John Becker

Changed the way we make bread at home and allows home cooks to make bakery-quality bread without dumbing down the process.

We are equally enamored of her book on vegetables and appreciate the wealth of information, historical anecdotes, and thoughtful recipes.

West's take on preserving is elegant and creative without being gimmicky. Historical asides and poetry are interspersed throughout, and I often find myself fully absorbed in the book when I was really just looking for a recipe for apricot preserves.

One of the best examples of the community cookbook, a form that captures local cuisines like no other. Stripped of extraneous adornment, this is simply a collection of recipes that represents a distinct branch of southern cooking in an honest way.

Iyer's recipes introduced us to the complex and delicious use of spices in Indian cuisine--toasting, blending, tempering, using them whole or ground--and his recipes just work.

A corrective to the American view of "Chinese food." Her recipes result in incredibly flavorful, complex, and authentic dishes.

McLagan's books are so wonderful because she tackles difficult subjects without squeamishness or apology.

This is part reference book, part recipe book delivered in Madison's easygoing style. Her recipes are very clean, and she approaches vegetables by family. This is an unusual organization strategy, but it teaches you how to treat entire families of vegetables rather than going at each one in a disjointed way.

Marcella is simply the authority on Italian cooking. This is always the first book we turn to when we have a question about authentic Italian food.

This book encapsulates what is so vibrant about the food of this region. In a sense, this is an aspirational cookbook, but it's accessible enough for home cooks.