In the past I’ve written about my esteem for Cook’s Illustrated. They make it easy to be a great cook.

Tonight, however, Cook’s has lowered their reputation with me considerably, by trying to scam me out of my money.

I got a telemarketing call from them.  They wanted to reward me for being a valued subscriber by sending me their “Summer Grilling” special, and another book.  The young man on the phone said it was free, but upon close questioning allowed as how the other book was a “free trial,” and if I decided I didn’t like the book I would only have to pay for it.  Is it okay, he asked, for them to go ahead and send it?

My reply:  Sure, send it… but understand that I have not ordered anything and if Cook’s decides to send me anything in the mail without my having ordered it, I’m keeping it and I’m not paying a dime for it.

The call ended quickly thereafter.  You see, Cook’s Illustrated wanted to sucker me in by sending me the book, hoping I’d keep it so they could bill me for it later… even if I simply forgot to send it back.

Every month, my subscription copy of Cook’s comes wrapped in extra pages detailing the latest book they’ve published, offering it to me at a low rate. In the fine print, one discovers that ordering the advertised book actually signs you up for a book-of-the-month club, where you’ll start getting volumes in the mail as a “free trial” unless you return them or cancel.  I thought that was a shady way to do business; the fact is I would have ordered several cookbooks direct from Cook’s if it weren’t for that bit of legerdemain.

This phone call, however, was a straight-up con job.

The sales rep went to great lengths in how his words were phrased, and in the speed and manner that they were presented, to gloss over the fact that this was an attempt to get me to “order” a book-of-the-month-club subscription.  If I weren’t already aware of this type of scam, I might have said “yes, send me the free stuff!” and then, when the bill arrived later, be told that I was on a recording having “placed the order.”

Even if Cook’s didn’t intend to pull this, it still comes off as incredibly shady.  The offers every month around my magazine tell  me that it isn’t just an overzealous telemarketer—it’s something Cook’s has decided to do to make money.

I don’t begrudge Cook’s finding ways to stay afloat.  But this is dishonest, and beneath them.

And it has me seriously considering dropping my subscription at the end of my term.

Few people are aware of Title 39, United States Code, Section 3009.  That’s the part of the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970 that covers unsolicited merchandise.

In the United States, if you receive merchandise in the mail and you did not order it, you have no obligation to return it or pay for it. You may keep it.  You can mark it “Return to Sender” and the Postal Service will send it back at no charge.  Or you can throw it out.

This law was passed to prevent shady organizations from sending items to people via mail, and then billing them for things they hadn’t ordered.

Under this law, sending that bill is now a Federal crime.

Unless.

39 U.S.C. §3009(d):

(d) For the purposes of this section, “unordered merchandise” means merchandise mailed without the prior expressed request or consent of the recipient.

What Cook’s telemarketer was trying to secure was the “consent of the recipient” for the unordered merchandise (the cookbook).  That’s the out.

And it’s a damn shady end-run around the law.  I’d expect it from a fly-by-night encyclopedia company, not Cook’s Illustrated.

Shame on you, Christopher Kimball.

Cook’s Illustrated should immediately cease using this underhanded sales tactic. They should be up front about their “book of the month club,” and they should cease cold-calling subscribers to get them to sign up.

For that matter, if Cook’s is going to make sales calls, they should pay attention to the Do Not Call Registry. Although the law doesn’t prevent them from making calls where there’s an “existing business relationship,” a wise company will note that people who are listed on the Registry don’t like being interrupted by telephone sales pitches, and that calling them anyway will usually lead to a reputation hit.  Send mail instead—the Postal Service could use the cash.

Or perhaps give up the book-of-the-month stuff altogether, and just rely on a compelling product at a good price.

I first started cooking for myself in high school.  I think the thing that got me started was making homemade peanut butter cookies for a girl I was sweet on.  (She enjoyed them, but not enough to dump her boyfriend and take a good hard look at me.  But I digress.)

In college, I lived in a dorm that was at the outskirts of campus, a 20-minute walk from the nearest dining hall. This was in Rochester, NY; for those not familiar with the area, Rochester is famous for its lake-effect snow.  It usually starts snowing in late October and lets up sometime in April.  This dorm was originally built as graduate housing, so each 2- or 3-bedroom suite included a kitchen and a bathroom.  I very quickly decided to take full advantage of the kitchen, and I almost always cooked my own dinner.

My early companion in learning how to cook was the venerable Joy of Cooking.  I’m not going to link to that book; you can find it easily enough at any bookstore.  Why not?  Because I now know that a lot of the advice in that historic tome is just plain wrong.  I weep for the number of home cooks that have been lead astray by that book.

When I really decided to take my cooking past the “competent at preparing basic food” stage and learn how to truly cook, I was heavily influenced by Alton Brown and Iron Chef.  But there was one discovery that truly helped me take it to the next level.

Cook’s Illustrated.

I’ve said it dozens of times: When I make a Cook’s recipe, I may find that what I make isn’t to my liking, but it will be a really, really good example of this particular dish that isn’t to my liking.

If you’re interested in cooking, I strongly recommend that you start reading the Cook’s Illustrated magazine.  You should think about signing up for the website.  You should buy “The New Best Recipe” and start with that.  You might even look for the companion TV show on PBS, “America’s Test Kitchen.”

Why does Cook’s get my recommendation?  What sets them apart from other cookbooks and cooking magazines?

• They don’t just cough up a recipe that some chef somewhere claims is a good one.  They set out to make a dish, and then they will try dozens of variations until they find the best way to make it.
• Each recipe is accompanied by an article explaining how they perfected the recipe.  Sometimes, the best part of the recipe is the journey taken to the final version. A chef can learn a lot from the techniques that failed, and those that worked.
• The articles also touch on the food science behind the recipes, where appropriate.  Again, this is information you can apply to other recipes on your own.
• The recipes are very clear about what you need to do, what you need to look for, etc.  Many other cookbooks assume you know what the author means by certain terms; Cook’s explains in clear language, and provides illustrations where appropriate.
• Recipes often come with brief tutorials on cooking techniques appropriate to the dish.
• Cook’s also reviews ingredients and cooking tools.  Want to know the best brand of chicken broth, or the best measuring cup?  They run scientific tests, and tell you.  They’re almost always right.
• They don’t accept advertising.  When they recommend a product, there is no conflict of interest.

My only complaints about Cook’s: They release a lot of cookbooks, and inevitably many of them contain substantially the same recipes, so there’s a point of diminishing returns.  They advertise the cookbooks in the magazines, often at a steep discount, but if you read carefully you can’t buy just one book—your order signs you up for a book-of-the-quarter-club type deal.  And if you sign up for the website and don’t opt out, you will get spammed to death with cookbook offers and other stuff.  Plus, the website costs money, and then they want more money if you want all of their recipes (including the ones in the books, or the ones from their spinoff publication “Cook’s Country”), and it starts to add up.

Even so, “The New Best Recipe” is known as “the Bible” in my kitchen.  It’s cooking gospel.

This is an unsolicited endorsement. I am not employed by, related to, or in any way affiliated with Cook’s Illustrated, and no compensation has been received for this endorsement.