I swear by this book. It's not glamorous. It's tried and true. With instructions on how to do just about anything with food, measurement conversions and temperature guidelines, The Joy of Cooking is my most utilized cookbook and it shows.  My copy lost it's dust jacket and gets muckier every time it's used (the cookie section has bits of cookie dough stuck to the pages). To protect it from the elements, I employed a 5th grade book cover technique using left over oil cloth from recovering my kitchen stool. Now I can wipe it off, and the cookie particles inside it can serve as bookmarks for recipes I've made.