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The Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook (http://www.bhg.com/bhg/store/product.jsp?catid=cat120006&prodid=prod590004) is a great place to start. It has instructions on basics like kneading dough and poaching eggs, as well as guides to cheeses and cuts of meats.

Another great starter book in the same format is the Betty Crocker Cookbook (http://www.cookbkjj.com/college/betty_crocker.htm).

Both the BHG and BCC are intended for beginners with instructive pictures of how do things, so you'll become familiar with the basics. The entertaining thing is that they change with each edition based on food trends. I have a couple of each, including a first print BCC from the 50s and it's hysterically funny to read what they did with vegetables back then. Like, "Boil asparagus for 15 - 20 minutes"

OH NO! She's becoming one of us! Should we tell her that it doesn't stop at one cookbook?

Julia Child taught me more from one book than I learned in my first 10 years of cooking, not just about French cooking but also about techniques that could be used with any style of cooking. She's thorough and funny and will gently strong-arm you into doing hard labor. She'll make you proud of yourself.

I usually give Mark Bittmann's book as a bridal shower gift with some kitchen tools. He covers more territory than Julia.

Alton Brown's "I'm Just Here for the Food (Food + Heat = Cooking)" is an excellent reference cookbook. (Get the 2.0 version.) Alton doesn't include tons of recipes, but there's a recipe for every scientific technique he explains. His other book, "Food x Mixing + Heat = Baking," is also good.

Dorie Greenspan's "Baking" is a wonderful book--I've made probably 90% of her recipes and have not had one failure.

I pull out my James Beard books and the all-purpose BH&G cookbooks (I have two red plaid editions, a pink plaid and the white baking book) a lot.

"The Joy of Cooking" is a solid book, and I own it, but it's kind of boring and I don't feel it lives up to its title--I don't feel the joy when I read it or cook from it. It's probably the least used cookbook in my collection.

My mother was the original open-heat-eat cook, while my friends ate wonderful foods like beef stroganoff and ravioli that you could smell a half a block away; I wanted to cook like my friends' moms. So a long, long time ago, when I was about 10 (right after the dinosaurs died), I'd check out cookbooks from the library. By the time I turned 12, I was the family cook. My mother was so proud. . .and very grateful.

After using a library cookbook for two or three weeks, you get a good feel for it. The ones I really, really liked, I'd ask for as birthday or Christmas gifts. If you start now, when you're almost 60 like me, you'll have more than 100 cookbooks you've received as gifts, plus another 50 or so you've bought for yourself, plus all the "Cook's Illustrated" magazines and such; your life partner and your children and grandchildren and neighbors will love your cookies and the way your home smells and the memories of learning to cook with you, and they'll borrow your cookbooks all the time, but jeez, they will complain no end when it comes time to move.

Be warned: One cookbook is not enough.

How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman

I have a suggestion--go you your local library, take them all out, and see what would be most useful to you. Or better yet, use the library, and save shelf space, especially since you're still young and developing as a cook.

Everything mentioned above. Plus I really like Cookwise and Bakewise by Shirley Corriher.

and I, too have become the family cook. I have quite a few cookbooks but I'm looking for someting that really has everything

James Beard's American Cookery is encyclopedic; some of the recipes are archaic, but it's got lots of good basic recipes. The Martha Stewart Cookbook is good, especially for appetizers.

Oh, and I wouldn't start with Mastering the Art of French Cooking. It would be interesting, but French cooking as Julia wrote about it is fairly unfamiliar these days. You're not likely to go to these recipes "again and again" unless you become a professional.

Rereading what you're looking for, I think the ideal book for you is Alton Brown's "I'm just here for the food," because his approach to cooking is so useful, (and his writing so enjoyable). You'll learn the techniques that you'll use again and again, and that with experience will lessen the need for any recipe at all. All his techniques are illustrated with recipes. He basically organizes the book by how we use heat to cook. It's a great book, just as informative as "good eats" is.

@betteirene - no harm done... I just found it funny. I understand that there aren't that many other people my age and gender interested in food and cooking.
I just love cooking so much and try to do it as much as possible and was looking for a very general book in which I can go to when i need either a recipe or a description of a specific food/preparation. I already have 2 Giada books, one from Ina, one from Rachel, plus about twenty others (most of which were originally my mom's) and read Bon Appetit, Gourmet and FN Mag cover-to-cover when they arrive. The magazines can keep me up to date on the trends, but something like Alton's book will really help me when I need either a basic recipe or an explanation.

I think I'm going to see if they have t at a local library. Thanks for the suggestions everyone!

Try Julia's The Way to Cook, or Marion Cunningham's Fannie Farmer; I also often reach for CIA's The Professional Chef. They all have good recipes with technique and food facts. I second betteirene's suggestion of Dorie's BAKING, I got it by mistake from a book club and kept it once I saw the recipes; it never fails when I need a killer dessert.

I love Mark Bittman's book. Very inclusive. I also love to bake, so I am really enjoying Baking Illustrated. Good luck!

After 42 cookbooks and swearing off ever buying or requesting another one for a gift years ago, I still find myself referring to Joy of Cooking time and time again. I always take it on vacation, just in case I find myself in a place with a kitchen. I love all my cookbooks but Joy of Cooking is indispensible.

P.S. I only bought/received three cookbooks this year.

I have to second palmsey on The New Best Recipe - it includes recipes for every "basic" dish you can think of (think: eggplant parmesan, beef bourguignon, breakfast dishes, baked goods) with explanations about their choice of ingredients and technique. It's a great guide for someone who's starting out but wants the flexibility of being able to tinker with recipes later on (Bittman is also wonderful for this). So far, their vanilla ice cream, pie crust, and high-roasted chicken have turned out perfectly for me.

There are three books I go to again and again. My favorite is Escoffier, but I wouldn't recommend it as a first cookbook, or a second, or maybe even fifth. It's not a 'step one, add this; step two add that' sort of book. A fantastic second book is Silver Spoon, which is a large Italian book with mostly easy-to-follow recipies. My choice for best first cookbook is Alma Lach's The Hows and Whys of French Cooking. I think it's worth it for the section on sauces alone.

Pssstt... Foodieteen, get or borrow the edition of "How To Cook Everything" that was published in the 1990s. In the back pages is Bittman's list of "Fifty Cookbooks He could Not Live Without." Many of them have been very useful to me and have become great favorites.

The more recent editions of "How To Cook Everything" do not have this list. On Chowhound, someone asked him what other International cookbook he would reccomend, and MB referred him to his own international cookbook. What a modest guy, huh?

Pavlov reccomends "Ma Gastronomie." Ever since reading about F. Point in AJ Liebling's "Between Meals," years ago, I've been looking for this book, bought the new American edition the day it came out, but the recipes are fussy and require many expensive ingredients. His legend will live forever, but writing cookbooks for home chefs was not his strong suit. But judge for yourself; you may find it inspiring. Better chefs than I revere "Ma Gastronomie" so what do I know.

I have "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" in two volumes, and would not part with them, but frankly, I don't use them that much. Maybe 6x a year at most. The French cookbooks that have been more useful to me are Richard Olney's "Simple French Food" and Elizabeth David's "French Provincial Cooking." Neither of them claim to be encyclopedic, and the authors aren't so enthusiastic about desserts, although they do present a few, but you would still learn a lot from these books.