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.