Ethan Becker

This cookbook seems to be covering all the basics and most known recipes. It truly is all-purpose. I own the 1975 edition because I was told it was the best.

Excellent classic

No pictures, but everything in this cookbook is delicious.

This is an updated version of Rombauer and Becker's famous encyclopedia of cooking, tested and revised by their grandson and son, respectively. Ethan attended France's famed Cordon Bleu, but he attributes his cooking knowledge to his mother. Just as the original Joy, this is a great reference for anything you might think of cooking, as well as a compendium of dishes you never thought of cooking.