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The Best Recipe from Cooks Illustrated in a nice book--I like that they explain why they're using certain techniques--which is nice for young cooks a bit of science and logic behind a dish. I also like Bittmann's How to Cook Everything.

I bought my sister Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything and she LOVES it!

I have agree with @Suzzane - I love my Betty Crocker cookbook (the basic one, in the binder with separaters). It gives great explanations for why things turn out the way that they do (cookies that are too flat, crunchy, chewy, etc) and how to fix those issues in the future. It also gives a lot of variations on each of the recipes that it provides, as well as accurate nutritional breakdowns (protein, fiber, etc) and other random tips that beginning cooks really need (and I still use).

My cooking bible is the Joy of Cooking.

Joy of Cooking, a subscription to Cook's Illustrared and Martha Stewart's Cooking School.
Tyler Florence or Barefoot Contessa would not hurt either.

Ditto what Jerzee said. I have those books and refer to them constantly. I'd also say throw in the Bittman and a New Pro Chef (the CIA text) for when she wants to think about more advanced, restaurant-style technique.

Like the above said Cook's Illustrated, Betty Crocker, Joy of Cooking and CIA.

"Things Cooks Love" by Sur La Table, and "Martha Stewart's Cooking School" - both available at SLT. The first goes through just about every pan and kitchen tool and describes how to get the best use of them, along with recipes. Martha's book explains the basics, such as how to roast a chicken and make simple stocks and sauces. I've been cooking for 10 years now (and consider myself pretty darn good!) but keep these 2 in the kitchen for handy references.

I grew up cooking out of Betty Crocker, and I still refer to it often. But far and away, my go to book these days is How to Cook Everything. I love the fact that it has all kinds of variations on basic recipes, and sometimes a search for one thing leads to an even more exciting variation.
One of my other favorites is Everyday Food: Great Food Fast from Martha Stewart. The seasonal setup and wonderful pictures are particularly inspiring and the ingredients lists are usually things I have onhand.

I have the big yellow GOURMET cookbook. It has all the great recipes from the magazines. It covers just about everything.

One of my tests for a beginner's cookbook is looking for explanations of things like how to beat egg whites. If they're REAL beginners, they'll need that sort of thing.

I agree with almost all of the previous posts, but I did want to add two others: if you're looking for a good baking book in addition to a cooking book, I'd recommend Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook. Beautiful pictures, classic recipes, and simple instructions. Also, if your neice and her fiance are healthy eaters, I'd recommend the Best of Cooking Light cookbook. It covers a wide range of topics, and has some really delicious recipes that are guilt-free. I love mine, and haven't made anything from it that didn't turn out well.

Lots of great suggestions here. Also, since you have a little time, a more personal gift would be to ask as many relatives & friends as you think appropriate in this case for their favorite family recipes & put together a notebook/binder full of them.

I have Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian, and I reach for it before I reach for Joy of Cooking every time (for meat stuff I go to my food blogs before Joy). This isn't an all-around cookbook, but if she like Mexican/Tex-Mex food, get her "The Tex-Mex Cookbook". It is awesome.

Bittman would be my recommendation too.

I got "Roast Chicken and Other Stories" for christmas (i actually chose it for myself and my parents "gave" it to me), having heard that it is "the most useful cookbook ever written". It's a curious description, because a lot of the recipes are for semi-obscure things and it doesn't even attempt to be comprehensive in the way that Bittman's obviously does. However, it features some of the best food writing i've ever read, espouses a philosophy I agree with (good ingredients + un-fussy recipes prepared well = great tasting food), and if nothing else, reminds one that every single food out there tastes better with a stick of butter in the recipe.

Yep, another person enthusiastically voting for Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything -- another one that I personally like is Denis Kelly and Bruce Aidells' Complete Meat Cookbook, er, provided your neice and her husband aren't vegetarians. :} -- It has all the prep for cuts of meat that I couldn't find in Bittman's book!

Maybe this is just a Milwaukee thing, but my mom's first cookbook - therefore, my first cookbook - was the Settlement Cookbook. Her copy is decades old, and yet we both still use it.

I've narrowed my choices down to Joy of cooking (newest edition), artisan bread in 5 minutes a day, and Larousse Gastronomique. Before you say anything let me just say that I read Gastronomique like a novel...where else would I find out what they served for King Henry VIII banquets? Seriously it does give a lot of good basic information that I have referenced many times. Looking at getting the new edition myself.

