Quality is not a given

In just about all of my writing, I assume that the stuff you're making is world class. In a world where everything is good enough, meeting that standard isn't enough.

But it's worth a reminder every once in a while that getting the quality right still matters. I went to buy the much hyped (1 million bucks worth ) Gourmet Magazine cookbook: Amazon.com: Books: The Gourmet Cookbook : More than 1000 recipes, only to discover that every single reviewer hated the fact that they couldn't read it.

How did that happen? In a conservative industry known for not screwing up the hard stuff (no typos, page numbers in order, stuff like that), how did a book this important to the bottom line end up with yellow headlines?

[added two days later: my apologies to Ruth Reichl. I just bought the book at Borders. Hey, it's not so bad. A reasonable person might even like it. I got fooled by the Amazon reviews. I guess retail stores still have a purpose.]