Here's a short list of books on food and cooking that are essential for anyone's kitchen library — from the culinary newbie to the well-seasoned cook. They're all readily available in bookstores and online, in both print and digital form.
The Joy of Cooking: 75th Anniversary Edition, by Irma S. Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker, and Ethan Becker (Scribner, 2006)
The Joy of Cooking is the ultimate reference guide, giving cooks a hand in the kitchen with thousands of easy-to-understand recipes, tricks and techniques — how to cook everything from abalone to zucchini, and how to throw together a simple family meal or an elegant formal feast. Many recipes also include variations. So, for example, if you're curious about making lemon buttercream frosting, it gives you the option of taking either the Classic Buttercream or Swiss Meringue Buttercream recipes and adding grated lemon zest or lemon curd to it. The front of the book includes themed menu suggestions, entertaining tips, cocktails and even a visual guide to proper table settings, while the back of the book contains a guide to various ingredients and substitutions (e.g.: what to use if you don't have self-rising flour).On a personal note, The Joy of Cooking is the most referred-to cookbook in my collection, and as cooking instructor, it's also the one I recommend as a must-have to cooks both new and seasoned.
What's a Cook to Do?: An Illustrated Guide to 484 Essential Tips, Techniques, and Tricks, by James Peterson (Artisan, 2007)
Some people are visual learners, and this book is perfect for those who want to see how to fillet a fish, view the many things you can do with a microplane, and learn the proper way to pour Champagne, and much, much more. What's a Cook to Do? lists 500 essential kitchen techniques, many with step-by-step color photographs and detailed instructions that even the most inexperienced cook can understand. This book also serves as a great refresher course for someone who has previously learned a cooking technique but hasn't performed it in awhile (myself included).
The New Food Lover's Companion, by Ron and Sharon Tyler Herbst (Barron's Educational Series, 2007)
A required text for culinary students and a vital addition to any cook's repertoire, The New Food Lover's Companion is a detailed reference guide to ingredients and cooking techniques. With over 6,000 entries and numerous illustrations, it's the culinary counterpart of the Merriam-Webster dictionary. If something is not listed in this book, it either doesn't exist yet or will be added to the next edition. The appendix is also very handy, containing a pasta glossary, pan substitution chart, consumer information contacts, ingredient equivalents, substitutions, and more.
The Flavor Bible: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America's Most Imaginative Chefs, by Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page (Little, Brown and Company, 2008)
The "how to" and "why" in cooking is covered in the tomes mentioned above, but The Flavor Bible answers the "what." Not so much a cookbook, it's more of an experimentation guide for the taste buds. Need to know what flavors pair best with Roquefort cheese if adding it to a salad, or which herbs and spices to use when preparing a Latin American-inspired dish? Then look no further than this handy reference with more than 600 alphabetical ingredient listings. In addition, there are flavor combination recommendations and inspirational short essays on food and cooking by some of the top chefs in the world.
I always find myself referring to this book when experimenting with a new recipe or building a menu, and it's another that I highly recommend to cooking students and the culinarily curious.
This article appears in Dec 15-21, 2011.