Oh, ELIZABETH DAVID's books, undoubtedly:

FRENCH PROVINCIAL COOKING
SUMMER COOKING
MEDITERRANEAN COOKING
FRENCH COUNTRY COOKING

Elizabeth David emerged just after WW2 in the '50s, as a cookery writer. She inspired a culinary deprived Britain to go out and look for all kinds of things, after spending time in France, herself, and keeping keen notes on the French classic dishes she encountered. She also gives you the simplest of ways to prepare food.

She is an amazing writer whose recipes are interspersed with quotations from all over and intermittently inlaid with sketches and woodcuts. In her private life, she was a troubled woman; very beautiful, I gather, but her writing sparkles with enthusiasm for her subject.

While other writers may give you just recipes, Elizabeth David gives you a complete method and modus operandi for cooking. I refer to one, other or all of her books at least every week

Also to be recommended of hers:

ITALIAN COOKING

Dido

I have a shelf full of favorites, but the stand-out is Julia's Kitchen Wisdom by Julia Child. A slim volume that provides a master for each type of food (meat, fish, sauces, vegetables, etc.) with variations on each. More like a notebook from an accomplished cook with techniques explained simply. Amazing that a book with 127 pages can contain recipes and cooking techniques for virtually anything you might bring home from the grocery store.

I like my old Better Homes & Gardens red plaid cookbook, as well as Joy of Cooking. Mostly, I now cook from recipes collected over the years and put into three-ring binders. Also, I've never made anything from a Southern Living Magazine recipe that wasn't good.

My mother said that as long as you repeatedly used at least 3 recipes from a cook book, it was worthwhile having.

My most battered (most used) cookbooks are:

The Settlement Cook Book
Joy of Cooking
Hometown Cooking in New England
Simply Soups and Stews
The Secrets of Jesuit Soup Making (also an interesting between recipes read)
Also - the old copy of the red and white Better Homes!

I subscribe to "Cooking Light" and at the end of the year buy the Book version of the year's recipes...Easier than clipping recipes or storing magazines.

And several binders of clipped or typed recipes...kept in plastic sleeves so I can tape them to the cabinets while I cook.

I subscribe to Cook's Illustrated...it's fascinating the process they go through when testing recipes. Also, it's full of good suggestions and helps, that are hard to find elsewhere.

I have a number of cookbooks but it's Joy of Cooking that I use the most (and keep in the kitchen). I love the way it explains stuff -- makes it easier to follow and substitute.

I pretty much only use church cookbooks. I have several but always find something new in them. Most of those nice ladies can really cook and they like to put their best recipes in.

I have several church cookbooks, too, and agree that they have good recipes. The funniest is one that is not at all well organized; e.g., corn pudding is printed with the desserts.

Pretty much the only cook book I use when I cook (rare) is the Better Homes and Garden cookbook. The recipes are easy (most of the time) and quick and tasty.

I do have other cookbooks including some Weight Watcher ones because it can be tough to find tasty healthy recipes sometimes. Tasty by itself - yes - easy to find. Healthy by itself - yes easy to find. But together - not so easy.

saw Wood's cookbook thread and posted there, then moved down the page and found this one-which I imagine was where Wood was trying to post when RPF went weird on her-which it seems to be doing more and more. anyway, just for continuity, and becasue i know your day is not complete until you know about my cookbooks (in case it doesn't come through, that's all very broad sarcasm)
: In my kitchen, I regularly use:
Joy of Cooking,
Better Homes and Gardens,
and two anniversary cookbook collections from the Junior League.

I have taken Rachael Ray's 30 Minute Meals cookbooks out of the library, but haven't been able to do any of them in 30 minutes (not having a staff slows me down) and she is a much bigger spice user than I am-but when I leave the spices out, I don't really like the dish.
I have also tried some of Nigella's recipes, and have one of her books-but again, a lot of fiddling around. I'm trying to make dinner, not aspiring to goddess status. That ship has sailed!

I've cooked daily since I was 16, first for myself, later for a family so I rarely look in my 40 cookbooks any more. It's most often when I want to relive a travel memory like when I shocked my husband with the truly terrible Algerian mutton soup we had in Alger in 1970. He recognized it at once, after 30 years. It's made with fat mutton, macaroni, cinnamon and mint. Not to be recommended.

I really like the Moosewood Cookbooks from a vegetarian restaurant in Ithaca, NY, very typical 80ies ethnic fare.

I'm not much of a cook, but rely on my Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book, Laura Brody's The Kitchen Survival Guide, and Mills & Ross's Desperation Dinners.

I also like "Virginia Hospitality" which is considered a classic in my part of the world.

marianese, I recall in the 1980's eating in a restaurant in upstate New York inspired by the Moosewood cookbooks, which I like very much. The setting was pastorale, with sheep grazing outside of the restored farmhouse. The owners grew their own herbs and made their own cheese. So we had a Moosewood inpired menu, but the only problem was that the cooks put so much spice in the dishes that DH and I developed instant, severe nosebleeds. I will never forget that meal....

I have also succombed to Rachel Ray's 30-minute cookbook and have tried to do it in 30 minutes, but no can do. She chops a lot faster than I do, and I find rather stressful to cook at that speed when I don't really need to. I'd rather watch someone more relaxed like Paula Deen or that Countess person.