The Best Cookies and Bars and Christmas Baking

Ann Turner is the financial and budget manager of the University of
British Columbia Library.

The 47 recipes in this collection from the Vancouver Sun Test Kitchen
are all-time favourites, the best of the best. They range from good
old-fashioned lunch-box standbys like Oatmeal Raisin Cookies and Granola
Bars to exotic and adventurous treats calling for three kinds of
chocolate, three kinds of ginger, or fresh lavender flowers. More than
half the recipes are temptingly illustrated in beautifully composed
full-page colour photographs. Yields are in the normal “family”
range: several dozen cookies or a pan of bars per batch. Each recipe
includes a nutritional analysis giving the number of calories and grams
of protein, fat, and carbohydrates per piece.

This would be a wonderful collection to explore and enjoy in the
kitchen as well as the armchair if its format were more user-friendly.
The book does not open flat, and its glossy paper glares under overhead
lighting. The font chosen for the methods is so thin that it is
difficult to read even at normal reading distance. There are numerous
helpful tips for the cook, but they and the nutritional analyses are
printed in even harder-to-read sepia ink in the same thin font. The
recipes and the cooks deserve better.