Hands down I agree. Great starter cookbook. One of my first. Definately the one I refer to the most by far. I have about 20, including a bunch of church group type ones, and "Annual" books put out by cooking mags and Better Homes etc.

There is not one, but I would not do without my Larousse Gastronomique (Though not, officially a cookbook, but an encyclopedia).

Funny you asked because I am looking for a vegetarian or meatless meal book.

but I don't suggest a cookbook for a weekend away. ( edit -although at the time of this post your weeks been over) How about some panini sandwiches. Lots of cream cheese, sprouts, (vegtables off all kinds)
meats and cheeses and a homemade soup so you can eat leisurely and relax.

A good vegetarian cookbook is "The Vegitarian Epicure".

oohh yay! thanks! :jig:

Just remembered and looked. American Womens Cookbook, think I picked it up in Singapore.

Joy of Cooking, the best cook book out there.

Mark Bittman's How to cook everything. the original cookbook, not any of the spin off products. its a great go to....for example:
what do you do with kohlrabi? ....

Try The Enchanted Broccoli Forest by Mollie Katzen

I'm going to agree with the others that the "old" Joy of Cooking is the best. Mine's falling apart now, but it's the one I return to again and again.

I happened to get one of my daughters the "revised" Joy of Cooking and it's just not the same. Some of the best recipes and information are missing.

Some of the recipes worth the price of the book:

Chili con carne
peanut butter cookies
Hollaindaise sauce

Madhur Jaffrey's Indian cooking. Love her books.

Actually, the one cookbook I would want if I could only have one, no longer exists. My Gran spent much of her life writing in recipes in a notebook. Some of them were passed down through a couple of generations, some of them were cut out from old magazines (loads from the early forties), some of them were her own inventions (she used to experiment with different spice mixes to make her own masalas). Anyways.....it burned in Dad's house, so it's gone for good now.

That is a bummer. Pete has a recipe notebook with recipes collected from her Mom and Granmas plus cut-outs. It is almost invaluable.

Nothing beats a family recipe book.

For Christmas one year, my sister, who wanted to make presents rather than buy them, scanned and burned to CD-ROM my mom's entire box of family recipes cards complete with food stains, etc. She even did a cool index to link up all the recipes, so you can search by different ingredients, etc. It's cool, because now each sibling has a copy now.

What an awesomely inventive pressie!