I'd start with Mastering the Art. There is also a version of both volumes in one, but we have the two-book set. You can't go wrong.

I like Baking with Julia and In Julia's Kitchen with Master Chefs, but I have a couple others that are good, but I do not use as much. I think Cooking with Master Chefs would be redundant if you get the other Master Chefs book, since the one I recommended is more than twice as large. Get the ones with the most pages if they look redundant. I bought one of the books at a thrift store for less than a dollar, but it is a paperback.

Lars

Lars

I have Mastering the Art (vol.1), Baking with Julia, Julia Child's Menu Cookbook, the French Chef Cookbook, and The Way to Cook.

Mastering the Art of French Cooking was written when America was a culinary wasteland, and it covers a lot of stuff which was considered breakthrough back then. Still, it has very detailed step by step instructions that can get you through the recipes. The Poulet Poele a l'Estragon is one of my favorite dishes.

By far my preference is The Way to Cook. While Mastering the Art is a seminal work, and does have a ton of good info, I find The Way to Cook is far more user-friendly--lots of pictures, etc.

Still, if you are limited to only one Julia book, you can't go wrong with either The Way to Cook OR Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I don't have volume 2 of Mastering the Art, so I can't comment on it; I have looked at it in a store, and didn't see that I would be needing it just yet.

And don't be shy about buying used books. You're gonna splatter something on it anyway the first time you use it. I have found great cookbooks in junk shops, antique malls and thrift shops. (Scored an nearly pristine hardcover of 'The Way to Cook' for about $10.) A good online source for used books is Addall.com.

To give you a taste of The Way to Cook, I've included one of her recipes, one of my favorite warm weather dishes.

There's a classic European dish of roasted veal breast in tuna sauce, vitello tonnato. Julia Child adapted it for poached turkey breast instead of veal. (It's much cheaper and more tender, and it works very well.) This recipe is ideal for hot weather--especially for a luncheon for several people. You make the entire recipe a day or two in advance: the day of the lunch, all you have to do is take the dish out of the fridge and, if desired, decorate it a bit. You can serve this dish with a salad, or make sandwiches with it, or just eat it plain. Delicious. If you don't like capers, leave them out; it'll still taste great.

I'm reproducing the recipe exactly as Julia has it, but I would note that when I made it I found that the Dijon mustard tended to overpower the other ingredients; even though she calls for 2 to 3 tablespoons, I'd start with only 1 tablespoon and add a little more if needed. (I know it takes chutzpah to overrule Julia, but there you have it.) While it calls for poached turkey breast (and I include her directions for poaching a turkey breast) if you just want to try out the sauce, you can 'cheat' and go to the deli and get several slices of precooked turkey breast and use that. (I've done that ; works great, although it ends up costing about three times as much as poaching a turkey breast on your own.) She makes the point that you don't serve it as sliced turkey with a sauce on the side; you need to smear each slice with the sauce and let the slices absorb the flavors for a day or two.

You can make the sauce in either a blender or a food processor. If you have a food processor, though, the sauce is extremely easy to make. In fact, my Cuisinart has a push-tube with a hole in it that is designed to drip oil at just the right speed for emulsifying with the other ingredients.

Tacchino Tonnato from Julia Child's The Way to Cook
(Cold Sliced turkey breast in tuna and anchovy sauce) For 8 or more servings

1 - 7 oz tin (1 cup) tuna packed in water, drained
1 - 2oz tin of flat fillets of anchovies packed in olive oil, drained
One-fourth cup capers, squeezed dry
The grated peel of one half lemon
2 to 3 tbsp Dijon-type prepared mustard (you may wish to start with just one and add more if needed)
1 large clove of garlic, pureed, then mashed to a very fine paste with one-fourth tsp salt
4 egg yolks
1 to 1 1/2 cups or more virgin olive oil
Drops of lemon juice
Salt and freshly ground white pepper

One 6-pound poached turkey breast (recipe follows this one) or 16 to 20 generous but thin slices of cooked turkey breast
Decorations: 1/3 cup capers, drained; coarsely chopped parsley; lemon wedges

The sauce. Puree the tuna, anchovies, capers, lemon peel, mustard and garlic paste in the machine, then add the egg yolks and puree several seconds, until the mixture has thickened. Finally, with the motor running, start adding the oil in a very thin stream of droplets, and continue without pause until three-fourths of a cup of oil has gone in and the sauce has thickened into a heavy cream. It will not be as thick as mayonnaise, but should hold itself in creamy suspension. Process in one-half cup more of oil, depending on how thick a sauce you wish to have. Season carefully to taste with lemon juice, salt and pepper; the sauce should have character, but should not be too strong in taste or it will kill off the turkey.

