Okay - I love this cookbook. I have & still use the original edition. (I affectionately refer to it as my Cooking Bible.) IMO, it’s a great cookbook for anyone who is an amateur cook/chef. I love how Mr. Bittman starts with a basic recipe and then gives you suggestions on how you can modify it.

I have resolved to cook more this year, and with this excellent gift (thanks, Jess!), I am on my way! This is a great cookbook for beginners - it explains in painful detail which appliances to use and how to do basic things around the kitchen.

I love everything Mark Bittman puts out, but this is my all time favorite cookbook. If I only had one this would be it. It never lets me down, if I have something I don't know what to do with. I find a recipe in her - and it is good!

I also like that it doesn't feel like I'm reading a foreign language to follow his recipes.

more than just how to cook vegetables-- has a reasonable meal plan that makes me feel satisfied with my dinner. all of his recipes so far have turned out well.

For someone like me who is really just learning to cook because I am finally learning to enjoy it instead of doing the bare minimum to feed myself, this book is the perfect answer. I got this on Christmas and spent about 2 hours just curled reading about things like making pasta (more approachable sounding than I suspected), making stocks (or making the canned broths more passable), how to choose and cut certain vegetables and so much more. This book contains so much general useful information that I feel like I've gotten an education to take beyond just the recipes in the book but to actually use anytime I cook. I haven't yet tried the recipes, but I loved reading how much instruction and detail is given instead of keeping things vague like so many others. Some of them sound so good that they can't be bad, and even if every recipe in the book were to bomb (unlikely), this surprisingly big and chunky book is worth it's weight in gold just for all of the advice and information. I'll be so much more well-fed thanks to this fabulous cookbook.

The title is really not a misnomer in this case; Bittman really does cover the basics of just about every common ingredient you might come across. The sections of vegetables and fruits are amazing. He presents the basic recipes and then also points you toward several variants. For example, there is a basic muffin recipe and then 12 additional suggestions for variations. If you had this cookbook you could get rid of all the others in your kitchen.

This book is awesome for basic how-tos. Once you master the basics you can more stuff to it and improvise. Ok, it doesn't have EVERYTHING but what it does have are very nice.

I LOVE the pancake recipe from this book. I've changed some measurements based on the results and now I have one DELICIOUS, easy, and super cheap pancakes for the weekends.

I use to love going out to breakfast but now it's tough... esp. if I order pancakes. Homemade from scratch is the way to go!!!

quite possibly my favorite cook book. Easy to follow, simple yet sophisticated recipes that covers all the basics.

This (and it's companion, HTCE Vegetarian) quickly became two of my go-to cookbooks last year and helped me explore outside my usual cooking realms. I'd set HTCE (and HTCEV) aside and fallen back into a cooking rut. Last weekend I pulled HTCE back out, and was reminded again how great it is. I love the format of the basic recipe followed by adaptations that can be made to the basic one - for me, those get me thinking about other variations that might be excellent as well. Plus, HTCE *finally* helped me roast a chicken well - I'd never quite gotten it right - and it was wonderful.

I have other excellent cookbooks too, definitely. There's The Joy of Cooking and Veganomicon. HTCE and HTCEV join those as ones that never quite make it back to the cookbook shelf (or at least not for long!)