I judge a cook book by how it makes me a better cook, and Mexico One Plate at a Time is arguably the best cook book I've ever read on that score. Far more than listing recipes, Bayless provides a short history and commentary on each traditional Mexican dish, explaining the motivations for the flavors, before presenting the traditional recipe. He then follows this up with a "contemporary" recipe of his own design, sort of a riff on an existing Mexico food theme. He then follows this up with a question and answer session on various aspects of the dish that addresses questions most home cooks would have.

I found this presentation really gave me a lot of guidance in preparing each dish, and allowed me to improvise myself. And Bayless encourages you to appreciate the traditional Mexican recipe, and adding flourishes to them, and gives you the tools to do just that.

I started with guacamole, where Bayless provides the key insight, to use restraint. My over-flavored gaucamole's now have a better balance than they used to. Quesadillas was my next stop, and again, Bayless provides plenty of guidance to experiment and be creative with this simple Mexican comfort food, and I've enjoyed many great quesadillas at home since then, which are easy to put together, and accommodate so many different ingredients.

I found Bayless's tortilla soup recipe to produce a very lively bowl of soup, and again, his recipe has become a staple in my home cooking. Going further, I followed his Enchiladas Suiza's recipe, again with fantastic results. The Constillas de Res a la Mexicana, or braised short ribs in the Mexican style, and was another big winner! As for the Pork Tenderloin in Salsa Verde, I didn't quite get Bayless's technique down, and the sauce came out a little thinner than I would have prefered, but all in all, it was still good.

Bayless's provides all sorts of verbal directions like "Stir occasionally until the tomatoes have lost their juicy look (about 3 minutes for fresh tomatoes, 3-5 minutes for canned)" that surprisingly are easy to follow. A great strength of the book is that Bayless is able to pass along subtle techniques that make a good recipe produce great results. Few books provide this type of insight so effortlessly.

There are a few other recipes I tried, the Green Tomatillo Salsa and Mexican red tomato rice, and they generally turned out well. If I have any quibble, I couldn't quite follow Bayless's technique for the red tomato rice, and sometimes it turned out great, and sometimes, well, not so good. To really hit some of these recipes, you need to follow Bayless's technique, which usually isn't hard given the good instructions on the pages, but I found some of the recipes clearly benefit with some practice.

I live in San Jose, California, so it is probably easier for me to find some of the Mexican ingredients than other readers, but I didn't think this is a cook book with dishes requiring hard to find exotic ingredients. There are plenty of stains on the pages, because I use it so often at home for great results, and I expect you will too.

I was surprised at some of the reviews. This is not a quick fix cook book. Rick's aim was to deliver the food, culture, and history of Mexico and he did it in excellent form.
This is indeed the best Mexican cook book out there. You could try some of his other cook books that are geared more towards the quick cook.

I am of Mexican descent and I don't even know most of the recipes, I don't even cook this good with delicious being extra.Rick is so knowledgeable, you would think he was mexican. I have tried so many of his recipes, and they are all mouth watering. Mexico should get real and give him citizenship because he truly represents the best of mexican cooking.

I wish he would get into making mexican candies such as the dulce de calabasa, dulce de coco, leche quemada...these are a lost art, but I just know that once Rick starts making them, the tradition will live on.

Thank you Ricardo for a job well done. And even if i don't cook the recipe, the pictures are so delicious looking that my mouth starts watering and makes me want to be there. By the way, your spanish is not bad. Good for you, you do more for Mexico with your wonderful cooking, you should consider citizenship.

Diana Khan

We've had some great meals since we bought this book. Bayless writes about Mexican food the way John Muir writes about nature, and I am happy to report the meals my wife has made have lived up to the description. We've lived and traveled extensively in Mexico and can report that this is authentic stuff, and quite a bit better than what you'll find in an American Mexican restaraunt. We went to one such restaraunt near Plaistow, New Hampshire where they charged extra for a side of salsa. That was bleak. We needed a book like this. Most of these meals do take time to make. He doesn't do things the easy way. While in Mexico we rent a cheap apartment without an oven, most of the local people we know don't have ovens so it is surprising many of these recipes are for the oven. But that's been our only problem with the book. He has strong opinions and we may not always agree but thats OK. Even has a page in the back listing websites to get hard to find Mexican ingredients. We've been having great meals.