Though over the past year or so I’ve tried to explore cookery via my own instincts — sometimes to great success, and sometimes to dismal failure — it’s no secret that most of my culinary knowledge hails from cookbooks.  Recently, during a bout of procrastination, I decided to tally the number of cookbooks I possess and to my surprise, the figure lies somewhere around eighty.  I’m not sure whether that’s high or low for a home cook (I happen to know Nigella Lawson has several thousand, but she’s a few decades and several billion pounds sterling ahead of me), but in my circle it makes me something of a cookbook authority, I suppose, and over the past year many people have come to me asking what books they “need.”

While everyone’s cookery goals are personal and my recommendations might vary, I’ve compiled a list of my top ten cookbooks.  So read on, buy on, cook on!  It’s a countdown, kids, so get excited.
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