Today's topic is Cookbooks.
In my opinion, a beginner-medium-level home cook only needs two cookbooks:
Joy of Cooking
and
How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman.
(Vegetarians may prefer How to Cook Everything Vegetarian.)
With these two books, you'll have all the basic knowledge: how to bake, how to cook vegetables, meats, poultry-- everything the home cook needs.
I also keep a binder of recipes that I've printed from www.allrecipes.com and other blogs. I'll shuffle through them if I am looking for inspiration. I also like allrecipes for its ingredient search-- you can either search for a recipe incorporating items you have on-hand, or you can search for a recipe that omits an item that's not tasty to you.
So-- there you go!
Next time: Kitchen Essentials: Knives