*received for free from netgalley for honest review* wow, well this is a very cool book! I admit i have a very limited knowledge of all of the recipes mentioned in this book lmao but wow do i want to try them! would buy this for sure, would be a fun book to cook your way thru!

Before giving my thoughts on this cookbook, I wish to disclose that my work involves selling woks and have used woks throughout my life, at home and for work. So I was ready for a book as delightfully comprehensive as The Wok by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt.

The language and explanation in the book are accessible for readers who are new to woks and cooking techniques. Yet it was also comprehensive enough that even readers with pre-existing skills can find the book helpful - at least in being able to verbalise the science behind the techniques.

For those who want to learn about cooking with the wok, I found many sections helpful, such as recommendations on the type of woks, and preferred brands of ingredients and how to practice different cooking techniques. The sections that explained the science behind different cooking techniques and the cultural context of recipes were good for the curious.

This is like a definite bible of wok cooking and I would purchase this for any friends who are interested in wok cooking.

I was intrigued when I was offered to opportunity to review _The Wok_ by J. Kenji López-Alt as an audiobook, narrated by Eric Jason Martin. It had never occurred to me to listen to a cookery book rather than read it, or more likely, to leaf through it, skipping to the most exciting recipes. I requested a copy out of pure curiosity, encouraged by the fact that I have had only good experiences with López-Alt's cookery articles and recipes. I have been a fan of his long-form experiments in Serious Eats and enjoyed the rigour with which he tested various cookery techniques and recipes in _The Food Lab_.

_The Wok_ is, López-Alt tells us, based on an omission in the Food Lab. He says that in that book, he wrote about his love for his wok and then somehow neglected to include a single recipe that used it. As he considered the various ways that he uses his wok (stir-frying, deep frying, steaming and braising), he quickly came to the conclusion that he could dedicate a whole book to the subject.

It was a relief to hear, before the book had even started, that there was a supplemental PDF that included the images from the print version as well as all of the recipes. AT 362 pages, I suspect the PDF is almost as long as the book itself. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear to have been given the same amount of care, as there are some odd errors; most notably, a reference to chicken suddenly appearing in the instructions of beef and pork dishes, the rest of an unfortunate copy-and-paste technique, one suspects.

_The Wok_ focuses on technique, which works well as an audiobook. López-Alt describes the recipes as a GPS, where you are getting turn-by-turn instructions, whereas what he'd really like to encourage is for the reader to explore.

The list of specialist ingredients, described in detail with rankings as to how essential they are and what could be used as a substitution, was a bit tedious to listen to. I had many of the ingredients already in my pantry and it was easy to lose focus; I repeatedly found myself having to rewind to catch the recommended brands for those items that I didn't have. However, after this section, the audiobook rapidly gains steam with detailed descriptions for flinging food and an in-depth discussion of how heat is focused in a wok compared to a frying pan. The information here, including when to best add oil to the pan and why I might want a friend to stand by with a blow-torch, is not just interesting but clearly helpful for improving my overall cooking skills.

Other sections don't transfer well: I struggled to visualise the instructions for dismembering a chicken and halfway through, it was clear I was going to need to find a visual guide or, better yet, a video. There are photographs in the PDF but they are not standalone, leaving me to dismember the chicken while listening to the audiobook and dripping chicken juice on my poor quality print-out of the photographs.

López-Alt has a charming and friendly style throughout as he mixes culinary techniques with personal anecdotes. The notes and sidebars that go with the recipes lend themselves to easy listening, including charming stories that really bring López-Alt's recipes to life. I loved discovering that one of the dishes is meant to be a grown-up version of his sister's favourite childhood dish.

The audiobook doesn't attempt to recipe lists of ingredients and instructions, thank goodness. However, there were times, for example the discussion about what type of kimchi to use for the pork and kimchi dumplings, when it seems like the note would be better suited to be placed with the recipe, which is when I'll need to know what to look for.

After listening to Martin's excellent narration and leafing through the PDF, I came to the conclusion that this audiobook would work best as a companion piece to the traditional cookbook. I enjoyed listening to the book uninterrupted and it allowed me to take in much more background information, as opposed to opening the book to hurriedly choose a recipe for dinner. At the same time, the PDF on its own is missing so much information, when it came to actually making the recipes, it seemed a shame not to be able to refer back to the notes and sidebars that were read aloud to me in the days previous.

It's a bit of an investment but if you are a fan of Alt-López and really wish to get the most out of your wok, I think a copy of _both_ the audiobook and the printed cookbook could be worthwhile, allowing for both the passive listening of culinary information and the ability to quickly check the speciality ingredients list or to be reminded, for example, that the fermented bean paste is best bloomed before mixing in the other ingredients. As a stand-alone, the audiobook seems somehow lacking but it works fabulously as an addition to the printed book. Or, if you aren't that bothered about following the individual recipes, treat it as a standalone book which is focused on the stories and techniques that make López-Alt's cookbooks not so much an instruction manual as a trusted friend, right there in the kitchen with you.

This was a unique experience for me; an audiobook cookbook! The fact that most of the detail of the recipes were in a onus PDF probably kept this from being a slog; by focusing on techniques and the history of each dish the book became more useful and interesting. I'm not sure I will seek out more cookbooks in audiobook format, but the information shared, the quality of the narrator, and the depth of coverage were very interesting.