“Give me some new recipes,” you think, opening another cookbook or turning on a TV show. And there are no “new recipes”, the range of products is limited, but the number of their combinations is unlimited. You can argue about hundreds of variants of borscht, because not only do different housewives turn it out differently, but the same housewife doesn’t have to do it every time: especially if you change not only the composition of the ingredients, but also the technology, the order of laying, the size of the cut, a method of pre-processing products (first boil or bake beets, simmer in their own juice or fry in oil). But before you experiment, you need to understand the basics—how spices, herbs, and seasonings work (and why they're all different things); what household appliances, equipment, dishes and all sorts of “kitchen things” you need; how alcohol goes with food and how to turn a set of dishes into a harmonious meal. Each group of dishes has its own rules, and all of them are presented in an extremely concentrated form in this book.