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We've all been there. You buy a cookbook and decide to try it out for the first time when you have guests coming for dinner. It seems simple enough: Go grocery shopping, follow the instructions to the letter and - presto - you'll end up with a reasonable facsimile of the picture in the book. Or maybe not ...

Anna Wallner and Kristina Matisic, best known for their TV show The Shopping Bags, understand the frustration with recipe books that promise to turn you into a great cook but leave you with egg on your face. The duo are in the middle of filming a new 13-part series, Anna and Kristina's Grocery Bag, scheduled to broadcast nationally on the W network starting on Sept. 3. Part consumer guide, part cooking show, Grocery Bag explores various ingredients and appliances and test drives a different cookbook each week. Shot in Vancouver, the show features local chefs and experts invited to critique the final product.

"Oh sh ... ugar" Ms. Wallner squeals. She's just licked her fingers after chopping jalapenos and her mouth is on fire. The pain is quickly forgotten, however, as she inspects a bowl of bread dough. "I'm not sure about this," she says. "It's pretty sticky."

Sticky is an understatement. Ms. Matisic comes to the rescue, adding flour and distraction. "But see how good the potatoes look."

The pair have spent the past five hours cooking an Indian feast from Mangoes & Curry Leaves: Culinary Travels Through the Great Subcontinent by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid. In an hour, the owners and chefs of award-winning Vancouver restaurant Vij's, Vikram Vij and Meeru Dhalwala, will be arriving to taste the meal. No pressure.

Criticism is something Ms. Wallner and Ms. Matisic are getting used to. "Thomas Haas didn't like anything we made," says Ms. Wallner, referring to an earlier episode's visit in which the esteemed chocolatier and pastry chef was guest critic. "We were cooking from Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich and everything went wrong."

"He did say the chocolate tasted okay," Ms. Matisic adds. "If he pretended he was blind and had never eaten chocolate before."

Even worse was their attempt to make Julia Child's pâté de canard en croûte (boned stuffed duck in a crust) from Mastering the Art of French Cooking. "We screwed it up all the way along," Ms. Matisic admits.

Chef Alain Raye of the North Shore's La Régalade was that episode's invited guest and was apparently so appalled by the result he laughed until he couldn't breathe.

"But from the recipe - and the diagram in the book - it did look as though we should leave the little leg bones in," says Ms. Wallner, clearly still irked by the whole affair. "And next week, we're doing Nobu West - with [famed sushi master Hidekazu] Tojo."

Ms. Matisic shrugs. "Nobody expects us to pull that one off."

They only have themselves to blame - the 13 cookbooks to be featured on Grocery Bag were their choice. Although they don't try out the featured recipes until the day of filming, they are allowed to cook other dishes from the books at home.

"We're discovering that some books are meant to be read and others are designed to actually be cooked from," says Ms. Matisic, whose favourite so far is Jamie Oliver's Cook with Jamie.

"Some are just too complicated to do at home and others skip important steps because whoever wrote the recipe has forgotten that some things aren't that obvious to amateurs."

The first mistake today was a classic example. The book suggested a pan of hot oil would be hot enough to use if, when a wooden skewer was dipped in, bubbles appeared.

"It didn't explain that you should be checking for the moment the bubbles first appear," Ms. Wallner frowns. "So, of course, by the time we use it, the oil's way too hot and everything burns."

Their current crisis is the naan bread. The oven isn't hot enough and the recipe has become fussy about how to shape the dough and get it in the oven. Ms. Wallner can't wait any longer and puts one piece in.

"I'm just going to throw the second naan in," she says, trying to lift it over the first piece and burning herself in the process. "Ow, ow, ow-ow, ow. I've never been so stressed out over a piece of bread."

But it'll have to do: The guests are due any minute and Ms. Wallner and Ms. Matisic have yet to get changed into saris for the occasion.

"Ooh, they've brought two bottles of wine," Ms. Matisic says. "I like them."

The tasting goes pretty well, despite some concern over a bitter starfruit chutney and lamb kabobs that could have been cooked more evenly. Mr. Vij considers the latter acceptable "considering it's your first time." He finds them a little rough and ready - to the surprise of the cooks. "Well, you wouldn't come to my restaurant and pay $14 for a kebob that looked like that, would you?" he laughs.

Then they come to the dreaded naan bread. Ms. Dhalwala is surprised it's even in the book. "Naan is something best left to restaurants," she says. "It's just too much trouble."