Stacks: The Art of Vertical Food Paperback – October 15, 2015

Thank you for a like new delivery, it was practically new. Always thought stacking food was a beautiful concept. Bought this likely out of print book to accompany couple of stacking tools for entertaining. Very good instructions and creative ideas for my next dinner parties. Not sure why this idea didn’t take off but it’s definitely a great concept for beautiful and playful display of food.

I bought the 1999 edition of this book several years ago after seeing it at the library and have tried a number of the recipes. I love the freshness of her ideas. The author creates her own salad dressings using pureed fruits in some cases--healthy and tasty. There are lots of color photographs--not one for every recipe, unfortunately, but still delightful. She also offers make ahead tips and alternatives. I haven't found any of the ingredients to be hard to find, but yes, the author does go beyond meatloaf, gravy, and mashed potatoes. I made the zucchini-apple salad stacks for Mother's Day and used dinner glasses instead of soup cans. Just put everything inside the glass in reverse order and then up-end the glass over your salad plate when ready to serve. Makes it easier to store in the refrigerator. Plus, if you have pretty stemware, why not just serve it in those? A different presentation that saves a step, especially if you're serving a large group. Note that almost all the recipes are for 6 portions. I do highly recommend this book.

Stacking has always been a secret of the culinary world. People dine out to have an experience that is unlike what usually takes place in their homes. While it may be rather simple to cook mashed potatoes and meatloaf, or spaghetti at home, to replicate what experienced chefs with years of culinary school actually study and learn to create seemed impossible, until now.Thanks to Pinterest and all the foodies and bloggers and hacks who want to replicate the beauty of such epicurean delights at home, and professional tools that chefs use - now anyone can have the picture perfect dish to post on Instagram. The author provides us with detailed and thorough instruction on the building of stacks and tricks to ensure your stack remains standing tall. We're educated on the proper equipment and get numerous ideas and inspirations from the book, but in terms of useful recipes - this is where the book is lacking.While it does inspire with all of the photography, the ingredients she pairs together don't seem to mix well on my pallette. It almost seems as though the book was created to share the idea of stacking, but the author lacks experience in actual cooking. But, for the lesson and the inspiration - the book was worth it.

This cookbook is outright fun ... but unfortunately I want stacks that serve a purpose - things that will stay stacks as you eat them and for which the stacks serve the purpose of providing a perfect bite - think Danish open-faced sandwiches or Swedish smorgasbord or Finnish sandwich cakes. This cookbook does provide many recipes that meet these criteria - Ahi sushi stacks is a good example. Some are foods that we think of as layered but here are placed in stacked format for presentation - Poached Plums with Pound Cake, Lemon Curd and Cinnamon Struesel is an example. But for the life of me, I can't think of a culinary reason to make an eleven layer stack of Grilled Lamb, Caramelize Onion and Spinach Stacks with Garlic Mashed Potatoes and Stilton ... it simply becomes unwieldy when confronted by a knife and fork.Despite that serious complaint, I do appreciate the discussion of equipment, detailed instruction on how to build stacks, and the extensive tables of what to layers are required and potential ingredients for those layers. This provides the solid basis needed to successful build her stack recipes and more importantly to determine if a stack you conceive will work.In addition to its obvious use, I would also suggest that a child who is a picky eater, especially one who mixes everything together and slathers it with ketchup when they dislike an ingredient, may well be enticed to eat an ingredient that they got to help put in stack format.

My book arrived very quickly as I was expecting it to arrive into early January but it arrived shortly after my order was processed, within the expected 4 weeksl The book arrived in excellent condition.I was a little concerned about the condition of the book but it was as advertised, (as new) and not a mark on it.Thank you for the excellent service and delivery. I have no hesitations in buy from you in the future.I am a first time buy from Amazon and have no hesitations buying from you again.

I ordered this book as a replacement for one I gave to my son. It has some really interesting and tasty recipes. I wanted one in particular--and when I made it again, it didn't disappoint. My DIL had made a few recipes out of this book and they were easy, tasty and quite the sight to behold!

Lacks good photographs and frankly the designs of the food stacks are pretty ordinary. Would do better looking around the internet or taking pictures at a good restaurant. I am a good cook, and love good cookbooks. This one I found worthless.

9 out of 10 recipes don't have any pics. It says.. use soup cans to stack but there is not a single pic actually showing you how to stack. Basically... You'd be googling everything. Of all the books I've ever bought. This is by far the worse. Almost feels like I got conned.

It's very nice book, good colorful healthy recipes, special dressings, many choices. Plus great and helpful instructions. I already bought those stackable metal squire kind forms and soon will start making some appetizers. I would recommend this book to anybody...it could be a table talk!

I would have liked to see a few more photos of the finished products.

This is a very expensive book ... and nearly useless. I should have listened to the other reviews. I bought the book for inspiration and even here it falls short. The few photos included lack appeal. Far too many "exotic" ingredients (duck, bulgur, etc.). Nothing was designed for the average kitchen (my kitchen isn't average and I would have to shop to build something from this book). The flavor combinations aren't appealing even to read! It was like "I'll toss all these ingredients together and if you don't like the taste, it's because you don't have a sophisticated palate."