Some attractive cookbooks that I use often:

'Monet's Kitchen' - beautiful pictures, recipes used in his kitchen at Giverny.
'Italy the Beautiful' - great photos, classic recipes that really work.
'Provence the Beautiful' - great photos, excellent, classic recipes that work.
'Culinaria Hungary' - great photos, more than a cookbook, classic recipes.
'Lidia's Family Table' - excellent Italian recipes, detailed instructions.

Just got 'Jamie at Home' for Christmas and 'Jamie's Italy', both have great photos, haven't had time to try the recipes.

Dawn,  Here's a recipe for chicken paprikas from Culinaria:
http://www.jamieoliver.com/forum/viewto … 55#p280355

i can recommend: new british classics by gary rhodes
                           passione by gennaro contaldo
                           cook simple by diane henry
the gary rhodes book is especially helpfull with help on sauces and basic techniques.i love italian so passione is superb and also cook simple has many easy to cook recipes for when you have little time for complicated prep and cooking techniques.i ,of course , have dozens of cookbooks but i thought that these 3 deserved to be mentioned as i have used them to produce the best meals that i have had the pleasure of cooking.

minerva wrote:

Can anything beat handwritten ones over 100 years old?

ooooh, you're a lucky one! I started my own handwritten cookbook for my future great great great granchildren.
I started a thread a while back called 'Heirloom Recipes.' Maybe you can add some of your treasures from the 100 year old handwritten cook book there?

Cool, isn't the author of Passione the italian mentor from Jamie?[/quotgennaro contaldo , yes he is often refered to as jamies mentor and has appeared on jamie at home numerous times.he is a humerous fellow with slightly borcken english and a mad cap attitude but most of all he is a superb patron of italian food.