I fully agree with almost all of the above books mentioned. I would also like to add " The Theory and Practice of Good Cooking" by James Beard. The recipes are simple, the results are amazing, and each recipe develops a technique which alas, assists one in creating recipes on their own with unerring confidence.

I like the suggestion of the Beard book since I use mine often.

I have been giving Julia's Kitchen Wisdom to young cooks lately and had wonderful comments. It's a slim volume, but covers a lot with little fluff - Julia Child was great with basics and this book is concise and easy to understand. and the info about making salad dressings and primal sauces is excellent. She discusses basics of technique, ingredients and methods.

She and her co-author, David Nussbaum, managed to cram a world of knowledge into 127 pages.

The New Cook by Donna Hay is one of my favorites, and when she becomes more confident in the kitchen she can still return to the recipes and try them again, because they are creative, different and interesting, yet easy to prepare.

I would suggest "On Cooking", the first manual they handed out at culinary school.
It's got an awesome glossary of terms, plenty of pictures with step by step instructions that even those that cut themselves looking at cutlery can follow. It runs though all the classic french, as well as new american and some asian notes as well.
Best of all, they can be found dirt cheap used at any culinary school store with just a few gravy stains for character. I got mine back in 02 and still use it today!

Joy of Cooking

Julia & Jacques Cooking at Home.

I'd skip the subscription to Cook's Illustrated and just pay for a membership to their website. It has all the recipes that have ever appeared in CI, plus instructional videos and lots of other helpful info for a new cook. It's true that they are definitely full of themselves and that their attitude of 'this is the best recipe for this dish ever created in the history of humankind' is annoying, but their recipes always work, are usually very good and the explanations help you understand WHY you're doing the steps you're doing.

I second the Betty Crocker and Martha Stewart books, and would add a desserts only book, maybe Martha's Cookie Book or one of the Williams-Sonoma dessert books.

Would not recommend ATK; way too anal and smug, even for professed foodies. Not every recipe needs a two page explanation of, "And then, because of the transitive reactive Halstead-era seizing properties of the Aboriginal Double Humpback Turtle, I thought, what if I add one teaspoon of clarified monkey paste?."

I'm surprised I'm the only one here with a vote for Alton Brown's "I'm Just Here for the Food" and "I'm Just Here for more Food." For an utter novice to cooking and baking, these books will give a great grasp of the fundamentals, and explain some of the simple whys and wherefores of recipes. My only problem is that it has a dearth of recipes: the recipes there are just to teach you how to cook.

For my younger brother, when he moved out, I gave him Brown's two books, and the family's Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. He was cooking up good dinners in just a couple months. :-)

I'd go with How to Cook Everything (or the Vegetarian version), Martha Stewart's Everyday Food: Great Food Fast and I'd add Pam Anderson's How to Cook Without a Book.

Alice Water's The Art of Simple foods and Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone are books I'd buy for a beginner. As a new cook gains confidence, these books will grow with her.

one of my best friends asked me to teach her how to cook as a wedding present... due to schedule conflicts it was difficult to organize, so I gave her a binder of many recipes I had collected over the years from magazines and the internet... I classified them by appetizers, main courses, etc and made notes on my experiences with them. She really loved it...

This was about 7-8 years ago. I visited her recently in her new home and she has the binder in her kitchen for easy access. I ma glad she appreciated it and valued it so much...

Madelyn
KarmaFreeCooking

Joy of Cooking,and Staff Meals by David Waltuck et al

The Silver Spoon is a class wedding gift in the Italian community, although I use a lot of the above mentioned (j of cook, Bittman) more often. The Silver Spoon is nice to have on the shelf though.

Nothing wrong with the old Betty C., but if she wants to learn to cook, rather than learn to make recipes, ATK. A sound grounding in theory is the basis for improvisation, unless you have enough bathrooms for all of your guests and a nearby McDonalds for them to hit on the way home.

Jamie Oliver's 'Ministry of Food'

I agree that the Art of Simple Food would make a nice beginners cookbook and a nice gift, esp. if she's the sort that would appreciate the Alice Waters perspective (less if she's more Rachael Ray). It's very simple (too simple for a more experienced cook), but what I like is that it's more than a collection of recipes: she explains what to look for while you're cooking. Kind of like Judy Rodgers in Zuni (which is a bit too complicated and expensive ingredients-wise), Waters incorporates the senses and will help your niece really learn how to cook well. Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone is also a great book, and could be the only resource she'd ever need for cooking vegetables and grains. It's much better than Joy or most others in that regard.

