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I'd have to say I learned the basics from Better Homes & Gardens. My mom had one from the 60s from the first years of my parent's marriage, and for years that was the source for all of our birthday cakes. Then in college a friend gave me a paperback version for graduation, perfect for a bachelor getting his own place for the first time. I rarely use it now, but a couple of years ago I wanted to make turkey divan from the turkey leftovers and sure enough, there it was in black and white!

When my cooking became a bit more, ahem, sophisticated I fell in love with Amanda Hesser's The Cook and the gardener. She's a bit preachy, but I like when the writer explains why certain steps are necessary and teaches technique. My mom gave me the 75th anniversary of Joy of Cooking and it's great for many things, but not my go to as of yet.

I have to say the Joy of Cooking is my most used "go-to" cookbook. I often use it as a reference book -- not necessarily for recipes, but for ideas. I get cooking times, subtitutions, temperatures etc. from it. I also have bought it as a graduation present for many. If I am feeling more adventuous, I will go to other more specialized cookbooks for more exotic fare.

Like lakeloverhh, I rarely lift her recipes any longer but Irma is always looking over my shoulder whispering advise, giving hints and inspiration wherever I wander in the kitchen.
For the last thirty years, I have taken her to every wedding I attended and left her behind with a high quality, fully accessorized, carbon steel wok in hand to get the new brides (and grooms) started in their own culinary adventures. My edition is considerably older than the ones that I'm now gift wrapping.

My go-to for reference and guidelines is definitely Joy of Cooking. I use many others, and if I have time, I tend to compulsively cross-reference recipes against the Internet, other cookbooks, etc. I've even gone so far as to create spreadsheets listing the quantities of key ingredients called for in each recipe to form a general consensus when recipes seem to vary wildly.

Nevertheless, in a pinch, short on time, having a crisis, etc., Joy is always the first place I look.

Not a cookbook but a go-to website ... Cook's Illustrated. It has an archive of all issues since 1992.

I have this Good Housekeeping book I bought in England that is the perfect reference: it's much less concerned with recipes (which are buried in the back) and otherwise full of charts, diagrams, and photo illustrations. I have the 90s Joy, and I find the reference material very useful, though I am much less likely to take the recipe.

I think that a book is always better than a website - the visceral feeling of having a book at hand. with that I would say that there are several go to books depending on any particular cuisine. Marcella Hazan's 'Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking', Deborah Madison's 'Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone', Penelope Casas 'The Food and Wines of Spain', Richard Olney 'The French Menu Cookbook', Richard Sax 'Get In There & Cook' and 'Cooking Great Meals Every Day', Irene Kuo 'The Key to Chinese Cooking', Barbara Tropp 'The Modern Art of Chinese Cooking' and Mark Bittman 'How to Cook Everything' are a really good start.

In our home, the Joy of Cooking and How to Cook Everything seem to be most often used. But we rely heavily on Epicurious.com for quick recipe searches.

@richgirlred......I read every Nancy Drew mystery when I was a little girl. I didn't know there was a cookbook - when was that published?

There is part of a phrase going through my head - something about a key hole - it was a riddle/play on words. Making me nuts trying to remember! It's on the tip of my tongue. Something about a bee in there too. Nuts!

I'd be embarrassed to count my cookbooks - I enjoy reading them and trying new things. I often take parts of one recipe and parts of another. Changing them to suit my taste. I have everything from Julia Child, to church compilations to the ones my children put together in grade school and I cherish them all. It's like choosing a favorite child - I love them all. Those I didn't don't live here anymore.

I'd second epicurious.com and foodnetwork.com. I check a lot of recipe sites if I'm on a hunt for something in particular.

The 1975 edition of Joy of Cooking. It's the cookbook that I learned how to cook with, and it's the book I still look at first for inspiration. I also use both Betty Crocker and How to Cook Everything pretty frequently, and The Professional Pastry Chef is my go-to when I want to bake to impress.

I also admit that I have an ever-growing collection of church and community cookbooks, and find them to be the best for collecting regional specialties "just like Grandma's." My mom's husband has one such cookbook from Italy that I covet, because I'd love to have recipes straight from someone's Italian grandmother (of course, then I'd have to learn how to read Italian, natch).

