The Spice Book: An A-Z Reference & Cook's Kitchen Bible

Thank you

I'm selling a copy but thought I'd weigh in on this terrific and apparently obscure book.I find this stimulating. Visually evocative. Designed to make you salivate. There are a lot of beautiful photos of spices, many of them clean and documentary in style -- those overhead sort of "food porn" shots that stress the inherent beauty of the food while telling you what an unusual ingredient looks like.Large format, glossy, square-bound trade paperback with something like over 400 illustrations.There's a lot of information to be had. Here's the table of contents:Choosing/storing/using spices pp 6-17Alphabetical and annotated Spice Index pp 18-79Spice Mixtures pp 80-119Spices in the Home 120-125Recipes 126-251

As someone who knows nothing about cooking with spices I was hoping this would be a good starter cookbook. I found their blurbs about each spice neither informative nor useful. Explanations in the sections on making spice mixtures were very broad and in numerous places they suggest you adapt these to your own taste. How? If I knew what I was doing I wouldn't need a bible. Most recipes were for dishes I've never heard of. I do have to say, however, that the pictures were gorgeous. Beginners, look elsewhere.