I'm happy to give recommendations, but do you have to be more specific. Recommendations for what type of food, exactly?

Sorry about that...lol...I must have thought you could read my mind. SmileWavy

I had the pleasure of spending a week at the Culinary Institute at the same time that Rick Bayless was there teaching the advanced students and got to eat all the the food prepared by them (group lunch after the morning in the kitchen..bad for them 'cause they had to eat the crap we fixed). Opened me up to all kinds of Mexican cuisine from his travels/research in Mexico.

You mentioned "good" cookbooks....I guess anything that stands out as such, with regard to different cuisines.

Thanks!

oh..and yep, my paternal grandmother taught me to cook southern country food...cobblers, "sticky" chicken, gravies, biscuits, greens, etc.

i'm trying to get a friends mom to teach me her Korean stuff.

her kalbi is so over the top. she takes short ribs and using a sharp knife, unrolls it from the bone. it is a crazy.

Anything by these guys:

Rick Bayless
Jacques Pepin
Eric Ripert
Thomas Keller
Fuchsia Dunlop
Andy Ricker
Mario Batali

Each of these guys has written classics in their fields, most have some basic books and several of them have very advanced books that yield world class food.

Venturing further afield:

Marcella Hazan
Guliano Bugialli
Alfred Portale

There are a number of weighty tomes on the science of cooking, I won't list those now, but could, if you have an interest in digging deep into the weeds.

If you only own one cookbook, I'd suggest The Cook's Illustrated Cookbook, a compilation of 2,000 of their best recipes.

Sorry for hijacking another of Vash'es threads...

Neither of my grandmothers could cook well, so no, I can't cook their food and I'm glad.