Wednesday Links: Can You Learn to Cook from Cookbooks?

Welcome to Wednesday Links, our weekly collection of the most interesting food links we've discovered in the past week. Enjoy!

What's the Recipe?
Can you learn to cook from cookbooks? We linked to this article a few weeks ago and this week it's making the blog rounds.  Adam Gopnick believes "you can only learn from watching someone in the kitchen."

On Cookbooks
Ruth Reichl does not agree. "We are constantly learning to cook, both by reading cookbooks and by cooking. But the very first lesson for every cook is this: no recipe is ever perfect. That's the point.  It's only a meal, and there's always the next time."

Once upon a story - Can you learn to cook from a cookbook?
And Monica Bhide doesn't agree either.

Chefs Cook up Cocktails
Though this article led to the hilarious misunderstanding that Grant Achatz of Alinea would be opening a cocktail bar named "Boom" (full post-game of how it happened on Grub Street ) the article is fascinating stuff.  Imagine a Sazerac becoming a gelee with "Peychaud bitters made into pudding dots."

Cocktail, Cookbooks, Wednesday Links