Slicing the turkey. If you are using a poached turkey breast, discard the skin. Carefully remove in one piece the whole side of each breast from the carcass. Cut the meat at a slant crosswise (across the grain) into elegant slices less than 1/8 inch thick.

Assembling. Spoon a layer of sauce in the bottom of a serving platter, and arrange the turkey on top, spreading each slice with a coating of sauce. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 24 to 48 hours before serving.

Serving. Let the platter sit at room temperature for 20 minutes to take off the chill. Meanwhile sprinkle on the capers and parsley, and decorate with lemon wedges.

Poached Turkey Breast

Set up a 6-pound bone-in breast of turkey breast up in a kettle just large enough to hold it comfortably, surround it with 1 cup each of chopped carrots, onions and celery, and a large herb bouquet. Pour in 2 cups of chicken broth, 1 cup of dry white French vermouth or dry white wine, and enough water to cover the breast by 1/2 inch. Bring to the simmer on top of the stove; skim off the gray scum, which will continue to rise for several minutes. Salt lightly, then cover the pot loosely and maintain at the bare simmer for 2 to 2 1/2 hours, adding a little boiling water if the liquid evaporates to expose the turkey. It's done when a meat thermometer, pushed in to the thickest part of the meat near the shoulder (but not touching bone) reads 162 to 165 F. Let the turkey cool in its broth for at least 30 minutes.

Refrigerate uncovered; when chilled, remove the turkey to a covered container.

I have "The Way to Cook" and "Julia's Kitchen Wisdom: Essential Techniques and Recipes from a Lifetime of Cooking" which is a great little condensed volume of information. I recommend both.

Eileen

The best cookbook i have ever read, or skimmed or paged through or used is Julia's the Way to Cook...
The premise of that book is not so much recipes but "The way to cook"....how you braise a chunk fo meat....and how to vary the basics and how that applies to other meats to braise. For example is you can make a pot roast, you can make all sorts of other braised dishes, if you once learn how to make cream of mushroom soup, you can make cream of carrot or spinach or cauliflower...by changing a few things, because the method is the same.

Mastering the Art is also great for inspiration too.
Linda C

This is what I would do, see which books you can check out at the library and see what you like. I'm sure they can probably get any of them but may have to wait a week to get from other locations. I checked out the Master Chefs one and what NOT IMPRESSED at all so I think it would be worth it to look for yourself for FREE first.

There are two "Master Chefs" books: In Julia's Kitchen with Master Chefs, 1996, has 320 pages and is the one that I have; Cooking with Master Chefs, 1993, has 146 pages and I would not recommend that one.

Lars

The Way to Cook is an essential cookbook.

We saw The Way To Cook today at Costco. I wanted to get it, but didn't.... and now I see it's recommended as a must-have. Perhaps I "must have" to return and get it!

I've had Mastering The Art Vols. 1&2 for over 20 years.
They're my go to resource for all classic recipes and techniques.

I have Way To Cook and it's a classic. The recipes themselves are the foundation to traditional French/English-American cooking.I also have Baking with Julia and the recipes I have tried have been very good.
Although I do not like her bagel recipe.

I own or have owned and given away, just about all of Julia's books. My favorites are Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volumes I and II, for detailed, teach you technique and move you forward to a great result (in most cases.) Recipes vary in time and complexity. A seminal work in its own right.

The French Chef Cookbook has very easy, approachable recipes, to get most folks going, unless you have fancy, other than just really good, expectations.

The Way to Cook is very nice and a good overall book to have (though not to my mind capturing the best essence of Julia.) Perhaps I need to try more recipes in this one. Most of her later books are akin to children after the age they have been "socialized" and are delivering forth what they are supposed to in the best way they know how, and doing so in a most competent manner. I have pretty much given these away, though given more space than I have as well as several servants, which I also am deeply void of, I would have kept them all.

I have both volumes of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, The French Chef Cookbook, and Julia's Kitchen Wisdom. Kitchen Wisdom is my go-to book, though. The recipes are relatively simple and focus more on technique that is adaptable to a range of ingredients.

I also have Always, Julia, a compilation of the letters between her and Avis deVoto leading up to the publication of the first volume of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. It is an interesting peek into life in the 50s.

Of course, I've also seen Julie & Julia and read My Life in France.

If I only had one to choose, it would be Mastering the Art of French Cooking Volume I. The recipe for casserole-roasted duck with turnips is amazing. Turnips are Not My Favorite Thing despite the many great restaurants we've eaten at, but in this one recipe, they are simply luscious.

Of course, if you braise almost anything in duck fat, it would be amazing, but still...I was 17 when I first ate this, and it started my interest in cookbook collecting. My oldest sister made this for a small dinner party which I attended. She was cooking her way through the book in 1973, long before Julie what's-her-name was old enough to stop eating Twinkies, LOL.