Which recipe book could you not live without?

[TheWorstWitch]

And why?
Looking for christmas present inspiration.
TIA

Dammit!
This thread has made me do bad things on Amazon instead of planning this week's phonics.

Any Nigel book - the new one Tender is brilliant but they all are

And a lovely book by Jo Pratt called In the Mood for Food - gorgeous pictures and all the receipes are delicious and easy

For me it would have to be Feast by Nigella Lawson. I know she's annoying on the telly, but this book is inspiring and wonderful. I got it for xmas one year and by Easter, all the pages were stuck together! I have made over 35 of the recipes with great success. Don't bother with the profiterole one - it doesn't work. Use Delia's recipe instead for that.

I like Jamie's Ministry of Food, especially the curries. I always thought they were difficult but they're not. It's full of good simple home cooking.

Love Nigella's books. Easy to follow, beautiful illustrations and the recipes actually work.
In the past I have used many books and the end product has been rather disappointing, I find Nigella's work to a tea.
I must admit I now often use Mumsnet recipes, I like the hints, tips and variations fellow Mumsnetter give but you can't give them as a pressie can you??

Julia Child 'Mastering the Art of French Cooking'

here

No pictures, great book to use. But quite different, lots of poultry and meat dishes, butter, cream and pastries and um a bit of an absence of lots of vegetables. Am used to it as mother has French background and cooked a lot that way.

But still, good stuff in there.

Nigella's 'How to Eat' really got me into cooking and realising what an enjoyable central part of life cooking and sharing food is (obviously i did eat before this but this book changed my perspective, it was quite revolutionary for me.)-it's more than a cook book, it also a brilliant read about the place of food and cooking in our lives.

I love her 'Domestic Goddess' book too and have used that loads.

Delia's vegetarian book is also weel used in our house, as is The Cranks Bible (veggie cook book).

Elizabeth David - Just classic French cooking simple and about 40 years old!

Also love the naked chef books, now into baking the The Hummingbird cafe book is FAB!

I have Silver Spoon have never cooked anything from it.

I really want to like the Nigel Slater books, food looks great on TV but I have his Kitchen Diary and have never cooked a thing from it.

I remember The Dairy Book of Home Cookery (Sonia Allison) fondly from my student days (don't laugh, I studied Home Ec) but I don't have a copy.

Jane Grigson's Vegetable Book (just a little, old, paperback, no illustrations).

Good Housekeeping Cookbook. It contains pretty much everything I've ever needed!

Although it might not be terribly inventive, it provides you with the basics to build on.

I just love it.

Another one here who doesn't hugely rate Nigel Slater. I just feel that most of his recipes aren't actual meals but 'bits' - or maybe I am just very greedy. The man seems to live on tomatoes, noodles and hunks of meat as far as I can tell.

Jamie's first and second books - still use them all the time,

Nigel Slater 30 minute one - fabulous

Delia for basics

River Cafe Easy for fabulous Italian food

Leith's baking bible for the best baked stuff EVER - the chocolate fudge cake is to die for

I cut my teeth on a very old copy of Katie Stewart.

But now I swear by Cuisine Gourmande which is surprisingly simple and also I love Nigel Slater's Real Fast Food.

I prefer Nigella to Delia - Delia is too much of a pfaff.

I do love Jamie Oliver's Ministry of Food as well. Lots of good basic food.

My mum's copy of Good Housekeeping is brilliant, my up-to-date copy - not so much. I still use it a lot though.

I have loads of books and most of them do get a fair amount of use, but the majority of new recipes I am cooking at the moment come from Olive mag (I have a subscription). It is brilliant - most months there are between 5 and 10 easy (usually 30 min) recipes that I have a go at. I think I have only been disappointed once in 3 years. I have given lots of friends subscriptions and they all seem pretty happy (had requests for repeats!)

Had Silver Spoon from library. I wouldn't buy it.

Has anyone tried Diane Henry's 'Cook simple'? Have made LOADS from it - she writes for the Telegraph. Very simple and practical. Love Jamie's dinners and also Jamie at Home, Nigella's how to eat and feast but YES - my tatty old copy of Delia! Use old copy of Delia's Christamas too and it never fails me. Love this thread but am slightly embarassed by how many of these books I have!

I haven't read the whole thread, but my personal favourite is the 'river cottage family cook book' I love the projects in it that you can do with the family, but most of all I like the fact that the recipes are fairly simple, using ingredients that I actually have in the house.

Like many others I enjoy Nigella - have Domestic goddess and Feast which I love as a good read as well as good recipes.

I also love Nigel Slater, Appetite and Kitchen Diaries my faves.

tbh I am as likely to be standing in the kitchen reading one of these while cooking spaghetti bolognese as actually doing a recipe, but anyway...

I don't often use cookbooks for recipes apart from Marcella Hazan's Classic Italian one: it's a tad bossy but absolutely brilliant, and it has recipes that to me at least are much less obvious than those in Nigel Slater, Jamie Oliver etc, though they are still good reading material.

But the book I think is most wonderful is Hugh F-W's Meat: it has tons of information on butchery, the different cuts of meat, buying meat (I'm now way more confident in the butcher's), cooking techniques and WHY some things work and others don't, and a surprisingly unpreachy and very persuasive section on why intensive farming is rubbish. Plus it has decent recipes (sometimes a little fiddly) if you want that too.

Nigel Slater - Appetite and Real Cooking

Entertaining with Katie Stewart

Jamie Oliver - Dinners

for basics The Beginners Cookbook by Rosemary Wadey (v old-fashioned now)

Fast Cakes by Mary Berry - has a few duff recipes, but a lot of good

Am I the only person who doesn't like Delia? - I find her writing style really off-putting.