best cookbook for learning to cook?

Joy of Cooking for me. I haven't seen Mark Bittman's book though it sounds good. The Joy does what you'd have to call American cuisine so it includes all kinds of stuff. It has around 1000 pages. If you can't find stuff in there that you'd like to cook, you're way too picky. The thing about big basic books like that is that they instruct you on cooking techniques, and offer starting points in the way of standard recipes that most people would find satisfactory. Use those to practice on, to learn what techniques and seasonings produce what kinds of results. Practice and experimentation is the only way to learn some of that stuff. Over time you learn how to change recipes to suit your taste. I rarely take a recipe straight from anywhere any more, except in baking where precision matters. I use recipes, if at all, to give me ideas. Same with restaurant meals. I very often order something I don't know how to make, and try to figure out what they did so I can duplicate it at home. But without some knowledge of cooking techniques you can't do that.

If you don't like heavy sauces, you can substitute another lighter sauce or use none at all. Cream sauces and gravies do not need to be heavy. If the spaghetti sauce direct from the book is too bland for you, there's no reason why you can't triple the garlic content. If you like salsa livelier than the book tells you to make it, use a hotter hot sauce to jazz it up and/or add extra seasoning. If you're basting something, use a spicy sauce to baste with.

Absolutely! When my wife passed away 10 years ago I had no idea how to cook anything. I got the cookbooks and the recipe cards she used and went at it. I think I have become a pretty good cook. I continue to use cookbooks but have become so confident that I don't measure anything, I just do what I think is right. Joy of Cooking is a great book.

The Mark Bittman How To Cook Everything is a good cookbook, mostly for people who already know how to cook. As for bland taste, most all cookbooks leave it up to you to adjust the seasoning to your own likes and taste.

The Joy Of Cooking and The Joy Of Baking are excellent cookbooks for beginners and master cooks as well.

There are many, many video tutorials on the internet and You Tube. Some are better and more thorough than others. Some of these video chefs know little more than you do. lol But if you know how to run a search or google, you'll do fine. When you're searching for a particular dish, always type in the word "recipe" or you may come up with 'who knows what.' Example: Search for:

How to make whipped cream recipe, or

Recipe for making whipped cream.

Making whipped cream recipe tutorial

Or go to You Tube and search for

whipped cream video

Blogs for Krafts Foods, McCormick's Spices, Gold Medal Flour, Hershey's Chocolate, Bisquick Baking Mix, all of those will have very informative tutorials and videos to learn from.

Food & Wine, Fine Cooking and Eating Well are great. One of the very, best is America's Test Kitchen site, but you will have to pay a FEE and subscribe to it to get access to their recipes, tips and tutorials. They're the best on the internet. You can learn a lot there. But if you are good at running a search and know how to use google, you can save your $20.00 enrollment fee for something else.

I have that book Mark Bittman's How To Cook Everything book. Here are some of the things in the book that are listed under Menus:

Polenta Pancakes

Onion Quiche

Herb Frittata

Mint Juleps

Indian-Spiced Duck with Lentils

Curried Rice noodles with vegetables

Spanish Potato Omelet

Bean Casserole with Hominy and Tortillas (under Tex-Mex Buffet Brunch)

Gravlax

Spaghetti alla Carbonara (under Italian-style buffet brunch)

Panzanella

Caponata with Raisins and Pine Nuts

Miso Soup (under Japanese-style light lunch)

Lentil Soup (under Middle Eastern-style light lunch)

Simple Greek Salad (under Greek-style light lunch)

Borscht

Couscous Salad with mint and Parsley (under Israeli-style light lunch)

Veal Cutlets with Rosemary and Parmesan

Mesclun with Goat Cheese and Croutons

Pot Stickers or Steamed Dumplings (under Chinese-style sit-down lunch)

Super-Spicy Beef with Orange Flavor

Tandoori Chicken (under Indian-style sit-down lunch)

All those recipes and more are in that cookbook. Naturally there are bland things there as well. Most cookbooks have bland things and spicy cookbooks. If you want one that shoots fire from your mouth, then go to the library and check out a Tex-Mex cookbook. It won't teach you how to cook but it will give you the spicy recipes it sounds like you are after.

Remember, whenever you first learn to do something, you need to start simple and build up from there. Ask the question (after making the recipe the correct way as instructed) "What happens if I change out this?

Hope that helps.

The Joy of Cooking is an old classic - with detailed descriptions and drawings so that you can learn how to do cooking methods that other recipes only refer to.

Another idea is to use cooking blogs to help you learn how to cook. Blog are good for learning how to cook because they usually have pictures showing the steps to the recipes.

Some good ones:

thepioneerwoman.com

downhomecitysisters.com

Good luck!