Make totally excellent chili in ‘alien territory’

For the student leaving home and facing cooking for the first time, or for any would-be cook needing the basics, a handy little cookbook called Clueless in the Kitchen: Cooking for Beginners, is the solution (Firefly, $16.95).

Author Evelyn Raab, a veteran of 30 years writing the Cooking With Kids column in Today’s Parent magazine, has produced a winner of a book that covers such favourites as sloppy joes, buffalo wings, spaghetti sauce, lasagna and crepes, as well as roast chicken, cooking fish in foil, many pizzas, and such tofu recipes as chickenless fingers and fabulous fajitas.

Raab, a mother from Peterborough, Ont., has packed her book with useful information, beginning with the equipment you need, how to avoid food poisoning and junk food, food-shopping methods including meat (start by making friends with a butcher), and how to make leftovers into a good stir-fry.

The youthful cooks photographed are having a good time, and so will the reader, thanks to the author’s breezy style; she calls the kitchen “alien territory,” then makes haste to turn it friendly with demystifying tips.

If you feel overly dependent on ready-made food, this book will show you how easy it is to make satisfying, home-cooked meals.