I must have more than a thou­sand cook­books lin­ing the shelves of my kitchen, din­ing room and office. But that doesn’t mean I use them all. There are only two shelves, in fact, hold­ing books from which I reg­u­larly cook. Here are some of them with notes about oth­ers I like to check for ref­er­ence, spe­cific cuisines or to read just for fun.

The book I use most is the one Julia Child once told me is her favourite of those she’s penned: The Way To Cook (Knopf). This is where I look when check­ing how to make a cheese souf­flé (hers is the best recipe going), var­i­ous kinds of pas­try includ­ing puff, and clas­sics like Salad Nicoise (Child has no truck with fan­cy­ing it up by using fresh, rather than canned, tuna.)

For Ital­ian, I go to that country’s culi­nary maven Mar­cella Hazan — in par­tic­u­lar, to: Essen­tials Of Clas­sic Ital­ian Cook­ing (Knopf). Her Osso Bucco, Chicken with Lemons (by stuff­ing two small lemons in the cav­ity, the bird’s skin puffs up and becomes crispy — deli­cious!) and Pork Braised in Milk (strange but amaz­ingly good) are tops.

For the eclec­tic genre that is Amer­i­can cui­sine, I often check The New Basics Cook­book (Work­man) by Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins, that now defunct cook­ing duo of Sil­ver Palate cook­book fame. Sadly, many of the recipes need tweak­ing because they’re reduced from larger amounts used in the pair’s cater­ing biz, but they have a knack for pair­ing bold, inter­est­ing flavours. See the pizza, meat and pie sections.

I love watch­ing British TV chef Jamie Oliver do his thing. Unlike some I could men­tion (okay, Nigella Law­son), his recipes nearly always work. His first book, sim­ply titled: Jamie Oliver: The Naked Chef, is the best. Try the Roast Leg of Lamb and Pra­line Semi-freddo.

I also enjoy British food writer Nigel Slater’s books, more as inspi­ra­tion than as recipes to fol­low. His phi­los­o­phy is to offer guide­lines and leave the rest up to the home cook’s imag­i­na­tion, fridge con­tents etc.

For Indian fare, I turn to Mad­hur Jaffrey’s many tomes. For acces­si­ble Chi­nese, Nina Simonds, I’ve had good luck with Jew­ish bak­ing, in par­tic­u­lar the Haman­taschen from Jew­ish Hol­i­day Bak­ing (Dou­ble­day), when using recipes by Cana­dian author Marcy Goldman.

I am con­stantly shocked by how often I come across recipes that have obvi­ously not been tested. Or, if they have, have lost some­thing in the translation.

In gen­eral, I trust recipes from Cana­dian Liv­ing magazine’s test kitchen, espe­cially for basics like the excel­lent banana bread I found in The Com­plete Cana­dian Liv­ing Cook­book (Ran­dom House). Like­wise for Chate­laine. Any book by Bon­nie Stern is also a good bet.

I’m a fan of Cal­i­for­nia cook Diane Rossen Worthington’s books, notably The Taste of Sum­mer (Chron­i­cle Books) and of Hamp­tons caterer Ina Garten, a.k.a. The Bare­foot Con­tessa. I like her first book best, The Bare­foot Con­tessa Cook­book (Pot­ter), espe­cially the Roasted Car­rots and Indone­sian Gin­ger Chicken. I’ve inter­viewed Pam Ander­son — the ace Amer­i­can cook, not the other one known for less inter­est­ing attrib­utes — and she knows her stuff. One of the orig­i­nal staff at the excel­lent Cook’s Mag­a­zine, Ander­son is a thor­ough, no-nonsense, often inspired teacher. I like CookS­mart (Houghton Mif­flin) in which there are super recipes for Cae­sar Salad, easy-to-make French fries, and much more.

I am also a fan of the imag­i­na­tive but sim­ple, flavour­ful, fusion-inspired recipes in any of the sev­eral lovely books by young Aussie chef Donna Hay, any­thing by for­mer Aussie now liv­ing in the U.K. Jill Dupleix and ter­rific U.S. chef and T.V. host Tyler Flo­rence. I highly rec­om­mend the kitchen bible The New Best Recipe by the folks at super Cook’s Illus­trated mag­a­zine and, for veg­e­tar­i­ans, the Rebar cook­book by Audrey Alster­berg and Wanda Urbanowicz.