Joy of Cooking (1975)
The New Basics (Rosso&Lutkins) good recipes & lots of info
Martha Dixon's Copper Kettle Cook Book (1993) not one bad recipe in the whole book
I too have a huge collection of church & community cook books along with all the regular cook books.

My go to would be Joy of Cooking - for some recipes (waffles for example) but more for the information in it. I have the 1967 copy - it was my father's and he gave it to with tears in his eyes (I exaggerate) when he got a newer version sometime in the late 1980s early 1990s maybe. The covers are gone from mine, but I still use it at least once a week! I know I turned to it for years when I made roasts because I could never remember how long to cook them for.

After that I have a number of speciality books - of them, the ones I use the most are Pasquale's (Christmas gift the year I left home) and an Asian one that I think was published by Williams Sonoma.

@ Maureen, would you look in your 1967 copy of Joy and see if there is a recipe for Oblaten (cookies). I know it's in one of the older copies. Thanks!

I'll be a "Joy of Cooking" dittohead, and add Julia Child's "The Way to Cook." Julia's "Mastering" has been in my kitchen since it first came out. Her "Julia's Kitchen Wisdom" is wonderful to have on hand when I have a senior moment on some essential, such as what temperature to bake a quiche, etc. My life wouldn't be the same without Julia. Oh, how I miss her.

i started out with The Joy of Cooking, but i use it less and less.

since my Mom got it for me a few years ago, my constant go-to-cookbook has been Claudia Roden's "The Book of Jewish Food". Challah, pasta, stuffed grape leaves, any egg dish you can imagine, dangerously buttery cookies, olive recipes, chickpea recipes. it's awesome.

PerkyMac--sorry it took so long to respond! The Nancy Drew Cookbook was published in 1975. I received it for my 12th birthday that same year. I actually really like the way they used the book titles for recipe titles. Cheesy, yes, but I still get a kick out of.

You can still get her cookbook--I've seen it at used book stores and on ebay.'

I ditto what everyone has said about Cook's Illustrated. Those folks rock.

My usual go-to cookbook is 'The Best Recipe', with McGee's works filling in gaps when I'm improvising something for the first time. But I started cooking when I was little, so things have changed a lot over time.

My first two cookbooks were intended for kids, and and I got them when I was about eight. A year or so later turned to my mother's main-stay cookbook (cannot remember the name) for its angel food cake recipe, since I wanted something challenging for 4H.

Once I left home, I usually didn't have any cookbooks, then I briefly had the 'New York Times Cookbook' and learned to cook meat (I was raised as a vegetarian). This vanished in one of my many moves, and for several years I simply improvised. Today, I still prefer to improvise (particularly favourite Tuscan dishes from when I was growing up), but like to understand the chemistry and physics of what I'm trying to do, so 'America's Test Kitchen' and Harold McGee are terrific resources.

Mom's go-to book was a circa 1950-something Joy of Cooking and she used that book so much the covers fell off, half the index come loose, and random pages disappeared. I still have that book.

But for some reason, I got a brand-new Better Homes and Gardens book when I was young(er than I am now) and that became my go-to for specific recipes, and for looking up things like cooking times and temps.

I also had a more recent Joy of Cooking, and when the 75th aniversary edition came out, I was ogling that, wondering if it would be a good addition to the cookbook collection. So I started looking online. Long story short, I ended up buying one of each of the Joy of Cooking revisions that I didn't have, including a replacement for mom's old book. I think there are 7 or 8...or 6? I don't know, I'd have to check the shelf. I bought most of them for a dollar or two, with the most expensive being about $12. Once in a while, I'll look up the same recipe in each edition of the book, and depending on what it is, I might make multiple versions. I did that a year or so ago, when I was making peanut brittle for someone as a gift. I made about 4 variations form the different books.

I've got a LOT of cookbooks, and I love browsing through them looking for inspiration and for new recipes, techniques, whatever. But if I'm looking for a specific recipe, unless I know exactly which cookbook I might most easily find it in, I'll just go online and search.