I have Bittman's "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian" and I would NOT recommend it to a beginning cook who doesn't know how to cook. It is overwhelming even to me, and I LIKE to cook and know how, sort of. It would be good for a beginning cook who knows how to cook and wants to become really proficient and expand their repertoire past the basics. There's two schools of thought I think on beginning cookbooks. One is the encyclopedic approach like "Joy" Good Housekeeping, Betty Crocker, etc. That's a cookbook for life and pretty much covers everything you'll want to know to cook for yourself, family and guests, in a general way. But I don't know how well they do to inspire someone to cook. For that, you need something with lots of pictures and written in a chatty style, IMHO. My mom has both Betty Crocker and the Good Housekeeping books and I like her older, Betty Crocker better since it has LOTS of photos and explanation pages. That's the one that taught me. Oddly though, the book that really got me cooking and inspired me to be a good cook was "The Alice's Restaurant Cookbook" by Alice May Brock. It was written in a very cheerleader style (albeit a hippy earth mother cheerleader) that really gave me confidence to cook the yummy basics and then improvise. Lots of photos, jokes, and cool things like a guide to spices, cuts of meat, how to doll up a box cake mix, etc., etc. Nothing in there is fancy but it is all downhome good and you really can find anything you want in there, at least she touches on it and gives you the courage to go out and do more. Not sure who is writing a book like that now. Frankly I think some bloggers do that kind of thing best nowdays.

I have a copy of, "the NEW Fannie Farmer-Boston Cooking-School COOK BOOK", 1953. My father, in his retirement, took on the care of several Summer homes in Southern Maine. He would check on them during the winter, board up windows against storms, uncover rose gardens when the time was right, deal with emergencies...that kind of thing. During the Summer, when people were in residence, he was sort of a general, all around handyman. His largest client was old money...there was a beach named after the family, a road named after the family, and a huge home, loaded with antiques that had been the original furnishings. An elderly Black woman came up every summer from South Carolina to be their cook for the season. Little bittie thing, set in her ways and stubborn as heck, but since she'd been cooking for the family for decades, she knew what they liked and how to manage them. I had been separated from my father at age 5, and when I found him again in my early 30's, I went out to stay with him and my stepmother for a year to get to know them. He took me down to meet Marguerite. She was a kick, and we got along...several years later, when she knew that she wouldn't be able to make it up again the next season (or ever), she gave my father her Fannie Farmer for me. It still has a bunch of book marks in it, some with shopping lists, some with her name, some with cryptic notes I can't decipher, all in the same, slanted hand. I actually use the book quite a bit, but I don't disturb the bookmarks. I sometimes puzzle over the marked pages, wondering which recipe she had marked... I also have my mother's copy of "The Complete American-Jewish Cookbook",1952. It has a separate section of Passover recipes. There are no pork recipes, naturally. Generally, the cookies and bread recipes are good. As for unique...I have an Ethiopian cookbook...the only one I've been able to find. "Exotic Ethiopian Cooking-Society, Culture, Hospitality, & Traditions. I've only made a couple of dishes out of it. I love Ethiopian food, and when I found out how much Nit'ir Qibe (purified herb & spice butter) is used in most of the dishes I love, I realized why I love them. For example, in dishes made from 1 pound of ground beef, it is not unusual that they contain a cup of butter. A typical lentil dish pairs 2 cups of lentils with 2 cups of butter. No wonder I love it!

Well, I'm going to buck the trend here. (What else is new?) I adored Julia Child, but when I was 21, I had no interest in taking on that level of book. It was too intimidating. And I've never used my Joy of Cooking, which I didn't even consider buying until I was in my mid-30s and felt l "should" have a copy. It's probably a godsend if you entertain formally or have a family to feed, but it's never suited my style or circumstances. As much as I dislike her on TV, Sara Moulton's "Sara Moulton Cooks at Home" is a good cookbook - simple recipes but appealing to a younger, move novice cook than the "old standards". The Fannie Farmer Cookbook (the version edited by Marion Cunningham) or Marion Cunningham's "learning to Cook" are both good. (The second one is written for adults in spite of the misleading name.) And the Martha Stewart publicantion we were talking about recently "Everyday Food" now has a cookbook out that looks good. The one I probably depended on more than any other when I was a new cook were Betty Crocker and Better Homes and Gardens. I still have my BH&G.

As usual, I find Rachelellen's post full of wisdom. It gives me some of the guidance I want. Cooking the same cuisine (not the same dishes) for one week straight would be no hardship at all for me. When I returned from a one week trip to Italy I cooked nothing but northern Italian food for at least three weeks. There was nothing monotonous about it. That experience has faded. I need another trip to Italy for a refresher course. I don't see the need to limit the experiment to a single cookbook, although that could be an effective way to do it, given the right book. Books I would recommend are: Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art by Shizuo Tsuji The Key to Chinese Cooking by Irene Kuo Classic Indian Cooking by Julie Sahni The Cuisines of Mexico by Diana Kennedy These books are similar in approach and format although about different cuisines and by different authors. They provide a solid foundation for cooking each cuisine. Again, I say that switching to another ethnic cuisine for an extended period of time is a fine idea. Those for whom that is their native cuisine eat it daily year after year don't they? Jim