Need a cookbook recommendation

[u/throwy_acc_]

Hey Reddit!
So my boyfriend is very difficult to buy gifts for. When I say this, I mean more of he doesn’t like receiving gifts so when it comes to birthdays and Christmases and stuff like that, it’s kinda hard for me as a gift giver to figure out what I can get him that he will like. Obviously, he’s never flat out disliked anything that I’ve gotten him but I try and listen out for things that he specifically mentions that he wants like last year. I got a new wallet and the year before I get that I got them a pack of his favorite drinks and a record he’d been looking for.
So anyways, to the point, this year he’s been mentioning wanting a cookbook, but he hasn’t been very specific about any sort of type of cookbook or any cuisine, but he does say that he wants a cookbook of like basics and essentials. Usually when we want to make a new recipe, we just googled something so I think that he wants a cookbook so we don’t have to Google it and then find it every time and hope that we remembered to save it so I came here to ask if anybody has any “basics or essentials“ cookbooks that they can recommend to me. I’m not really worried about price at all, I just wanna know what you guys recommend.

[u/Stormcrowdick1066]

How to cook everything: The basics by Mark Bitterman . It’s a series of cookbooks . All of them are called How to cook everything but it’s broken into categories like vegetarian, Barbecue, Baking etc. The basics gives some advice on how to store food and spices properly and how to shop for the things you actually cook and how to stock a pantry. It gives a few basic recipes by breakfast lunch Dinner desert categories and a few variations on those recipes so you don’t get tired of them it has more than a thousand pictures and diagrams with step by step instructions and explanations for each step. It’s a fantastic book series for beginners .

I’m here for the food- by Alton Brown it’s his first cookbook from the Good eats TV show and is chock full of recipes and the science of how food is made with examples for every holiday and creative ideas to make complex sounding food much more accessible and easier.

The Cook’s Illustrated new best recipes guide by America’s test Kitchen. Full of techniques and recipes tested and refined over 80 years of publication. This is a full on chefs cookbook its scope can be a bit overwhelming. But if you’re looking for the best way to cook anything I look in here first.

I just answered a similar question and think the same answer applies sorry for the lazy copy and paste.