What a great show Kevin, I have always had a soft spot for cookbooks and there must be at least a hundred of them on the book shelves around me here in my study.

My Favorites are

#1 Better Homes & Gardens new Cook book

#2 Cooking from Quilt Country, By Marcia Adams, These are Amish and Mennonite recipes, these food are very familiar to me as both parents and grand parents are all from Pennsylvania 

#3 The Way To Cook, By Julia Child, by the time she did this book and series in the late 80s she had really hit her stride, I think it is her best work.

And of corse I have at least 75 Microwave Oven CBs mostly by the manufactures of MWOs , I don't cook from them much but they are an interesting part of the history of cooking and marketing of a new appliance that everybody has and use everyday. As with many new appliances that came into homes the makes of MWOs did not initially market them for the way they would be used, the first big mistake was calling them an oven, they tried to get people to cook traditional foods in them with very mixed results.

John L.

and its difficult to narrow it down to only three favorite cookbooks.  I have over two shelves of cookbooks collected for almost 50 years now.  

When I first learned to cook my Mom had the 1957 edition of the Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook and thats the one I learned my basic skills from.  I have a copy of the first edition from 1950 that belonged to my aunt and the re released 1998 version, which I still use.

If I had to narrow it down to only three they would be:

1. Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook, 1998 edition

2.Pillsbury Kitchen’s Cookbook

3.Kitchen Keepsakes, a collection of home cookin’ recipes

I use these three as references mainly.  But in reality, I use the 47 years of a collection of handwritten recipes that I’ve come up with over the years more than any cookbook, and a lot of my recipes are just in my head, and I cook from memory.  I keep these handwritten recipes 

in various cookbooks, fastened with a rubber band.  They are on a collection of scraps of paper, and only I know my “filing” system, but when I’m looking for a particular recipe, I always know just where to look.

And like Eugene, with the advent of the internet I look for recipes online, will review several, and often pick and choose what I like from several and come up with my own version, hence all the scraps of paper.  If I find the attempt successful, I write it down so I don’t forget and have it for future reference.

Both David and I prefer simple, plain food, but prepared meticulously.  I believe that good technique is just as important as good ingredients.  And most important, I want an attractive presentation, we eat with our eyes first.  A delicious dish or meal can be completely ruined by a sloppy, hap hazard presentation.

The first photo is of the three top cookbooks I use most, the second is of one of my stacks of handwritten recipes.  

I really believe that cooking should be a pleasure, not a chore.  When you enjoy cooking the finished product will always be better.

Eddie