There are two types of cooks in this world: the ones who follow recipes religiously, never substituting ingredients, never adjusting measurements, never improvising; and those who cook by intuition, seemingly conjuring up complicated and exotic platefuls. In this workshop series, James Beard Foundation Award-winning cookbook author James Peterson will show you that the process of cooking well is neither rigorous nor magical. It is a matter of getting the basic techniques down, then understanding their logic in order to improvise and create.

The hows, and more importantly, the whys, are what Peterson's new book, Essentials of Cooking, is all about. It is an audacious and indispensable kitchen companion that was nominated last year for a Beard award. With hundreds of clear step-by-step instructions and over a thousand photos, it is a self-assured manual with nary a recipe between its covers. Once you get over the shock of not having a formula to follow, and instead learn to rely on proportions of ingredients, you'll gain the freedom to cook with confidence.

Peterson was a chemist before the food bug struck, which explains both his thoroughness and his deconstructionist approach. After studying at Le Cordon Bleu, he worked in France at Le Vivarois and Georges Blanc, both Michelin three-star restaurants. A turn at his own Le Petit Robert in New York City rounded out his hands-on experience. Peterson left the pressure of restaurant operations to teach cooking classes at The French Culinary Institute and Peter Kump's New York Cooking School, both in New York City. When he finally took pen in hand and produced the seminal Sauces (Van Nostrand Reinhold), it received the 1991 James Beard Cookbook of the Year award. The 1993 Beard-nominated Splendid Soups (Van Nostrand Reinhold) followed, then the 1996 International Association of Cooking Professionals (IACP) award-winning Fish & Shellfish (Morrow), and finally last year's James Beard Award-winning Vegetables (Morrow).

Free yourself from the tyranny of recipes this minute. With Peterson as your guide, you'll soon be roasting, poaching, skimming, and broiling-not a cookbook in sight-with the best of them.