We bought the new Cook's Illustrated yesterday because the recipes featured in it sounded like things we would like to make eventually. Usually we just leaf through the magazine and put it back on the newsstand. It's so honest: there's nothing schmancy to lure you in: no tarted-up pictures of the dishes, no long essays about eating in exotic places, no busty pictures of Nigella Lawson, and no columns using food as a springboard for social commentary. Instead, Cook's Illustrated has a smattering of black and white photos, a ton of line drawings, and a series of articles detailing how the test kitchen went from something about which you would say, "eh" to something that would make you swoon. Unfortunately, reading this issue I realized that the tasters at the test kitchen are cretins: they like Ghiradelli "bittersweet" chocolate (the quotation marks indicate that the chocolate is a far cry from actually being bitter at all and is simply sweet instead) better than the 70%-cocoa stuff and they preferred supermarket pork to heritage, free-range pigs. They actually complained that the heritage pork had flavor. I decided to overlook the dubious taste of the tasters, however, and try making the spinach lasagna featured in the magazine tonight. Admittedly, it was labor-intensive, but the smell of the béchamel sauce alone made it worth while. The final product was divine: the spinach was still fresh-tasting, no single flavor was overpowering, and if I actually make it as thin as they do in the magazine, it should cook in only twenty minutes. The only change I would make: add a bit more salt. Not much, probably another 1/2 teaspoon. Yummy! -Zh.