I debated getting this book for a while. I have too many cookbooks as it is, not to mention what's online, that I doubted I needed this one. Well, I was wrong and, as soon as I got it, I was reminded why I couldn't wait to pick up the Wednesday NYT every week to read the Food section.My take on this book is very positive, but just quick note of the few negatives first:-- There are no notations of the overall time it takes to cook/prep each recipe. Even an approximation of that is a huge help to home cooks since there is so much room for error when trying to add up bits and pieces of time from each step. I REALLY wish the book had included that.-- The black and white photos, what few there are, are horrendous - one looks like an enormous batter-fried insect is crawling towards a trussed piece of meat of some kind, another looks like a gelatinous lasagna or is it a cabbage gratin?, yet another looks like chickpeas in a bowl of granita 😖 Not the greatest editorial decision, imo.Now, on to the happy part...The beginning of the book opens with a humorous and interesting timeline of food history (did you know that umami was identified way back in 1908? I didn't), but it doesn't stop there. Each chapter has an additional historical timeline specific to its content as well (Cup-a-Soup has not been around forever, but Grape Nuts apparently has). And the recipes themselves are often prefaced with interesting historical notes as well, making this book almost as much of a history book as one for cooking.Author Amanda Hesser has done an incredible job of sifting through the Times's vast archives of recipes and coming up with a great representation of what the food section was all about in just under 1000 pages. The recipes have interesting notes, cooking tips, and most have numerous serve-with suggestions (yay! for that!). Hesser will also tell you exactly how much trouble a recipe is to make - Craig Claiborne's Chocolate Mousse, for example - and also why the trouble is worth it. But, as mentioned above, no overall cooking/prep times.There is a lot of humor in the writing, making the book a joy to read for those who love to read cookbooks. An example from 'Stir-Fried Chicken with Creamed Corn:' "He spiced it aggressively and included fresh corn in addition to the dubious-but-essential creamed corn. The dish is like pigs-in-a-blanket - its success cannot be explained. Just accept and enjoy."I rarely ever "read" a cookbook - I'm there for the recipes - but I found myself enjoying Hesser's notes about each recipe so much that I find myself reading every single one of them. If there was ever any snobbery *sniff* associated with the NYT food section, Hesser has dispensed with it, making every recipe sound doable and/or worth the effort if it ventures beyond simply "doable." She seems to have made sure that the instructions are fairly clear and easy to follow, as long as you are not a novice in the kitchen.The recipes in this book are mostly from Times contributors who have by now become legendary: Craig Claiborne, Anne Seranne, Pierre Franey, Mark Bittman, Melissa Clark, Alison Roman, Martha Rose Schulman, Nigella Lawson, Julie Sahni, Marion Burros, Nancy Harmon Jenkins, Molly O'Neill... this list is actually kind of endless. There are also plenty of recipes from equally legendary restaurants. Recipes are from across the country and from around the world. What binds them together is that they have somehow wonderfully become part of our collective food history - the melting pot in everyone's kitchen.Just some of the recipes:Eleven Madison Park's Granola - a great place to start. It's one of the best granolas ever created. I use pecans instead of pistachios and sometimes add dried cranberries to the cherries, but it's honestly as perfect a granola as one can make. Lindy's CheesecakeThe 21 Club BurgerRao's Meatballs and Marinara SauceLee Lum's Lemon ChickenAlice Waters's Baked Goat Cheese with SaladEdna Lewis's Sweet PotatoesLe Cirque's Pasta Primavera (it was so popular that I should have guessed it had to be mired in controversy!)Julia Child's Aunt Helen's Fluffy Pumpkin PieRuss & Daughters' Chopped Chicken LiverJames Beard's Pureed ParsnipsMarcella Hazan's BologneseMaida Heatter's RugelachMoroccan Carrot SaladDiana Vreeland's Salade ParisienneThe Slanted Door's Shaking BeefKonigsberger KlopseCassouletCarne AsadaMoussakaThere is chicken every way you can imagine ( I made Nigella Lawson's Buttermilk Roast Chicken last night and it was really delicious) from miso all the way back around the alphabet to marengo. Ditto beef (the Dijon and Cognac Beef Stew is so good), fish, vegetables, soups, salads, stews, etc.Desserts are to swoon over, from Pavlova to Key Lime Pie (a very good recipe, although I would replace the almonds in the crust with lime zest and chuck the meringue) to Alison Roman's viral Salted Choc Chip Shortbread Cookies to a New Jersey Blancmange(!) that features a history lesson.The lists go on and on and on.There are the fun entries as well, such as when a Times reader named Dick Taeuber took Craig Claiborne's Brandy Alexander Pie as the blueprint for a whole host of "cocktail pies" that became what would now be considered viral. A chart of his twenty versions (including Grasshopper Pie!) is in the book.The indices are an absolute dream for cooks looking for recipes. The first index is an almost 40-page listing of recipes by name and ingredient. It is so thorough that you will find, for example, Anita Sheldon's Torta di Spinaci under A, under the heading for Spinach, and under T for Torta. How great is this?The second index is for Articles and Authors, so you can look for recipes from favorite chefs and contributors.There is also a section of Menus - featuring suggestions for holiday and other special occasion meals, but also a listing of decades in which the recipes appeared.There are no photos, unless you count the handful of black and ones that begin each chapter, the subjects of which are sometimes a guessing game. In truth, I'd rather have the recipes in the space that more photos would have occupied.I have no reservations about recommending this book. I love it least of all because I get a workout carrying it around. It's mammoth.I'd say I was going to cook my way through it, but in many ways I already have, and I can't wait to do it again.