I thought this would be more helpful, but it wasn't. It's definitely a departure from your average cookbook. Instead of recipes, the author uses ratios. Once you master the ratios for things, you can tweak them as your creativity dictates. It's weird that so many of his ratios are for sauces, stocks, and meats. I didn't find that helpful to be honest. The book could have used tighter editing. There are sections that are repetitive or rambling. The concept of the book is good, but it could have been less clinical and more interesting. In the end, I found it dry, boring, and unhelpful.