There are so many good options out there. I think a lot would depend on what sort of personality and lifestyle she has. If she's quite modern and into design, etc., then I'd recommend Donna Hay's The New Cook. It's actually quite a few years old, but the photos are breathtaking and the approach is very modern but simple. If she's also got some gourmet aspirations, then she'll like Cook with Jamie (Jamie Oliver).

If she's more traditional, then the classic Joy or Fannie Farmer may be more appropriate. I take a stand that, practically, the 90s Joy ("All New") is a better choice. It may not have the alleged charm and whatnot of original, but it's got a wider array of recipes and cuisines that will be of interest to people who want to cook more than they want to read cookbooks. Ie., illustrations of skinning a squirrel are amusing, but I'd rather have a manageable recipe for pad thai. Also, no canned soup ingredients.

Personally I am not a fan of Bittman and have usually been underwhelmed with his recipes (and I've tried more than a fair share). Everyone needs one of those resource books with definitions, cooking times, storage tips, etc., which his books certainly contain. But beyond that, I find his food quite boring.

I don't own Cooking by James Peterson, but I've thumbed through it and would love to own it. It's very comprehensive, but it's also quite classically (French) oriented. If she doesn't seem the type to make a lot of sauces, for example, it might be excessive. But it's beautifully and comprehensively photographed, which gives it a definite edge over Joy or the others.

If the person is intelligent and is looking for a foundation for a long-term love affair with cooking, there is not a better book than ON FOOD AND COOKING by HAROLD MCGEE.

It is *the* bible of cooking, it will provide the science, explanation, and facts behind every type of ingredient in the world. No matter which direction you take your love of food and cooking, it will be the base, you will wear the cover and spine off of it.

I heartily recommend The Taste of Home Cookbook...good range of recipes, easy-to-understand directions, and nice binder-style format. I also enthusiastically recommend any cookbook by Phyllis Pellman Good. Her recipes and directions are superb!

How to Cook Everything is a safe bet, but you might also consider Cookwise by Shirley Corriher. Like the McGee book, Cookwise is extensive in explaining the hows and whys of cooking - but it is more user friendly and suggestive.

oops. Make that Fast, Easy, Fresh...the one in the green cover.

Another vote for Bittman - I have the vegetarian one and love it. The aforementioned Alton Brown books are also good for younger people who are looking for serious information but a less serious presentation.

Go for Bittman/Brown now, Cookwise and Bakewise (just got this and love it) a year out, and McGee after she's said something about really loving to cook.

I've been doing a bit of thinking relating to this on my blog. I'd go with Cookwise. Why? It provides a good set of recipes that can be used as normal recipes, but it also explains why the recipes work. It teaches the reader how to use a cookbook and think about recipes. You can ignore these lessons, if you want, but if you want to learn how to actually cook, they are there. . .

Fannie Farmer as revised by Marion Cunningham and Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone by Deborah Madison.

LoVe, LOvE, LOVE the original Barefoot Contessa Cookbook by Ina Garten (the one with the potato salad on the front).
http://www.barefootcontessa.com/books/index.shtml
It's so beautiful, but more importantly, it's very approachable, straightforward, simple and INSPIRING. She helps the reader to approach entertaining in the right (relaxed) way. Can't say enough about this book - my copy is in shreds from using it so much.

The Joy of Cooking may not be the most "user friendly" book but it is an excellent "text book type" book for the new cook to teach themselves.

I also agree that an subscription to Cook's Illustrated would be a great tool.

In my family, I give younger cousins Betty C.'s 1969 version--which all our our moms use-- with notes on post-its for the common family recipes, i.e., "Aunt Rachel's famous cookies." It might be worthwhile to find out what her mom's cooking bible is, then find the same edition. I also have organized cookbooks or boxes of recipe cards made up of recipes submitted by and friends of the newlyweds.

If you're looking to bake the basics - cookies, brownies, bars, muffins, etc.. The Impatient Baker has a simple approach - uses pantry staples and most recipes are made in 1 bowl - quick, easy and good!

Well I just married 2 weeks ago and I bouth the book Taste of Home cookbook I love it. It gives you picture for every recipe and give you "how to" and "why". Every recipe that I have tryed has been great.