****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
This is my third copy of Wenzel's. Two others have ignominiously fallen to shreds from constant use. My only complaint is that my new copy is not thumb indexed like my previous copies.I first came to know and love Wenzel's when a friend of my dad's shared his copy with me when I was eight. I had been volunteered to make a food item for our coven's neighborhood fair, and had never cooked for that many people before, even though I had been cooking and baking since I was four years old. Jim Dingman ran a diner, and this was his goto cookbook. I made my first batch of chili for 100 out of the book, the first edition; and borrowed it many times when I did community cooking.When I was fourteen Jim got bad news; he had cancer and had to sell the diner. He gave me his copy of Wenzel's, which I still have, and I knew I was going to wear it out so I bought a new copy for daily use, and I just bought a used copy of the first edition to replace my everyday copy.The second edition of Wenzel is about the most useful cookbook a chef can have, and it is one of eleven cookbooks and references that never leave my desk. My advise to anyone serious about cooking for masses; amateur, church volunteer, soup kitchen worker, restaurant chef or bed and breakfast owner: BUY THIS BOOK! The sections about management and buying are about the best you can buy in a single cookbook, although there are other references for purchasing that you will also want to have. The recipes are stellar, all based on old time favorites that you cannot lose having them in your repertoire. Some of the information is dated, badly dated, but it is all useful.
