering is missing until page twenty-one. The index is by ingredients, not cook-friendly.