Admittedly, some of the recipes live up to that promise a bit better than others. To be sure, there are several recipes in here that look just as impressive as anything you might find in a Michelin-starred restaurant, but with relatively simple ingredients and techniques accessible to home chefs. But there are also a couple that don’t quite hit that “impressive” mark or which might be a bit more intimidating to the home cook. Carbona(ra)men- Dude asks you to cook 8 pieces of bacon, remove the bacon and leave ALL the hot fat, and dump 2 cups of water into it. I explained the chemistry behind this to my son before doing it for the review and, as predicted, hot grease exploded all over my kitchen. This book is written for young inexperienced cooks. Will someone be burned? I think so. The food itself was a chore to eat. Way too much bacon. One note flavor. DiGiovanni: Mine would often be dinner — cooking dinner or making the meals, which everyone was very happy about. Eventually, most people in my family caught on to the fact that it didn't feel like a chore for me, and then I would get looped into the garbage and looped into cleaning the dog's bed out and that kind of thing, but that was great for a while. I got away with that being my chore.

DiGiovanni: You should look into it. It's actually currently held by someone — I live in Boston; it's held by someone from Massachusetts — but you might be able to —

On that note of speaking to his audience, this might also be the perfect cookbook for the social media age because not only is the author apparently a social media cooking star of some sort, but he’s also included QR codes throughout the book leading the reader to videos demonstrating how to prepare some (not all) of the recipes. DiGiovanni: That is such a funny thing to say as my food fail, but that was probably my latest food fail. It’s filled with techniques that will last a lifetime, QR codes explaining everything in detail, and great food. I still don’t have my IKEA bookshelves but I’ll be buying this book! DiGiovanni: It is interesting. It's been interesting for me also — and I'm sure [for] many people — to watch how the whole space is evolving. What do you think about all of it, the fact that TV is not fizzling away, but it's different than it used to be? Tuna Melt- The tuna was runny from too much mayo and pink from so much paprika. Also it called for sharp cheddar but the cheese in the picture was white. The finished product was super bland.

In a large mixing bowl, cream together cubed butter, brown sugar, and sugar for 4 minutes or until creamy. Using a pastry brush, lightly coat one side of each slice of bread with mayonnaise, about 1/2 tablespoon per slice. But that’s not to say those recipes are necessarily bad or failures by any means. And despite a couple maybe not quite hitting the same theme as the rest of the book, I consider the book on the whole quite a success.DiGiovanni: If I could cook for anybody, I'd probably cook for my grandmother. I'd probably cook for my dad's mom. Thiessen: I know you're a man, and it's hard to understand that. But every woman would understand if they've had a child. DiGiovanni: Absolutely. My mom certainly could use a crash course — she'd be upset to hear this — on how to treat your leftovers well. My dad, too, makes a lot of jokes about the leftovers we had growing up, but at the same time, it's one of those things that made me appreciate food every time we had it. Now, that makes me so conscious about all this stuff.

Place the sheet in the oven and bake for about 12 minutes or until the sugar has started to caramelize. Flip the bacon, brush with the remaining maple syrup, and sprinkle with the remaining brown sugar. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes more, depending on your desired crispness. DiGiovanni: They're very fun. We recently did our ninth one. It's not out yet or anything, but that was our best planned-out one so far. We felt really good with the whole thing. It looked perfect. We were very, very happy with it. We just did our ninth one. We're definitely getting better at getting all the planning in place. DiGiovanni: It's interesting, because in a way, it's different now, right? The most recent one was probably [when] we had set up this huge project. We tried to do the Guinness World Record for the biggest dumpling. Thiessen: I have a good question for you. If you could cook for anybody, who would it be that you haven't cooked for yet? I know you've cooked for a lot of celebrities and stuff.Thiessen: Was that your first love of getting into cooking — the chore that you had to actually cook?