Food anthropologist
http://www.bu.edu/anthrop/people/faculty/m-white/Elizabeth David
My first cookbook, bought when I hadn't a good knife to my name. Got said knife at her cookshop from her own hand. This is the cookbook that took me out of Minnesota.
Irma Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker
I seem to have several JCs: Julia Child, Joyce Chen and J of C. They are equally tattered and this one held together by duct tape. My only brownie recipe is covered in chocolate: you can lick the page.
Simone Beck, Louisette Bertholle and Julia Child
As a young caterer, I relied heavily on her - and she came to my rescue often, knowing it was me when I called as I was always in tears. The Charlotte Malakov au chocolat was a crowd pleaser. She was the real deal.
Sami Tamimi and Yotam Ottolenghi
Non-stop wonderful. I have cooked my way through it with kudos at every recipe: flavor first, no matter how many substitutions I have to make.
The best Chinese cookbook, period. You don't have to love hot chilis to love this book.
Carol Field
Every Italian grandmother in this book is a star and the torta della nonna is fabulous.
Shizuo Tsuji
Only slightly disingenuous. It helped me channel my mid 1970s year of cooking school in Japan into practical uses today.
Elizabeth Andoh
Superlative and comes with the sense you are in her kitchen. Eminently trustworthy and exceedingly savory.
Katharine Whitehorn
Yes, I know, not really way up there but I loved it living in same in the UK and she had such a sense of humor.
David Lebovitz
Lebovitz, like all good writers, brings you along with him and I enjoy his wonder at the good things available only in his adopted home in Paris.